When former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and President Mahmoud Abbas, as representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), held secret talks with members of Israel’s Labor Party in 1993, they were dealing with a secular political party that headed a coalition also including non-Zionist religious parties. When Yasser Arafat, as chairman of the PLO's Executive Committee, signed a letter that same year recognizing the State of Israel, the secular coalition government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had not tried to define Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people.
These documents through which the PLO and Israel officially recognized each other needed to be signed before Arafat and Rabin could publicly meet and approve the Declaration of Principles (the Oslo Declaration). Once the letters were signed Sept. 9, the two leaders met publicly in Washington, on Sept. 13, and the world witnessed their famous handshake on the White House lawn. These documents — the bedrock of the current Palestinian-Israeli agreements — are now in jeopardy. Speaking to Voice of Palestine Radio, Yasser Abed Rabbo, PLO secretary-general, used the word “dangerous” to describe the possible change in the legal character of Israel currently under discussion.
