Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords refer to two landmark agreements negotiated secretly in Oslo, Norway, and signed publicly in Washington, D.C.:

• Oslo I (the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements), signed on 13 September 1993 by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, with U.S. President Bill Clinton hosting on the White House lawn.
• Oslo II (the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), signed on 28 September 1995 in Washington.

The accords were preceded by an exchange of letters in which the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist and renounced terrorism, while Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. Oslo I set out a five-year interim period during which a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and negotiations would address "final status" issues: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders, and security.

Oslo II divided the West Bank into three administrative zones:

• Area A — full PA civil and security control
• Area B — PA civil control, joint Israeli-Palestinian security
• Area C — full Israeli civil and security control

The Palestinian Authority was created to govern Areas A and B, and Palestinian Legislative Council elections were held in January 1996.

The framework began to unravel after Rabin's assassination by an Israeli extremist in November 1995, the wave of bus bombings in 1996, the collapse of the Camp David summit in July 2000, and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000. Final-status issues were never resolved. The Palestinian Authority remains in place, but the interim arrangements have effectively become permanent, and Area C has seen continued Israeli settlement expansion.

The accords were facilitated by Norwegian diplomats including Johan Jørgen Holst and Terje Rød-Larsen. Rabin, Arafat, and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres jointly received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for the agreement.