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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 July 2000 Issue No. 490 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 July 2000 Issue No. 490
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Focus International Economy Opinion Interview Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The road to Camp David II
19 November, 1977: Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat arrives in Israel and receives a state welcome at Ben Gurion Airport.
20 November, 1977: After praying at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Sadat addressed the Knesset. He calls for an Israeli withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
17 September, 1978: A landmark summit at the Camp David presidential retreat near Washington between Sadat and Begin sponsored by former US President Jimmy Carter ends. Two agreements are signed at the White House: the first dealing with an Israel-Egypt peace treaty and the restoration of Sinai; the second was a framework agreement for negotiations regarding a five-year autonomy plan for the West Bank and Gaza.
26 March, 1979: Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is signed at the White House.
30 October, 1991: The Middle East Peace Conference opens in Madrid. Palestinians are represented in a joint delegation with Jordan.
9-10 September 1993: An exchange of letters between PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin accompanies the disclosure that the two sides had been, for several months, engaged in secret negotiations in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. In Rabin's letter, the PLO, which hitherto had been unofficially represented in the Palestinian delegation established under the Madrid formula, is recognised by Israel as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Rabin's recognition (dated 10 September) came in reply to a 9 September letter from Arafat, in which he recognised the state of Israel and pledged to invalidate articles in the PLO Charter which deny Israel's existance.
13 September, 1993: Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) sign the Declaration Of Principles (DOP) on the White House lawn. The deal was sealed with a handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Known as the Oslo accord, it set down an outline for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. Palestinians viewed it as a first step towards statehood after years of foreign rule, exile and dispossession.
4 May, 1994: Israel and the PLO sign the Gaza-Jericho deal. It gave limited self-rule to 2 million Palestinians living under occupation and proscribed an Israeli troop withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. The deal, signed in Cairo, cleared the way for Arafat's return to Palestine in July 1994 from a life in exile.
28 September, 1995: At a White House ceremony, delayed by last-minute squabbling, Israel and the PLO sign an accord for the staged withdrawal of most Israeli troops from their 28-year occupation of the West Bank. The 400-page deal, known as Oslo II, gave self-rule to Palestinians in the cities of Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarm, parts of Hebron, and 450 villages, but allowed Israeli-guarded Jewish settlements to remain.
5 January, 1997: The government of right-wing Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu sign a deal that cleared the way for the long-delayed hand-over of 80 per cent of Hebron to Palestinian rule. It also provided for three more jurisdictional transfers, affecting rural West Bank land, and a series of reciprocal commitments.
23 October, 1998: Arafat, Netanyahu and US President Bill Clinton hold a nine-day summit at Wye River, near Washington. It ended with a White House signing of a land-for-security peace deal. The agreement called for a phased Israeli withdrawal from 13 per cent of the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian security measures. Netanyahu then froze the deal two months later, under the pretext that the Palestinians had failed to honour their security commitments.
13 September, 1999: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who defeated Netanyahu in May elections on a promise to accelerate peace moves, signs a deal with Arafat in Sharm Al-Sheikh, an Egyptian Red Sea resort. The accord was a modified version of the Wye River deal. The agreement set a 13 September, 2000 deadline for a final peace treaty.
5 July, 2000: US President Bill Clinton invits Barak and Arafat to an intensive summit at Camp David. The meeting began on 11 July and is designed to resolve the thorniest issues before the September deadline. Arafat, Barak and Clinton have not issued promises that the summit will yield results.
