In 1994 Yasir Arafat, the leader of Al Fatah and the Palestine
Liberation Organization, which was a party to the Oslo Accords,
appointed an interim 19-member Palestinian National Authority,
under his direction, to administer Palestinian affairs in the
areas of self-rule. Under a 1995 accord, self-rule was extended
over a two-year period to all major Arab cities and villages in
the West Bank, except East Jerusalem. In 1996 the first
Palestinian Legislative Council was elected, with 88 members
chosen from the West Bank and Gaza, and Arafat was elected by
popular vote as president of the PA. In the first legislative
council, Al Fatah, the dominant group in the PLO, had a majority
of the seats. Agreements with Israel in the late 1990s gradually
increased the area of the West Bank under PA control.
Negotiations with Israel in 2000 proved unfruitful, and
widespread violence erupted in the West Bank and Gaza in the
fall after the Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visited the Haram
esh-Sherif (or Temple Mount) in Jerus