To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy convened Arab, Israeli, American and European diplomats, policymakers, businesspeople, academics and activists in Washington on November 2, 2011, to discuss the achievements and lessons of the peace conference.
After the 1991 Gulf War, the US orchestrates a conference with Israel, multiple Arab states, and Palestinians participating; the conference leads to bilateral and multilateral negotiations.
Nabil Shaath was a close adviser to Arafat particularly in the tumultuous 1998-1993 period when the PLO was buffeted by events and bad choices. Shaath praised Secretary Baker, President Bush and Yitzhak Rabin, and was pleased that Palestinians were participating in the Madrid Conference. He hoped for an end to the conflict with Israel in 1992, based on land for peace but held out for the right of Palestinian return for that to happen. In 2023 he is a foreign policy adviser to Mahmoud Abbas.
October 1991 Kenneth W. Stein and Samuel W. Lewis, Making Peace Among Arabs and Israelis: Lessons From Fifty Years of Negotiating Experience, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, October 1991, second printing 1992, 69 pages.
As part of the preparations for the Madrid peace conference in October 1991, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker drafts a memorandum of agreement between the U.S. and Israel regarding the particulars of resuming the Arab-Israeli peace process. He opens by reiterating that the intention of the negotiations is to achieve a regional peace agreement based on U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
Comparing the 1936-39 Arab uprising in various parts of western Palestine and the intifada that began in 1987 in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the most striking conclusion is the large number of general similarities between these manifestations of Palestinian national consciousness. The two most significant differences, however, are that the 1987 intifada generated a deeper and more prolonged Palestinian national coherence across all classes than did its predecessor and clarified and crystallized Palestinian opinion, which helped create a historic compromise in Palestinian public policy.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker warns that the United States will not accept Saddam Hussein’s erasure of Kuwait a month earlier. Baker says intimidation and force will not be tolerated in the post-Cold War world.
Both the intifada that started in December 1987 and the Arab revolt of 1936 to 1939 unexpectedly jolted the political status quo. But unlike its precursor, the intifada unified a physically dispersed and ideologically diverse Palestinian community.
Secretary of State James A. Baker III brings a realistic and prescient vision of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations and U.S. mediation to AIPAC early in the George H.W. Bush presidency.
In early 1988, for the second time within eight years, the Reagan Administration reacted to events in the Middle East by proposing that the stalled Arab-Israel negotiating process be reactivated, an effort known as the Shultz Initiative.
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat issues a declaration with five American Jewish leaders in an effort to meet U.S. conditions for dialogue and thus strengthen his position as the leader of the Palestinian national movement.
Hamas absolutely opposes Israel’s right to exist, with its leadership repeatedly declaring that all of Palestine belongs to Moslems.
As a militant Islamic Palestinian national organization, Hamas believes that Israel is illegitimate and should be destroyed through Jihad. Hamas opposes all recognition and negotiation with Israel and opposes PLO/PA leaders who have negotiated and collaborated with Israel from time to time. The Hamas-PA competition severely fragments the Palestinian political community.
Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. It opposes any kind of negotiations or agreements that recognize Israel as a reality, and its more extreme spokesmen regularly incite or celebrate the killing of Jews.
Jordan’s King Hussein made a strategic decision to disassociate administratively from the West Bank, leaving it to focus Jordanian national identity on only the east bank of the Jordan River. The PLO subsequently negotiated with Israel to rule over some of these lands, as codified in the 1993 Oslo Accords, but no Palestinian state was promised.
The Jordanian king and Israeli Labor Party leaders secretly outline a plan to convene an international conference to move Israeli-Palestinian talks forward through a conference format, but Likud opposition leaders squash the idea.
Areas of bilateral political and military cooperation are noted to fend off Soviet involvement in the Middle East, to assist Israel in building the Lavi aircraft, to support an independent Lebanon and to promote Arab-Israeli negotiations.
The United States endorses the application of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 to the West Bank and Gaza, seeks Palestinian control over land and resources, and wants the territories to be affiliated with Jordan.
Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s seventh Prime Minister and staunch advocate for settlements in the West Bank, passes away in Tel Aviv at the age of 96.
The Soviet Union and the United States convene the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference, based on a two-track approach for bi-lateral as well as multi-lateral talks.
Relations between Israel and the USSR began to improve under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1987, the two countries established consular ties which coincided with the Soviet Union’s easing of restrictions on Jewish life and eventually opening the gates of immigration to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismisses Science Minister Ezer Weizman as a consequence of his contact with the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization).
King Hussein of Jordan announces his intention to politically disengage from the West Bank, leaving the PLO to fill the political vacuum.
December 9, 1987 Riots erupt in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in what comes to be recognized as the start of the First Intifada, an Arabic word meaning “awakening” or “uprising.” The immediate…
