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Vince Musi / The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Country Reports

30 years of the Oslo Accords 

by Steven Höfner, Franziska Schneider

Will there be a new upheaval in the Middle East Conflict? 

30 years after the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in the garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., the peace process has come to a standstill; the political majorities in Israel and an escalating spiral of violence in the Palestinian Territories put hope of a diplomatic solution with two coexisting states into the distant future. Rather, after 30 years of the Oslo system, the question arises: How much longer will these agreements be viable? 

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The image of the handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), on September 13, 1993, spread around the world. 45 years after the founding of the state of Israel and the "Nakba" for the Palestinians, and 16 years after the Six-Day War, with which the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army began, a peace in the Middle East seemed to come within reach in form of a Two States Solution . With the "Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements", the first part of the so-called Oslo Accords, it formalized mutual recognition and laid the foundation for a sovereign Palestinian state. A transition period of five years was set for the implementation of the agreements, during which the final status issues – the status of Jerusalem, the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, the status of Palestinian refugees, the distribution of resources and security issues – should have been clarified. But, the negotiations ended inconclusively. Since then, the Oslo Accords became permanent with implications on the daily life of Palestinians, but also with uncertainties for the future. 

 

You can download the entire report in German here.

 

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Contact

Steven Höfner

Steven Höfner (2020)

Leiter Auslandsbüro Marokko

steven.hoefner@kas.de

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