Oslo Accords | Significance, Palestine, Israel, Two-State Solution, Breakdown, & Map | Britannica (original) (raw)

Oslo Accords, set of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that established a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a mutually negotiated two-state solution. The agreements resulted in limited self-governance for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Although the goal of the accords was to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by May 1999, the complexities that underlay decades of hostilities ultimately derailed the process and left the most challenging issues to smolder in the 21st century.

The Oslo I Accord (formally the Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-Rule) was the fruit of secret negotiations that began in January 1993 between representatives of Israel (led by Shimon Peres) and representatives of the PLO (led by Mahmoud Abbas) in Oslo. The agreement set as its basis:

These resolutions, and their land-for-peace formulation, had been enshrined earlier in the Camp David Accords (1978) as the foundation of a broader Arab-Israeli peace process. After an exchange of letters in September 1993 affirming Israel’s right to exist and the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chair Yasser Arafat attended the accord’s signing ceremony in Washington, D.C., days later on September 13.

Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip: pre-1967 borders More From Britannica two-state solution: Oslo peace process

In exchange for recognition of Israel and its citizens’ right to live in peace, the declaration of principles negotiated in Oslo centered on the process of establishing Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The framework for the process included the following provisions:

On May 4, 1994, an agreement concluded in Cairo arranged for the first stage of withdrawal of Israeli security forces and their transfer of authority to the newly created Palestinian Authority. Within weeks the withdrawal from the cities of Gaza and Jericho was completed, and the PA soon began carrying out civilian functions in those areas.

Oslo II

Negotiations continued despite attempts by religious nationalists on both sides to disrupt the process set out by the Oslo I agreement. On September 28, 1995, Rabin, Peres, and Arafat signed the Oslo II Accords (formally Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), which detailed the expansion of Palestinian self-rule to population centers other than Gaza and Jericho. The provisions of this new agreement, which are far more comprehensive and detailed than those of Oslo I, included the following measures:

Breakdown in the Oslo process

The redeployment of Israeli security forces and elections for the PA as specified in the Oslo II agreement were carried out as planned. But the Oslo process confronted its first major hurdle on November 4, 1995, when Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist after attending a peace rally. Israel’s 1996 election, reflecting the growing concerns of the Israeli public over national security, brought to power Benjamin Netanyahu, an outspoken critic of the Oslo Accords.

Netanyahu took a hard line on curbing violence. He initially refused to meet with Arafat or implement Israel’s prearranged redeployment in Hebron, but he eventually agreed to the redeployment in 1997. Still, relations remained strained, and in 1998 U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton intervened to conclude the Wye River Memorandum, which made the resumption of the Oslo process contingent on actions by the PA to crack down on violence. The agreement led to division within Netanyahu’s coalition, leading to the suspension of the agreement only weeks after it was concluded and, ultimately, the call for an early election.

Clash during the Al-Aqsa intifadaIsraeli police clashing with Palestinians near the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on September 29, 2000, the day after Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount, or Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf.

Although the Oslo process resumed later that year under the new prime minister, Ehud Barak, distrust and tension had already been mounting. The Palestinians, who had been promised self-governance within a timeline of five years, felt unjustly deprived by the whims of Israeli politics, while Israelis were increasingly suspicious of the PLO’s ability to prevent attacks. In mid-2000 Jerusalem proved to be the most contentious of the outstanding matters. After talks broke down, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount (where Al-Aqṣā Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, stands). The visit ignited an uprising from the Palestinians, and the new intifada (often dubbed “Al-Aqṣā intifada”) brought the Oslo process to a halt. Although attempts were made years later to revive the Oslo process, Israeli and Palestinian leaders were never able to put it back on track.

Learn more

To learn more about the circumstances surrounding the Oslo Accords, take a look at the following articles:

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Mindy Johnston.