Israeli–Palestinian peace process
Intermittent discussions are held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through a peace process. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which peace can be agreed to in both this conflict and the wider Arab–Israeli conflict. Notably, the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel included discussions on plans for Palestinian autonomy, but did not include any Palestinian representatives. The autonomy plan was not implemented, but its stipulations were represented to a large extent in the Oslo Accords.
Despite the failure of the peace process to produce a final agreement, the international consensus has for decades supported a two-state solution to the conflict, based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and 338. This includes the establishment of an independent Palestinian state under the pre-1967 borders including East Jerusalem and a resolution to the refugee question based on the Palestinian right of return. This is in contrast to the current situation under the Oslo Accords in which the Palestinian territories are divided into areas of varying jurisdiction between Israeli military control and the Palestinian National Authority, with the PA only having partial self-rule in Area A of the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. A final settlement as stipulated by the Oslo Accords has yet to be reached.
Background
For the United States and Israel, the PLO's participation in diplomatic negotiations was dependent on its complete disavowal of political violence and full recognition of Israel's "right to exist". This stipulation required the PLO to abandon its objective of reclaiming all of historic Palestine and instead focus on the 22 percent which came under Israeli military control in 1967. By the late 1970s, Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories and most Arab states supported a two-state settlement. In 1981, Saudi Arabia put forward a plan based on a two-state settlement to the conflict with support from the Arab League. Israeli analyst Avner Yaniv describes Arafat as ready to make a historic compromise at this time, while the Israeli cabinet continued to oppose the existence of a Palestinian state. Yaniv described Arafat's willingness to compromise as a "peace offensive" which Israel responded to by planning to remove the PLO as a potential negotiating partner in order to evade international diplomatic pressure. Israel would invade Lebanon the following year in an attempt to undermine the PLO as a political organization, weakening Palestinian nationalism and facilitating the annexation of the West Bank into Greater Israel.While the PLO had adopted a program of pursuing a Palestinian state alongside Israel since the mid-1970s, the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence formally consecrated this objective. This declaration, which was based on resolutions from the Palestine National Council sessions in the late 1970s and 1980s, advocated for the creation of a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, within the borders set by the 1949 armistice lines prior to June 5, 1967. Following the declaration, Arafat explicitly denounced all forms of terrorism and affirmed the PLO's acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338, as well as the recognition of Israel's right to exist. All the conditions defined by Henry Kissinger for US negotiations with the PLO had now been met.
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir stood behind the stance that the PLO was a terrorist organization and would not accept it as a negotiating partner. He maintained a strict stance against any concessions, including withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories, recognition of or negotiations with the PLO, and especially the establishment of a Palestinian state. Shamir viewed the U.S. decision to engage in dialogue with the PLO as a mistake that threatened the existing territorial status quo. He argued that negotiating with the PLO meant accepting the existence of a Palestinian state and hence was unacceptable.
The term "peace-process" refers to the step-by-step approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Having originally entered into usage to describe the US mediated negotiations between Israel and surrounding Arab countries, notably Egypt, the term "peace-process" has grown to be associated with an emphasis on the negotiation process rather than on presenting a comprehensive solution to the conflict. As part of this process, fundamental issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such as borders, access to resources, and the Palestinian right of return, have been left to "final status" talks. Such "final status" negotiations along the lines discussed in Madrid in 1991 have never taken place.
Peace efforts with confrontation states
There were parallel efforts for peace treaties between Israel and other "confrontation states": Egypt, Jordan and Syria after the Six-Day war, and Lebanon afterwards. UN resolution 242 was accepted by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, but rejected by Syria until 1972–1973.In 1970, US Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposed the Rogers Plan, which called for a 90-day cease-fire, a military standstill zone on each side of the Suez Canal, and an effort to reach agreement in the framework of UN Resolution 242. Israel rejected the plan on 10 December 1969, calling it "an attempt to appease at the expense of Israel". The Soviets dismissed it as "one-sided" and "pro-Israeli". President Nasser rejected it because it was a separate deal with Israel even if Egypt recovered all of Sinai.
Timeline
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine followed by the 1948 Arab–Israeli War all ended with the February–July 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Those Arab countries insisted explicitly in the agreement texts that the agreed Armistice Demarcation Lines should not be construed as political or territorial boundaries, thus aiming to safeguard the right of return of those Palestinians that had fled their homes during the war, and the illegitimacy of Israel's use or appropriation of abandoned Palestinian property.After the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel had conquered, among more, the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip in a pre-emptive surprise-strike against overtly hostile Arab neighbouring countries, top Israeli leaders like Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Abba Eban have emphasized that returning to the pre-1967 borders would be extremely dangerous for Israel, bordering on "national suicide".
Geneva, December 1973
After the ceasefire on 25 October 1973 ending the Yom Kippur War, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. gathered the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and Jordan in Geneva in December 1973 to pursue "peace", firstly disengagement of armed forces, towards fulfilling UNSC Resolution 242 dating from 1967. Syria had refused to show up because Israel and the US refused to invite the PLO. The short conference facilitated a reconciliation between Israel, Egypt, and Syria, but achieved nothing for the Palestinians.Camp David, 1978
A political agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt in 1978, aiming to establish a self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza and autonomy for the inhabitants of those lands, as an attempt towards "Peace in the Middle East". "Autonomy" in this case would not mean "self-determination"; Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin specifically insisted that "on no condition will there be a Palestinian state".Meanwhile, Egypt's status as the strongest Arab nation capable of challenging Israel militarily meant that its parallel withdrawal from the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Egypt–Israel peace treaty significantly weakened the collective military and diplomatic power of the other Arab countries. It has been argued that this shift essentially eliminated Israel's motivation to make concessions in the West Bank, Gaza, or other areas.
Madrid (1991–93)
Delegations from Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan accepted the invitation from US President George H. W. Bush and the Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev to attend the Madrid Conference of 1991, after the First Gulf War.Oslo (1993–2001)
While the slow moving Madrid talks were taking place, a series of secret meetings between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were taking place in Oslo, Norway, which resulted in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel, a plan discussing the necessary elements and conditions for a future Palestinian state "on the basis of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338". The agreement, officially titled the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, was signed on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993. The stipulations of the Oslo agreements were criticized as diverging from prevailing interpretations of how the conflict should be resolved; critics argued that the agreements failed to guarantee Palestinian self-determination or statehood and departed from one interpretation of UN Resolution 242, which holds that land cannot be acquired by war. Political analyst Noam Chomsky argued that the Oslo agreements allowed Israel "to do virtually what it likes". Other observers, however, viewed the accords as a breakthrough that created a framework for mutual recognition and negotiations.Various "transfers of power and responsibilities" in the Gaza Strip and West Bank from Israel to the Palestinians took place in the mid-1990s. Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami described the Oslo Accords as legitimizing "the transformation of the West Bank into what has been called a 'cartographic cheeseboard'". Indeed, Oslo legitimized the fragmentation of Palestinian population centers by Jewish-only settlements and bypass roads, Israeli checkpoints, and military installations. Core to the Oslo Accords was the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the security cooperation it would enter into with the Israeli military authorities. Ben-Ami, who participated in the Camp David 2000 talks, described this process: "One of the meanings of Oslo was that the PLO was eventually Israel's collaborator in the task of stifling the Intifada and cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence."
After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the peace process eventually ground to a halt. The settlements' population almost doubled in the West Bank. Later suicide bombing attacks from Palestinian militant groups and the subsequent retaliatory actions from the Israeli military made conditions for peace negotiations untenable.