The Interim Agreement consists of more than 300 pages with 5 ”chapters” with 31 ”articles” as well as 7 ”annexes” and 9 ”maps” attached. The agreement has a ”preamble” that recognizes its roots in previous diplomatic efforts under UN Security Council resolution 242 (1967) and UN Security Council resolution 338 (1973), the 1991 Madrid Conference and other previous agreements. More importantly, the agreement recognizes the creation of an ”autonomous interim Palestinian Authority,” that is, an elected council called ”the Council” or ”the Palestinian Council.” The stated objectives of the Oslo Accords included Palestinian interim autonomy (not the Palestinian Authority, but the Palestinian Legislative Council)[10] and a lasting solution to unresolved issues within five years on the basis of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Although the agreements recognize the ”legitimate and political rights” of the Palestinians, they remain silent about their fate after the transition period. The Oslo Accords do not define the nature of Palestinian autonomy after Oslo and its powers and responsibilities, nor the boundaries of the territory it would eventually govern. The Oslo process is the ”peace process” that began in 1993 with secret talks between Israel and the PLO. It has become a round of negotiations, suspension, conciliation, resumption of negotiations and further suspension. A number of agreements were reached until the end of the Oslo process after the failure of the Camp David Summit in 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada. [5] [6] In order to ensure the proper implementation of this Policy Statement and any subsequent agreement on the interim period, a Joint Israeli-Palestinian Liaison Committee shall be established after the entry into force of this Memorandum of Understanding to address coordination issues, other matters of common interest and disputes. The agreements signed between Arafat and Rabin in 1993 and 1995 have been controversial for many Israelis and Palestinians. Right-wing Israelis were opposed to signing a deal with the PLO, a group it considered a terrorist organization — even though Arafat had renounced violence. Israeli settlers feared that Rabin`s so-called ”land for peace” formula would lead to their expulsion from land, which they consider their own under biblical law, despite the UN`s position that Israeli settlements were built in violation of international law.

While Peres had limited settlement construction at the request of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,[24] Netanyahu continued to build existing Israeli settlements,[25] and presented plans for the construction of a new neighborhood, Har Homa, in East Jerusalem. However, it was far from the level of the Shamir government of 1991-92 and refrained from building new settlements, although the Oslo Accords do not provide for such a ban. [24] Construction of housing units before Oslo: 1991-92: 13,960, after Oslo: 1994-95: 3,840, 1996-1997: 3,570. [26] The Oslo II Accord is called the Interim Agreement because it should serve as a basis for further negotiations and the preliminary stage of a possible comprehensive peace agreement. After Oslo II, several additional agreements were reached, but negotiations did not result in a final peace agreement. The 2002 road map for peace abandoned the Oslo Accords and provided for a rather flexible withdrawal plan. 4. Both Parties agree that the outcome of the final status negotiations should not be affected or anticipated by interim agreements. [1] Through the offices of the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Israel and the PLO exchanged recognition documents on September 9, 1993. The PLO`s letter to Israel renounced terrorism and recognized Israel`s right to live as a sovereign state in the Middle East; Israel`s letter was limited to recognizing the PLO as a representative of the Palestinian people.

Four days later, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a four-hundred-page agreement known as the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn. Their goal was to establish Palestinian autonomy over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands that Israel had administered and occupied since the June 1967 war. The Oslo Accords were another ”withdrawal agreement” in which Israel transferred territory and power to an Arab side, this time the PLO, in exchange for a promise of non-violence. In the 1970s, Israel concluded agreements with Egypt (January 1974 and September 1975) and Syria (May 1974), in which Israel withdrew from territories captured in the June 1967 war, in exchange for a commitment to end violence against the Jewish state. The final agreement on withdrawal was the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, which led Israel to return all of Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. In September 2000, when the Clinton administration tried unsuccessfully to get the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to reach agreement on the outstanding issues between them, the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada this month effectively condemned the hopeful intentions of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The agreements failed because Arafat did not have the will to contain the Palestinians who did not want to abandon the ”armed struggle” as a political instrument against the Israelis; they failed because Israel had no incentive to give additional land to PA control, because violence was still part of the Palestinian agenda towards Israel. Although the Oslo Accords did not restrict the construction of new Jewish settlements or the expansion of older settlements in the regions, Israeli leaders knew that the growth of settlements after the signing of the agreements meant the conquest of land that would otherwise have belonged to and would have been governed by the Palestinians. The growth of Israeli settlements has struck a finger in the eyes of Palestinian aspirations and has increasingly limited the reality of an independent and contiguous Palestinian State that would never emerge in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The mutual recognition of 1993 proved that the simple agreement did not diminish ideological hostility or strengthen trust between the parties. When Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip elected a Hamas-led government in January 2006, leaders who were openly opposed to Arafat`s actions in 1993 and after, but who were only limited opposition, now had political control over a significant portion of the Palestinian Arab national movement.

Hamas has made it clear that it will not recognize Israel or accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state in previous agreements signed with Israel (the Oslo Accords). .