Israeli Peacemaking Since 1967

Factors Behind the Breakthroughs and Failures

Galia Golan

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138784345
• eBook ISBN: 9781317659792
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Examining the Israeli-Arab conflict as an "intractable conflict, " Israeli Peacemaking since 1967 seeks to determine just which factors, or combination of factors, impacted on Israel's position in past peace-making efforts, possibly accounting for breakthroughs or failures to reach agreement.

From King Hussein's little known overtures immediately after the Six-Day War, through President Sadat's futile efforts to avoid war in the early 1970s, to repeated third-party-mediated talks with Syria, factors including deep-seated mistrust, leadership style, and domestic political spoilers contributed to failures even as public opinion and international circumstances may have been favourable. How these and other factors intervened, changed or were handled, allowing for the few breakthroughs (with Egypt and Jordan) or the near breakthrough of the Annapolis process with the Palestinians, provides not only an understanding of the past but possible keys for future Israeli-Arab peace efforts.

Employing extensive use of archival material, as well as interviews and thorough research of available sources, this book provides insight on just which factors, or combination of factors, account for breakthroughs or failures to reach agreement; a framework useful for examining both the Israeli-Arab conflict and intractable conflicts in general.

1 Introduction

The Arab–Israeli conflict, as a prolonged, periodically violent, and unresolved conflict generally falls into the category of “intractable” conflicts. While not necessarily unresolvable, such conflicts are characterized by the difficulty to transform them – that is, to achieve a breakthrough to peaceful resolution. Therefore, a search for just which factors – in their presence or absence – can make a difference with regard to a breakthrough is of utmost importance. Concomitantly, an understanding of those factors that impede or actually cause failure are no less important. The identification of such factors, the context in which they appear, or their very absence at any given time, as well as the inter-relationship and interaction between them may provide keys to eventual resolution of the conflict.

The factors themselves are linked to the various characteristics of intractable conflict, beyond, of course, from the dominant characteristic of intractability. There is a quite a long list of additional characteristics, suggested most notably by Louis Kriesberg and also Peter Coleman, the earliest researchers of the phenomenon. Kriesberg’s explanation of intractable conflict notes such characteristics as deep-seated identity issues, repeated cycles of violence, perception of the conflict by the protagonists as destructive, internalized longstanding grievances (serving as reasons for continuing the conflict), and institutionalization of the conflict.¹ Characteristics are dynamic (changing over time) and often linked to one another, but Kriesberg ties them to four core components: identities, grievances, goals, and means. Identities are the ways in which the protagonists view themselves as a collective or in relationship to their adversaries and the way their adversaries view them. These may stand in a negative relationship to one another, full expression of one perceived as negating the other in a zero-sum relationship. Herb Kelman calls these “monolithic identities.”² Thus, identity issues may be perceived as existential threats, particularly in ethno-national conflicts.³ Grievances are generally connected to the issue of justice or the perception of wrongs that have been done by one side to the other. Goals are a component when one side perceives the goals of the other side as damaging or costly or uncompromising. Goals, too, may be perceived as a zero-sum matter. Finally, it is characteristic of intractable conflict that coercion is perceived as the only effective means, creating a culture of violence in which force or violence, often reciprocated, contribute to a conflict’s destructiveness and persistence, according to Kriesberg.

Peter Coleman’s approach from political psychology includes some 57 possible characteristics, many of which are more detailed aspects of some of Kriesberg’s categories or components.⁴ Notable additions are: “tainted infrastructure: compromised institutions, laws, and social norms for conflict regulation,” “multiple and varied stakeholders,” “intragroup divisions and factions,” “hub issues: grievances embedded with broad beliefs, ideologies, and basic assumptions,” “pervasiveness: conflict spreads into functional aspects of life (education, cultural systems, etc.) and transforms them into tools of conflict,” and many more. The long list might also include history (past trauma), ideology, simple thirst for power, or repeated misperceptions, betrayal of trust, and emotions such as frustration, fear, hate, sense of loss, loyalty, anger, disgust. Like Kriesberg, Coleman sees the many characteristics as dynamic, particularly with regard to salience but also in connection with each other. There can be tipping points at which increasing intensity of a conflict goes beyond a threshold into a situation of no constraints.⁵ At the same time, both thinking and emotions harden, with a feeling that there is no solution. If religion (which reflects faith rather than reason or empirical evidence) is added, contrary views may be perceived as threatening, thereby hardening thinking and emotions.⁶

Moving into the realm of emotions, Daniel Bar-tal sums up many of the above-mentioned characteristics as part of an “Ethos of Conflict” that develops in an intractable conflict. This is a situation in which the conflict has become a central, unifying factor in society with “frozen” beliefs regarding: the justice of one’s goals, security concerns (threats and dangers), de-legitimization (and dehumanization) of the adversary, a positive collective self-image, sense of victimization (due to acts of the adversary), perceived need for unity, the value of patriotism, and peace (as a goal – i.e., belief that one is peace-loving). The dominant emotion behind these beliefs is fear, leading to anger and hate.⁷ These emotions may be directly connected with the element of trust, or rather mistrust of the other side. Trust in the context of conflict has been defined most often as reliance on or belief that the other side will do what it has committed to do, or expectations of reciprocity.⁸ A certain risk or gamble is implied, distrust or the absence of trust rendering the risk factor greater. At play is the credibility of the commitment of the other side to honor an agreement. Where credibility is absent or low, there is an unwillingness to make judgments or (to risk) actions such as compromises based on the commitments of the other side. Misperception may be one direct result.⁹

Obviously the attributes ascribed to intractable conflict are factors that operate toward rendering the conflict intractable and as such can be said to constitute barriers to resolution. Amongst other things, the dynamics of the psychological factors “inhibit de-escalation of a conflict and peaceful resolution” “because adhering to their goals results in delegitimization, distrust, and hatred” of the adversary.¹⁰ In more concrete terms, these factors, individually or in combination, may thwart efforts to reach agreement, operating at the elite (decision-making) level or within the society at large, affecting public opinion, which may, in turn, affect decision-making. Overcoming these barriers may be only one task, for at the extremes they will have produced outright opposition in the form of veto-players or spoilers with whom would-be peacemakers must contend.¹¹ Spoilers’ efforts to undermine a peace process or agreement may be motivated by concern over a threat to their worldview, their interests, or their power. Thus they range from those ideologically opposed to those who may lose out or believe that they will lose from a particular agreement. Steven Stedman speaks of three types of spoilers: the greedy spoiler (seeking better conditions on a cost/benefit basis); total spoilers whose goals are uncompromising and incompatible with the proposed agreement; and the limited spoiler who has modest goals. While all three may be committed more or less to their goals, only the total spoiler remains unchanging. Both Coleman and Miriam Ellman suggest that religiously motivated spoilers might be included in this group. Other categorization might describe spoilers as those who perceive transformation of the conflict as undermining their rights, privileges, resources, or security.¹² Just as there are many methods that spoilers may employ, including violence, there are also many circumstances in which they may operate (outside the process, within, etc.). For example, Ellman specifically deals with critical coalition partners, while others refer to unintentional spoilers whose actions – or lack of action – weaken trust without explicitly intending such an outcome.¹³ An additional category has been suggested of “devious spoilers” – that is, those who actually enter negotiations or a peace process with no intention of reaching agreement, possibly because they simply do not believe that their adversary is capable of compromise on issues essential to the other side.¹⁴

Thus there are numerous factors constituting barriers that may impede resolution of an intractable conflict or its transformation, preventing a significant breakthrough in relations between the protagonists. The persistence of such barriers, including the existence of spoilers, may turn a potential breakthrough or actual peace process into a failure. Yet, there are many suggested ways of overcoming the barriers, coping with the different factors and managing spoilers. In general, one might simply say that a significant weakening of, or changes in any or some of, the above factors could make a difference. In the domestic realm, as suggested by Kriesberg, changes may occur in public opinion or public support, possibly (but not necessarily) as the result of other domestic changes or events, such as socio-economic developments (e.g., recession, globalization); a dramatic or traumatic event (which Ronald Krebs maintains can even be war¹⁵); leadership change (what Ellman refers to as change in agency¹⁶); power shifts; demography (immigration, generational change); perceived costs of continued conflict; “war weariness”; reduction or satisfaction of grievances; changes in relative weight of domestic groups (such as peace groups, or those who profit from the conflict) or the weakening of spoilers; new technology and weapons development presenting an intolerable threat or changing the nature of the threat; change in the image of the enemy; the appearance of a new, threatening enemy; change in the conceptualization of national (collective) identity; ideological change.¹⁷ Changes in one protagonist may trigger change in the other – for example, revision of the adversary’s goals, strength, or composition, satisfaction of some of its grievances; Coleman refers to good signs or confidence-building measures from the other side that allay fears for the future.

William Zartman would put it more simply as the perception, by both sides, of having reached a mutually hurting stalemate coupled with the appearance of an opportunity. The latter may come from outside and, indeed, outside factors may play an important role in combating intractability: regional developments (threatening instability or power shifts and interests, alliances), power shifts in the international arena, global norms, third-party involvement (pressure, mediation, tradeoffs, proposals, guarantees). Finally, overcoming barriers must include dealing with spoilers, whether they work inside or outside (e.g., from the diaspora) or third parties altogether. Stedman suggests three ways in which spoilers may be “managed”: inducement, socialization, and coercion. The first would involve addressing the grievances or fears of the spoilers; others might call this inclusion. The second would entail incentives and persuasion to abide by accepted norms of behavior, and the third would threaten punishment (penalties). The punishment need not be direct or military, but rather could rely on arguments such as the spoiler’s potential losses since the train would leave the station with or without them.

Within almost each of these factors that may lead to change or overcoming barriers, there are sub-categories, variations, and, in some cases, methodologies for ensuring them. Coleman, in particular, focuses on the more long-term, psychological, and epistemological methods for breaking down the barriers, while everything from peace education, peace journalism, track two endeavors, grass roots activism, citizen diplomacy, and more are part of conflict resolution repertoires important for transforming intractable conflicts.¹⁸ Some of these are geared to the public at large, others to elites and decision-makers, or all together. Similarly, not necessarily all the characteristic of intractable conflict nor all the factors for changing them apply to the general public as well as the leadership, though the Ethos of Conflict presumably does apply to both, to one degree or another. In any case, the roles of both the public and the leadership must be considered in analyzing a breakthrough or failure.

As an intractable conflict, the Arab–Israeli conflict has demonstrated or experienced most if not all the characteristics mentioned. Indeed, it has been cited as an example of such a conflict by Coleman, Kriesberg, Bar-tal, and others, serving as a model for understanding intractable conflict perhaps even more frequently than Northern Ireland or Cyprus amongst other intractable conflicts. While various characteristics, such as its centuries-long history of persecution and the Holocaust, or its relatively recent creation as a Jewish state in the midst of an Arab/Muslim region, or its particular political system and mix of religion with nationalism may all be specific to Israel, they nevertheless fit the multifaceted paradigm of intractability (and the Ethos of Conflict) within the categories of history, identity, ideology, grievances, and the like. Of importance to this study is how these and other attributes of intractability served to block or prevent a breakthrough, or led to a failure, or, conversely, which of them underwent a change (and why), enabling a breakthrough.

A breakthrough refers to transformation of the conflict to a peace process – that is, the opening of steps or talks leading to negotiations and possibly actual conflict resolution (success). This may entail reacting to or initiating some stimulus, such as taking advantage of an opportunity that arises or creating an opportunity. Whatever the circumstances, the phenomenon is a breakthrough leading to peace or at least significant transformation of the conflict that might lead to peace. A failure then would be the failure to take advantage of an opportunity that might lead to a breakthrough, or failure might be an actual peace process (negotiations, partial agreements) that is ended without achieving resolution of the conflict. A set of steps, such as the Oslo Accords, might constitute both a breakthrough and a failure. Of interest is just what factors may account for the breakthrough and/or the failure.

It may be impossible to know with certainty exactly what caused a breakthrough or what changes took place that moved matters toward resolution or what characteristics of intractable conflict might account for the failure. Nor does it seem possible to quantify confidently the role or relative value of each factor, particularly, as pointed out by both Kriesberg and Coleman, because there is usually an interplay of factors, with some more dominant, some less salient (even unconscious), perhaps testable only at a given time. Archival material, memoires, interviews all contribute to our understanding, but much is still highly subjective (and partial) as well as open to interpretation. For example, the myriad accounts of the Camp David 2000 talks, even by participants, ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Maps
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 1967–1968 Failure
• 3 Breakthrough with Egypt
• 4 Failure on the Syrian Track
• 5 Jordan Again: Failures and Breakthrough
• 6 Oslo I: Breakthrough and Failure
• 7 Oslo II: Barak and Camp David
• 8 Olmert’s Near Breakthroughs: Annapolis Process and Syrian Talks
• 9 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index