Agreements and attempts at peace

SINCE OCTOBER 7, the Palestinian Hamas and Israel have been trading fire in the latest episode of the 75-year-old Palestinian Israeli conflict over land to which both sides are making claim. There has been much bombing, bloodshed, loss of life, and carnage, and the world is calling for ceasefire and peace, once again.

Attempts at peace have been made through agreements and treaties over the years but, despite the signatures and handshakes, wars and rumours of war have made the region, the ‘Holy Land’, one of the most dangerous places in the world. And a resolution, it seems, will not be attained anytime soon.

In the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel defeated the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and their supporters, it captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The number of war casualties was estimated to be between 15,000 and 25,000.

On September 1, 1967, the Khartoum Resolution was issued at the Arab Summit in which eight Arab countries adopted the ‘Three Nos’ – No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel. Yet, on November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, the ‘land for peace’ formula, which has been the starting point for further negotiations. And November 22, 1974 saw the United Nations General Assembly adopting Resolution 3236, which recognised the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, among other things.

On September 17, 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, at Camp David in Maryland, USA, signed the Camp David Accord in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace and a framework for future negotiation over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They were brought together by United States President Jimmy Carter.

It was the first-ever peace treaty between the Arabs and the Israelis, in return for peace with Egypt, including full political and economic ties. Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula and remove its settlements there. Sadat was under pressure to advance the Palestinian cause in this negotiation but, in the end, the matter was not broached. The following year, on March 26, Egypt became the first Arab country to recognise Israel officially.

On August 20, 1993, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government in Oslo, Norway. By this time, the violence from the uprisings had claimed the lives of 1162 Palestinians and 160 Israelis. It was a secret meeting by Israeli representatives and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by Arafat, which agreed to recognise Israel’s right to exist, in return for a phased withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin agreed to a five-year programme leading to the recreation of a Palestinian state in Jericho, and most of the Gaza Strip was shifted to Palestinian self-rule while Israel retained control of the rest.

With mediation provided by the United States, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed by Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, in October 26, 1994. On December 10, the same year, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

On September 28, 1995, an interim agreement, known as Oslo II, on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, was signed in Washington, DC against the backdrop of rising militancy on all sides. On November 4, 1995, Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli Jew named Yigal Amir, who opposed Rabin’s peace initiatives, particularly the signing of the Oslo accords.

In 1997, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to begin negotiations on the permanent status agreement to be completed by May 4, 1999. And, in 1998, on October 23, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Wye River Memorandum at a summit in Maryland hosted by Bill Clinton. The sides agreed on steps to facilitate implementation of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip of September 28, 1995 and other related agreements.

In 2000 at the second Camp David meeting, Palestinian Authority leader Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack met with President Clinton at Camp David, hoping for a breakthrough in negotiations, but the talks failed to produce an agreement.

In January 2001, both sides met with the US in Taba, Egypt to consider a plan that would have given Palestinians a state and Israel six per cent of the West Bank for a reduced number of settlements. Although the two sides came closer than before, they could not come to any agreement. Two weeks later, Barack lost an election and President Clinton’s term of office ended.

On September 12, 2005, as part of its completion of its unilateral disengagement plan, Israel removed all Jewish settlements, many Bedouin communities, and military equipment from the Gaza Strip. At the November 27, 2007 Annapolis peace conference in the US, for the first time, a two-state solution (Israel and Palestine co-existing in peace and security) was proposed as the mutually agreed-upon outline for addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conference ended with the issuing of a joint statement from all parties.

The US played the mediator’s role again, on September 2, 2010, when it initiated direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Washington, DC. There were more direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including those that concluded in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on September 14, 2010.

The current war has been going on for three weeks, and the bombardment of Gaza continues relentlessly, despite much international pressure on Israel, which is still smarting from Hamas’ breach of its Iron Dome defence system. Hamas, too, it seems, is not backing down, in light of the sporadic missiles it has been projecting towards Israel.