The Negotiation Process and Its Outcome The first session took place on January 20-22, 1993, at Sarpsborg in Norway and included Abu Ala, Maher Al-Kurd, and Hassan Asfouri as representatives of the PLO, and Hirshfeld and the professor Ron Pundik(a close associate of Hirshfeld) representing the Israeli side. In the first meet ing, the parties presented ideas and established mutual ground Furthermore, it was decided that substance rather than procedures should take precedence, which would mean negotiating without protocols and set agendas. The purpose was to work out new negotiation concepts, and to explore whether an understanding between the parties could be reached The ideas and proposals agreed on in Norway would later be presented in the official negotiations in Washington. Already in the first meeting Abu Ala presented the idea of"Gaza first" (an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a first step an idea that had already been extensively discussed within the Israeli Labor Party); he also stressed the importance of economic cooperation in the region. The principle of gradualism, based on a Declaration of Principles, was brought forward by the Israelis; by this they referred to a step-by-step approach accompanied by an ongoing process, of negotiation(Abbas 1995: 115-126, Hirshfeld 1994b) In this session and the one that followed, the Palestinian negotiators constantly asked in what way Hirshfeld and Pundik represented the Israeli