Start here: peace in five minutes

Who is this about?

It is about Israel, its four neighbours (Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) and the Palestinian people. Palestinians live in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, inside Israel as citizens, and as refugees across the Middle East.¹ Farther away there are other Arab states, such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

Two peoples see the same land as home, and the conflict between them has gone on since 1948. In that year the State of Israel was declared, in the middle of a war that ended in 1949 without a peace treaty.² Many Israelis remember it as the War of Independence. Palestinians call what happened to them in it the Nakba, “the catastrophe”: being uprooted, becoming refugees and losing their homes.¹ Both memories are real. They are told in the Israeli story and in the Palestinian story.

Peace comes in more than one form

A peace treaty

Two states end the state of war between them and open full relations: an agreed border and embassies. There are two: the treaty with Egypt, signed by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1979,³ and the treaty with Jordan of 1994.⁴

A normalisation agreement

Normalisation means opening embassies, flights and trade between states that had no relations, and had not fought each other either. The example: the Abraham Accords of 2020.⁵

An interim agreement

A temporary arrangement that leaves the hard questions for a later stage. Oslo I of 1993 and Oslo II of 1995 are of this kind: they are not a final peace treaty between two states.⁶⁷

An armistice or a ceasefire

The shooting stops, but what caused the fighting is not solved. That was true of the armistice agreements of 1949,⁸ and is true of the Gaza ceasefire since October 2025.⁹

What already works

Peace with Egypt

In force since 1979, and there has been no war between the two countries since. As of October 2026 security coordination and the gas trade continue,¹⁰ but political relations are at a low point.¹¹¹²

Peace with Jordan

In force since 1994.⁴ As of October 2026 security coordination and the water supply continue, and political relations are at a low point.¹³¹⁴

Normalisation with three states

In 2020 Israel established open relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.⁵¹⁵ As of October 2026 those relations continue.¹⁶¹⁷

Mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO

In letters exchanged in 1993 by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which represents the Palestinians) recognised Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.¹⁸

What is still open

Israelis and Palestinians

They have no final agreement. The Oslo Accords left the hard questions for later negotiations,⁶ and as of October 2026 no such negotiations are reported.¹⁹ Five open questions follow; each side answers them differently.

Syria and Lebanon

There is no peace treaty with either. As of October 2026 the talks with Syria have not produced an agreement,²⁰ and with Lebanon only a framework document was signed, in June 2026: a first step towards an agreement that has not yet been drafted.²¹²²

Borders and settlements

Where will the border run, and what will happen to the settlements, the Israeli communities built in the West Bank?

Jerusalem

Israel sees the whole city as its capital; Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Is the city divided, or shared?

Refugees

What will happen to the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants: return, compensation, or another way?

Security

Who will make sure that no one shoots and no one harms civilians, on both sides of the border?

Mutual recognition

In 1993 a state was recognised on one side and a representative organisation on the other.¹⁸ What does each side need to recognise in the other?

Why is it so hard, and why keep trying?

Because there is violence and fear on both sides. In the attack led by Hamas, a terrorist organisation, on 7 October 2023, civilians in Israel were murdered and hostages were taken.²³ The war that followed brought widespread destruction and mass displacement on the people of Gaza.²⁴ This site rejects every deliberate attack on civilians, whoever commits it. And a government is not a people: Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and the government of Israel is not all Israelis. The details and the numbers are on the page on violence.

And yet agreements that many thought impossible were signed, and they have held for decades: with Egypt since 1979³ and with Jordan since 1994.⁴ In this site’s view, even the efforts that did not ripen paved part of the road to them.

Where to go next

Hard questions

Hard questions, honest answers: what young Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs really ask.

The two stories

The Israeli story and the Palestinian story: each people’s path, from the beginning until today.

All the agreements

In the collection of agreements and processes every document has a page: what was agreed, what was carried out and where it stands today.

Glossary

The glossary explains every unclear word in a sentence or two.

How to check us

How to check us: five steps for checking a source, so that you do not have to take our word for it.