The Madrid Peace Conference
The United States and the Soviet Union co-sponsor the first peace conference to bring Israel face to face with all its Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians.
On 30 October 1991, in the aftermath of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Madrid Peace Conference opened under the joint chairmanship of US president George H.W. Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. It was the first time Israel sat down to negotiate with all of its Arab neighbors at once — Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians.
The terms had been set by months of American shuttle diplomacy. Israel refused to deal with the PLO, so the Palestinians attended as part of a joint Jordanian–Palestinian delegation, their team drawn from the occupied territories and advised — openly, though unofficially — by the PLO leadership in Tunis. The negotiating framework, laid out in the co-sponsors’ letter of invitation, was UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338: land for peace.
After three days of public sessions, the conference broke into bilateral tracks — Israel with Syria, Lebanon, and the Jordanian–Palestinian delegation — later joined by a multilateral track on regional issues. The bilateral talks moved to Washington and dragged on without breakthrough. But Madrid shattered the taboo on direct negotiation and created the diplomatic cover within which, months later, Israel and the PLO opened the secret channel that produced the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Cited works
2- un.org — auto insert 208112(opens in a new tab)https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-208112/
- adst.org — the 1991 madrid peace conference(opens in a new tab)https://adst.org/2015/10/the-1991-madrid-peace-conference/
Connected in the archive
7 connected records7 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
names this record — 5 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Haidar Abdel Shafiحيدر عبد الشافي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: With the PLO formally excluded from the peace process, Abdel Shafi headed the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in October 1991 — chosen in part for his stature as an independent, unifying figure — and led the Palestinian negotiating team through the twenty-two months of Washington talks that followed.
- Haydar Abd al-Shafi at Madrid: We Come to You From a Tortured Land
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: On 31 October 1991 a physician from Gaza stood at the Madrid Peace Conference and delivered the opening address of the Palestinian delegation.
- Intifada
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The uprising placed the Palestinian question back at the center of international attention and formed part of the background to the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Accords of 1993.
- The First Intifada
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The intifada transformed international perception of the conflict and set the stage for the PLO's 1988 Declaration of Independence in Algiers, the 1991 Madrid Conference, and ultimately the Oslo process.
- Zionism is simply Jewish self-determination, and opposing it is denying Jews what every nation has
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: On 16 December 1991 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 46/86 (111 to 25, 13 abstentions), revoking the 1975 determination — a repeal the United States had pressed for and that Israel had made a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference.
named in this record — 2 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Oslo Accords
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: But Madrid shattered the taboo on direct negotiation and created the diplomatic cover within which, months later, Israel and the PLO opened the secret channel that produced the 1993 Oslo Accords.
- The Oslo Accords
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: But Madrid shattered the taboo on direct negotiation and created the diplomatic cover within which, months later, Israel and the PLO opened the secret channel that produced the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“The Madrid Peace Conference.” Timeline, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/timeline/madrid-conference.- MLA
“The Madrid Peace Conference.” Timeline, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/timeline/madrid-conference. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-madrid-conference, title = {The Madrid Peace Conference}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/timeline/madrid-conference}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }