In September 1991, in the closing session of the Palestine National Council, Yasser Arafat was confirmed as President of Palestine and of the PLO. The body accepted the resignation of Abu Abbas, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front. Abbas had been given a life sentence in absentia by an Italian tribunal, for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro liner in 1985.
Between October 30 and November 4 1991, the first Peace Conference for the Middle East was held in Madrid, with support from the US and the former USSR. The Arab delegations unanimously demanded that the negotiations should be based on resolutions 242 and 338 of the UN Security Council. These resolutions forbade the acquisition of territories by force and recommended the granting of territories in exchange for peace agreements.
The Conference for the Middle East continued in Washington in December. No progress was made as far as the Palestinian issue was concerned, as Israel reaffirmed the validity of its own interpretations of the UN resolutions. At the end of the Conference, the Israeli delegation left satisfied because UN resolution 3379, defining Zionism as a form of racism, had been eliminated.
Following the Israeli elections of June 1992, the Labor leader and new prime minister Yitzak Rabin froze the settlement of new colonies in the Gaza strip and on the West Bank. However, it was difficult to restart negotiations which had been interrupted by the expulsion of 415 Palestinians from the Hamas group to Lebanon.
Secret negotiations between the PLO and Israel, with the active participation of Norwegian diplomats, resulted in mutual recognition in September 1993. The Declaration of Principles on the autonomy of the occupied territories granted limited autonomy to Palestinians in the Gaza strip and the city of Jericho in the West Bank. This autonomy was to be extended to the rest of the West Bank and, five years later, a definite status was to be negotiated for the occupied territories and the part of Jerusalem occupied by Israel since 1967.
Hamas and Hezbollah on the Palestinian side, as well as settlers in the occupied territories and far-right parties on the Israeli side, opposed the agreement. In a climate of hostility, Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho anticipated for December 13 was postponed.
In May, 1994 Rabin and Arafat signed the �Gaza and Jericho first� autonomy agreement, while Israeli withdrawal continued, enabling the return of several contingents of the Palestinian Liberation Army exiled in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Jordan or Algeria.
Arafat arrived in Gaza in July and took office as head of the Palestine National Authority�s Executive Council. The struggle between the PLO leader and his fundamentalist rivals became increasingly violent.
Once again, Gaza was on the brink of civil war in April 1995 when an explosion destroyed a building killing 7 people, including Kamal Kaheil, one of the leaders of the Ezzedin-El-Kassam brigades. In retaliation, suicide attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad caused the death of 7 Israeli soldiers and a US tourist, leaving 40 wounded. The Jihad�s military wing said the attempt was a �heroic suicide operation� and a �gift for the soul of the criminal massacre�s martyrs� - referring to the building explosion.
The tension continued, as did negotiations between Islamic fundamentalists and PLO leaders. Among other things, Arafat wanted Hamas to participate in the Palestinian general elections of January 1996, which would have legitimized his leadership. After negotiations, the fundamentalists decided to boycott the elections. Arafat was elected president with 87 per cent of the vote and government candidates won 66 out of the 88 seats.
Binyamin Netanyahu�s election as Israeli prime minister (see Israel) in May 1996 aggravated tension between the countries.
The delicate negotiations which finally brought about the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the city of Hebron gave new support to the government led by Yasser Arafat. In January 1997, the Palestinian President highlighted again that the subject of Jerusalem�s status was still pending and that, together with the formation of the Palestinian state, both were the next issues of the political agenda.
The Israeli decision to build a new settlement in the Har Homa hills, within the Palestinian sector in Jerusalem, was firmly rejected by the PNA and Western diplomats. The work started in March 1997, and led to fierce confrontations between Palestinians and the army, stalling the peace process. At the same time, the Israeli Government announced that it was going to return only 2 per cent of the West Bank to the PNA. Israeli President Ezer Weizman met Arafat as a gesture of good will, but he could not change Netanyahu�s attitude nor the violent reaction of Palestinians. Soon afterwards, the PNA decided to apply capital punishment to those citizens who sold lands or houses to Israelis.
In November 1997, the commemoration of the second anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin led to the biggest pro-Peace with Palestine demonstration in recent years.
Arafat and Netanyahu met in London in May 1998 on the invitation of British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and in the presence of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in an attempt to re-establish the peace process, but negotiations foundered on the issue of the occupied West Bank.
Arafat had threatened to proclaim the Palestinian State on May 4 1999, when the interim peace treaties would expire. However, Arafat himself, along with the Palestine Central Council, deferred the proclamation a year, arguing that the United States had urged them to reach a final negotiated peace within the year. PCC members recognized that, furthermore, the measure tended not to play along with Netanyahu, whose election campaign was in full swing at the time, with him insisting that there would never be a Palestine state while he was Prime Minister of Israel.
Further delays from Israel - which never fully withdrew from the occupied territories as it had agreed - and the impasse in the new rounds of negotiations led Arafat to suggest greater US participation in the negotiations. In April 2000, the new Israeli Prime Minister Ehuk Barak acceded to this suggestion and it was hoped that the agreement to be signed on May 20 that year would pave the way for a final peace treaty.
In may Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.
Violence flared up in September after Israel's Ariel Sharon visited a shrine in Al Quds/Jerusalem deemed holy to Muslims and Jews. In the following weeks some 300 people died, most of them Palestinians. In October three Israeli soldiers were lynched in Ramallah. Diplomats met in Egypt to try and save the tattered peace process.
