ABSTRACT
The signing of the Oslo accords followed by the Gaza-Jericho agreement, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the arrival of Arafat and his followers in the territory of the Palestinian Authority all were major milestones in Palestinian history. The Palestinians were granted their own territory for the first time (with the hope and understanding that after a few years of self-government the Palestinian Authority would become a sovereign state). The PLO, which only three and a half decades earlier had been no more than a handful of people trying to convince the world that it represented a nation of territory-less refugees, had become the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the legal ruler of territory which at this stage was autonomous and in the future would be a state.
