Israeli-Palestinian Mutual Recognition

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ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN MUTUAL RECOGNITION

On 9 September 1993, in the framework of the peace process started openly two years earlier at the Madrid Conference and pursued secretly in Oslo, Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin addressed letters to each other in which the PLO recognized the State of Israel and the Israelis recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The former had been demanded by the Israeli government, which reproached the PLO for its 1968 charter denying Israel's right to exist. These letters were a formal prelude to the Declaration of Principles (DOP) signed 13 September 1993 in Washington—the culmination of the Oslo Accords.

SEE ALSO Arafat, Yasir Muhammad;Madrid Conference;Oslo Accords;Palestine Liberation Organization;Rabin, Yitzhak.

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