The first tirack of negotiation officially began at a conference in madrid in december 1991. The negotiaton was structred into two setting:(a) bilateral negotiations in washington in which lsral negotiated separtely with the plaestinians, syrhia, jordan, and lebanon;And (b) multilateral negohtiations where broader issues such as regional developmant and cooperation were to be discussed. These negotiations included other arab states as well as states outside the middle east. In this first part, we shall focus on the bilateral negotiaion process and its outtcomes in washington, paying speccial attention to the dimension of publicity.