So these were the famous Oslo Accords. And what was in these accords? The agreement between Israel and the PLO most significantly that they recognize each other which was a great historical breakthrough in and of itself. The agreement included a variety of other details not of less importance. Israel was to withdraw, first and foremost, from Gaza and Jericho. This was to be a staged withdrawal. That is, a withdrawal that would take place in a variety of phases. This phased approach was intended to test the goodwill of both sides and to serve as a confidence building measure. There was to be a transition phase of five years. At the end of which, the Israelis and Palestinians would come to a final agreement on those issues that had been left for final status negotiations. The Oslo Accords meant immediately the establishment of the Palestinian authority that would take control of those areas that Israel gradually withdrew from in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority will also be responsible for security in these areas. And essentially, though the Oslo Accord did not specifically refer to the creation of a Palestinian state, these steps were essentially the Palestinian state in the making. [NOISE] The establishment of the Palestinian Authority meant the election of two critical institutions of this Palestinian state in the making. The one was the Presidency, and the other was the Legislative assembly. And the creation of these two elected institutions in the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, was in itself a move of great historical consequence. After all, the President and the Legislative assembly that represented the Palestinian Authority were elected only by the people of the West Bank and Gaza. They were not elected by Palestinians who lived in the Palestinian diaspora, Palestinians who were not residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Therefore, this creation of the Palestinian Authority with its elected institutions, meant the narrowing down of the Palestinian question to the West Bank and Gaza. That at least was the meaning as the Israeli side chose to see it. The first elections were held in 1996 and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist opposition, which completely rejected the Oslo Accords, refused to take place in the elections then. Because they were, so Hamas argued then, under the auspices of the Oslo Accords, which they rejected. [SOUND] The final status issues that were left for later, those that were to be negotiated at the end of the transition period. Or their agreement was to be concluded at the end of the transition period with the following. Territory, which meant settlements and borders, what was to happen with the, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza? What were the final borders to be between this future Palestinian state and the state of Israel? Jerusalem, Jerusalem was supposed to be not only the capital of Israel, but as far as the Palestinians were concerned, that the Arab part of the city was to be the capital of the future state of Palestine. So Jerusalem was another final status issue that had to be discussed, negotiated, how if Jerusalem were to be divided, how would this in fact be implemented? And then of course there were the issues of security. What kind of security arrangements, would exist between this Palestinian state of the future and the state of Israel. And lastly, perhaps the issue that was most difficult of all and the most explosive of all, what was to happen to the millions of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war? A few hundred thousand in 1948 but whose number has now swelled to millions. What would the future of them be? Would they have a right to return to Israel? Would they have a right to return to the state of Palestine? What was to be their fate in the long run? And this was an issue that the Palestinians and the Israelis had huge difficulty in agreeing upon. But the Oslo Accords certainly included a state building dynamic. Though the accords did not specifically refer as I already mentioned to a Palestinian state, the accords clearly meant statehood. And indeed, Palestinian critics of the Oslo Accords criticized precisely that point. And their argument was, that the PLO had signed an agreement which was not a peace agreement, but a capitulation to Israel. In Arabic, the criticism was made into a rhyme, [FOREIGN], which means, not peace but capitulation. Because the PLO so the critics argued had accepted the idea of statehood in part of Palestine, above the more historical aims of the liberation of all of Palestine and the return of the refugees. The critics argue that the PLO has conceded, the notions of liberation and returned in exchange for little state along side Israel. [SOUND] And clearly, the dynamic was indeed prioritizing statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. Then of course, aside from the Palestinian opponents, there were the Israeli opponents of the political right and of the religious right, sometimes they were one in the same, who fiercely opposed the idea of withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, parts of historical Israel in their viewpoint. And therefore, these should never be considered, not to the Palestinians, nor to anyone else. And conceding them to the PLO, of all people, was so they argued, most dangerous. These were not reliable allies of Israel in the future could not be trusted to keep the piece with Israel. And therefore, they were not to be Israel's partner during the negotiation over these territories that any negotiation over these territories was questioned in and of itself anyway. So there were two destructive effects of this opposition from the Palestinian side and from the Israeli side. That really hurt the capacity of fulfilling the Oslo agreements. On the one hand, terrorism conducted by Palestinian opponents of the agreements, who sought to bring down the agreements by eroding confidence in their execution. And from the Israeli side, the Jewish opponents who continue to settle in the West Bank and Gaza with and mainly without the approval of Israeli governments. This had the effect of emptying the Oslo process of real content for both major constituencies. [SOUND] Neither side was really able or willing to rein in their more radical opponents. Those who supported terrorism on the Palestinian side or the secular movement on the Israeli side, and if transition of five years was supposed to contribute to confidence building, it did not do so. There was no real sense of partnership and no real sense of trust, and the settlements on the one hand and the suicide bombings on the other, turned into confidence destroying measures rather than any effort to Syria's con, confidence building. For the Israelis, this turned Oslo into an equation with insecurity. And for the Palestinians, it was equated with expanding settlements. The transition and phase process therefore, instead of giving time to the parties to build the agreement, it gave time to the oppomen, to the opponents to scuttle the deal. In 1995, in November, Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister who led Israel into Oslo, was assassinated by a religious opponent of his policy. Rabin was eventually succeeded by a government that was far less enthusiastic about Oslo. And the Oslo Accords were facing great difficulties of implementation. [SOUND]
