A little over fifteen years ago, in October 1991, Israel and its Palestinian and Arab neighbours met in Madrid to hold public bilateral talks for the very first time. With the blessings of then Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez (and the urgings of the United States and the waning Soviet Union), the Madrid peace conference set a thaw in the bleak diplomatic landscape of the middle east. The meeting subsequently sparked a series of negotiations that culminated in the 1993 Oslo accords and the famous - now bittersweet - handshake on the White House lawn between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.
On 11-13 January 2007, again with the encouragement and initiative of the Spanish government, Palestinian and Israeli representatives - along with their counterparts from neighbouring Arab states, Europe and the US - met in Madrid.
The Madrid+15 conference - initiated by the Centro de Investigación para la Paz (Toledo International Center for Peace), Search for Common Ground, Fundación Tres Culturas, the FAFO Institute and the International Crisis Group - staged a three-day reassessment of the floundering peace process. In high-level working sessions, the likes of Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian negotiator and spokesperson, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign minister, sought against the odds to pave a clearer, more incisive path forward.
A cynical observer could quite easily spot the parallels between then and now. Many of the same veteran diplomats attending the latest meeting played important roles in the conference a decade and a half ago. Like the last Madrid conference - organised in the wake of the first Gulf war in January 1991- the present meeting took place after major US intervention in Iraq. Then and now, a Bush occupied the White House. Then and now, western policymakers hoped to bring lasting peace to the middle east.
It would be unwise and unfair, however, to see last week's gathering in the cold reflection of the past. The last conference occurred in a starkly different historical moment. With the bipolar world on its last legs and Saddam Hussein chastened in Baghdad, George H W Bush and European leaders approached the Arab-Israeli conflict with uncharacteristic optimism. Gone were the balancing imperatives and constraints of the cold war; the international community, led by the triumphant US, would defuse the lingering conflicts of the 20th century.
Fast-forward fifteen years later and traditional power is in crisis. Washington struggles so mightily in the middle east that the prospect of American hegemony - so assured only a decade ago - now appears laughable to many analysts. Small fish - in cold-war terms - like Iran and sub-state groups like Hizbollah have emerged as influential and insurmountable forces in the region. In Palestinian territories and in Israel, leaders are at their weakest, with steep domestic divisions thwarting decisive action. The recent history of the middle east - from Waziristan to the West Bank - has thrown the limitations of power into sharp relief.
This was a reality not lost on the participants of the conference. Ben-Ami argued that the American invasion, in addition to Israel's attack on Lebanon, had "taught us the limits of what power can achieve." In a written statement, Mikhail Gorbachev blamed the present divisiveness of the world on the "tragic consequences" of US pre-emption, while Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, insisted that only the restraint of power - not its exercise - would save the "two-state solution". In a crisp and lively speech, Ashrawi warned that "the failed policy of power can not be redeemed through power."
While the previous Madrid peace conference was held at the behest of power (with the crucial support of the United States and the Soviet Union), its current incarnation occurred despite it. With civil-society organisations at the lead, representatives of numerous countries at the table, and multilateralism the animating force of the deliberations, the conference looked attuned to the times. It recognised that in 2007, the world has become a place "where no-one rules", as Yale academic Ian Shapiro argued recently, or one in which power is increasingly diffused into the hands of - as Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím suggested affectionately -the "little guy".
Kanishk Tharoor is managing editor of Madrid 11.net, a website project designed to encourage global dialogue about how the threat from terrorism can be confronted through democratic means
For Kanishk Tharoor's preview, report and assessment of the Madrid+15 conference, click here, here, and here
In these times
Not surprisingly, the conference's conclusions (available here) highlighted the importance of a considered, multilateral and region-wide approach to solving the middle-east crisis, a path that respected the complexity and multiplicity of actors and relations involved. The reluctance of Hamas to recognise Israel, the sporadic attacks on Israeli soldiers, settlers and civilians, and ongoing Palestinian civil strife (though all cast a disapproving eye) were not, in the final assessment, the chief impediments to peace. Rather, it was the absence of political will in Washington and Israel to work towards a meaningful resolution of the conflict that thwarted peace. Encouraging that will - particularly in the new Democratic-controlled Congress - remains the task of the steering committee and future meetings of this "second" Madrid process as detailed in the conference's concluding statement.
The Madrid+15 conference possessed an energy and certainty of purpose uncharacteristic of most diplomatic gatherings. After all, it was no typical diplomatic gathering. Though it boasted pedigreed statesmen and negotiators, the conference was driven in large part by civil-society collaborators, like Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group. A frankness of tone and opinion cut through the often debilitating formality and restraint of international discussion. Civil society - with its globalised knowledge and interests - can play a dynamic role in urging and lubricating negotiations between governments.
More immediately, the conference has crystallised and publicised a fundamentally European position on the path forward to resolving the middle-east crisis. In its demands for a total, region-wide resolution, emphasis on negotiations between all parties including Syria and Israel, and in its stern criticism of Israeli and American policy, the Madrid+15 conference will not have made many friends in the White House. A Democratic-controlled Congress may, however, take a shine to the conference's commitment to multilateralism.
Beyond the conference's direct political implications, Madrid+15 staked out a vision of Europe as an engaged but peaceful world actor. With Israeli, Arab and Spanish reporters attending in mass, the conference projected a vision of what Europe can be. If the Bush administration is unwilling to shepherd peace, then Europe - with its penchant for diplomacy, its firm support for the rule of international law and its belief in pluralist democracy - aspires to fill the breach.