August 20: The Oslo Peace Accords

The negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords were completed on this date in 1993. At an official ceremony at the White House on September 13th, they would be signed by Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, Shimon Peres for Israel, Warren Christopher for the U.S., and Andrei Kozyrev for Russia, while Yasser Arafat, Yitzhakh Rabin, and Bill Clinton looked on. The Oslo Accords provided for mutual recognition between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the creation of a temporary Palestinian National Authority in Gaza and the West Bank, from which Israel Defense Forces would withdraw. After a five-year interim period, contentious issues about Jerusalem, the Palestinian right to return to lands from which they were displaced, and border security would be addressed in a permanent peace agreement that would establish a Palestinian state. Oslo represented the furthest point of official peacemaking that key leaders of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples ever achieved (although peace activists on both sides went further in details in the Geneva Accord, a 50-page outline for peace launched in December, 2003). Their process would be disrupted, however, by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, intensified Jewish settlement-building in the Palestinian lands, the 1994 Purim massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs, and intensified acts of armed violence against Israeli civilians and military personnel by Palestinian militants. In April, 2012, Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli justice minister who was a chief architect of both the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Accord, publicly called on Mahmoud Abbas to “end this farce” and dissolve the Palestinian Authority in order to “impose upon [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu], once again, the responsibility for the fate of 4 million Palestinians.”
“Today marks a shining moment of hope for the people of the Middle East; indeed, of the entire world.” —Bill Clinton
On July 19, 2012, the International Israel Allies Caucus Foundation hosted “Oslo – Twenty Years Later,” two panel discussions on “what went wrong?” and “what to do next?” Moderated by Foundation for Defense of Democracies Vice President of Research Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Panel One featured Jerusalem Post Deputy Managing Editor Caroline Glick, American Task Force on Palestine Executive Director Ghaith Al-Omari, Likud Member of the Knesset Danny Danon and former Minister of Justice and Oslo architect Dr. Yossi Beilin.

Panel Two, also moderated by Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, featured Rabbi Benny Elon, a former Israeli Minister of Tourism and President of the Israel Allies Foundation; veteran State Department peace negotiator and Woodrow Wilson International Distinguished Scholar Aaron David Miller; and Dr. Yossi Beilin.