Conclusion

Abstract

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Arab-Israeli peace process has made significant advances. Although the elimination of the Soviet-US superpower confrontation contributed to this progress, a more immediate catalyst was the comprehensive defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990–1. In the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait, the United States exerted substantial diplomatic and political efforts to persuade and cajole Israel and the Arab states to return to the negotiating table. The culmination of these efforts, promoted energetically by the US Secretary of State James Baker, was the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference in October 1991 where Israel and the principal Arab states committed themselves to an ongoing peace process. At the conference, a number of bilateral and multilateral Israeli-Arab negotiating bodies were established to promote a full and comprehensive solution of the fundamental causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict.