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Salah Khalaf Abu lyad, Yasir Arafat’s chief deputy, said on January 1, 1991: “Now we
accept the formation of the Palestinian state in part of Palestine, in the Gaza Strip and West
Bank. We will start from that part and we will liberate Palestine, inch by inch.”
In August 20, 1993, in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin (Israel) and Yasser
Arafat (head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization) reached an agreement, known as the
Declaration of Principles (or Oslo Accords), in an attempt to end its armed struggle in exchange
for gradual Palestinian autonomy (through the creation of the Palestinian Authority) over parts of
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which was later extended to Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem,
Ramallah, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, and Hebron in 1995. The two leaders also signed Letters of
Mutual Recognition, in which the Israeli government recognized the PLO as the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people; and the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist, and also
renounced terrorism, violence, and their desire for the destruction of the State of Israel.
In a September 9, 1993 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Arafat renounced his
terrorist activities and said: “The PLO recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace
and security.”
The Oslo Accords were signed by both leaders in Washington, D.C. on September 13th, yet,
on September 19th, P.L.O. Chairman Arafat said before a group of 19 Arab ministers meeting in
Cairo: “Our first goal is the liberation of all occupied territories ... and the establishment of a
Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem. The agreement we arrived at is not a complete
solution ... it is only the basis for an interim solution and the forerunner of a final settlement,
which must be based on a complete withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian lands, especially
holy Jerusalem.”
On September 14, 1993, Jordan signed an agenda for peace with Israel, which culminated
with Peace Treaty that was signed in October, 1994. Also in October, 1994, Farouk Kaddoumi,
head of the PLO’s political department and their foreign minister, said in a speech: “There is a
state which was established through historical force and it must be destroyed. This is the
Palestinian way.” Arafat later told Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister, that his comment did not
reflect the view of the PLO.
On November 4, 1995, Rabin, like Sadat before him, paid for peace with his life.
An October, 1998 summit at Wye Mills, MD, became the first serious peace negotiations in
two years, as Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat met to settle various
important issues that had been negotiated during the 1993 Oslo Accords. It ended with Israel
surrendering 13% of their land to the Palestinians as part of a land for peace agreement brokered
by the U.S.
Pope John Paul II met with Yasser Arafat at the Vatican on February 15, 2000, where they
agreed that Jerusalem must be made into an international city. The agreement they signed was in
the form of a covenant. The Pope called for an end to the violence and said that the Palestinian
State should be created out of the land of Israel. The Vatican said that Israel’s annexation of east
Jerusalem was illegal, and they didn’t recognize Israeli sovereignty there.
In March of the same year, the Pope traveled to the Middle East where he visited Jordan,
Israel, and the Palestine territories. Time magazine (4/30/00 pg. 36) quoted Yasser Arafat’s wife
Suha, who had been a devout Catholic before her marriage, as saying that the Holy Father’s very
presence there was “a clear message for an independent Palestinian state.”
Billed as Camp David II, in July, 2000, hoping for a final settlement before he left office,
President Bill Clinton hosted a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat.
For the first time, Israel offered part of East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and most of the