For the tenth consecutive year, the lecture is devoted to the question of Palestine, i.e. how the conflict between Israel and Palestine is integrated into a complex set of relations between regional and international powers. It chronologically traces the course of five years (1996-2000), the period between the Oslo II and Camp David II agreements. This is a period of immediate history, which calls for special approach techniques, since much information is still unavailable. This lecture is based on the press resources of the period. Gathering information has been made easier by the contemporary rise of the Internet. There is also more traditional documentation: memoirs, controversies, investigative journalism and social science literature.
For our purposes here, the focus is essentially on political and diplomatic history. The simple task of reconstructing the chronological sequence of events is a considerable one, especially as the memory of each individual tends to confuse events a few months apart. These chronological sequences are therefore essential to understanding the logic of events. This is above all "old-fashioned" history, which is as much annalistic as it is analytical. In this way, the lecture offers other generations of historians the chance to delve deeper into the more specific themes of this Arab-Israeli political and diplomatic history.