Conflict and Peacemaking in Israel-Palestine

Theory and Application

Sapir Handelman

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781136836787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The Israeli-Palestinian struggle is considered to be one of the most entrenched conflicts in the world. Presenting and evaluating interactive models of peacemaking and the phenomenon of intractable conflict, the book takes an in-depth look into specific models for peacemaking and applies them to the situation in Israel/Palestine.

The argument centers around the idea that a multifaceted approach to peacemaking has the greatest potential to transform an intractable conflict into a mutually beneficial social order. Encompassing theoretical background, comparative studies of conflict resolution processes in similar circumstances around the world and policy recommendations, the author presents four interactive models of peacemaking to suggest a comprehensive approach to peacemaking that attacks the conflict from various angles, directions and dimensions.

Introducing general conditions that have the potential to transform a situation of destructive conflict into a more peaceful social order, Conflict and Peacemaking in Israel-Palestine adds a fresh perspective to the study of destructive social conflicts and should provoke critical discussion among students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, conflict resolution and management.

Part I

General Background

1 Intractable Conflict as a Complex Phenomenon

Introduction

Intractable conflict is a protracted, destructive social situation wherein generations are born into the reality of a violent struggle. The phenomenon seems to operate as a destructive, evolutionary mechanism subject to a general rule: every element that benefits the conflict survives, while whatever operates against it becomes extinct. Indeed, almost every attempt to solve conflicts like the Palestinian-Israeli struggle creates new problems, which in turn generally lead to failure, regression, and collapse. To stop the destructive evolutionary progression, a revolutionary process is required. The question is: How to design, implement, and understand such a process?

History shows that it is extremely difficult to reach a solution in these cases. The reason is that intractable conflict, like almost every phenomenon in the social sciences, is a “complex phenomenon.” This means that it is almost impossible to make specific predictions about future outcomes and to control the chain of events in the causal chain.¹ Intractable conflict is likely to be influenced by so many different factors that it is almost impossible for any human being to direct developments toward one specific solution, since there will always be unintended consequences. Any militaristic, political, and diplomatic move tends to create results, developments, and side effects that cannot be fully anticipated, predicted, and controlled.

Militaristic moves of political leaders, who believe that they are able to shape the geopolitical construction of the conflict through drastic initiatives, help to demonstrate the complexity of conflicts and the phenomenon of unintended consequences. In 1982, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Minister of Defense, led the Israeli intervention in Lebanon. The motivation was to put an end to Palestinian insurgencies from the northern border of Israel. The Lebanon war, which was quite effective in fighting the Palestinian militias, helped to create the radical Islamist organization Hezbollah, which has proven to be one of Israel’s most entrenched enemies. In 2005, Ariel Sharon, then Prime Minister of Israel, led an Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the occupied Gaza. The events that followed this historic move, which gave hope to many Israelis, were a civil war among the Palestinians, a coup d’état of the Islamist movement Hamas, and escalation in the conflict with Israel.²

Intractable conflict seems to operate like a social mechanism that has a life of its own. It is similar to a disease that controls the body without any possibility to stabilize the situation. Nevertheless, there are many intractable conflicts that eventually have been resolved or, at least, transformed a dramatic change toward stability. The solutions and the road to achieve them are very different from case to case. However, the common denominator is that each former intractable conflict was considered to be a desperate situation and it took a long time and infinite change-making efforts to reach a resolution. For example, the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, an entrenched bloody conflict based on the constitutional status of a divided community, concluded with some kind of a power-sharing agreement; the struggle against the system of racial segregation in Apartheid South Africa came to a conclusion through a new democratic system; the African-American civil rights struggle in the United States succeeded in creating a social revolution which ended the codification of racism in 1965. It is almost impossible to forecast how and if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will end one day.

The main purpose of this book is to search for general conditions that have the potential to create an effective peace process in the Middle East. True, it is almost impossible to predict specific developments in this complex situation. However, we might be able to identify general conditions and constraints that can create an environment conducive to an effective peace process. We can assume, or more precisely hope, that a comprehensive approach to peacemaking – which attacks the conflict from various dimensions, directions, and angles – has the potential to start pushing the train of peace forward.

In order to better shine a light upon the complexity of the phenomenon of intractable conflict and the challenge at stake, let me begin with a very basic and fundamental question: Why are people constantly fighting one another?

The origin of conflicts

Many scholars have tried to explain the propensity of human beings to create misery for each other and themselves. Some have attempted to find explanations by describing social conflict as part of an evolutionary process. In the modern era, this scholarly endeavor includes prominent intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud, who focused on the psycho-biological dimension; Karl Marx, who offered an economic analysis; and Samuel Huntington, who spoke about the clash of civilizations, and suggested a cultural explanation.

In 1932, Albert Einstein invited Sigmund Freud to exchange views on the question: “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?” Freud’s answer became a well-known composition entitled “Why war?”.³

In his thoughtful answer Freud described the history of humanity as an evolutionary interplay between two opposing compulsions in human nature: erotic and death. The first is a strong drive to create while the other is a powerful need to destroy. These two competitive forces are operating side by side. One manifestation of this phenomenon is that almost any positive development and elaboration in human life also has destructive components. For example, the development of science has also enabled sophisticated production of weapons of mass destruction. Scientists, who are supposed to improve our knowledge and quality of life, as Professor Agassi (1985) noted, became a leading powerful force in the arms race. The questions are: Is the death instinct the source of all conflicts? Can it be that humankind is destined to progress from one conflict to another? What can we do in order to change, or at least to transform or moderate, our death instinct? Can it be that the actual source of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle is damage in human production?

It is difficult to argue with Freud about the inherent propensity of human beings to destroy, especially if we observe the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The two communities constantly operate against their best interests and show, quite effectively, their ability to create misery for each other. However, Freud does not help us in finding solutions to this tragic struggle. In regard to specific urgent cases of conflict, Freud recommends continued implementation of the peacemaking methods that are familiar to us.⁴ Unfortunately, peacemaking strategies familiar and available to us have not succeeded, so far, in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli struggle.

Freud sketches guidelines for a master program that can lead to a better world. He emphasizes the importance to restrain the death instinct by strengthening its counterpart the erotic compulsion. He recommends the following measures: increasing positive sentiments and identification between human beings,⁵ developing knowledge that can help us control our destructive instincts, and creating public institutions of independent thinkers that can guide the masses.⁶ However, the question of how to build the foundations of an effective peace process in desperate situations of intractable conflicts, like the Palestinian-Israeli struggle, remains an enigma.

In his evolutionary journey, Freud comes to a conclusion that almost any social order, even under the rule of law, is not going to be stable. One of the reasons is the inevitable tension and struggle between two major classes: the rulers and the ruled. The elite always try to expand their authority and to put themselves above the law, while the ruled struggle for more rights.⁷ The Palestinian-Israeli conflict demonstrates that this observation, or maybe general pattern of conduct, is not always accurate. For example, one of the symptoms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that any progress toward a peaceful resolution of the struggle, a resolution that intends to put an end to the occupation and the division between rulers (“the Israeli occupiers”) and the ruled (“the Palestinians occupied”), tends to increase the level of violence from both sides (the “occupier” and the “occupied”). From the Oslo Accord of the 1990s to Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement in 2005 almost any substantial move – political, diplomatic, or militaristic – toward some kind of resolution ended with fallbacks, violence, and despair.

Freud’s explanation of the origin of conflicts, the death instinct, taught us something about the nature of human beings. However, it does not provide any specific guidelines to cope with the urgent needs of Palestinians and Israelis to restrain their destructive compulsion and start promoting the culture of peace in a constructive way that can put an end to their struggle.

Our next evolutionary theory in our exploration of the origins of conflict is Karl Marx’s theory of social change. Marx, like Freud, points out that class struggle is a major cause for instability in almost any social order.⁸ However, the emphasis is different. Freud emphasizes the psychological dimension while Marx underlines the economic sphere. According to Freud, any kind of conflict is a different manifestation of the interplay between two basic instincts – erotic and death – while according to Marx, the development of material means of production enfolds the evolutionary history of struggles.

According to Marx, the capitalist system, the latest phase in social development, is inherently built to increase wealth and misery simultaneously. The development, elaboration, and accumulation of the means of production tend to increase the productivity of work and create intolerable gaps between the ruling class and the ruled. The rich become richer, the poor become poorer, and the middle class tends to vanish.⁹ The tensions between the two major classes (the rulers and the ruled) lead to clashes and, eventually, to revolution.¹⁰

There is no need to be an expert in Marxist theory to notice the economic gaps between the Israeli society and the Palestinian one. These gaps create tensions that are manifested in many different ways. Moreover, the Israelis have succeeded in adjusting their economy to major crises that result from the conflict, such as the Intifada (the spontaneous uprising of the Palestinians) and the ongoing closures that prevent Palestinian workers from coming to work in Israel. Israelis have altered and developed their means of production in many different ways, for example developing advanced high technological industry and using foreign workers to replace the Palestinians. In contrast, the Palestinians face major difficulties in starting to build a viable economy in most of the territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

Marxist theory is considered to be an important benchmark in western thinking. For example, the economic dimension took a central place in the study of war and peace in modernizing theories in the period between 1940 and 1960.¹¹ However, the emphasis of Marx and modernizing theories is different. Marx saw in economic development a source of instability in capitalist societies (increase the gaps between classes) while developing theories pointed out that economic progress is a peacemaking power that can produce stability in modernizing societies.¹²

Modernizing theories emphasize that economic development is the main foundation for progress in the many other dimensions of social life: it stimulates the development of knowledge (research and development), creates the conditions for better education, reduces poverty, and promote liberal values such as freedom, independence, and responsibility.¹³ Huntington, in his famous book Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) turned this conventional wisdom on its head.

Huntington argued that economic development without political reforms cannot bring stability in modernizing countries. A pre-condition for a stable social order is first and foremost an adequate framework of a legal system and political institutions and not necessarily economic progress. He points out that there are unstable countries with modern economies and there are stable countries with backward economies.¹⁴

There are many examples in the history of conflicts and peacemaking in the Middle East and the international arena that can demonstrate Huntington’s arguments: the collapse of the Palestinian authority in 2007 (following the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza strip) was mainly due to an unstable political system and not because of a failed economy; there is an economic boom in Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank, which can quite easily collapse because of an unstable political system and lack of progress in the peace process;¹⁵ and the protracted conflicts in Northern Ireland and South Africa have undergone a dramatic change toward stability, despite major economic problems.¹⁶

There is no doubt that economics plays an important role in conflict and peacemaking. However, the direction of influence is not always clear. Economic development can promote political stability and can create dangerous political tensions.¹⁷ The crucial point is that economic considerations alone cannot provide satisfactory answers to the general question of why people are fighting and to the specific riddle of how to promote peace in the Palestinian-Israeli situation.

Our next station in the journey to trace the origins of conflicts is Samuel Huntington’s highly controversial theory – “the clash of civilizations.” Huntington, who challenged the conventional wisdom in 1968 and demonstrated that political reforms are critical to promote peace and stability in developing countries, argued in 1993 that the cultural dimension of our social life contains an adequate explanation for the origins of modern conflicts.¹⁸

Huntington describes the development of the modern western world (Western civilization) through the evolution of conflicts: conflicts between princes turned into struggles among nations, which yielded to the clashes of ideologies. The next phase in the evolution of conflicts, which we begin to experience in our days, is the clash between the different civilizations.¹⁹

A civilization, according to Huntington, is a cultural unit. It is an entity that unites different individuals, groups, and communities under the same broad cultural identity, for example, Arab, Chinese, and Western civilizations.²⁰ In these terms, we can identify the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a manifestation of inevitable clashes between the Jewish and the Arab civilizations.

No doubt that Jews and Arabs have major differences in their culture, mentality and tradition. These differences can create tensions in their interactions, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• General Background
• Intractable Conflict as a Complex Phenomenon
• The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
• Between Conflict-Resolution and Conflict-Management
• Interactive Models of Peacemaking
• The Strong-Leader Model
• The Social-Reformer Model
• The Political-Elite Model
• The Public-Assembly Model
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index