THE MADRID CONFERENCE, 1991
Following the Gulf War, President Bush Senior was determined to take advantage of America’s pre-eminent position in the world and impose a peace on the Middle East. This was due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its inability to counter the US.
A peace conference at Madrid in late October 1991, little came of the conference. Subsequent negotiations stalled as Israel went to the polls in June 1992 and the US in November. Following the Israeli election, Labour leader Yitzhak Rabin took over as prime minister.
Chapter 10 – Oslo and beyond 1993-1996
Key Historiographical Issues
- meaning and significance of the Oslo Accords
- the role of religious extremist groups
THE OSLO ACCORDS
In 1993 secret meetings were held in Oslo, Norway between Israeli and PLO officials. On 13 September and PLO and Israel signed a Declaration of Principles in Washington DC. The declaration included mutual recognition, phased redeployment of Israeli troops and terms whereby a Palestinian Council would govern in the West Bank and Gaza for five years while a permanent peace treaty and final status of the territories could be worked out.
The Israel—PLO accord was ratified by the Knesset and the Palestine National Council. The territories needed a solid financial footing if Palestinian self-government, and thus the accord, was to succeed. The US convened a conference of donor nations, and by early October more than forty countries pledged to contribute $2 billion over five years. The pledges were:
- European Community $600 million
- US $500 million
- Israel $75 million
- Saudi Arabi $100 million
- United Arab Emirates $25 million
On March 26, 1979, an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed (Camp David). The talks had begun the . The groundwork for the talks that led to this pact was laid with . Part of the package was a planned five year transition period leading to Palestinian "autonomy" in the West Bank and Gaza. But, "autonomy" was left undefined (and Israeli leader Menachem Begin made it quickly clear afterward that he had no intention of yielding control over the West Bank, only allowing limited "self rule."). The Palestinians, on the other hand, thought the treaty meant statehood.
Camp David crowned a process toward normalization that began when Egyptian President to meet with the Israelis. Arab reaction was swift and hostile. Arab countries broke off diplomatic relations with Egypt and imposed an economic boycott. The Arab League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. The rift was , and two years later, the moved back to Cairo. Meanwhile, Israel in 1982.
On August 13, 1993, Israel ended the official ban on talking to the PLO. Later in the month the world was stunned to learn that the Israelis and the PLO had been meeting secretly in Oslo, Norway for months hammering out an agreement.
On September 13, 1993, following months of secret meetings between representatives from the two sides in Norway, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Yitzak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed their historic "Declaration of Principles" (DOP) on the lawn of the White House. Known also as the Oslo Accord and the "Jericho-Gaza First Agreement," the pact set into motion a five year transitional designed to lead toward "autonomy" for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Arafat had come under mounting pressure from circles inside and outside the PLO to do something to move the peace process along. For all of the fanfare, Arafat and Rabin were both widely believed to have made a "peace of the weak." Arafat’s disastrous decision to back in 1990 alienated the PLO from nearly all members of the Arab anti-Iraqi coalition, especially Saudi Arabia which had bankrolled the PLO from the beginning. PLO coffers had all but dried up and Arafat had found himself increasingly unable to control events and wield influence over either extremist or moderate elements inside the Palestinian territories. Rabin, too, had faced mounting internal political pressure from Israelis across the whole spectrum.
That the 1993 Oslo Accords "deck" was grossly stacked in favor of Israel and to the disadvantage of the Palestinians was seen most quickly by the hardliners on both sides: Palestinian extremists began resorting to commando attacks to upset the accord, and, Israeli extremists began to use Oslo as license to grab more and more Palestinian land and resort to vigilante attacks upon Palestinians. By 1996 the lopsided nature of the agreement became statistically demonstrable. A United Nations report that year indicated that Gaza's per capita GNP had fallen by 37% since 1992, the year before Oslo and total GNP had declined by 18.5%. In the first six months following Oslo, unemployment in Gaza rose by 8.2% to reach 39.2%. Real wages in Gaza dropped 9.6% during 1995. Salaries of Gazans working in Israel dropped 16%. (UN Special Coordinator for the Occupied Territories (UNSCO), Economic and Social Conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Gaza, October, 1996) cited in Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza, trans. by Elana Wesley and Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 345. Oslo turned Palestine into a checkerboard of Israeli controlled domains interspersed among Palestinian controlled areas. Israeli and Palestinian authorities were supposed to coordinate security to keep both peoples moving easily across the zones. What happened instead was a grotesque lengthening of an already tense border. With increasing violence came a proliferation of checkpoints, but everyone quickly realized that maintaining security would be immensely more difficult. The seeds of the (begins in September, 2000) were sown here. (For information on the first intifada, )
What happened at the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference?
The , inviting Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians to an opening conference jointly sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union on October 30, 1991, represented the result of US Secretary of State James Baker's shuttle diplomacy in the eight months following the Gulf War. The Madrid peace conference was a watershed event. For the first time, Israel entered into direct, face-to-face negotiations with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians. In order to make this possible, since Israel would not negotiate with the terrorist PLO, the Palestinians were represented by individuals from the West Bank and Gaza who were not associated with the PLO. This was a sham, as everyone knew, and PLO figures were in the hotels guiding the Palestinian delegation throughout the proceedings.
An intricate framework was structured for the three day Madrid Conference, followed by the start of negotiations. Two parallel negotiating tracks were established by Madrid: the bilateral track and the multilateral track. Four separate sets of bilateral negotiations put Israel together with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian delegation, intended to resolve past conflicts and sign peace treaties. The first bilateral meetings took place in Madrid, on November 3 right after the formal conference ended. Over a dozen rounds of bilateral talks were subsequently hosted by the US Department of State in Washington.
The multilateral negotiations targeted issues that concern the entire Middle East, such as water, environment, arms control, refugees and economic development. The talks opened in Moscow in January 1992 and working groups met periodically in venues throughout the world, including the Middle East.
The talks between Israel and Jordan continued for almost two years following the Madrid conference, .
Madrid was also the catalyst for the . Once the Oslo process began, the Madrid structure of talks faded away.
Camp David Accords
September 17, 1978
After twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations were concluded by the signing at the White House of two agreements. The first dealt with the future of the Sinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, to be concluded within three months. The second was a framework agreement establishing a format for the conduct of negotiations for the establishment of an autonomy regime in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israel-Egypt agreement clearly defined the future relations between the two countries, all aspects of withdrawal from the Sinai, military arrangements in the peninsula such as demilitarization and limitations, as well as the supervision mechanism. The framework agreement regarding the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza was less clear and was later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the US. President Carter witnessed the accords which were signed by Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin.
The Madrid Peace Conference
by Michael R. Fishbach
“After the defeat of Iraq during the Gulf War of January-February 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union co-convened an international peace conference in Madrid, Spain, to discuss a diplomatic end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. They called for the conference to initiate two parallel negotiating tracks: a bilateral track that involved specific talks between Israel and the Arab parties, and a multilateral track that involved many delegations discussing region-wide issues. The conference opened on 30 October 1991, and included delegations from Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, as well as observers from other nations and organizations.
Israel and the United States refused to allow a separate Palestinian delegation to attend the conference, nor would they allow the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to participate openly in the process of choosing the Palestinian delegates and directing their activities. The Palestinian delegates in the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation were nonetheless counseled by an advisory committee that maintained contact with the PLO, thereby giving the PLO a role in the discussions.
The conference lasted until 1 November and was immediately followed by bilateral talks in Madrid between Israel and each of the Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian-Palestinian delegations. Israel agreed to meet with the Palestinians separately from the Jordanians. The multilateral talks commenced in January 1992 in Moscow.”
The Oslo Accords
by Michael R. Fischbach
“As the public Israeli-Palestinian negotiation set in motion by the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference dragged on inconclusively in Washington, DC, in 1992 and 1993, Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst arranged for secret Israeli-Palestinian talks in Oslo. These talks initially took place between two Israeli academics, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundik, and a high-ranking official from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmad Qurai, who maintained contact with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. Eventually, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, on behalf of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, entered the talks, which were kept secret from the world and from the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Washington, DC.
By August 1993, the two sides had agreed on a ‘Declaration of Principles’ outlining an Israeli redeployment from parts of the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a provisional Palestinian self-rule government. The two sides agreed to recognize one another publicly and negotiate a series of agreements to finalize these arrangements. They decided to negotiate so-called ‘final status issues’ at a later date. These included: the borders between the Palestinian entity and Israel; the return of Palestinian refugees; Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories; the future of Jerusalem; and the question of eventual statehood for the Palestinian entity.
Peres and Qurai initialed an agreement in Oslo in August 1993. This was followed by a 9 September letter from Arafat to Rabin pledging that the PLO recognized both Israel and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, stating that the PLO renounced terrorism and violence, and declaring that it would amend the portions of the Palestine National Charter that called for the destruction of Israel. Rabin in turn wrote to Arafat on 12 September that Israel recognized the PLO and would commence further negotiations with it.
News of the secret talks was made public in late August 1993 and stunned the world. The United States hosted a ceremony at which the Declaration of Principles, also called the Oslo Accords, were signed. Israeli, American, Russian, and Palestinian officials, including Arafat, hitherto persona non grata in the United States, gathered at the White House on 13 September 1993 for the signing ceremony. Signing of the Accords set in motion a lengthy and often contentious peace process that is ongoing.
The Oslo peace process produced several subsequent Israeli-PLO agreements:
- The Gaza-Jericho Agreement (also called the Cairo Accords), signed 4 May 1994
- The Transfer of Powers, signed 29 August 1994
- The Interim Agreement and Elections (also called the Taba Accords or Oslo II Accords), signed 28 September 1995
- The Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, signed 15 January 1997
- The Wye River Agreement, signed 23 October 1998
- The Sharm al-Sheikh Memorandum, signed 9 September 1999.”
What were the 1978 Camp David peace accords?
Egypt maintained a state of war with Israel since , a strategy that did not bring any benefit to Egypt. In the course of the Israel occupied Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. After losing badly to Israel again in the , Egypt finally saw that they could not eliminate Israel through outright war. Egypt's President Anwar Sadat turned to diplomacy, unlike other Arab states that continued their state of war with Israel.
The Camp David Accords had their origin in on November 19-21, 1977, to address the Israeli Knesset, the first visit by an Arab head of state to Israel. Sadat was named "Man of the Year for 1977" by Time Magazine.
Sadat's visit initiated peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt that went on sporadically through 1977 and into 1978. Reaching a deadlock, both Sadat and Begin accepted President Carter's invitation to a US - Israeli - Egyptian summit meeting at the Presidential retreat, Camp David (in Maryland) on September 5, 1978.
From September 5 through September 17, 1978, twelve days of secret negotiations were conducted at Camp David between Sadat and Begin, mediated by US President Jimmy Carter. The Israeli-Egyptian negotiations were concluded by the signing of two agreements at the White House. The agreements were based on UN resolutions 242 and 338, and were meant to constitute a basis for peace between Egypt and Israel, as well as to reach "a just, comprehensive, and durable settlement of the Middle East conflict" for all neighbors willing to negotiate with Israel.
The first dealt with the future of the Sinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, to be concluded within three months. Israel agreed to withdraw from all of the Sinai, within three years, and to dismantle its air bases near the Gulf of Aqaba and the town of Yamit. Egypt promised full diplomatic relations with Israel, and to allow Israel passage through the Suez Canal, the Strait of Tiran, and the Gulf of Aqaba.
The second agreement was a framework establishing a format for the conduct of negotiations for the establishment of an autonomy regime in the West Bank and Gaza to settle the question of the Palestinians.
The Israel-Egypt agreement clearly defined the future relations between the two countries, all aspects of withdrawal from the Sinai, military arrangements in the peninsula such as demilitarization and limitations, as well as the supervision mechanism. The framework agreement regarding the future of and Gaza was less clear and was later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the US.
President Carter witnessed the Accords which were signed by Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin.
The two agreements between Israel and Egypt led to , the first between Israel and any of its Arab neighbors. Sadat and Begin shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their historic agreements.
Camp David Accords (1978)
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The Camp David Accords were signed by President and Prime Minister on , , following twelve days of secret negotiations at . The two agreements were signed at the , and were witnessed by president . Sadat also said he wanted them to be called the Carter Accords.
The first agreement dealt with the future of the and peace between and . This was concluded six months later with the signing of the .
The second was a framework agreement establishing a format for the conduct of negotiations for the establishment of an regime in the and the .
The Israel-Egypt agreement clearly defined the future relations between the two countries, all aspects of withdrawal from the Sinai , military arrangements in the peninsula such as demilitarization and limitations, as well as the supervision mechanism.
The framework agreement regarding the future of the West Bank areas , and Gaza was less clear, and was later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the US.
Oslo Accords
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The Oslo Accords were a series of agreements negotiated between the government and the (PLO, acting as representatives of the people) in 1993 as part of a between the two sides, officially called the Declaration of Principles. Despite the high hopes expressed in the Accords and in the subsequent agreements, that also promised the normalization of Israel's relations with the Arab world, the problem has not been resolved.
The Middle East has always been known as the Holy Land. For centuries, prophets have walked there, nations have collided and conquerors have come and gone. While Jews claim a three thousand-year-old attachment to this ancient land, Arabs also stake their devotion. These two peoples, are constantly involved in a tragic conflict that has lasted more than half a century, saw the possibility of a new beginning.
The Oslo Accord transformed the political realities of the Middle East (Peres, 2). Since the founding of Israel in 1948, there has been continuous conflict between Israel and the Arab states. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories led to the uprising of Arab youth in the West Bank and Gaza, known as the Intifada. For the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Intifada provided them with a new and assertive Palestinian identity. Israelis were also growing tired of their roles as occupiers, as soldiers trained to defend their country in war were finding themselves aiming their weapons at rock throwing teenagers. Many Israelis were disillusioned and desperately eager for a solution.
Talks took place between January and May of 1993. As talks continued, complications arose, notably Israel's insistence that it retain control of West Bank security. However, as trust grew, both sides compromised as they moved towards reconciliation and mutual recognition. After eight months of negotiations, an agreement of principles was signed secretly in Oslo. The Declaration of Principles bound Israel and the Palestinians to a five-year interim agreement. Power over Gaza and Jericho would be transferred to the Palestinians, economic programs would be developed and a new port built. Resolution of the harder questions such as Jerusalem would be left for a permanent status agreement to be concluded within five years (Corelli, p. 34-35).
During this period, relations between Israel and Jordan improved, opening the path for peace. In October 1994, nearly a year after the meeting of Rabin and Arafat, Israel and Jordan officially ended more than fifty years of conflict. Israel's new partnership with Jordan encouraged Syria to negotiate for the return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. Though inconclusive, the talks were a major step forward (Peres, p.40-45). The Oslo Accord also had many enemies, including the Israeli settlers in the occupied territories as well as Arab radicals. The main Arab opposition to the peace accord is rooted in the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. Both groups call for total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied lands, and to give the Palestinians more freedom and independence. In Israel, the minority opposing the accord includes the ultra-nationalists and the religious right wing. They believe that giving up territory is in total opposition and conflict with the ideals of the land of Israeli movement (Hunter, p. 217). For many Palestinians, Oslo did not offer enough. They claim all the occupied territories are theirs, including east Jerusalem.
The Oslo Accord had made some agreement but left some like the question of Jerusalem to a later time. On 28 September 1995 a further accord, the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (also known as Oslo II or the Taba Agreement), extended the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority to cover other areas in the West Bank which, like the Gaza Strip, had been occupied by Israel since 1967. The Oslo Accord II calls for a final agreement in May 1998 on such matters. Affairs to the matters like boundaries, new settlements, and refugees. The Israeli- Palestinians Intermin Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, called "Oslo II" or "Taba", was signed September 24, 1995 in Taba, Egypt. It calls for further Israeli troop's redeployment beyond the Gaza and Jericho areas.
Under the accord, Israel was first schedule to redeploy from the from the major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and later from all rural areas, with the exception of Israeli settlements and the Israeli designated military areas. Problems with this were that the first Oslo agreement promised things that never took place. The Palestinians Covenant denied Israel's right to exist and pledges the Palestinian organization to destroy Israel. Yassar Arafat signed letters agreeing to cause the Covenant to be changed as a part of the Oslo I accords but the change never took place.
Both the Oslo agreements process does not provide a stable, let alone a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even if negotiation continue, and the sides sign further agreements, the consequences will almost certainly be the perpetuation and formalization of the system of Grand apartheid which has been the Oslo's principal achievement so far. Oslo might also be replaced by a genuine Two-State Solution, based on a sufficient territorial concession by Israel to support an economically viable, sovereign Palestine. It has been observed by many that the two-state plan should be occupied by Palestine alone. It is because Palestine found this compromise very difficult to accept since their land had been taken by foreign settlers and would now be lost forever (Guyatt, 171).
However, overtime the "Palestinians have accepted in the main that their moral claims to all of the land which is now Israel have not empowered them in practice to regain what has been lost" (Guyatt, 171). The Two-State solution offers the Palestinians an identity which they have been looking for years. It also solves that problem with the Israelis. The problem with this is accepting each other as neighbors. In Guyatt book The Absence of Peace, he says how if it weren't for the Oslo accord, our perception of an "absurdity" (171) Palestinians would exist. He continued on saying that we take back what we "retreat from what happened to what many happen in the future, we have the first imagine to a very different concept of Palestine statehood" (171). In this plan the Israel would not be allowed to occupy any of their power over Palestine, and its territory. Now the question of Jerusalem is left. In this solution Jerusalem would be shared and left unoccupied by no one state. Palestinians and Israeli would live in peace with secured borders.
Facing elections in March 1997, Prime Minister Rabin he Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, met with Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, at Camp David from September 5 to September 17, 1978, and have agreed on the following framework for peace in the Middle East.
After twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David (1978) the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations were concluded by the signing at the White House of two agreements. The first dealt with the future of the Sinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, to be concluded within three months. The second was a framework agreement establishing a format for the conduct of negotiations for the establishment of an autonomy regime in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israel-Egypt agreement clearly defined the future relations between the two countries, all aspects of withdrawal from the Sinai, military arrangements in the peninsula such as demilitarization and limitations, as well as the supervision mechanism. The framework agreement regarding the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza was less clear and was later interpreted differently by Israel, Egypt, and the US. President Carter witnessed the accords which were signed by Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin.
In Camp David II (2000), the final status issues from previous Camp David meeting were to be finalized. Which were the most difficult to resolve: Jerusalem, security, borders and refugees. Sessions lasted late into the nights. Under intense pressure from President Clinton, in an effort to reach a final agreement, and with promises of American support and security guarantees, Prime Minister Barak offered the most substantial concessions and far reaching proposals, going beyond all the long-standing Israeli "red lines", especially as regards Jerusalem. When these terms were later revealed in Israel, people were stunned at the extent of the concessions Barak offered and it is unclear whether the Israeli public were prepared to support the deal. However they were never given the opportunity to endorse or reject the proposals; Arafat rejected them out of hand.
According to media reports Barak's offer included: Israeli redeployment from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, the creation of a Palestinian state in the areas of Israeli withdrawal, the removal of isolated settlements and transfer of the land to Palestinian control, other Israeli land exchanged for West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli control, Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City, and religious Sovereignty over the Temple Mount which has been replaced by Israeli sovereignty since 1967.
In return Arafat had to declare the "end of conflict" and agree that no further claims on Israel could be made in the future. Despite the considerable concessions by Israel, Arafat chose not to negotiate, not to make a counter-offer but to just walk out. In fact, the Palestinian negotiating team did make concessions during the negotiating process, but Arafat himself never agreed. It was not the specific terms that caused the summit to collapse, but rather the lack of a counterproposal. In addition, Arafat continued to insist on the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" of refugees to Israel, a demand that Israel cannot accept under any peace plan since it would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
The summit ended on July 25, without an agreement being reached. At its conclusion, a Trilateral Statement was issued defining the agreed principles to guide future negotiations. An optimistic summary of the event would be that difficult issues were attacked for the first time and progress was made. The Israelis and Palestinians both lost faith in the process: if there is no deal in this favorable environment, when could there be? After the close of the meeting, Barak said "Israel was ready to reach agreement at a painful price but not at any price." Arafat made no major statement before leaving the United States. In the following weeks, the Palestinians, having lost patience with the diplomatic approach, launched the al-Aqsa intifada (September 2000).
I believe President Clinton's attempt in resovling this issue was the most possible. It was very generous for President Barak to offer so many things out of the "red line" as he said. The plan would have worked if Prime Minister Arafat didn't declare an "end of conflict". In doing research for this report, this was the first logically agreement that was real caught my attention in saying that this could have finally brought peace upon the Palestinians and Israelis. Barak's offer included many things that the Palestinians wanted. My question is to why Arafat's rejection of such a proposal where the Palestinians would get control over East Jerusalem, there would be the creation of a Palestine state, and many of the Israeli army withdrawal from areas of West Bank and the Gaza in exchange for the West Bank remaining under the Israel's control.
More importantly this agreement, to me, was the first time sides were beginning to become less sentimental about their land, and there willingness to agree and give up thing was amazing on its own.