Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Reasons for Signing the Oslo Accords

On November 1, 1995, three days before being assassinated, Prime Minister Rabin tells his speech writer Yehuda Avner why he signed the Oslo Accords with Yasir Arafat on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. Though Rabin does not particularly like or trust Arafat, he is a pragmatist who preferrs Arafat’s party, the PLO’s secular orientation to that of the religiously dominated ideology of Hamas. Rabin believes that promoting secular streams in Palestinian politics would work to weaken Hamas’ influence. A quarter century later, Palestinian politics remain locked in a struggle between secular and religious orientation, between perhaps making some accommodation with Israel and the totally refusing to do so. (source)