Peace Part 2: 1994-2020

1994 Wadi Araba Peace Treaty

In 1994, Israel and Jordan negotiated a peace treaty, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein and Bill Clinton in Washington, DC on 25 July 1994. The Washington Declaration says that Israel and Jordan ended the official state of enmity and would start negotiations to achieve an "end to bloodshed and sorrow" and a just and lasting peace. The treaty adjusted land and water disputes, and provided for broad cooperation in tourism and trade. It also included a pledge that neither Jordan nor Israel would allow its territory to become a staging ground for military strikes by a third country. The treaty was closely linked to efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.Following the agreements, Israel and Jordan opened their borders. Several border-crossings were erected, allowing tourists, businessmen and workers to travel between the two countries. Israeli tourists started to visit Jordan, and many foreign tourists would combine visits to both countries.

The text of this treaty can be found here.

Here is a reflection, 25 years on, remembering the path to peace for Jordan and Israel.

In the wake of the current war between Israel and Gaza, Jordan has announced it will be reviewing its various agreements with Israel, including this one.

2000 Camp David Summit

The 2000 Camp David summit, attended by Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat, was meant to be the culmination of the Oslo peace process. At Camp David, the parties were to begin negotiations on the final peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. However, the summit failed with the parties unable to reconcile their differences.

The fate of large Jewish population centers, the status of East Jerusalem, and control of several religious sites holy to both Judaism and Islam, proved especially contentious. Several proposals were made delineating potential boundaries for the future state but none proved acceptable to both parties. The Jewish Virtual Library has compiled a set of maps detailing the various Camp David proposals.

Another major sticking point was the Palestinian right of return. The Palestinians claimed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their historic homes within Israel. Israel refused the right, with certain humanitarian exceptions, claiming that the new Palestinian nation should be responsible for settling the refugees.

Here is an article in favor, and an article against, the right of return for Palestinians. The Brookings Institute has published an analysis of the Palestinian refugee problem with useful background.

Finally, a variety of Israeli proposals including Israeli-controlled roads throughout the territory, insistence on Palestinian demilitarization and others proved impossible for the Palestinian delegation to accept.

Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s then envoy to the Middle East and one of the US representatives to Camp David recounts many of these details in his book. It is reviewed with relevant excerpts by the New York Times.

The three parties to the summit (Israel, The PLO and the US) issued a terse trilateral statement at the end of the summit, recognizing the failure.

2014 Abbas Proposal

The 2013-2014 Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were initiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. They began in July 2013 with a nine-month timeline. Initial compromises included the Palestinian Authority agreeing to delay their own international recognition, and Israel committing to the release of Palestinian prisoners. Major challenges included disagreements over Israeli settlements, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and the release of Palestinian prisoners. In November 2013, the Palestinian team resigned due to Israeli settlement construction, though efforts to salvage the talks continued into 2014. Tensions heightened further with Israel's failure to release a scheduled fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners in March 2014, claiming that the Palestinian Authority planned to abandon the peace talks immediately after their release. In April 2014, Israel announced plans for new settlement construction, further straining the talks. Leading up to the collapse of the peace talks, the formation of a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas in April 2014 prompted Israel to halt the peace talks, asserting it would not negotiate with a government involving Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization. The aftermath witnessed the collapse of the peace talks, with international blame assigned to both sides.

Detailed overviews of the 2013-2014 peace talks can be found in this Wikipedia article, and from The Chatham House, a British international affairs think tank.

In March 2015, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Center for a New American Security held a discussion with Ilan Goldenberg, the chief of staff to the U.S. special envoy during these talks, which focused on the lessons learned in the aftermath of these negotiations. Ilan Goldenberg’s detailed report can be found here, including mention of the devastating consequences of halting peace talks:

2020 Abraham Accords

Former US President Donald Trump brokered an agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The result of the accords was to improve commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and these countries. Israel's initial agreement with the United Arab Emirates marked the first instance of Israel establishing diplomatic relations with an Arab country since 1994, when the Israel–Jordan peace treaty came into effect. After the agreement with Bahrain, relations were normalized between Israel and Sudan, and Israel and Morocco.

Here’s the text of the agreement, from the US State Department.

The financial benefits are detailed in this report from the Abraham Accords Peace Institute.

A little over a year ago, the Middle East Institute published this analysis of the progress since the signing.

This very recent piece appeared in Time Magazine, arguing that it’s time to cancel the Abraham Accords.

Just before the events of October 7, this article in Al-Jazeera considered the benefits from the UAE perspective.