Encyclopedia of Islam

Orientalism

  

537  J

---

other areas of study, including postcolonial stud-

ies, literary criticism, gender studies, film studies, 

and ethnic studies. 

See also  a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

;  a

rabian

n

ights

; c

hristianity

 

and

 i

slam

; 

colonialism

; g

UlF

Wars

; 

terrorism

; 

Women

.

Further reading: Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions 

of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Alex-

ander L. Macfie, Orientalism: A Reader (New York: New 

York University Press, 2001); Maxime Rodinson, Europe 

and the Mystique of Islam. Translated by Roger Veinus 

(London: I.B. Taurus, 1988); Edward Said, Orientalism

(1978. Reprint, New York: Random House, 2003).

Osama bin Ladin

  See U

sama

 

bin

 l

adin

.

Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Princi-

ples, became the foundational documents for an 

attempted peace between i

srael

 and the Palestin-

ians in the 1990s. Signed in 1993 by Israel and 

the p

alestine

 l

iberation

 o

rganization

 (PLO), the 

decrees initiated a hopeful era of negotiations, but 

they failed ultimately to forge a lasting peace.

Initiated by Norway’s foreign minister, Johan 

Jørgen Holst, the negotiations that resulted in the 

Oslo Accords were conducted in secret. Signed 

privately on August 20, 1993, the world watched 

with some disbelief a public handshake of approval 

between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and 

the leader of the PLO, y

asir

 a

raFat

, hosted by U.S. 

president Bill Clinton on the White House Lawn 

on September 13, 1993. By signing the docu-

ments, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate 

representative of the stateless Palestinian people, 

and the PLO renounced violence against Israel 

and asserted the Jewish state’s right to exist.

The contents of the Oslo Accords served as the 

framework for a subsequent transitional period of 

rule over the territories of the West Bank and Gaza 

Strip, occupied by Israel in 1967. In the docu-

ments, Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of the 

Occupied Territories, and a newly created Palestin-

ian Authority (PA) assumed self-rule over parts of 

the territories in place of the Israeli military. The 

West Bank and Gaza Strip were divided into Areas 

A, B, and C, with A regions under the control of 

the Palestinian Authority, B regions under Pal-

estinian civil and Israeli military control, and C 

regions under full Israeli control. The map of these 

regions, however, was significantly fragmented; 

nevertheless, at the height of the PA’s authority in 

the late 1990s, the majority of Palestinians in the 

Occupied Territories lived under some form of 

Palestinian civil rule.

Many of the most contentious issues of the 

Israel-Palestine conflict, including the expansion 

of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, 

the issue of the status of J

erUsalem

, and the fate 

of Palestine’s massive refugee population were 

purposely left out of the agreement. According 

to the Oslo Accords, final status talks, including 

issues pertinent to these topics, were to begin no 

later than May 1996. However, despite further 

diplomatic efforts from 1994 until 2000, the final 

status talks promised by the Oslo Accords were 

not held. Furthermore, the dissolution of the 

Palestinian Authority in the wake of the al-Aqsa 

intifada of 2000 and Israel’s dramatic response to 

it have rendered the Oslo Accords obsolete.

See also a

qsa

 m

osqUe

; a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

; 

reFUgees

.

Garay Menicucci