Timeline of the peace process

To stop the fighting and fix temporary military lines until a peace settlement could be reached.

To set a formula for ending the 1967 war: Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory, in return for an end to the state of war and every state's right to live in peace.

To turn the principles of Resolution 242 into a settlement between Israel and Egypt: withdrawal from Sinai in return for peace.

To open, straight after the 1973 war, the negotiations that Resolution 338 called for.

To pull the armies apart after the war and win time and trust for talks.

To make the ceasefire after the 1973 war stick by pulling the two armies apart on the Golan Heights.

The Palestinian national movement's journey from rejecting Resolution 242 and any recognition of Israel to accepting a state alongside Israel.

To break the wall of fear and show that an Arab leader and Israel could talk face to face, in public.

To turn the breakthrough of Sadat's visit into an agreed plan: peace between Egypt and Israel, and self-government for the Palestinians.

To end the state of war between Israel and Egypt: all of Sinai in exchange for full peace.

To end the state of war between Israel and Lebanon and arrange the Israeli army's departure from Lebanon after the 1982 war.

To open peace talks between Israel, Jordan and Palestinian representatives, under the umbrella of an international conference.

To turn a quiet but hostile front line on the Golan Heights into full peace between Israel and Syria.

To seat all the parties to the Arab–Israeli conflict around one table for the first time, for direct talks.

To turn two sides that refused to recognise each other into formal negotiating partners.

To replace confrontation with step-by-step negotiation: temporary Palestinian self-government first, a permanent settlement after.

To turn Oslo into a first reality on the ground: the Israeli army leaves Gaza and Jericho, a Palestinian Authority is born, and rules are set for a shared economy.

To say openly, in front of the world, that the state of belligerency between Israel and Jordan was over, and to open the way to a full peace treaty.

To turn decades of secret meetings into open peace: an agreed border, shared water and full relations.

To hand the towns and villages of the West Bank to Palestinian administration until a permanent settlement is reached.

To restart a stalled implementation: Hebron, further redeployments in the West Bank, and a timetable for permanent status.

To set a line against which Israel's departure from Lebanon could be checked and, after the 2006 war, to leave only state and UN forces in southern Lebanon.

To settle every core issue between Israel and the Palestinians at a single summit.

To sketch, weeks before Clinton left office, a permanent deal that both sides could live with.

A race against the clock: to turn the Clinton Parameters into a permanent deal two weeks before an Israeli election.

To offer Israel a package deal: full withdrawal and a Palestinian state, in return for peace and normal relations with the whole Arab world.

To fit the principles of a permanent deal on one page, so that ordinary Israelis and Palestinians could sign up to them themselves.

To lead both sides out of the Second Intifada and, step by step, to two states by 2005.

To show, clause by clause, that a full peace agreement between Israel and a Palestinian state can actually be written.

To take the settlers and the army out of Gaza by Israeli decision, without waiting for negotiations.

To reach a permanent Israeli–Palestinian peace treaty within a year, by the end of 2008.

To let two sovereign states share one land: a real border, but an open one, and joint institutions for joint matters.

To reach a permanent agreement within nine months, or at least an agreed framework for going on.

To set out an American outline for permanent status: Israeli sovereignty over a large part of the West Bank, and a demilitarised Palestinian state, on conditions, in the rest.

To open public relations between Israel and Arab states that had never fought it, without waiting for an Israeli–Palestinian settlement.

To establish full diplomatic relations between Israel and a small Gulf kingdom, following the UAE.

To turn quiet contacts between Israel and a Gulf state into full, public relations: embassies, flights, trade and cooperation.

To end the state of belligerence between Sudan and Israel and open official relations, alongside Sudan's return to the international financial system.

To resume official relations between Israel and Morocco, cut during the Second Intifada, and to open direct flights and economic cooperation.

To set an agreed line in the Mediterranean so that both countries could explore for gas and produce it without risking a clash.

In the middle of the Gaza war, to offer both a way to end it and the baselines of a two-state agreement.

To stop the war between Israel and Hezbollah and leave only the forces of the Lebanese state in southern Lebanon.

To calm the border in southern Syria after Assad's fall and the Israeli army's entry into the area of separation.

To rally a world majority behind concrete steps towards a Palestinian state beside Israel, with no role for Hamas.

To stop the war in Gaza, bring every hostage home, and replace Hamas rule in the Strip with a transitional administration under international oversight.

To move from a fragile ceasefire towards ending the state of war: Israel's army pulls back in stages as weapons outside the Lebanese state's hands are verifiably removed.