Oslo Peace Accords (1992/1993-1995)

The **Oslo Accords**, also known as the **Israeli-Palestinain Peace Treaty** or **The Great Middle Eastern Peace Treaties** are a pair of agreements between the Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. The Oslo Accords marked the start of the **Oslo process**, a peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and at fulfilling the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." The Oslo process started after secret negotiations in Oslo, resulting in the recognition by the PLO of the State of Israel and the recognition by Israel of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and as a partner in negotiations.

## **The Oslo process**

The Oslo process is the peace process that started in 1993 with secret talks between Israel and the PLO. It became a cycle of negotiations, suspension, mediation, restart of negotiations and final peace. A number of agreements were reached, until the Oslo process ended successfully, after the Oslo II Accord/Israel-Palestine Peace Treaty.

## **Background**

The Oslo Accords are based on the 1978 Camp David Accords and show therefore considerable similarity with those Accords. The Camp David's "Framework for Peace in the Middle East" envisioned autonomy for the local, and *only* for the local, (Palestinian) inhabitants of West Bank and Gaza. At the time, there lived some 7,400 settlers in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), and 500 in Gaza, with the number in the West Bank, however, rapidly growing. As Israel regarded the PLO a terrorist organisation, it refused to talk with the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Instead, Israel preferred to negotiate with Egypt and Jordan, and "elected representatives of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza".

While the final goal in Camp David was a "peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, taking into account the agreement reached in the final status of the West Bank and Gaza", the Oslo negotiations were directly between Israel and the PLO and aimed at a peace treaty directly between these groups.

## **Negotiation partners**

### Mutual recognition of sides

Only after Israel's acceptance of the PLO as negotiation partner could serious negotiations start. In their Letters of Mutual Recognition of 9 September 1993, days before the signing of the Oslo I Accord, each party agreed to accept the other as a negotiation partner. The PLO recognized the State of Israel. Israel recognized the PLO as "the representative of the Palestinian people"; no more, no less.

### Principal participants

**Palestinians**

* Yasser Arafat – PLO leader during the Oslo peace process
* Ahmed Qurei (a.k.a. Abu Ala) – PLO negotiator during the Oslo peace process

**Israel**

* Yossi Beilin – Israeli negotiator during the Oslo peace process
* Yair Hirschfeld – Israeli negotiator during the Oslo peace process
* Shimon Peres – Israeli Foreign Minister during the Oslo peace process
* Ron Pundak – formed first Israeli negotiating team with Hirschfeld, before official Israeli involvement
* Yitzhak Rabin – Israeli Prime Minister during the Oslo peace process
* Uri Savir – former Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, head of the Israeli negotiating team

**Norway** (facilitating)

* Jan Egeland – Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister, provided political cover, facilities and finances for the negotiations
* Johan Jørgen Holst – Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs
* Terje Rød-Larsen - Norwegian facilitator during the negotiations
* Mona Juul – Norwegian facilitator during the negotiations

## **Outline of the peace plan**

### **Oslo I Accord**

The Oslo I Accord Established an Interim Palestinian Authority in the Areas A & B: Area A Was controlled (both in Civilian And Security Administration), Area B was lead by a Palestinian Civil Administration, but by Israeli Security Forces.

The Palestinian Authority would Rule Areas A & B until the Peace Treaty.

In 1994, Israel agreed to withdraw (temproarily) from Gaza and Jericho.

### **Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty**

In addition, also in 1994, Israel and Jordan had the Israel-Jordan peace Treaty, which established;

1) **Borders**: The international boundary between Israel and Jordan follows the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers, the Dead Sea, the Emek Ha'Arava/Wadi Araba, and the Gulf of Aqaba. The section of the line that separated Jordan from the West Bank was stipulated as "without prejudice to the status of [that] territory."

2) **Diplomatic relations and co-operation**: The Parties agreed to establish full diplomatic and consular relations and to exchange resident embassies, grant tourists visas, open air travel and seaports, establish a free trade zone and an industrial park in the Arava. The agreement prohibits hostile propaganda.

3) **Security and defense**: Each country promised respect for the sovereignty and territory of each side, to not enter the other's territory without permission, and to cooperate against terrorism. This included thwarting border attacks, smuggling, preventing any hostile attack against the other and not cooperating with any terrorist organization against the other.

4) **Jerusalem**: Article 9 links the Peace Treaty to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Israel recognized the special role of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem and committed itself to give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines in negotiations on the permanent status.

5) **Water**: Israel agreed to give Jordan 50,000,000 cubic metres (1.8×109 cu ft) of water each year and for Jordan to own 75% of the water from the Yarmouk River. Both countries could develop other water resources and reservoirs and agreed to help each other survive droughts. Israel also agreed to help Jordan use desalination technology in order to find additional water.

6) **Palestinian refugees**: Israel and Jordan agreed to cooperate to help the refugees, including a four-way committee (Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians) to try to work towards solutions

In addition, Israel Gained some Farm Lands inside Jordanian Territory (around the Yarmouk River and Arava), in which, for 25 Years, Farmers could Farm there and freely move to there. In 2019, Jordan would end the 25-year Mandate.

### **Oslo II Accord**

The Oslo II Accord saw the Decision and Agreement of the Israelis and the PLO to form a Bi-National State of Israel, in which Israel Kept many of it's stuff and could even keep it's role as a State for Jews, but as long as it gave large autonomy to the Palestinian People, Protected the Palestinians, Made their Lives better, and try and help the Palestinian Refugees in their Diaspora.

## **Final Peace**

### **Israeli-Palestinian Peace Treaty**

The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Treaty was the Final Agreement of Peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

It's Clauses were;

1) Grant Large Autonomy and Representation for the Palestinians in the Judea, Samaria & Gaza ISRs, Medium Level of Autonomy and Representation in The Jerusalem, Sharon & Lower Galilee ISRs, and Small Autonomy And Representation in the Haifa, Upper Galilee, Be'er-Sheva & Negev ISRs.

2) Saw Israel Promising to now be a Bi-National State, a State for both the Jews and the Palestinians.

3) Israel Promise to eventually Improve the Lives of the Palestinian People.

4) Help The Palestinian Diaspora.

5) Grant the PLO some of the Representation in the ISRs.

6) Israel officially Annex the Palestinian Territories and Grant it's Citizens Citizenship.

7) The Jews & Palestinians to live in Peace, both as now Israeli Citizens.

8) Prevent Oppression against Palestinians.

9) Offer the Palestinian People Near Equal Rights as the Jews.

## **Later Events**

This Peace Treaty is considered one of the Most Important Events in Modern History. Israeli Annexation of the Palestinian Territories was recgonzied by 163 UN Member States, and it also Paved the Road towards future Peace Deals.

The Palestinian People Mostly Rejoiced it, as it finally saw their Rights being respected, and many could now have so many life opportunities.

Some Radical Palestinians Groups, Notably Hamas, Fought against it, losing Popularity as Many Palestinians had enough of all the Fighting, and embraced Peace.

Many Israeli Jews, tho, Especially the Right-Wing, protested during the Oslo Accords.

In November 4th, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin came with an idea; A huge Rally in Tel-Aviv.

## **The Tel-Aviv Peace Rally**

The **assassination of Yitzhak Rabin** took place on 4 November 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The assassin, an Israeli ultranationalist named Yigal Amir, radically opposed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords & Israel-Palestine Peace Treaty.

The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin was the culmination of an anti-violence rally in support of the Oslo peace process. Rabin was disparaged personally by right-wing conservatives and Likud leaders who perceived the Oslo peace process as an attempt to forfeit the occupied territories and a capitulation to Israel's enemies.

National religious conservatives and Likud party leaders believed that withdrawing from any "Jewish" land was heresy. The Likud leader and future prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Rabin's government of being "removed from Jewish tradition [...] and Jewish values". Right-wing rabbis associated with the settlers' movement prohibited territorial concessions to the Palestinians and forbade soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces from evacuating Jewish settlers under the accords. Some rabbis proclaimed *din rodef*, based on a traditional Jewish law of self-defense, against Rabin personally, arguing that the Oslo Accords would endanger Jewish lives.

Rallies organized by Likud and other right-wing groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform, or in the crosshairs of a gun. Protesters compared the Labor party to the Nazis and Rabin to Adolf Hitler and chanted, "Rabin is a murderer" and "Rabin is a traitor". In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin". The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do. Netanyahu denied any intention to incite violence.

Rabin dismissed such protests or labeled them *chutzpah*. According to Gillon, Rabin refused his requests to wear a bulletproof vest and preferred not to use the armored car purchased for him. Left-wing supporters organized pro-peace rallies in support of the Oslo Accords. It was after one such gathering in Tel Aviv that the assassination took place.

### Yigal Amir and *din rodef*

The assassin was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old former Hesder student and far-right law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, because he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny Jews their "biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by establishing settlements". Amir had come to believe that Rabin was a *rodef*, meaning a "pursuer" who endangered Jewish lives. The concept of *din rodef* ("law of the pursuer") is a part of traditional Jewish law. Amir believed he would be justified under *din rodef* in removing Rabin as a threat to Jews in the territories.

In the Israeli settlements, pamphlets debating the validity of applying *din rodef* and *din moser* ("law of the informer") to Rabin and the Oslo Accords were distributed at synagogues. Both carried a death sentence according to traditional Halakhic law. There was disagreement among religious Zionists as to whether Amir ever secured authorization from a rabbi to carry out the assassination of Rabin. His father later said that in the months before the assassination, Amir repeatedly "said that the prime minister should be killed because a *din rodef* was issued against him". During his later trial, Amir stated: "I acted according to *din rodef*. ... It was not a personal act, I just wanted [Rabin] to be removed from his position".

For his radical activities, Yigal Amir had been brought under attention by the Israeli internal security service (Shin Bet), but the organization only had information on Amir's attempt on creating an anti-Arab militia, not on comments regarding assassinating Rabin, which he openly stated to a number of people. Another incident describing Amir's comments to a fellow student about stating the vidui prior to an earlier, aborted attempt on his life was ignored by the organization as "non-credible". The source refused to name Amir by name but instead described him as a "short Yemeni guy with curly hair".

### **Assassination**

After the rally, Rabin walked down the city hall steps towards his car. As he entered the car, Amir approached the car from the rear and fired two shots at Rabin with a Beretta 84F semi-automatic pistol. Rabin was hit in the abdomen and chest. Amir was immediately subdued by Rabin's bodyguards and police on the scene, and fired a third shot at bodyguard Yoram Rubin during the struggle, lightly wounding him. Amir was arrested on the scene with the murder weapon. He was taken to a police station a few blocks away.

Yoram Rubin attempted to get Rabin in the car but Rabin's body was "limp and heavy". Another of Rabin's bodyguards, Shai Glaser, helped put Rabin in the backseat of the car. The driver, Menachem Damati, was ordered to proceed to Ichilov Hospital at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, a short drive away. Damati became disoriented by the hysteria of the shooting and the crowds that lined the streets, and as a result lost his bearing. Rabin, who was bleeding heavily, was initially conscious and said that he thought he'd been hurt but not too badly before passing out. Damati drove frantically trying to find the hospital, running red lights and swerving to avoid pedestrians. When he spotted a police officer, Pinchas Terem, he ordered him to get in the vehicle and direct them to the hospital. Two minutes later at 09:52pm, some ten minutes after the shooting, the car arrived at Ichilov Hospital.

At this time, Rabin was not breathing and had no pulse. Doctors performed an initial examination, attached Rabin to an IV, and drained the air that had seeped into his right chest cavity with a tube inserted into his ribcage. After the air was drained from Rabin's chest, his pulse reappeared. He then underwent surgery. Meanwhile, cabinet ministers, military officers, security officials, and family members of Rabin arrived at the hospital, as did Rabin's Chief of Staff Eitan Haber. After Israeli media reported the shooting, a crowd of spectators and journalists began to gather in front of the hospital. At one point, the doctors managed to briefely stabilize his vital signs, and after being informed, Haber told a high-ranking Defense Ministry official to begin preparations for setting up a makeshift office at the hospital with telephones and fax lines to enable Rabin to continue his work as Prime Minister while recuperating. However, Rabin's condition rapidly deteriorated again. After his heart stopped, a surgeon carried out a cardiac massage in a last-ditch attempt to save him. At 11:02 PM, one hour and twenty minutes after the shooting, doctors gave up their efforts to revive Rabin and pronounced him dead.

At 11:15 PM, Eitan Haber walked out of the hospital to face the television cameras outside and announced Rabin's death to the media:

In Rabin's pocket was a blood-stained sheet of paper with the lyrics to the well-known Israeli song "Shir LaShalom" ("Song for Peace"), which was sung at the rally and dwells on the impossibility of bringing a dead person back to life and, therefore, the need for peace.

Shortly after Rabin's death, an emergency meeting of the Israeli cabinet was held during which Shimon Peres, then serving as Foreign Minister, was appointed acting Prime Minister.

About three hours after Rabin's death, Dr. Yehuda Hiss, the Israeli government's chief pathologist, arrived at Ichilov Hospital to conduct an autopsy together with two assistants, including a photographer. The autopsy concluded that one bullet had entered Rabin's lower back, ruptured his spleen, and punctured his left lung, while the other pierced his back below the collarbone, smashed through his ribcage, and pierced his right lung. Hiss concluded that Rabin had died of massive blood loss and the collapse of both of his lungs, and that his chances of surviving the shooting had been extremely low. A subsequent brain scan found an embolism in one of Rabin's cerebral arteries, a large pocket of air which had entered his bloodstream in the lungs and traveled to the brain, restricting the flow of blood and oxygen. This blockage had hindered the resuscitaiton effort.

Amir was interrogated by Chief Superintendent Motti Naftali. He made a full confession and after being told that Rabin had died, Amir expressed joy and asked to be brought Schnapps to make a celebratory toast. Police officers and Shin Bet agents subsequently raided the Amir family home in Herzliya, where they arrested Amir's brother Hagai, whom he had implicated as an accomplice during his interrogation.

## **Aftermath**

Israel went through a bit of a Depressed phase, during Peres' Leadership from the Assassination until 1999, but at least Peace was Achieved.

Israel would later Prosper with the Fact that Peace was Achieved.

Rabin gave a Large Inspiration to future Israeli President, Mikhael Prepelitsky, who would also be a frim seeker of Peace.

This is what happened to "Rabin's Partners for Peace";

1) Arafat: Arafat would get the role of "Representative of the Palestinian People" in an Agreemnt with Shimon Peres in 1997. He would eventually die in 2004, supposedly by poisoning from an Unknown Assassin, and Arafat would take his Place as the "Representative of the Palestinian People".

2) King Hussein of Jordan: King Hussein would Continue to Lead Jordan, until he Passed away in 1999.

3) Shimon Peres: Peres would be the Israeli Prime Minister until his Resignation in 1999, being Replaced by Ehud Barak. Peres would continue being in both Labour and Kadima, until he was Elected as Israeli President in 2007. He had a scandal in 2014, after continuing to a second Term. Peres would Pass Away in 2016, being Succeeded by President Michael Prep.

4) Bill Clinton: Bill Clinton would Continue to be the U.S President until the End of his Second Term in 2000. He would regularly talk about Rabin and the Peace, and would later Fully Support President Michael Prep during his Presidency, and Continues to Support Michael Prep and His Michaelist Party today.

***Shir La'Shalom/Song for Peace***

***Verse 1:***

**Let the Sun Rise**

**Light up the morning**

**The purest of the Prayers**

**will not bring us back**

**He whose Candle was snuffed out**

**and was Buried in the Dust**

**bitter crying won't wake him up**

**and won't bring him back**

**Nobody will bring us back**

**from a dead and darkened pit here,**

**neither the victory cheer**

**nor songs of praise will help**

***Chorus:***

**So just a sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

***Verse 2:***

**Allow the Sun to Penetrate**

**Through the Flowers.**

**Don't Look back'**

**Let go of those departed.**

**Lift your eyes with Hope,**

**Not through the Rifles' sights**

**Sing a song for Love**

**And not for Wars.**

**Don't say the day will come-**

**Bring on that day!**

**Because it is not a dream**

**And in all the city squares**

**Cheer only for peace!**

***Chorus:***

**So just a sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

**sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

**sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

**sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout!**

**sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

**sing for Peace**

**don't whisper a prayer**

**Better just sing a song for Peace**

**in a loud Shout.**

Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatoiral Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria,
Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia,
 Americas
Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and
 Asia
 Non-UN
States
States
Relations