After the first Gulf crisis, Secretary of State James Baker renewed his efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute in 1991.[1] The framework for settlements between Israel and their neighboring Arab Nation states had previously gained traction with Israeli assistance to Lebanon, as well as talks between Anwar al-Sadad of Egypt and Menachen Begin of Israel at Camp David in 1978, but had been stalled due to lingering disagreements, semantic disputes and continued violence in the region.[2] Arab States including Syria desired negotiations with Israel overseen by both the United States and the Soviet Union, specifically for the return of the Golen Heights.[3] PLO representatives were not allowed to attend the meetings, but Palestinian individuals abroad and from the territories were allowed to attend as part of the Jordanian delegation.[4] At the Madrid Conference between the years of 1991 and 1993, Israel met with delegates from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (including Palestinians).[5] As terrorism, retaliation and increasing violence continued on the West Bank and the Gaza strip especially, groups like the Islamic Jihad and Hamas formed under the outrage of the Intifada.[6] These groups maintained the position that peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors was not possible, only armed resistance could free Palestine, where – instead of the secular democratic state advocated by the PLO – an Islamic state could be established in Israel’s place.[7] The insistence of an Islamic holy war to destroy Israel and to begin an Islamic state advocated by Hamas put them at odds with Arab Nation states who still desired to negotiate peace agreements that acknowledged and recognized the existence of the State of Israel, and put them at odds with the PLO, which had almost moved to obscurity.[8]
[1] Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017), 417.
[2] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 352.
[3] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 417.
[4] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 418.
[5] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 419.
[6] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 403.
[7] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 405.
[8] Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 410.
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