On May 4, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule.The agreement was made in accordance with the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington, D.C. on September 13, 1993. This was the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and it acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. It was also designed as a framework for future relations between the two parties.
This lead to:
The Israeli Defense Forces withdrew from Jericho on May 13 and from most of the Gaza Strip on May 18-19, 1994. Palestinian Authority police and officials immediately took control. During the first few days there was a spate of attacks on Israeli troops and civilians in and near the Strip. Arafat himself arrived in Gaza to a tumultuous, chaotic welcome on July 1.
Here’s Clyde Haberman’s sentimental tribute to Arafat’s arrival in Gaza from the NYT:
Yasir Arafat, the fiery, flawed and indomitable symbol of the Palestinian struggle for a homeland, entered the Gaza Strip today, completing his odyssey to territories that he hopes to turn one day into a state.With tears in his eyes, Mr. Arafat knelt after crossing the border from Egypt and kissed the ground — land he has not seen in decades and that for the first time has come under Palestinian authority and, for now, his personal stewardship.
Michael Kelly recalled the scene somewhat less charitably (“Promises but never peace, Washington Post, April 3, 2002)
On July 1, 1994, Yasser Arafat entered Gaza to establish the Palestinian Autonomous Region — betwixt-and-between creature of the Oslo peace process that was supposed to become, under the guiding light of the Oslo peace process, the physical base of another ambivalent notion, the Palestinian National Authority. I went as a reporter to Gaza a few hours before Arafat arrived, and I stayed there for about five weeks, observing the early days of life and governance under the Palestinian Authority. Arafat ‘s entry into Gaza was an object lesson: a purposely uncaring display of brute power. He arrived from the Sinai in a long caravan of Chevrolet Blazers and Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, 70 or 80 cars packed to the rooflines with men with guns. The caravan roared up the thronged roads and down the mobbed streets, with the overfed, leather-jacketed, sunglassed thugs of Arafat ‘s bodyguard detail all the time screaming and shooting off their Kalashnikovs to make their beloved people scurry out of their beloved leader’s way.This was the whole of the Palestinian Authority from the beginning, an ugly little cartoon of Middle East despotism. There was never any pretense of democracy, of rule of law, of a free press, of a working system of taxes or courts or hospitals. There was never any real government. No one ever bothered to build an economy or create jobs or even pick up the trash or pave the streets. There were only security forces — many, many of these — and villas by the sea for Arafat ‘s cronies, and millions of dollars in foreign aid that seemed to always turn up missing, and prisons and propaganda. And in the middle of it all: “President” Arafat sitting in a room — surrounded by waiting sycophants and toadies and respectful ladies and gentlemen of the press — and complaining.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
