2023-09-13 11:29:23
Historic handshake in front of the White House: Rabin, Clinton and Arafat on September 13, 1993 Image: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Oslo peace process began thirty years ago. He failed long ago. However, its consequences for Israel and the Palestinians are still visible today.
The desk that Bill Clinton’s hosts had set up outside the White House was the same walnut table that had been installed fourteen years earlier. The production was also reminiscent of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979: on the left and right the two protagonists – and between or behind them, as godfather and guarantor, the American President.
Christian Meier
Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.
In 1979, Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter were still competing, but the handshake between Yasser Arafat and Izchak Rabin on September 13, 1993 was visibly more difficult. The Israeli prime minister hesitated for a moment before taking the Palestinian leader’s outstretched hand. Immediately beforehand, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed the “Declaration of Principles on Temporary Arrangements of Self-Government” – the formal start of the Oslo peace process.
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