# Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum

Date: 1998

## The fact

On 23 October 1998 Israel and the PLO signed the Wye River Memorandum in the United States, with [Netanyahu](/people/benjamin-netanyahu) as prime minister and Arafat as PLO principal.

## Context

Clinton hosted. Neighbouring Hebron 1997 is an earlier first-term instrument. Implementation stalled. He did not write a Palestinian Basic Law.

Hebron 17 January 1997 is neighbouring. Oslo texts are Arafat–Rabin parents he did not sign.

The Prime Minister of Israel chairs the cabinet, is the political principal of the IDF, and can table Knesset bills. He does not write a Hamas military order, an ICC judgment, a US presidential proclamation, or a UN Security Council resolution.

## Evidence and sources

United Nations carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [humanitarian access](/drivers/humanitarian-access): a completed redeployment-and-security text is a dated interim opening, later slippage named as not established as completed forever.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 23 October 1998 Wye signature with Netanyahu as Israeli principal, recorded at UNISPAL and independently reported.

Not established: that a state was thereby created, or that every later closure was repealed by Wye.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Arafat signed. [Clinton](/people/hillary-clinton) hosted. Implementation required both interiors.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum, not a later speech about Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum on 1998-10-23 is not a licence to treat every later United Nations communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Israel and the PLO sign the Wye River Memorandum into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He signed for Israel. Arafat signed. Clinton hosted. Implementation required both interiors. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Benjamin Netanyahu: https://factrail.ai/people/benjamin-netanyahu

## Drivers

- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-wye-idUSKCN0Q70L1
- https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205280/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/il-wye-1998