Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Investigators checking debris following a Hamas terrorist bombing in Jerusalem, 1996. (Getty Images / Im-
age Bank.)
When the Israeli government reopened an ancient tunnel in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusa-
lem in September 1996, the PA, perhaps to test or discredit the government, organized violent
demonstrations. For the fi rst time, PA security forces fi red at the IDF. The clashes ended after
Netanyahu threatened to use more force, with fi fty Palestinians and eighteen Israelis killed and
hundreds wounded.
Once again, the seemingly endless and virtually stagnant talks continued over confi dence-
building measures, additional Israeli turnovers of territory to the PA, Israeli complaints of PA
incitements to violence against Israel, and all the other short-term issues and efforts to defi ne
what a full peace agreement would include. In October 1996 the two sides made a deal over
Hebron, the only West Bank town where Israel retained a presence. The PA would control
80 percent of Hebron; Israel, the remaining 20 percent.
At a meeting hosted by the United States two years later, in October 1998, Netanyahu and
Arafat agreed to the Wye River Accord, according to which Israel would turn over 13.1 per-
cent of the West Bank to the PA in a three-step military redeployment. In exchange, the PA
promised to amend the sections of the Palestinian National Charter denying Israel's right to
exist and would intensify security measures to prevent terrorism. The Knesset ratifi ed the Wye
River Accord on November 17 by a seventy-fi ve to nineteen vote. Three days later, the fi rst
stage of the IDF's deployment from the West Bank was implemented, and 250 Palestinian
prisoners were released.
When the PLO called a meeting of its PNC to revise its charter by removing the sections
calling for the use of violence and the elimination of Israel, President Clinton attended the
