A New Regional Approach toward the Israeli–Palestinian Peace Process

Abstract

There are two principal reasons behind the lack of success in reaching a final peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, namely, the malfunctioning negotiations’ framework from one side and the complexity of the negotiated issues from the other. This article is mainly addressing the bilateral framework’s flaws when it comes to the Oslo accords and the way the two negotiating parties have perceived them. It is an attempt to overhaul the existing Oslo peace process and not to create a new one. Oslo process has become entrenched over more than twenty years of different practices and legal realities. The article is also introducing a negotiating framework that combines the benefits of a multilateral regional track to the Oslo process aiming to redress the latent structural flaws. It is intended not to tackle the final status issues, as there is a plethora of literature doing so. The extensive focus on those complicated issues without redressing the process’ structural flaws has led partially to the current stalemate. The role of any mediator or external partner is not to solve those issues on behalf of the principal parties, but to work on the negotiating framework and the process itself.