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The Oslo agreement established a limited form of self-rule for Palestinians living in the main population centers of the West Bank and Gaza (CNN). Total and final sovereignty over those areas remained with Israel (CNN). It is an implied understanding that if this issue were to be resolved, it would be a result of the outcome of the peace process (CNN). The Palestinians suggest that as their right as a people, they should have a sovereign state (CNN). They also expect that state to be made up of all of the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967 (CNN).They argue that the Palestinians made their territorial compromise at Oslo, by accepting the principle of statehood only in the West Bank and Gaza as opposed to the entire state of Israel once demanded by the PLO - and they're in no mood to be talked back from that position? (CNN). Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepts the necessary outcome of a Palestinian state, but his role is to ensure Israel's security (CNN). A Palestinian nation that shares borders with potentially hostile Arab states could provide a major military advantage for Israel's enemies (CNN). .
Nearly a million Palestinians who fled during the 1948 war between Israel and its neighboring countries are being excluded by the Israelis (CNN). Many have now been absorbed as citizens in countries across the Mideast, but even 50 years later 1.1 million Palestinians still live in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian territories and 2.5 million Palestinians are registered as refugees (CNN). Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat insists on the right of the refugees to return to their original family homes, even though he makes out that would be a impossibility for Israel (CNN). Israel has no intention of allowing Palestinians to return to the territory seized in 1948 because of fear of decreasing the Jewish majority in Israel (CNN). .
The Oslo agreement established a Water Resources Working Group, composed of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians, to develop cooperative methods of managing the demand for the region's scarce water (CNN).
