On 13 September 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords (a Declaration of Principles)[3] on the South Lawn of the White House.

On 25 July 1994, Jordan and Israel signed the Washington Declaration, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between them since 1948 and on 26 October the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, witnessed by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

[4][5] Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the Israeli–Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on 28 September 1995, in Washington.

The agreement allowed the PLO leadership to relocate to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and granted autonomy to the Palestinians with talks to follow regarding final status.

The murderer, Yigal Amir, a right-wing Jewish radical, was a law student at the Bar-Ilan University who fanatically opposed the Prime Minister's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords.

After taking over from Yitzhak Rabin following his assassination, Peres decided to call early elections in order to give the government a mandate to advance the peace process.

Despite the national trauma which the assassination of Rabin caused, and although many blamed at the time the leaders of Israeli political right for the incitement that preceded the assassination, due to the series of suicide bombings carried out in Israel, and the failed military operation "Grapes of Wrath" conducted in Lebanon that caused many Lebanese civilian casualties, a significant change occurred in the position of the Israeli voters, which eventually resulted in 50.5% percent of voters supporting Netanyahu on election day.

Netanyahu faced several issues; the left argued the peace process was advancing too slowly, but signing the Hebron Agreement and the Wye River Memorandum also caused him problems with the right-wing.