The Oslo Accords marked one of the first times a peaceful agreement between Israeli and Palestinian governing bodies seemed feasible. Although the agreement reached by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat ultimately fell apart, the diplomatic event marked a moment of agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Many people living in the region, as well as global onlookers, hoped that the negotiations would prompt a new era of reduced violence and relative cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
While this disagreement has been playing out for hundreds of years, its’ transition to a global conflict mostly took place in the past few decades, prompting diplomatic negotiations and alliances worldwide. Throughout this, the US has maintained an acute interest in this conflict, and has intervened on numerous occasions.
Motivations for U.S. intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has changed due to shifts in ideologies of individual presidents, balance of global power during and after the Cold War, fear of communism, maintaining access to oil, and fear of religious extremism. In many cases, decisions about US-Israeli/Palestinian foreign policy were specifically influenced by American interests and politics.
This website’s primary objective is to educate readers on the American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This website will encourage readers to analyze the ways in which the US intervened and the effects those interventions had on American society as well as on the conflict and the region as a whole. You can explore the events that led up to the Oslo Accords, the accords themselves, and their aftermath. The website is split into sections based off of presidential eras.
In the period from President Eisenhower to part way through President Nixon’s administration, the primary motivation for US intervention was to preserve peace in the region, particularly between Israel and Egypt, while not ending up at odds with oil producing nations in the Middle East. However, that was sometimes compromised when Cold War politics flared up via the conflict in the Middle East.
From 1973 to 1993 the motivations behind U.S. foreign policy in Israel and the Middle East shifted from a fear of Soviet influence and communism to a fear of Islamic supremacism and terrorism. The United States’ reliance on oil from the Middle East and an interest in maintaining peace led to a balancing act between their allyship with Israel and maintaining friendly relationships with the surrounding countries.
The H.W. Bush- W. Bush page allows one to explore the Oslo Accords and party polarization surrounding American intervention into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Specifically, on this page you will be able to look at the language of the Accords, and the language used by the American, Israeli, and Palestinian governments to describe the Accords. Additionally, on this page you can find information on how different Administrations have addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and how those differences have enhanced the polarization we see in American politics.
The W. Bush – Obama page contrasts the overall policy decisions of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in regards to Israeli-Palestinian foreign policy. This page also examines pivotal moments within the two terms during which US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relations took sudden and dramatic turns.
