ABSTRACT
Introduction The end of the Cold War gave rise to great hopes and expectations that the establishment of a new political order in the Middle East based on peaceful coexistence was now feasible. For the US and the Europeans, the demise of the Soviet counterweight to Western influence created new opportunities to address the root causes of the Arab-Israeli dispute. In 1993, an important breakthrough in Middle East peace-making was achieved with the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The ensuing Arab-Israeli peace process was actively encouraged and supported by both the US and the EU. Washington played a key role as a facilitator and mediator in the negotiations between Arabs and Israelis. The Europeans, in turn, supported the peace process through economic peace-building and by enhancing multilateral cooperation. In the second half of the 1990s, the EU became progressively more engaged in political aspects of Middle East peacemaking. Despite some discrepancies in the European and US positions, transatlantic cooperation on the Middle East remained largely harmonious throughout the decade. The Europeans developed their political role in a way that was complementary to that of the US and, by and large, they continued to accept a division of labour. Still, this chapter argues that there were some critical shortcomings in how the Western partners managed the Oslo process, which contributed to its failure and its degeneration into violence. This chapter is organised into three sections. It first provides a brief overview of the Arab-Israeli peace process of the 1990s. The second section looks at the political priorities of the US and the EU in the Middle East and their roles in, and contributions to, the peace process. Finally, section three discusses the issue of transatlantic cooperation and conflict in the 1990s. It also explores why the peace process did not result in a final settlement of the Middle East conflict, with a view to identifying lessons for the management of the peace process by external actors like the US and the EU today.
