The Peace Process
Over the years, the parties involved have come to recognize the fact that the conflict with the Palestinians cannot be resolved through armed struggle, and that new channels must be found, mainly a political process, at the end of which a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians will be reached. At the time of the signing of the Camp David Accords, Israel and Egypt also established the first framework for the structure of the political process between Israel and the Palestinians. Later, this became a peace process in the framework of the Oslo Accords. The nature of the political process has undergone changes over the years in accordance with the circumstances and the interests of the various parties.
The transition to the political process opened a new chapter in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The PLO and Israel recognized each other (although the PLO and the Palestinians refrain from recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish People), Israel withdrew from many territories and handed them over to the Palestinian Authority, which established its rule in the framework of the political process in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip (until Hamas’s military coup in 2007 against the Palestinian Authority’s rule in the Gaza Strip). The political process is ultimately supposed to bring the parties to a permanent settlement and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
The political process currently centers around six main issues (the core issues): permanent borders, security arrangements between the parties, the status of the Palestinian refugees, control over Jerusalem, the division of water resources, and the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. Today, the Palestinian Authority is waging a political struggle against Israel (as opposed to a political process) that is accompanied by the so-called popular resistance movement (i.e., popular terrorism).
Throughout the years, the process has been accompanied by a terrorist campaign on the part of its opponents. This is because some Palestinians still deny the very existence of the State of Israel and reject any attempt to resolve the conflict through a political process, and call for the establishment of a Palestinian state on all the territory of Israel through an armed struggle.
