Wye River Memorandum

(1998)

   The agreement signed by Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and Palestinian Authority (PA) president Yasser Arafat, and President William J. (Bill) Clinton of the United States on 23 October 1998. It concluded nine days of intensive negotiations between Israeli, Palestinian, and American delegations at Wye River Plantation in Maryland. The memorandum effectively provided for the implementation of the terms of the Oslo II Accords of September 1995 and the Hebron Protocol of January 1997. Major aspects of the memorandum included the phased redeployment of Israel Defense Forces personnel from an additional 13 percent of the West Bank and the transfer to full Palestinian control ("Area A") of another 14 percent of the West Bank that had heretofore been under joint Israeli-Palestinian jurisdiction ("Area B"); pledges of enhanced efforts on the part of the PA in the fighting of terrorism and the establishment of tripartite (Israeli, Palestinian, and American) committees for verifying Palestinian compliance with these commitments; commitments by the PA to finally and unconditionally amend the Palestine National Covenant; and the immediate start of negotiations between Israel and the PA on permanent-status issues such as Jerusalem, settlements, water, refugees, and the nature and precise configuration of political boundaries between Israel and areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the jurisdiction of the PA.

   See also Arab-Israeli Conflict.