ABSTRACT
The character, conduct, and focus of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and the ways the participants perceived themselves and others, have altered significantly in the course of the past seven decades since 1947. At first, following the wars of 1967 and 1973, the UN Security Council—in Resolutions 242 and 338—contented itself with broad and ambiguous resolutions concerning the settlement of the conflict, referring only to the existing states and calling for a solution to the refugee problem. The Arab states continued to oppose Israel's presence, especially its occupation of territories captured in the 1967 war. In late 1988, however, as a result of the new conditions created by the Intifada and Hussein's renunciation of claims to the West Bank, Arafat for the first time endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The 1991 Gulf War briefly distracted the players in the Arab–Israeli conflict, but it had important consequences.
