Palestinians and the Peace Process ••• 411
tion of Principles, also called the Oslo I Accord. The ceremony included
brief speeches by US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin,
and PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and concluded with a handshake between
the veteran Israeli and Palestinian leaders, symbolically ending their long
enmity. Under the declaration, Israel was to withdraw its forces from the
Gaza Strip and Jericho within three months, enabling the PLO to set up a
"self-governing authority" as a first step toward full autonomy for the occu¬
pied territories other than East Jerusalem (whose status would be discussed
later). The Palestinians would be permitted to hold free elections for a na¬
tional assembly (whose size and powers were unspecified), once Israeli
troops could be withdrawn from their main population centers. Jewish set¬
tlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would remain under Israeli
protection. Neither the Palestinians' demand for full autonomy nor the Is¬
raelis' security needs were fully met by the Declaration of Principles. But
neither Arafat nor Rabin would benefit by abandoning the peace process.
The ensuing negotiations between Israel and the PLO did not validate
Oslo I. The declaration left major issues unsettled, and both sides tended to
play to their backers. Israel did pull its troops out of those parts of Gaza and
Jericho not settled by Jews, allowing Arafat to return and to start building
political institutions. At the same time, though, it expanded its existing Jew¬
ish settlements, violating the spirit of Oslo I. A Palestinian police force, re¬
cruited and trained mainly in Egypt, was charged with maintaining order
but gradually became a militia fighting against Israelis. Foreign govern¬
ments withheld much of the $2 billion they had pledged to support the
PLO's "self-governing authority" (which gradually came to be seen as a
state) and to rebuild the Palestinian economy because Arafat wanted full
control of the money with no public accountability. His administration,
hamstrung by rival authorities and security agencies, was also defied by
Hamas. Palestinian police shot and killed a dozen Hamas demonstrators in
the main mosque of Gaza, and one of its members was implicated in the
murder of an Israeli civilian. Economic conditions in Gaza, far from im¬
proving, worsened. Conditions in the occupied lands not under the Pales¬
tine Authority also grew tense. For instance, an armed Jewish settler entered
the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and killed or maimed
more than thirty Muslim worshipers before he was overpowered and killed.
Distrust on all sides intensified.
20 The Gulf War and the Peace Process
Even though the Declaration of Principles brought no peace or prosperity
to the Palestinians, it did open the door to political deals with Israel by
