Can the Oslo Accords and two-state solution be considered a genuine peace agreement between two equal parties?
The Oslo Accords were negotiated in a historical moment that Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat deemed ‘the worst situation’. He described the accords as a bad agreement, but the best that could be negotiated at a time when the international and regional balance of power was at an all-time low for the PLO.
The PLO had no territorial base of its own, leading to clashes with various host governments and leaving it little space to manoeuvre or mobilize its people. This shrinking of territorial space, coupled with the dispersal of PLO forces from Lebanon following Israel’s 1982 invasion, made the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) themselves much more politically and strategically significant for the PLO. This shifting of emphasis to territorial
