Introduction

With the Cold War nearing an end and U.S. global prestige never higher, in 1991 the Bush administration sought to build on the post-Gulf war momentum and the cooperative moment with the Soviet Union to redeema commitment it had made to its Arab coalition partners and tackle the Arab-Israeli conflict. The international conference organized by Secretary of State James Baker laid out an ambitious agenda to both settle Israel’s conflicts with its immediate neighbors, including the Palestinians, and address core issues challenging Middle East peace and stability. In the end, the international conference format proved unequal to the task, unable to overcome the uncompromising positions of the parties. But it gave birth to decades of bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Arabs. In some cases, notably Jordan, the bilateral talks prospered. But the dialogue with the Palestinians has proven fruitless. In the aftermath of October 7 and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, the question arises anew whether the time has come for the international community to put greater weight behind resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict, which remains a key driver of regional instability.

The Madrid Conference

In building the coalition to defeat Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Bush administration recognized a political need to address Arab frustration over the lack of progress in ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They were able to overcome Israeli objections and win agreement on a conference aimed at securing agreements to end conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, including the Palestinians, while also addressing the broader elements of the conflict. In President Bush’s words, “the time has come to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”1

The conference was divided into two parallel tracks. The first track brought together Israeli delegations with counterpart Syrian, Lebanese, and joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegations in bilateral negotiations. A second, multilateral track bringing together Israelis with Arab delegations, minus the Syrians and Lebanese, as well as international participants commenced in early 1992 in Moscow. The second track aimed at promoting regional cooperation on five core issues: water, environment, arms control, refugees, and economic development.

Despite the hope that U.S. leadership in partnership with the Soviet Union could bring the parties together, the bilateral tracks, which continued meeting in Washington after the Madrid plenary, failed to make significant progress and were ultimately abandoned. Of the five multilateral issues, as well, only the water discussions, which produced the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC), continues its work through the MEDRC headquarters in Muscat, Oman. Nevertheless, the talks did lay the foundation for the secret Oslo process that produced the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, or Oslo Accords, in September 1993, as well as the Israel-Jordan peace agreement, the Wadi Arabah agreement, signed in October 1994.

The Focus Shifts to Bilateral Negotiations

With the format of the Madrid Conference stalemated, the newly installed Rabin government in Israel turned to secret negotiations with the PLO under Norwegian auspices.

The two agreements reached under the Oslo rubric, Oslo I signed in Washington in 1993, and Oslo II signed in Egypt in 1995, respectively resulted in Palestinian recognition of Israel and Israeli recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinian people, formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and transfer to Palestinian control of some areas of occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet a key component of the agreements, a five-year timeline to resolve “final-status” issues, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, and refugees, failed. Although the U.S. strove to help the two sides bridge differences and sustain the Oslo process, notably with the Hebron Protocol in 1997, the Wye River agreement in 1998, and the Camp David summit in 2000, the parties did not come to agreement on any of the final-status issues. Moreover, the bilateral process ended acrimoniously after the Camp David summit failed, with the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, and the election of Ariel Sharon as Israeli prime minister the following year. Sharon quickly ended the negotiation process. As concluded by the State Department, Office of the Historian, “by the end of 2000, the prospect of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict looked more distant than it had eight years earlier. The Clinton administration had helped facilitate Israeli-Jordanian peace and lay the foundations for Palestinian self-rule. More broadly, the negotiations of the 1990s helped Israel, the Palestinians, and Syria break with numerous diplomatic taboos and establish a basis for what a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace might look like. But a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict remained elusive.”2

Failure of Multilateral and Bilateral Negotiations to Promote New Solutions

After decades of unsuccessful attempts to mediate Israeli-Palestinian differences and achieve a just and sustainable solution for both, regional states stepped forward and proposed their own initiatives.

The Arab Peace Initiative

With Israeli-Palestinian negotiations effectively abandoned since Ariel Sharon’s election in 2001, and by the subsequent Israeli Governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Arab League tabled its own peace proposal in 2002, under the sponsorship of the late Saudi King Abdullah. The Arab Peace Initiative (API) offered full normalization of Arab-Israeli relations following the successful conclusion of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a “just settlement” of the refugee issue.3 Endorsed and reaffirmed by the full Arab League at its meetings in 2002, 2007, and 2017, the proposal elicited little Israeli response until it was finally rejected by Netanyahu. In particular, Netanyahu reportedly objected to the API demand that Israel return to the 1967 borders with territorial adjustments.4 Nevertheless, with some modification, the proposal remains the basis for negotiations over a possible Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement that could ultimately serve as the pillar of a final-status agreement.

The Abraham Accords

With the Israeli-Palestinian track frozen and Israelis increasingly asserting that the conflict was no longer of significance, the Arab-Israeli focus shifted in 2020 to what has been dubbed as the Trump administration’s “outside-in” approach.5 The administration posited that normalization agreements between Israel and moderate Arab states would increase pressure on the Palestinians to adjust their negotiating position. With significant inducements from the U.S., four Arab states — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan (which has not moved forward with its agreement since the country has descended into civil conflict) — announced that they would establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Although often billed as “peace treaties,” the Abraham Accords are in fact de jure agreements among states that already had low-key de facto relations with Israel, did not share borders with Israel, had no outstanding claims in either direction, and had never taken up arms against the other. Nevertheless, the agreements were widely celebrated as substantial achievements that foretold of full Israeli integration into the region even in the absence of a resolution of the Palestinian conflict.

The Trump administration approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict was broadly rejected by the Palestinians. Following the 2020 election, they hoped that the Biden administration would take steps to reverse Trump’s policies and refocus on advancing the Israel-Palestine peace process. Once in office, however, Biden opted to downplay possible Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in favor of continuing to promote normalization agreements, focusing on the ultimate objective of a Saudi-Israeli deal.

Although the Saudis and Israelis were nearing agreement on normalization, Israel’s military operations in Gaza have undermined the central premise of the Abraham Accords that the Palestinian issue had been essentially “decided” and that the larger Arab world was ready to accept Israeli integration without addressing the Palestinian issue. In fact, the strong support for the Palestinian cause among Arab and Muslim populations has underscored the continued centrality of the Palestine issue for most Arabs.

Why Did Bilateral Approaches Fail?

The United States

In his excellent new book The Art of Diplomacy, Stuart Eizenstat opens the section on the Middle East by declaring: “The United States has played an essential role as a mediator and facilitator in the Middle East, a role for which it is uniquely positioned — not because it is neutral, but because its close economic, military, and political relationship with Israel makes it the only nation that can influence Israel.”6 Eizenstat is reflecting, of course, the conventional wisdom repeated reflexively over decades by diplomats, politicians, pundits, and analysts. In the instance of negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, equal sovereign states, the U.S. role may well have been as described. But in the three-plus decades since the Oslo I Accord was signed on the White House lawn, the failure of U.S. diplomacy, especially its inability to press Israel to make serious concessions for peace, has been a key reason for the parties’ inability to resolve differences.

In fact, by arrogating to the U.S. the role of sole mediator between Israelis and Palestinians, successive administrations have set themselves up for an impossible straddle as both the facilitator of a political process and as Israel’s leading lawyer, defender, and sponsor. As Dr. James Zogby wrote in his 2023 paper for the Arab American Institute, How the U.S. Failed Oslo: “Many problems were at the core of this failure … First and foremost was the obvious asymmetry of power between the Israelis and Palestinians … The ‘Authority’ that the PLO was to establish had no real authority or power — and it was, at every turn, dependent on Israel for its ability to survive … The Israelis, on the other hand, had full military control over a captive population … And so, as Israel continued to impose its will on the occupied lands, all the Palestinians could do was appeal to an unresponsive U.S. … Still, it was the problems posed by the U.S. that proved decisive, and not in a good way.”7

In his own analysis, Aaron David Miller, a leading member of the U.S. “peace team,” concurs with Zogby. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Miller noted that “neither Rabin nor Arafat wanted Americans in on the substance … And so, in the early years, … Washington’s role was limited to hosting signing ceremonies, rallying donors, and playing firefighter at critical points when negotiations reached a crisis … What the United States didn’t — and couldn’t — do, largely because of Israel’s objections, was create the one thing that might have actually given the Oslo process durability: a monitoring mechanism to hold each side to the commitments they had made and, if necessary, impose costs for a breach.”8 “From Oslo on,” Miller continues, “Americans … essentially acted as Israel’s lawyer. What this meant in practice was a disposition favoring Israel on process, substance, tight coordination, and no surprises.”9

Complicating the errors of administrations, U.S. domestic politics further undermined the credibility of U.S. facilitation of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As Dr. Zogby noted: “The passive, or sometimes negative, role played by the U.S. ‘peace team’ was compounded by the obstructionist role played by the U.S. Congress.”10 Over the thirty-plus years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, successive Congresses have passed, often with bipartisan support, legislation that has undermined U.S. efforts to pursue more evenhanded policies in support of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, restricted assistance to Palestinian organizations or international organizations like UNRWA that aid Palestinians, threatened to sanction diplomatic and nonviolent means to challenge Israeli policies, supported Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and, since October 7, 2023, pressed legislation that would criminalize anti-Israeli protests and equate criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism.

Israelis and Palestinians

Within the Israeli-Palestinian context as well, developments over the past quarter-century have further undermined the potential for successful negotiations to resolve the conflict. Palestinians have increasingly ceased support for the PA, viewing it as corrupt, ineffective, unable to deliver political, economic, or security benefits to its people, and broadly seen as an instrument of Israeli policy in oppressing Palestinians. Dissatisfaction with the PA has also sapped popular support for the two-state solution. The failure of the PA to advance or defend Palestinian interests contributed to the rise of Hamas and its election victory in 2006, followed by the ejection of PA officials from Gaza in 2007. The absence of a unified Palestinian voice advocating for both the West Bank and Gaza has hampered negotiations since then.

At the same time, Israeli society and politics have shifted increasingly to the right, promoting an increasingly messianic vision of “Greater Israel” that dismisses Palestinian legitimacy and denies the need to negotiate a two-state solution. Senior members of the current Israeli Government have expressed support for Israeli annexation of the OPT and transfer of the Palestinian population.11 For his part, Prime Minister Netanyahu has acknowledged that his tenure in office has been characterized by bad faith negotiations with the Palestinians, including promoting support for Hamas as an instrument to undermine Palestinian unity. As Avi Shlaim wrote in The Guardian, “Oslo faltered and eventually broke down because Likud-led governments negotiated in bad faith. This turned the much-vaunted peace process into a charade. In fact, it was worse than a charade: it provided Israel with just the cover it was looking for to continue to pursue with impunity its illegal and aggressive colonial project on the West Bank.”12 “Everyone knows,” Netanyahu declared in a video statement, according to The Times of Israel, “that I am the one who for decades blocked the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger our existence.”13 He added that “no matter what, Israel will maintain full security control over all territory west of the Jordan River.”14

The Return of Multilateralism

After more than three decades of failed efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli dispute through both multilateral and bilateral mechanisms, analysts have come full circle to recognize that only through the engagement of the international community can negotiations between the parties end in a final-status agreement. The traumatic events of October 7 and the subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza have once again focused international attention on the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a core driver of regional instability as well as an enduring tragedy for the Palestinian people and a constant threat to Israelis.15 Moreover, as the West focuses on the human cost of Russia’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine, many in the so-called Global South are drawing parallels to the human cost of the international community’s prolonged failure to achieve justice for the Palestinian people. President Biden acknowledged that broad international concern speaking to reporters in late October, noting that “when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next, and in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.”16

Reviving an international approach to ending the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot mean returning to the Madrid format, of course. Conditions are far different today than in 1991. The fundamental political, economic, and security structure of the Middle East has been altered. Despite the current level of frustration among Arab populations over the Gaza conflict, Israel is no longer isolated in the region. Four Arab countries have followed Egypt and established formal diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, and a number of others have de facto relations. Israel is now included in the U.S. Central Command, and Israeli military officers coordinate on regional security issues with their Arab counterparts. Israeli civilian aircraft overfly Arabian Peninsula airspace on their way to the east, and Israelis visit popular tourist destinations throughout the region. Thus, the Madrid I vision of regional collaboration, with Israel as a full participant, in cross-cutting economic, social, and environmental issues is no longer a dream.

Resolution of the core Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also become, if anything, more complex than it was before Madrid or the establishment of a formal diplomatic channel for negotiations at Oslo. Thirty-plus years of fruitless dialogue, hardening positions, violence on both sides, and the strengthening of extremist elements have left both Palestinians and Israelis cynical and despairing of hopes for a peaceful resolution of their conflict. But recent polls suggest most Palestinians and Israelis remain favorable to a two-state solution, if somewhat less so for Israelis.17 Israeli acceptance of a two-state solution is particularly notable as October 7 has empowered Israeli right-wing politicians to declare openly what was previously left unsaid: They will not negotiate for an independent Palestinian state.18 Moreover, the U.S., which had been at the peak of its regional and global power and influence in the immediate aftermath of its victory in the first Gulf War, is now diminished, distracted, and less credible as an intermediary between the two sides.

Moreover, the Government of Israel, especially if it remains in the hands of the current Netanyahu administration, will almost certainly oppose a return to an international framework for negotiations, fearful that such a conference would isolate Israel and be overwhelmingly supportive of the Palestinian cause. The U.S. may be equally wary of the idea for similar reasons.

But not all the changes in conditions militate against an international approach. The October 7 Hamas terror attack and the subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza have discredited any suggestion that the Palestinian cause “doesn’t matter anymore” and renewed international demands for a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, unlike the Madrid I Conference, the Arab states are not only at the table but are significant players who can fundamentally alter the dynamics of the negotiations. Thus, not only the five Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel but other critical participants, especially Saudi Arabia, are essential for successful negotiations. The presence of Arab governments committed to enabling an Israel-Palestine final-status agreement can help balance the political and diplomatic scales between the Israelis and Palestinians. Their willingness to sign on to any agreement that emerges from an international conference is even more critical, as they will be essential partners in a post-resolution program to strengthen Palestinian governance, security, and economic development.

Conclusion

This may be the best and, perhaps, the last opportunity to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians through negotiations. While conditions within both the Israeli and Palestinian bodies politic are unpromising, the trauma of October 7 and its aftermath have made clear that the status quo is unsustainable and that the need to provide for Palestinian self-determination is not going to disappear. The international community, especially the Arab world, is more focused on resolving the conflict. Support for negotiations is at its highest point, certainly since Oslo and maybe even since Madrid. To achieve progress, a number of things must happen:

• Israelis and Palestinians alike need to empower leaders who are ready and able to negotiate in good faith and find lasting solutions to problems;

• The U.S. remains the single convening power that can bring the parties together and so, while it should accept a multilateral format for the negotiations, it must press what will undoubtedly be a resistant Israeli Government to attend;

• The Arab states, especially the five that have formal diplomatic relations with Israel plus Saudi Arabia, need to make clear that resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a nonnegotiable requirement for their relations with Israel as well as their political and financial support to Gaza reconstruction; and

• The broader international community, particularly the P-5, must add its weight to reconvening an international conference.

None of these requirements will be easy to meet, but the alternative is a continuation of the cycle of violence that’s persisted for over 75 years and will only grow more lethal over time.

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1 The Madrid Conference, 1991, Milestones: 1989-1992, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.

2 The Oslo Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process, Milestones: 1993-2000, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.

3 Official Translation of the full text of a Saudi-Inspired Peace Plan Adopted by the Arab Summit in Beirut, March 28, 2002, www.unsco.unmissions.org.

4 Ravid, Barak, Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Accept Arab Peace Initiative as Basis for Talks with Palestinians, Haaretz, June 13, 2016.

5 Fisher, Ian and Ben Hubbard, Trump’s Shift to “Outside-In” Strategy for Mideast Peace is a Long Shot, New York Times, Feb. 14, 2017.

6 Eizenstat, Stuart, The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World, Roman & Littlefield, 2024, p.79.

7 Zogby, James, How the U.S. Failed Oslo, Arab-American Institute, September 18, 2023.

8 Miller, Aaron David, Why the Oslo Peace Process Failed, Foreign Policy, September 13, 2023.

9 ibid

10 op. cit.

11 Sfard, Michael, Smotrich Has Completed Israel’s Annexation of the West Bank, Haaretz, July 11, 2024.

12 Shalom, Avi, It’s Now Clear: the Oslo Peace Accords Were Wrecked by Netanyahu’s Bad Faith, The Guardian, September 12, 2013.

13 TOI Staff, Netanyahu Boasts of Thwarting the Establishment of a Palestinian State For Decades, The Times of Israel, February 20, 2024.

14 ibid.

15 Secretary General Underscores Two-State Solution Only Way to End Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, One-State Formula Inconceivable, in Day-Long Debate, UN Press Release, Jan. 23, 2024.

16 Crowley, Michael, Biden Found Even Modest Israel-Palestinian Peace Steps Impossible, New York Times, Nov. 1, 2023.

17 Irwin, Colin, As International Support for an Independent Palestine Grows, Here’s What Israelis and Palestinians Now Think of the Two-State Solution, The Conversation, May 22, 2024.

18 TOI Staff, Ministers Rule Out Palestinian State After Biden Says Netanyahu Could Allow It, The Times of Israel, January 21, 2024.