Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- 1 More Important than Other Conflicts
- 2 1967–79: A ‘Marvellous Opportunity’ Opens Up for the EC’s Emerging Foreign Policy
- 3 1980–91: Forward-thinking on the Long Road to Oslo
- 4 1991–2000: Peace through Regional Cooperation
- 5 2000–9: The Israeli–Arab Conflict in the 9/11 Era
- 6 2009–19: Upholding the Sacred Flame of the Two-state Solution
- 7 Conclusions: The Past Fifty Years – and the Next?
- References to the Bulletin
- References to EU Declarations, Press Releases and Other Publications
- References to Other Literature
- Coding Schedule
- Index
4 - 1991–2000: Peace through Regional Cooperation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- 1 More Important than Other Conflicts
- 2 1967–79: A ‘Marvellous Opportunity’ Opens Up for the EC’s Emerging Foreign Policy
- 3 1980–91: Forward-thinking on the Long Road to Oslo
- 4 1991–2000: Peace through Regional Cooperation
- 5 2000–9: The Israeli–Arab Conflict in the 9/11 Era
- 6 2009–19: Upholding the Sacred Flame of the Two-state Solution
- 7 Conclusions: The Past Fifty Years – and the Next?
- References to the Bulletin
- References to EU Declarations, Press Releases and Other Publications
- References to Other Literature
- Coding Schedule
- Index
Summary
The future will show that he was right … May his example remain the inspiration for those who will persist on the path to lasting peace in the Middle East. By doing so, they will pay the strongest tribute to Prime Minister Rabin's achievement. They can count on the strong and continuing support of the European Union. (Jacques Santer, President of the European Commission, quoted in Bulletin of the EU 11-1995: 81)
The Oslo peace process was a period of great hope and perhaps even bigger frustrations for all parties involved in the Israeli–Arab conflict, including for the EC/EU. Six major and several minor agreements were signed between Israel and the PLO during the Oslo peace process of the 1990s: the 1993 Declaration of Principles (DoP), the 1994 Gaza–Jericho Agreement, the 1995 Oslo II Agreement, the 1997 Hebron Protocol, the 1998 Wye River Agreement and the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. In retrospect, it is clear that these were not real peace agreements: rather, they were agreements of intent, interim agreements or agreements on implementing previous agreements, on the way to a full-scale agreement. This however, did not stop the EC and later the EU from describing some of them, at the time when they were signed, as more than they were, or at least came to be. While the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was always at the heart of the Oslo peace process, it is almost forgotten today that the peace process of the 1990s also had a Jordanian, a Syrian, a Lebanese, and a multilateral track, of which only the Jordanian was successful. From the beginning of the peace process, the EC emphasized ‘the need for interregional cooperation to help make the peace process irreversible’ (Bulletin of the EC 9-1993: 57). The Commission also underlined the need for outside third parties to support the peace process, ‘particularly the Community, which could have a major role to play because of its geopolitical situation, its close links with all the parties concerned and its own experience of regional cooperation’ (Bulletin of the EC 9-1993: 58). The spirit of the time was indeed regional cooperation in what was often at the time referred to as ‘the new Middle East’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- EU Diplomacy and Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967–2019 , pp. 70 - 96Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020