Oslo: the breakthrough, and what went wrong on the way

Why was it a breakthrough?

For decades Israel and the PLO did not recognise each other.¹ Until January 1993 Israeli law even banned meeting PLO members.⁴ And the talks that opened after the Madrid Conference were stuck.⁵

The way out began as a secret channel in Norway. Terje Rød-Larsen of the Fafo institute proposed it, and the Norwegian foreign ministry backed it;⁶ according to his ECF biography, Yossi Beilin initiated the process in 1992.⁷ In January 1993 two Israeli academics, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak, sat down with the PLO's Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) and Hassan Asfour.⁶

In May 1993 the talks became official, and Uri Savir and Joel Singer joined.⁶ Foreign Minister Shimon Peres led the Israeli side,⁸ and Mona Juul was part of the small Norwegian team that made the talks possible.⁹ In August the Declaration was initialled at a secret ceremony in Oslo, before Foreign Minister Johan Jørgen Holst.⁶

On 9 September 1993 Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin exchanged letters of recognition. The PLO recognised Israel's right to exist in peace and security and renounced terrorism; Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.¹ Four days later the Declaration of Principles was signed at the White House by Peres and Mahmoud Abbas.² The Nobel Committee wrote that the step had called for great courage on both sides.³

In this site's view, Oslo was a political breakthrough and a breakthrough in thinking. It broke a destructive deadlock, in which each side denied the other's legitimacy, and put recognition and direct negotiation in its place. It was a bold step, exactly what one expects of leaders. Rabin, Peres and Arafat deserve full credit and respect for it, each from his own side; Arafat signed the letter in which the PLO recognised Israel's right to exist.¹ Credit is not endorsement of everything they did.

What was promised, and what happened?

Gaza and Jericho first

Promised: an interim period of up to five years, starting with a withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho.² Happened: the Gaza–Jericho Agreement was signed in May 1994, and that month the Palestinian Authority was set up there.¹⁰

Elections

Promised: an elected Palestinian Council within nine months.² Happened: the elections came late, on 20 January 1996. Palestinians chose an 88-seat Council and Arafat as president, and Hamas did not take part.¹¹¹²

Permanent-status talks by May 1996

Promised: talks on Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security and borders, no later than the third year.²¹³ Happened: the talks opened at Taba on 5 May 1996¹⁴ and stalled; Wye River and Sharm el-Sheikh were needed to restart them.¹⁵

A permanent settlement by 4 May 1999

Promised: the interim period would end after five years.² Happened: it did not end with an agreement. Sharm el-Sheikh set new targets,¹⁵ and the Camp David summit of July 2000 ended without a deal.¹⁶

Further redeployments in the West Bank

Promised: staged redeployments under the Interim Agreement, a timetable that was not met.¹⁷ Happened: in 1997 about 80% of Hebron passed to Palestinian control.¹⁸ Of the 13% promised at Wye River, only the first stage was carried out on time,¹⁷¹⁹ and Sharm el-Sheikh set a new date for the rest.¹⁵

Safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank

Promised: a southern route from October 1999.¹⁵ Happened: it opened on 25 October 1999²⁰ and closed about a year later, when the second intifada broke out.²¹

What went wrong on the way?

Terror against Israeli civilians

The order here is not a ranking. After the signing the PLO's opponents, Hamas first among them, stepped up their attacks;²² Hamas is a terrorist organisation. In February and March 1996 alone Hamas bombers murdered 59 people in four attacks.²³ According to the analyst Yossi Alpher, the bombings convinced much of the Israeli public that it had no partner.²⁴ The attackers were enemies of the agreement, not its signatories.²²

The Hebron massacre

On 25 February 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a settler and a follower of the Kach movement, murdered 29 Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque / Cave of the Patriarchs, in a terrorist massacre.²⁵²⁶ According to the Security Council, the massacre and its aftermath took the lives of more than 50 Palestinian civilians.²⁷ The talks stopped, and Israel's government outlawed Kach.²⁸²⁶ The site found no study that measures its long-term effect.

The assassination of Rabin

On 4 November 1995, at the end of a peace rally in Tel Aviv, Rabin was murdered by Yigal Amir, an Israeli who opposed Oslo. Peres succeeded him and lost the election of May 1996.²⁹ According to the Chatham House researchers, because of the murder the role of trust in the deal was never tested.³⁰ But the process did not stop: the next government signed the Hebron Protocol and the Wye River Memorandum.¹⁸¹⁵

A change of government in 1996

In May 1996 a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu took office.³¹ Its guidelines opposed a Palestinian state and promised talks on condition that the Palestinians kept their commitments;³² it demanded reciprocity, action against terror and incitement before redeployments.³³¹⁷ Critics say it slowed implementation: Shlaim points to the opening of the Western Wall tunnel³⁴ and building at Har Homa,³⁵³³ and Pundak writes that the government sabotaged the process.³⁶ Even so, this was the government that handed most of Hebron to Palestinian control.¹⁸

The settlements grew

According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, 115,700 settlers lived in the West Bank and Gaza at the end of 1993 and 176,973 in mid-1999, not counting East Jerusalem.³⁷ Khalil Shikaki saw a design flaw here: an open-ended interim period during which building went on.³⁸ The counter-view: Israel's government told the Mitchell Committee that settlements are a permanent-status issue and do not decide the outcome.³⁹

Closures and the Palestinian economy

According to official Israeli figures compiled by B'Tselem, between December 1993 and November 2000 the West Bank had 326 days of full closure and Gaza 311.³⁷ Israel's government presented closures as security measures; the PLO called them collective punishment.³⁹ According to Pundak, closures became an almost automatic response to attacks, and ordinary Palestinians saw very little of the fruits of peace.³⁶

Entrenchment, or a process emptied out? Two readings

Israeli governments charged the Authority with incitement, releasing detainees involved in terrorism and failing to collect weapons.³⁹ Some Israelis, researchers among them, saw Palestinian entrenchment: Ehud Barak said Arafat did not accept Israel's right to exist,⁴⁰ and Efraim Karsh argues that Arafat saw Oslo as a stage in the “phased plan”.⁴¹ The Palestinian reading is the reverse: the PLO told the Mitchell Committee that Palestinians expected the occupation to end within five years, while the number of settlers doubled.³⁹

Missed deadlines, and trust worn away

Every deadline that passed without delivery added suspicion. The Mitchell Committee described clashing expectations: Palestinians were waiting for the end of the occupation, Israelis for security and a real fight against terrorism.³⁹ Wye River and Sharm el-Sheikh were needed mainly to reset dates that had already passed.¹⁵

Camp David 2000 and the second intifada

The Camp David summit ended on 25 July 2000 without an agreement.¹⁶ President Clinton and the envoy Dennis Ross blamed Arafat;³¹⁴² Robert Malley and Hussein Agha argue that all three parties made mistakes;⁴³ and the PLO argued that the proposal was no basis for a viable state.⁴⁴ Violence broke out after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif on 28 September 2000.³¹ Barak said the intifada was planned in advance;⁴⁰ the PLO denied it, and the Mitchell Committee found no basis for that conclusion.³⁹ According to B'Tselem, in the following decade Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis and Israeli forces killed 6,371 Palestinians.⁴⁵

Two accounts, and what researchers add

A common Israeli account

We took risks for peace and got terror. Israelis remember the bus bombings of 1994–1996²³ and the bombings of the second intifada, in which, according to B'Tselem, Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis, 741 of them civilians.⁴⁵ Barak said Arafat made no counter-proposal at Camp David.⁴⁰

A common Palestinian account

We recognised Israel and got settlements and checkpoints. The PLO told the Mitchell Committee that the number of settlers had doubled and that closures were collective punishment.³⁹ Ziad Abu-Zayyad said Israel's leadership stopped implementing the Interim Agreement,³⁸ and Avi Shlaim notes that seven years after Oslo Israel still held full control of 61% of the West Bank.³³

Researchers: the design

The Declaration deliberately left the core issues for later.² Shapland and Mekelberg of Chatham House note that the shape of a permanent settlement was not defined even in outline, and that the gradual structure helped Oslo's opponents;³⁰ Pundak argues that the end point should have been clear from the start.³⁶ The counter-view: Avi Shlaim holds that the framework was workable and the failure lay in implementation.³³

Researchers: power and enforcement

Disputes were to be settled in a joint committee, and arbitration needed both sides' consent;¹³ Shapland and Mekelberg conclude that a gradual process needs an active third party.³⁰ Hilde Henriksen Waage of PRIO writes that the process reflected an unequal balance of power, with Israel the stronger party.⁴⁶

What did Oslo leave behind?

Mutual recognition

In a short time Israel and the PLO moved from hostility to mutual recognition.³⁰ Every later agreement between them rests on the letters of 1993.¹²

A Palestinian Authority and elected institutions

The Authority, set up in May 1994, was the first Palestinian body to run daily life.¹⁰ In January 1996 about 75% of eligible voters took part.¹¹

Security coordination

The Oslo years saw security cooperation between Israel and the Authority,³⁰ and Wye River widened it.¹⁷ The Mitchell Committee found that it worked well until 2000.³⁹

An economic framework

The Paris Protocol still sets the economic relationship: Israel collects taxes for the Authority and transfers them, about two thirds of its revenue. According to Arab Center Washington DC, Israel stopped the transfers entirely in May 2025.⁴⁷

Peace with Jordan

According to the Israel State Archives, the Declaration removed an important obstacle on the way to peace with Jordan.⁴⁸ The peace treaty was signed thirteen months after Oslo.⁴⁹

The negotiating table

After 1993 Hebron, Wye River, Sharm el-Sheikh and Camp David 2000 were all negotiated directly between Israel and the PLO, with American mediation.^18151631 In this site's view, that is one of Oslo's lasting achievements.

A temporary map that stayed

The division into Areas A, B and C was designed for five years,¹² and it still applies. According to OCHA, Area C covers more than 60% of the West Bank.⁵⁰

The site's view

In this site's view, there is no perfect peace agreement; every one is complex. Oslo was enormous. It broke a destructive deadlock of decades, brought Israel and the PLO to mutual recognition and direct negotiation, and helped open the way to peace with Jordan.

It went wrong on the way to final implementation, for complex reasons: the assassination of Rabin, terror attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Hebron massacre, settlement growth, changes of government in Israel including Netanyahu's first term, Palestinian positions hardening, mutual distrust and missed deadlines. None of them is the single explanation.

Understanding why it went wrong is part of trying again. The boldness of Rabin, Peres and Arafat in 1993, and of the negotiators on both sides, is exactly what is expected of leaders: to see a chance for peace, to take a calculated risk for it, and to lead it forward.