"For the sake of your own people, and for the sake of peace, you cannot let this farce continue." Sealed by a famous handshake in 1993 between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn as a beaming Bill Clinton looked on, the Oslo accords were the result of months of secret negotiations between Mr Beilin – then deputy foreign minister – and PLO representative Ahmed Qurei.