Video: 'Signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (1993)'
(Monday, September 13, 1993, 11:43 a.m. EDT; during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, part of the Arab–Israeli conflict) — In a triumph of hope over history, Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the P.L.O., shook hands today on the White House lawn, sealing the Oslo Accords, the first agreement between Jews and Palestinians to end their conflict and share the holy land along the River Jordan that they both call home.
On the sun-splashed South Lawn of the White House, with 3,000 witnesses watching in amazement including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the foreign policy spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed a "Declaration of Principles" on Palestinian self-government in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank at 11:43 a.m.
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Rabin, whose face is etched with the memories of every Arab-Israeli war, captured in his remarks the exhaustion of all parties with the centuries-old conflict.
“We, the soldiers who have returned from the battle stained with blood,” he said, “we, who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and clear voice: ‘Enough of blood and tears! Enough!'”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the time for peace has come,” Rabin said after quoting the Bible book of Ecclesiastes.
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Arafat, relishing his moment of acceptance on the White House lawn, strove to give Rabin the appropriate response, declaring in Arabic: “Our two peoples are awaiting today this historic hope, and they want to give peace a real chance.”
And President Clinton, who gracefully shepherded Arafat and Rabin through their awkward moment of public reconciliation, hailed them both for their “brave gamble that the future can be better than the past.”
The agreement, which will eventually allow Palestinians to run their own affairs as Israeli troops pull back within months from the Gaza Strip and Jericho in a first step, was reached during secret negotiations over the past few months between Israelis and Palestinians, under the direction of Peres and Abbas, through the mediation of Norway.
