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The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict and America's Contributuion

Introduction

The peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken shape over the years, despite the ongoing violence in the Middle East and an "all or nothing" attitude about a lasting peace, "which prevailed for most of the twentieth century". Since the 1970s there has been a parallel effort made to find terms upon which peace can be agreed to in both the Arab-Israeli conflict and in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Some countries have signed peace treaties, such as the Egypt-Israel (1979) and Jordan-Israel (1994) treaties, whereas some have not yet found a mutual basis to do so.

The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict and America's Contributuion

Sometime in the mid-1970s the term peace process began widely used to describe the American-led efforts to bring about a negotiated peace between Israel and its neighbors. The phrase stuck, and ever since it has been synonymous with the gradual, step-by-step approach to resolving one of the world's most difficult conflicts. “In the years since 1967 the emphasis in Washington has shifted from the spelling out of the ingredients of 'peace' to the 'process' of getting there. … Much of US legitimate hypothesis spotlights on how issues should be determined - the process - rather than on substance - what should be done” (Arthur, 2008, 69). The United States has provided both a sense of direction and a mechanism. That, at its best, is what the peace process has been about. At worst, it has been little more than a slogan used to mask the marking of time.

Palestinians have held diverse views and perceptions of the peace process. A key starting point for understanding these views is an awareness of the differing objectives sought by advocates of the Palestinian cause. 'New Historian' Israeli academic Ilan Pappe says the cause of the conflict from a Palestinian point of view dates back to 1948 with the creation of Israel (rather than Israel's views of 1967 being the crucial point and the return of occupied territories being central to peace negotiations), and that the conflict has been a fight to bring home refugees to a Palestinian state (Lazear, 99).

Therefore this for some was the ultimate aim of the peace process and for groups such as Hamas still is. However Slater says that this 'maximalist' view of a destruction of Israel in order to regain Palestinian lands, a view held by Arafat and the PLO initially, has steadily moderated from the late 1960s onwards to a preparedness to negotiate and instead seek a two-state solution. The Oslo Accords demonstrated the recognition of this acceptance by the then Palestinian leadership of the state of Israel's right to exist in return for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Though there are repeated themes widespread all through serenity sequence negotiations together with a feeling that Israel offers too little and a mistrust of its actions and motives. Yet, the demand for the "Right of Return" (ROR) by descendants of Palestinian refugees to ...