The Oslo Accords: Hope, Handshake, and Unfinished Business

The Handshake That Changed Nothing — and Everything

On September 13, 1993, the world watched something that seemed impossible. On the White House lawn, under a brilliant September sun, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached across decades of bloodshed and shook hands. President Bill Clinton stood between them, arms spread, guiding the two enemies toward each other like a father nudging reluctant children.

Rabin’s body language said everything. He hesitated. He grimaced. He shook the hand of the man whose organization had carried out attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis. Later, Rabin would say: “You don’t make peace with friends. You make peace with very unsavory enemies.”

The Oslo Accords were born in secret, announced with fanfare, and have haunted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since.

The Back Channel

The story of Oslo begins not in Washington but in a Norwegian villa, where Israeli academics and PLO officials held secret meetings throughout the first half of 1993. Norway’s foreign minister, Johan Jørgen Holst, facilitated the talks. The Israeli government initially authorized only academic contacts — back-channel conversations that could be denied if they failed.

But the conversations took on a life of their own. By spring 1993, the academics were replaced by senior officials. Uri Savir, the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), a senior PLO figure, hammered out a framework while eating Norwegian salmon and walking in the snow.

The secrecy was essential. Had the talks been public, both sides’ hardliners would have torpedoed them immediately. Rabin and Arafat both needed deniability until the moment they didn’t.

What the Accords Said

The formal name was the “Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements.” It was, deliberately, not a peace treaty. It was a framework — a set of agreements about how to begin negotiating, not a final resolution.

The key elements:

Mutual recognition. Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO recognized the State of Israel’s right to exist and renounced terrorism. After decades of each side denying the other’s legitimacy, this was revolutionary.

Palestinian self-governance. The accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) to administer Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was the first time Palestinians had any form of self-rule.

Phased approach. Final-status issues — the most explosive questions of borders, Jerusalem, settlements, and refugees — were deferred to later negotiations that were supposed to conclude within five years.

Security cooperation. The PA would assume responsibility for internal security in areas under its control, while Israel retained overall security responsibility.

Oslo II and the ABC of Occupation

In 1995, the Oslo II Accord (also called the Interim Agreement) divided the West Bank into three zones:

• Area A (about 18% of the West Bank): Full Palestinian civil and security control. This included major Palestinian cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin, and Nablus.
• Area B (about 22%): Palestinian civil control but Israeli security control. Mainly Palestinian towns and villages.
• Area C (about 60%): Full Israeli control — civil and security. This includes Israeli settlements, military zones, and much of the rural West Bank.

The division was supposed to be temporary — a stepping stone toward a final agreement. Three decades later, it remains the operational reality. Area C, the largest zone, is where Israeli settlements have continued to expand, making the prospects for a contiguous Palestinian state increasingly complicated.

The Nobel and the Fury

In 1994, Rabin, Arafat, and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The decision was controversial — Arafat had a long history of terrorism, and many Israelis considered the prize premature at best.

Both sides had vocal opponents. Israeli settlers and right-wing politicians denounced Oslo as a betrayal, a surrender of biblical land to terrorists. Palestinian groups — including Hamas and Islamic Jihad — rejected the accords entirely, viewing them as a sellout that recognized Israeli sovereignty over historic Palestine.

Violence did not stop. In fact, it intensified. Hamas launched a campaign of suicide bombings inside Israel, targeting buses, cafes, and markets. The bombings served a dual purpose: killing Israelis and undermining the peace process. Each attack eroded Israeli public support for Oslo and strengthened the political right.

The Assassination of Rabin

On November 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin attended a massive peace rally in Tel Aviv’s Kings of Israel Square (now Rabin Square). As he walked to his car, a young Jewish law student named Yigal Amir shot him three times. Rabin died on the operating table.

The assassination was a turning point. Rabin was the only Israeli leader with the military credentials and political authority to push the peace process forward. As a former chief of staff who had led the IDF in the Six-Day War, he could make concessions without being called weak. His death removed the one person who might have navigated the process to completion.

Amir believed he was fulfilling a religious duty. Some rabbis had issued rulings suggesting that Rabin deserved death for ceding parts of the Land of Israel. The assassination exposed a deep fissure within Israeli society that has never fully healed.

What Went Wrong

The Oslo process did not die with Rabin — it lingered for years, producing more agreements, more negotiations, and more disappointment.

Camp David 2000: President Clinton convened Ehud Barak and Arafat for final-status negotiations. The talks collapsed. Each side blamed the other. Clinton blamed Arafat for rejecting a generous offer; Palestinians argued the offer was inadequate.

The Second Intifada (2000-2005): A wave of Palestinian violence — including suicide bombings that killed over a thousand Israelis — and Israeli military operations that killed thousands of Palestinians effectively destroyed whatever remained of the Oslo framework.

Settlement expansion: Throughout the Oslo period and after, Israeli settlements in the West Bank continued to grow — from about 110,000 settlers in 1993 to over 700,000 today. For Palestinians, this was proof that Israel was never serious about a two-state solution. For Israelis, settlement growth reflected both ideological commitment and the belief that Oslo was failing anyway.

Legacy

More than thirty years after the White House handshake, the Oslo Accords remain the most significant attempt at Israeli-Palestinian peace — and their failure continues to shape the conflict.

What Oslo achieved was real: mutual recognition, the Palestinian Authority, a framework for coexistence. What it failed to achieve was also real: a final-status agreement, an end to violence, a resolution of the core issues that drive the conflict.

The optimists say Oslo proved that peace is possible — that Israelis and Palestinians can negotiate, can recognize each other, can imagine a shared future. The pessimists say Oslo proved the opposite — that the structural obstacles are too deep, the spoilers too powerful, the gaps too wide.

The history of modern Israel cannot be told without Oslo. Neither can it be told with Oslo as the final chapter. The handshake happened. The peace did not. And the search continues.