People-to-People Diplomacy in Israel and Palestine

The Minds of Peace Experiment

Sapir Handelman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780415829113
• eBook ISBN: 9781134924097
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Minds of Peace Experiment is a small-scale Israeli-Palestinian public negotiating congress. The exercise invites Israeli and Palestinian delegations to publicly negotiate solutions to their struggle over a limited period of sessions. The initiative is designed to demonstrate the peacemaking power of a major public negotiating congress, to evaluate its potential outcomes, and to get support for its establishment. Scholars from different disciplines describe and analyze the enterprise. They provide valuable lessons for improving and elaborating the initiative which has been conducted in major universities around the U.S., Canada and in Israel-Palestine. The intention is to add a fresh perspective to the efforts to build a revolutionary peacemaking process in the Israeli-Palestinian case.

The Minds of Peace Experiment is a fascinating laboratory for people-to-people diplomacy and negotiation. The exercise succeeded to demonstrate how people, from all walks of life and the entire political spectrum, can reach peace agreements while their leaders face major problems in their relationship. The book intends to provoke critical and fruitful discussion among those who are interested in negotiation, diplomacy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This book was published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

INTRODUCTION

The Minds of Peace Experiment: a laboratory for people-to-people diplomacy

Sapir Handelman^a,b

^aCenter for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA;

^bHarvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Diplomacy in three dimensions

How can effective peacemaking change be created in the Israeli–Palestinian struggle, a process that so far seems bogged down by political obstacles on both sides? Diplomacy, ‘the peaceful conduct of relations amongst political entities’,¹ in its classical settings provides peacemaking channels for political elites to negotiate solutions and create agreements. The painful history of intractable conflicts, however, indicates that traditional diplomacy – various modes of interaction between political elites from both sides – is not enough to create the foundations for an effective peacemaking process.² As Machiavelli taught us 500 years ago, political leaders should not be fully trusted. They are subject to cost–benefit calculations and strategic machinations about their own power and survival in office;³ their capacity to create the foundations of a new peaceful social order is subject to human as well as political limitations. Indeed, in spite of 30 years of direct and indirect peacemaking interaction between the political elites of both sides, the Israeli–Palestinian struggle, despite periodic signs of hope, remains one of the most entrenched and complex conflicts in the world. In order to break the chain of destruction and mistrust there is a need to build a multifaceted approach to peacemaking that attacks the conflict from various sides, dimensions, and directions.⁴

It is prudent to view peacemaking diplomacy as a political instrument that operates in three dimensions: political elite (including top and mid-level elites), ‘ordinary’ people (including so-called attentive and less attentive publics and parties affected by the conflict), and in interactions between the two. To be more specific, a multidimensional structure of peacemaking diplomacy can be conceived of at three levels (Table 1).

Political elite diplomacy suggests various channels of communication between elites of the opposing sides, who are motivated to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict.⁵ This, including interjections by outside parties such as the US, is the prevalent vehicle of past and present Middle East peace processes. Classical examples, such as the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, demonstrate that political elite diplomacy, especially when carefully conceived and timed to correspond to the conflicting parties’ interests, can be very effective in reaching innovative agreements in a stalled situation. Its main disadvantage is that it does not involve ordinary people in the peacemaking efforts and prepare them for a new social order. As a result, elite diplomacy is vulnerable to violent acts from extremists who are determined to crush any effort to reach reasonable and historical compromise. Indeed, major violent episodes contributed to the collapse of the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.⁶ The cumulative effect of such violence can disillusion public confidence in and erode public and elite willingness to defend the peacemaking process.

Table 1. Three levels of peacemaking diplomacy.

Level	Diplomatic mode	Description
Upper level	Political elite diplomacy	Peacemaking interactions and negotiations between political elites
Mid-level	Public diplomacy	Interactions between political elites and ordinary people
Lower level	People-to-people diplomacy	Peacemaking interactions and negotiations among ordinary people

People-to-people diplomacy suggests various modes of interaction linking the opposing sides at the grassroots level, such as: dialogue groups, educational projects, scientific collaborations, multinational workshops, and partnership in peacemaking grassroots organizations. More focused on peace dialogue than interactive projects, classical examples such as the Parents Circle – Families Forum⁷ and Seeds of Peace⁸ indicate that people-to-people diplomacy can be effective in building peace coalitions, showing that there are peace lovers among entrenched enemies,⁹ and preparing ordinary citizens for change. The main disadvantage of people-to-people diplomacy is that it does not involve the leadership in its peacemaking venues and does not directly influence them to reach innovative agreements. The result is that people-to-people diplomacy, which usually does not operate on a mass scale, faces many difficulties in transferring the spirit of change to the operational political level.

Public diplomacy, in our multidimensional configuration, is designed to close the gaps of the two previous diplomatic modes (political elite and people-to-people) by using different methods of public relations and by the feedback of formal agreements at the citizen level to the leadership level. It operates in two different directions. In one direction, public diplomacy provides political tools for leaders to prepare the people for an effective peacemaking process and create public support to endorse innovative agreements (top-down). In the other direction, public diplomacy offers political instruments for people to influence political leaders and demand of them initiation of a peacemaking process (bottom-up).

The Minds of Peace project is to create a major peacemaking institution for the operation of public diplomacy – an Israeli–Palestinian public negotiating congress.¹⁰ A public negotiating congress is a democratic peacemaking institution that invites representatives of the opposing societies to discuss, debate, and negotiate solutions to their conflict. It is designed to involve the people in the peacemaking efforts, prepare them as a constituency for change, and create effective pressure on the leadership of both sides to conclude agreements. The model is loosely based on the multi-party talks that helped to create a dramatic transformation in two other difficult situations of intractable conflict: the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and in Northern Ireland during the ‘troubles’.¹¹

The Minds of Peace Experiment (MOPE), which my colleagues and I are conducting in various locations around the US, Canada, and the Middle East, is a simulation of a major Israeli–Palestinian public negotiating congress. It is a grassroots initiative designed to demonstrate the peacemaking power of a major public negotiating congress, help to evaluate its potential outcomes, and create support, domestically and abroad, for its establishment.

It has been demonstrated as a powerful instrument for people-to-people diplomacy. The various rounds of the MOPE indicate that the initiative is effective in involving ordinary people in the struggle for peace, preparing them for painful compromises, and creating peacemaking coalitions. However, without extensive use of public diplomacy the influence of the MOPE is doomed to remain marginal. There is a need to develop the initiative, expand it and create a mass movement that will demand the establishment of an ongoing Israeli–Palestinian public negotiating congress.¹²

Scholars from various disciplines were invited to discuss, criticize, and evaluate the Minds of Peace project. This critical journey is designed to help improve, develop, and expand the initiative. Hopefully, this special issue will create a momentum for building theories of people-to-people diplomacy and shed new light on the struggle for peace in the Middle East.

The Minds of Peace Experiment (MOPE) – a brief overview

As a small-scale preliminary Israeli–Palestinian public negotiating congress, the MOPE invites teams of five or six Israelis and five or six Palestinians to discuss, debate, and negotiate future-oriented solutions to their conflict generally over a two- or three-day period of five sessions. The congress is co-chaired by Israeli and Palestinian moderators. The dialogue is conducted in front of an audience, which is invited to participate in the peacemaking process at the end of each session. The result is that the discussions and negotiations are conducted at three levels: between the Israeli (not simply Jewish) and the Palestinian delegations residing in or near the location where the conference is held (to date in North America, Canada, and in the West Bank), within each delegation (every participant in each delegation has his or her own view), and between the delegations and the audience.

The task of the congress is to successfully conclude the essentials of a peace pact in five formal two-hour sessions. However, it is likely that the congress will not able to fulfil such an ambitious assignment. The issues at stake are far too sensitive and complicated for a quick fix. In addition, the delegations are heterogeneous – each one of the participants has a different perception of the situation and holds a different political view. The more practical goal is to conclude a peace framework entailing the major provisions and issues under dispute and offering a citizens’ guide to a common vision of a peaceful arrangement operating on non-violent principles. In order to make the congress effective, the two delegations are encouraged to engage in informal settings, such as back-channel negotiations and Track II diplomacy. They are instructed and motivated by the mediators to come prepared for the formal setting of the congress.

The initiative is comprised of two stages. In the preliminary stage the two delegations are asked to produce a general and future-oriented agreement on the suspension of the violent struggle and on confidence-building measures. In the second stage, the two delegations move on toward a framework of a conclusive peace pact that can put an end to the conflict.¹³

The first stage (suspension of the violent struggle and confidence-building measures) is very important and very difficult. It is important because any initial progression in the peacemaking process tends to increase the level of violence. Therefore, the delegations are asked to commit to continue the dialogue in case of violent episodes and to explore possible reactions to such destructive events. This preliminary stage is very problematic because violence means different thing to Palestinians and Israelis. For example, many Palestinians see Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank as a violent reality, while many Israelis regard these same checkpoints as necessary self-defence. Accordingly, the two delegations have to find a suitable compromise to the meaning of violence and commit to stop it (or at least suspend it).

There are two ground rules for the discussion. The first is not to demean others. The second is not to enter into historical debate upon the origin of the conflict and past evils.¹⁴ The delegations are instructed to focus upon improving the present situation, to visualize a peaceful future, to come up with language that works for both parties, to think about creative ideas that can advance the negotiations, and to make demands by peaceful means.

The ground rules are designed to create a commitment to the peacemaking process, to help control emotions by encouraging the use of cognitive skills, and to make the discussions efficient and constructive. It is clear that each side has their own version of the ‘historical truth’ which can lead to a frustrating debate. Therefore, the two sides are asked to take a step beyond their mutual historically determined narratives in order to engage in a critical discussion about improving the future. The informal discussions (between the formal sessions) are intended to facilitate this difficult process by enabling the participants to share personal stories and to develop a better understanding of the other culture and mentality.¹⁵

The success of the Minds of Peace Experiment is not necessarily linked to the ability of the formal assembly to bring about agreements. The main purpose of the mini-congress is to demonstrate the peacemaking potential of a major Israeli–Palestinian public negotiating congress, to give indications about its potential outcomes, and to develop support for workable accords. Nevertheless, whenever the experiment was conducted the delegations were able to establish at least one agreement. This was an astonishing result because the participants in each delegation in the various rounds had seldom met even members of their own delegations, and held different and sometimes even contradictory political views.¹⁶

This special issue seeks to further explore the ramifications of these exercises, and is composed of two main parts. The first, which includes the first three articles, is broad and general. It discusses the necessary conditions to build a revolutionary peacemaking process, i.e., one that can break conventions and past deadlocks, and offers lessons from the various rounds of the experiment, suggesting recommendations on how to develop and elaborate the initiative. The second part, which includes the rest of the articles, is more specific and focused. Each of the papers analyses particular rounds of the experiment and the lessons that each of them brings to efforts to build the foundations of a peaceful social order.

The Minds of Peace Experiment (MOPE) in the context of people-to-people diplomacy

In 2002, a group of Israeli and Palestinian political elites and social experts gathered in Geneva in order to search for a comprehensive agreement to put an end to the Israeli–Palestinian struggle. The participants conducted an impressive study that suggested sophisticated solutions to the most difficult problems in the conflict.¹⁷ However, as impressive as the Geneva accord was, it did not create momentum for a sustained peacemaking process.

Many of the agreements reached by ordinary people, who participated in the various rounds of the MOPE, included valuable insights that were suggested in the Geneva accord.¹⁸ On the other hand, the philosophy behind the MOPE is different in many respects from the peacemaking perception of the architects of the Geneva initiative.

In contrast to the Geneva initiative, the MOPE is not a search for creative ways to implement agreements that were manufactured in the peacemaking laboratory of political elites and social experts. Our main project is to create the foundations of an effective multi-dimensional peace process whose final results cannot be predicted. The goal of the MOPE is to suggest a mechanism that can invite new ideas to the political stage, to create sustained momentum to guide and even pressure the elites toward breaking stalemates. We search for a mechanism that can help the opposing sides to discover, mostly on their own, the road to peaceful co-existence.¹⁹

Accordingly, the success and failure of the MOPE is not necessarily measured in the ability of the negotiators to reach agreements.²⁰ Effectiveness instead depends on the ab...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: The Minds of Peace Experiment: a laboratory for people-to-people diplomacy
• 2. Between the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the East–West Pakistan struggle: a challenge to the conventional wisdom
• 3. A Palestinian–Israeli public assembly and the American black church: two grassroots efforts to build the foundations of a decent social order
• 4. The social marketing of peace: grassroots movements, US foreign policy and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• 5. Locational factors in citizen peace negotiations
• 6. The Minds of Peace Experiment: conflict resolution from the ground up
• 7. Recognition, gender, and the negotiation of a non-violent future
• 8. The Minds of Peace and intergroup dialogue: two complementary approaches to peace
• 9. Political geography and grassroots conflict resolution
• Index