annexes, maps, and amendments, known as “agreed minutes,” the agreement consisted
of nearly 350-typed pages and covered every aspect of the evolving Israeli-Palestinian
relationship in minute detail. The heart of the agreement concerned the procedure for
West Bank and Gaza Palestinians to elect an eighty-two-member legislature—the
Palestinian Legislative Council—and a president of an administrative body—the Exec-
utive Authority—two elements of a new government called the Palestinian Interim
Self-Government Authority, or Palestinian Authority for short. The Palestinian
Authority was to serve for a five-year “interim” period, starting from the May 4, 1994,
date of the earlier agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
Palestinian leaders would assume immediate responsibility for the Gaza Strip
(except for the Jewish settlements, occupying about 35 percent of the land) and for the
seven largest cities on the West Bank: Bethlehem, Jenin, Jericho (from which Israel
already had withdrawn because of a previous agreement), Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah,
and Tulkarm. Another city, Hebron, was treated as a separate case subject to later nego-
tiations. The cities and their surrounding villages were designated as Area A, sections
of the West Bank to be placed under full Palestinian control as soon as the Israeli mil-
itary withdrew; their area constituted only about 4 percent of the West Bank, but
included most of the Palestinian population. Several dozen other areas of the West
Bank—some individual villages as well as large groupings of villages or lightly settled
areas—were designated as Area B, where the new Palestinian government would con-
trol civil affairs but the Israeli military would remain in charge of security. The bulk of
the West Bank, designated as Area C, would remain under Israeli control indefinitely
and would include Jewish settlements and other lands that Israel had taken for roads
and military installations. As had the previous agreements in the Oslo process, Oslo II
gave the Palestinians something less than a fully independent state but substantially
more than the total subservience to Israel that they had endured since June 1967.
Oslo II was another diplomatic triumph for the leaders who had started down the
path to peace, but as with previous agreements, some elements on both sides bitterly
opposed it, refusing to accept anything less than control for themselves of all of Pales-
tine. The Knesset ratified the agreement by the slimmest possible margin, 61 in favor
and 59 opposed. The debate was exceptionally contentious even by the raucous stan-
dards of that legislature, with Likud members accusing Rabin of appeasement.
The lengths to which some Israelis would go to block the peace process became clear
in the wake of the Oslo II agreement. Extremist religious groups sponsored rallies in
Jerusalem depicting Rabin as a Nazi and demanding that Israeli soldiers disobey gov-
ernment orders to withdraw from the West Bank. Although not as extreme, Likud leader
Netanyahu joined in the chorus of denunciation, telling a large crowd that Rabin had
brought about “national humiliation by accepting the dictates of the terrorist Arafat.”
Countering this chorus of opposition, peace groups sponsored a giant rally in Tel
Aviv on November 4, 1995. An ebullient Rabin attended and gave an emotional speech
recalling his years as a soldier and affirming that the time had come for peace between
Israel and its neighbors. “This rally must send a message to the Israeli public, to the
Jews of the world, to the multitudes of Arab lands and in the world at large, that the
nation of Israel wants peace, supports peace, and for this, I thank you.” A few min-
utes later, three shots rang out, and Rabin fell to the ground. He died an hour later.
Rabin’s assassination—the first of a high-level Israeli official—was doubly shock-
ing because the assassin was an Israeli, Yigal Amir, a twenty-five-year-old student who
216 ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS