Speech: Speech at the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Principles (Oslo Accords), Washington, D.C.

Context and setting

Delivered at the White House on September 13, 1993, the speech accompanied the public signing of the Declaration of Principles, widely known as the Oslo I Accords. Flanked by U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat addressed an international audience and millions watching the televised ceremony. The atmosphere combined ceremony and high hopes: a formal acknowledgment that a negotiated framework had been reached after decades of conflict, and a symbolic attempt to turn negotiation paper into political reality.
Arafat spoke as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization at a moment when both parties had signaled willingness to move from armed struggle and unilateral claims toward mutual engagement. The speech therefore had dual purposes: to communicate reassurance and resolve to a skeptical domestic Palestinian audience, and to signal to Israelis, Americans, and the wider world that Palestinian leadership would commit to the terms and spirit of a negotiated peace process.

Tone and rhetoric

The rhetoric blended humility, dignity, and cautious optimism. Arafat repeatedly invoked the cost of decades of conflict, grief, displacement, and sacrifice, while framing the Accords as a pathway out of that cycle. He acknowledged the profound skepticism and deep wounds on both sides and sought to humanize the Palestinian cause by stressing the desire for normal life, dignity, and self-determination rather than continued confrontation.
Throughout, Arafat appealed to shared humanity and future cooperation, emphasizing practical goals over maximalist claims. His language sought to reassure that the PLO would engage constructively with the interim arrangements and the emerging institutions of Palestinian self-government, and to cast peace as a collective project requiring courage, patience, and mutual concessions.

Main commitments and themes

Central to the speech was an affirmation of political engagement and institutional responsibility. Arafat committed the Palestinian leadership to implementing the agreements reached in Oslo and to pursuing Palestinian self-government through the mechanisms the accords established. He stressed the need to end violence and to prevent acts that would undermine the fragile confidence-building process, presenting security and stability as prerequisites for political and economic development.
Arafat also emphasized the importance of international law, negotiated resolutions, and the support of the international community for a just and lasting solution. He framed Palestinian aspirations not simply as a demand for territory but as a quest for recognition of rights, dignity, and the ability to build viable political and social institutions. This theme linked immediate interim measures to a longer-term vision of negotiated final status arrangements.

Significance and legacy

The speech marked a watershed moment in Israeli, Palestinian relations, symbolizing the transition from decades of entrenched enmity to a negotiated framework that promised mutual recognition and phased self-rule. For many Palestinians, the event was a hopeful opening toward state-building and international legitimacy; for many Israelis and international observers, it represented a potentially historic turn toward coexistence.
Yet the address also carried an implicit awareness of fragility: Arafat acknowledged obstacles and the long, difficult road ahead. In the years that followed, the Oslo process would face setbacks, violence, and political reversals that tested the commitments voiced at the White House. Nonetheless, the speech remains a defining articulation of the moment in which Palestinian leadership publicly embraced a negotiated pathway as the principal avenue for achieving national aspirations.