ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the accords and their implications for an independent future for Palestine and the Palestinians as a people. In June 1993, after ten rounds of futile Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the Clinton administration prepared a proposal it labeled "Declaration of Principles", the first use of that phrase before the Oslo Accords. The first of the Cairo Accords, formally called Agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area, launched the five-year interim period. The council is to have legislative powers over only the civil aspects of Palestinian life specifically authorized by Israel. The best illustration of continuing Israeli control and subordination of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is the economic provisions of the Declaration of Principles and the subsequent protocols and accords. The "peace process" on which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian leaders from the occupied territories embarked in 1991 in Madrid was a turning point in Palestinian history.
