The Oslo Accords divided the occupied territories into three regions.

But the goals laid out in the Oslo Accords remain unfulfilled.

Four hundred prisoners sentenced before the Oslo Peace Accords remained in prison, despite the call by the Accords for their release.

The Oslo Accords ushered in an era of bus explosions in Israel s main cities.

The Oslo Accords have also failed to put Palestinians on a path toward economic independence.

Since the Oslo Accords of l993 between Israel and the PLO, the Palestinians enjoyed limited transitional autonomy.

This includes the mutual recognition agreed by the PLO and Israel, as well as the Oslo Accords.

In fact, since the 1993 Oslo Accords the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories has doubled.

And Palestinians accepted Hamas s view that negotiations based on the Oslo Accords could not achieve Palestinian rights and political ambitions.

TEL AVIV Twenty years after the Oslo Accords, the prospects for a comprehensive Israeli Palestinian peace deal are dimmer than ever.

The infrequency of operations all but led to Oslo 2, and maybe Hamas supporters were the real champions of those accords.

Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat s longtime deputy and the architect of the Oslo accords, quickly secured the backing of Fatah, the PLO s core body.

My parents put their hope in the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, and decided that they could give us a better life here.

The last failure occurred when the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO set up the autonomous Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

The Gulf War led to the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 and the subsequent Oslo accords between the PLO and Israel in 1993.

This could undermine the terms of the peace process as accepted by all parties since the Oslo accords in 1993, including its economic underpinnings.

And it was the first Gulf War and Palestinian Intifadah that created the conditions for the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the subsequent Oslo Accords.

Likewise, the Palestinian Intifada of 1987 forced Israel to abandon the politics of inertia and engage in a process that culminated in the Oslo accords.

The meager results of the Oslo peace process are regarded by Hamas as vindication of its consistent view that the Oslo accords were doomed to failure, and that Israel and America never intended to respect the minimal requirements of Palestinian nationalism.

The 1994 Paris Protocol, one of the most important annexes to the Oslo Accords, was intended to define economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Moreover, holding the congress in Palestine ended the role of many Fatah leaders who had opposed the Oslo accords, such as Farouk Qaddoumi and Mahmoud Jihad.

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) following the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian passports have been issued to residents of Gaza and the West Bank.

The 1993 Oslo accords shifted the force of the intifada from the grass roots to the higher level leadership that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

It welcomed the peace process launched in the Middle East in 1991 at the Madrid peace conference, and subsequently actively encouraged the parties' implementation of the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian Authority, as a result of the Oslo accords of 1993 and the transfer of limited sovereignty to the Palestinian leadership, entered into a new phase of self governance.

RAMALLAH On September 13, 1993, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Israel PLO Declaration of Principles, or the Oslo Accords.

President Mahmoud Abbas s failure to convene the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, due to a Hamas boycott, may lead inexorably to the final breakdown of the political structures created under the Oslo Accords.

Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, which envisaged a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza, facts on the ground have whittled down the putative Palestinian state still further.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested canceling the Oslo Accords, signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993, which provided the basis for the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.

Abbas s withdrawal comes at a time when Palestinian frustration with the political process has rendered suspect the entire rationale behind the PA, established in the mid 1990 s, following the Oslo Accords.

The PLO s old guard men like Yasser Arafat and Abbas, who led the liberation organization from exile and returned home with the Oslo Accords dominated the Palestinian political landscape up to now.

Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, University of Oslo, Oslo

But, 19 years later, the Washington based Foundation for Middle East Peace reports that more Jewish settlements have been built in the occupied Palestinian territories since the Oslo Accords than before they were signed.

The late Haider Abdel Shafi repeatedly stated one of the major problems in the Oslo Accords, namely that it didn t secure the halt of settlement expansion in the interim period or if the final status talks failed.

With opinion polls indicating that only 18 of the electorate was concerned with the Palestinian problem, Labor, the party of Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo Accords, refrained from even mentioning the peace process, lest it alienate potential voters.

Lessons for Oslo

The Oslo Accords have also failed to put Palestinians on a path toward economic independence. According to the World Bank and other international agencies, slow and complicated bureaucratic and security processes, including hundreds of checkpoints, make Palestinian economic development impossible.

Hamas s rejection of the Oslo Accords bore political fruit as it became increasingly clear to Palestinians that the handshakes on the White House lawn would not produce the coveted end to the Israeli occupation, or even of Israel s illegal settlement activities.

According to Abdul Hadi, the first step was the organization of Palestinian civil society , that is, a traditional law, then came the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords which drafted laws to govern the Palestinian political life for the interim period.

The Oslo Accords divided the occupied territories into three regions. Palestinians took charge of the most densely populated urban areas, while Israel maintained total military and administrative control over the largest territory, Area C, which makes up 61 of the West Bank.

Some in Israel, such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, seem to want to cut off Gaza completely from the West Bank, in contravention of the Oslo accords (and the prospect of a two state solution!), and push it in the direction of Egypt.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were divided into three areas (Area A, Area B, and Area C) and 16 governorates under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority.

Israel and Palestine After Oslo

Arafat s successor as President of the Palestinian National Authority will be bound by the Oslo Accords, which created an interim government, now headed by Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei, that is responsible for the day to day lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

1980 1985 Advocate, Attorney General, Oslo