The Peace Process: A Look Back

Middle East Policy Council

In light of the serious setbacks to U.S. efforts to advance Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Middle East Policy Council is highlighting three relevant articles published in our journal since the Madrid peace conference was held in 1991. These three articles, among the many we have published on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace efforts during this time, demonstrate the continuity of our coverage of this issue and are meant to provoke a re-consideration of the issues, opportunities, challenges, pitfalls, mistakes, and lessons of peacemaking after Madrid, throughout the Oslo process, and during the past decade. These articles are full of frank, bold recommendations and criticisms about the procedures and substance of peacemaking efforts that deserved a hearing when they were originally published and that deserve another hearing today.

Achieving Peace: Recommendations for U.S. Arab-Israeli Policy

Thomas R. Mattair

Winter 1992, Volume I, Number 4

In the post-Cold-War era, the United States has continuing national interests in the Middle East. These include preventing any hostile power from dominating the region; maintaining access to the region’s oil at reasonable prices and to the region’s strategic waterways; supporting and helping to defend Israel and friendly countries in the Arab world; and promoting human rights, socioeconomic development, political liberalization and self-determination. The unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict jeopardizes all of these interests, whereas the comprehensive resolution of the conflict would promote all of them.

This report is therefore intended to offer guidance about the U. S. role in promoting peace between Arabs and Israelis. It examines U.S. interests and objectives, draws conclusions that should guide the United States and suggests a set of strategies for advancing the negotiations that began in Madrid in October, 1991.

> Keep Reading

The United States and the Breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

Stephen Zunes

Winter 2001, Volume VIII, Number 4

Since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000 and the subsequent Palestinian uprising, details have emerged that challenge the Clinton administration’s insistence — reiterated by leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as much of the mainstream media — that the Palestinians were responsible for the failure to reach a peace agreement and for much of the violence since then. If such a perception were true, the ongoing U.S. diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip could be justified as a response. The reality, however, is far more complex. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations, along with leading members of Congress from both parties, have deliberately misrepresented what happened in the peace process before, during and after Camp David, as well as what has transpired since the outbreak of the second intifada in late September 2000.

> Keep Reading

The Saudi Peace Plan: How Serious?

Graham E. Fuller

Summer 2002, Volume IX, Number 2

The Saudi Peace Plan, or the Crown Prince Abdullah Peace Plan, is one of the more unusual, even curious documents to emerge from two decades of peace process. It is unusual in terms of its origins, the statement of its goals, and its reception. Is it political eyewash or serious diplomacy? How seriously should we take it?

> Keep Reading