Reasons Why The Oslo Peace Process Of The 1990s Failed To Deliver The Essay

Reasons Why The Oslo Peace Process Of The 1990s Failed To Deliver The Promise Of A Lasting Peace Between Israel And The Palestinians - Essay Example However, the Oslo process collapsed unexpectedly resulting in extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conflict between Israel and Palestine continues to draw more attention from different countries and international organizations. The conflict has been in existence for quite a long period irrespective of the many attempts to resolve the issue. As time goes, the situation becomes worse due to the increasing violence and despair. Moreover, international organizations appear to be despairing and hopes that peace will be restored in Middle East are fading. By the end of 19th century, two opposing nationalistic movements were born in Middle East. One movement was born amongst the Jews while the other movement was borne amongst the Arabs. Each of the two groups intended to attain sovereignty for their people. With time, the two groups started conflicting which initiated the Israeli Palestinian conflict, which is at times viewed as a conflict between Arabs and Israelites. The Osl o accords were officially signed on September 13, 1993 between the government of Israel and the PLO. The singing was done in Washington, DC following months of negotiations. This paper focuses on the reasons why the Oslo Peace Process of the 1990s failed to deliver the promise of a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Overview of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict It has been more than 50 years since the State of Israel was established. Ever since then, Israel and Palestine have been in recurring conflicts. The conflict between Israel and Palestine started in the 19th Century. In 1967, Israel occupied Gaza and West Bank, which resulted in aggressiveness between the Jews and Palestinians. With time, the Jews continued to settle in the disputed land. The settlement was characterized by massive constructions on the disputed territory. The Palestinians reacted by forming a resistant movement referred to as Intifada (sdonline 2011). The movement was involved in aggres sive activities such as stone throwing and was mainly located in the Gaza strip as well as West Bank. This was followed by numerous skirmishes between the Israelites and Palestinians. Eventually, there was an outbreak of the intifada. Israel tried to curb the confrontations by using its army to punish Palestinian protesters resisting occupation of Palestinian land by the Jews settlers. As the confrontations intensified, PLO and other Palestinians in the Diaspora felt the need for restoration of peace between Israel and Palestine to end the conflicts (Rynhold 2008; Rabie 2007-2012; Rynhold 2009). In around 1990, U.S. was interested in the several conflicts within the Middle East including the Israel Palestinian conflict. US wanted a peace conference between the warring Arab countries, an Idea that was rejected by Yitzhak Shamir, the Israel Prime minister. The US government continued to pressure Israel and a conference was eventually held on 30 October 1991. The conference is popularl y known as the Madrid Conference. The US president George Bush Sr. together with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet President, facilitated it. Nonetheless, Palestinian was force to form a joint delegation with Jordan for them to attend this conference. Later on, Rabin replaced Shamir as the Israel Prime minister. However, the conflict between Israel and Palestine was far from being settled (Rynhold 2009). The Oslo Accord signed in 1993 was the first face-to-face accord ever signed between the