The Palestinians are Friday set to submit to the United Nations an application for membership for their state along the 1967 borders, a move vehemently opposed by both Israel and Washington.
Here is a timeline of key events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over the last two decades:
1991:
-- 1 November : The Madrid Peace Conference sets a framework for the peace process.
1993:
-- 13 September: Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) sign Declaration of Principles on autonomy after months of secret negotiations in Oslo.
1994:
-- 4 May: Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the autonomy accord in Cairo.
-- 1 July: Arafat returns from a decade in exile in Tunisia to establish the Palestinian Authority, which was to oversee the road to statehood.
1995:
-- 4 November: Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish extremist.
2000:
-- 11-25 July: US president Bill Clinton hosts talks with Arafat and Israeli premier Ehud Barak at Camp David that collapse over the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
-- September: Eruption of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation.
2003:
-- 4 June: Launch of the Middle East "roadmap" for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 at a summit in Jordan with US president George W. Bush, Israeli premier Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmud Abbas.
2004:
-- 11 November: Death of Arafat.
2005:
-- 2 February: Sharon and Abbas -- now Palestinian president -- meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and declare an end to hostilities.
-- August: Israel carries out its unilateral disengagement plan, withdrawing all its settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
2007:
-- 27 November: Abbas and Israeli premier Ehud Olmert formally restart negotiations at Annapolis, Maryland.
2008:
-- 27 December: Israel begins a devastating 22-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip, prompting the Palestinians to suspend talks.
2010:
-- 9 May: Indirect talks start.
-- 2 September: US President Barack Obama launches direct talks at a White House summit with Abbas and Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.
-- 28 September: A partial freeze of West Bank settlement building expires, leading to the collapse of direct talks.
-- November: Palestinian officials begin talking publicly about seeking UN membership for a Palestinian state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War incorporating the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
2011:
-- 20 March: Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat says seeking UN membership for a Palestinian state is the official strategy although no date is set.
-- 28 May: The Arab League endorses the plan to seek UN membership in September when the General Assembly convenes.
-- 21 September: Obama insists at the UN General Assembly that only negotiations can lead to a Palestinian state.
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