The Significance of the Madrid Peace Conference 1991 in the Arab-Israeli Conflict Settlement

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the studying of the Madrid Peace Conference significance in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict settlement. The end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s had a huge impact on the system of international relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict as well. The US an the USSR both worked together to gather Israelis an Arabs in one place for the purpose of negotiating. Thus they took part in the Madrid Peace Conference 1991. From the beginning Israeli position was more strong than Arabs one mainly because of the American bias in favor of Israel. Meanwhile, the USSR was on the edge of collapse and couldn’t organize a comprehensive support for Arabs as Soviets did it before. Furthermore, each sides tried to lead the process of negotiations in their favor because both the Arabs and the Israelis expected different results of this conference. In the end, all participants were fed up with pointless discussions. Multilateral track of negotiations brought nothing. The same went with bilateral tracks. To sum it up, the «Madrid formula» of negotiations didn’t fulfill the expectations. But at the same time, it prepared the base of further secret negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians in Oslo. Thus broking psychological barriers between these two sides was the main goal of the Madrid Peace Conference 1991.