Is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Solvable Some Lessons from the Oslo Process

Is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Solvable? Some Lessons from the Oslo Process Ephraim Ya’ar Lecture Delivered at the Woodrow Wilson Center June 2004 I A Brief Historical Background The Israeli-Palestinian, or more precisely, the Israeli-Arab conflict, is over 100 hundred years old, though it has become more intense and widely known since the late 1940's, when on November 29 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 which called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State At the time of that resolution Palestine was under the rule of a British Mandate, entrusted by the League of Nations in 1922 However, the later United Nations’ decision called for the termination of the British Mandate on August 1, 1948 The partition plan, or Resolution 181, was accepted by the Jewish community following a bitter internal controversy; the Palestinians and the Arab League totally rejected the plan This state of affairs led to two stages of warfare The first stage involved a military struggle between the Arabs and Jews communities inside Palestine – which at this time was still under the rule of the British Mandate Subsequently, on May 15 1948, when the British forces departed and the Mandate was de facto terminated, Palestine was invaded by five Arab states – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon- in order to prevent the implementation of the partition plan On the day before, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel and became its first Prime Minister Eventually, the Israeli forces prevailed and the war ended in 1949 with a series of armistice agreements between Israel and its neighboring Arab countries1 As an outcome of its victory, these agreements granted Israel a significant piece of territory (about 5000 squared kilometers) over the area allotted to it according to the Partition Plan At the same time, Of the five invading states, only Iraq, which does not have a joint border with Israel, refused to sign an armistice agreement As to the rest of the Arab and Muslim states, none of them have recognized Israel at the time of this writing The total side of Palestine, west of the Jordan River, is about 28,000 squared kilometers According to the Partition Plan, the areas given to the Jewish and Palestinian states were about 16,000 and 12,000 squared kilometers, respectively Jordan gained the territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City, while Egypt got under its control the Gaza Strip The 1948 war also witnessed the creation of the refugee problem, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left, or were forced to leave, their homes during the war Consequently, what has become known as the ‘War of Independence’ for the Jewish community was depicted as the "Nakba" (calamity) in the Palestinian narrative During a brief war between Israel and Egypt in the fall of 1956, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsulas, only to return it back to Egypt shortly afterwards, under the pressures of the international community, which was led by the United States and the Soviet Union Subsequently, the borders demarcated by the Armistice Agreements of 1949 remained intact until the 1967 War (also known as the Six-Day War) Concomitantly, during those years Jordan and Egypt kept under their control, respectively, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while making no attempt to establish in those territories an independent Palestinian state However, as a result of its sweeping victory in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, controlling the entire territory west of the Jordan River In addition, it conquered the entire Sinai Peninsula, which was an integral part of Egypt, and the Golan Heights, which belonged to Syria Following the outcomes of the 1967 War, Israel's official policy was that its territorial gains, including the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be held temporarily and used as bargaining chips in order to gain recognition from and peace agreements with the Arab countries This strategy has subsequently proven itself, at least in part (albeit following another costly military confrontation – The Yom Kippur War), when under the auspices of President Carter, Israel and Egypt met in Camp David and signed a peace agreement in March 1979 In return for the agreement, Israel withdrew its forces from the Sinai Peninsula back to the internationally recognized border with Egypt However, the other Arab states and the Palestinians refused to participate in the Camp David negotiations, so that Israel continued to occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Golan Heights With no significant change in the political stalemate vis-à-vis the Arab countries in the aftermath of the 1967 War, Israel has changed in practice its previously declared policy with respect to the occupied territories, gradually allowing and later actually encouraging, the establishment of Jewish Settlements in those areas This shift in policy was due largely to internal pressures originating from radical nationalist movements, some of which were motivated by religious fervent and sentiments, others by secular right-wing ideologies With the passage of time the spirit of these movements gained wider popular support, though it was limited mostly to the religious and secular right However, it should be born in mind that the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories – Judea and Samaria in the official Israeli terminology - has begun and progressed under the rule of left-wing coalition governments, including the administration headed by the late Yitzhak Rabin, during his first term as Israel's Prime Minister between 1973 and 1977 Of course, the policy of expanding Jewish Settlement in the occupied territories had been considerably more rigorous and widespread in the periods when the right-wing parties, led by the Likud, were in power My position, which is probably shared by most observers of the Israeli-Arab scene, is that the tolerance and encouragement of civilian Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli authorities, has been a grave historical mistake- the detrimental consequences of which we witness these very days At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab World cannot be vindicated, having made significant contributions on their own to these developments Shortly after the 1967, eight Arab heads of state attended an Arab summit conference held in Khartoum (August 29 – September 1, 1967) Among the resolutions adopted at the conference was what has become to be known as the “Three No's" with respect to Israel: no peace, no recognition, no negotiation This decision weakened the moderate voice in Israel and played into the hands of the right camp Indeed, they convinced many Israelis that the Arabs would not make peace in the foreseeable future, regardless of Israel's own policy Moreover, in addition to the right’s ideological justification for the build-up of settlements, according to which Palestine has historically been the "Land of Israel", some Israelis raised the argument that the construction of settlements, at least in some areas, such as the Jordan Valley and the mountainous vicinity of Jerusalem, was essential for Israel’s national security Still others invoked the original position that the settlements improved Israel's bargaining position, if and when the Arabs would change their attitudes and be ready to enter into peace negotiations with Israel II The Oslo Accord and its Aftermath: With the notable exception of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, various attempts that were made during the 1970's and 1980's by third parties, including the U.S government, to initiate peace negotiations between Israel and the rest of the Arab world, particularly Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians, have failed However, towards the end of the 1980's the combined effects of several critical developments at the local, regional, and global levels resulted in the emergence of a new political climate that was conducive for a renewed effort by the international community and the parties involved in the conflict to bring peace to the Middle East It is beyond the scope of this presentation to discuss these historical developments, which led, first, to the Madrid Conference in 1991 and subsequently to the signing of the Oslo Accord in September 1993 – an event that has been widely acclaimed as a historical turning point in Israeli-Palestinian relations For the first time in their long history of hostility and bloodshed, both sides mutually agreed to recognize the legitimate existence of one another and committed themselves to a peaceful resolution of their disagreements via direct negotiations according to the principles and procedures embedded in the Oslo Accord However, despite the widespread optimism that surrounded this event, particularly in the international community, it should be born in mind that the Israeli-Jewish public did not unanimously welcome the Oslo Accord, nor was it accepted by large segments of the Palestinian society and the Arab world As for Israel, the main opposition derived from the ideological considerations of those members of right who refused to accept the underlying principle of the Oslo Accord, namely “land for peace” and, implicitly, the creation of an independent Palestinian state In addition, a few observers have pointed to some major deficiencies of the accord, particularly its vagueness with respect to mechanisms of implementation and handling of violations, as well as the postponement of critical issues, such as the future status of Jerusalem and the problem of the Palestinian refugees, to the final stage of negotiations To be sure, there were some experts who believed that this vagueness should be regarded as a classical case of “constructive ambiguity”3, allowing both sides a degree of flexibility and adjustment in future stages of negotiations However, this view was not shared by a significant part of the Israeli public For the latter, such mechanisms were vital because Israel was expected, according to the Oslo Accord, to give to the Palestinians tangible stuff, such as territory, whereas the latter were expected to pay mostly in terms of political and symbolic currency, such as the removal from the Palestinian Charter clauses that explicitly called for the destruction of Israel The closest to a concrete step on the Palestinian side was their obligation to fight terror and abolish the terror organizations, notably the Hamas and Islamic Watson, Geoffrey An overview of the Oslo accords The Oslo Accords: international law and the IsraeliPalestinian peace agreements Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 Jihad Yet, the observation that from the very beginning of the Oslo process, Palestinian terror continued on a larger scale than before convinced many Israelis that the Palestinians could not be trusted and that the Oslo Accord lacked the means to ensure their compliance with the responsibility to fight terror.5 Be it as it may, the Oslo Accord were accompanied by a deep divide in Israeli society, which was reflected in the emergence of two distinct and nearly equal camps of supporters (the left) and opponents (the right) of the Accord With but a few and generally small fluctuations, the relative size of the pro-Oslo and the anti-Oslo camps remained intact until about the year 2000, when the pro-Oslo camp had been gradually shrunk to become a small minority within the Israeli Jewish community The stability of these collective attitudes up to that time should not be taken lightly, given the prior observation that most of those years were characterized by widespread Palestinian terror, in which hundreds of Israeli-Jewish civilians were killed in residential or commercial neighborhoods As I have argued elsewhere, this stability is largely to be explained by the political and ideological convictions underlying the attitudes towards “Oslo.” Accordingly, each camp interpreted Palestinian terror and framed it in a manner that was consistent with its own deeply entrenched pre-dispositions Thus, the left camp argued that the resort to terror essentially resulted from the Palestinians’ state of despair due to the protracted Israeli occupation, and that these acts of terror demonstrated the urgency for advancing the peace process, even at costly concessions Some members of the pro-Oslo camp went as far as to suggest that those killed or injured by the Palestinians' attacks should be perceived as "victims of the peace process," namely as a regrettable cost that must be paid, if necessary, for the sake of the larger goal it serves The anti-Oslo camp, in contrast, viewed the intensification of terror, and the reluctance of the Palestinian Authority to make a serious effort to fight against it, as an indication that the Palestinians were not genuinely ready to make peace with Israel and that their moral standards, as manifested in the deliberate and systematic targeting of ordinary Israeli civilians, including children, women and the elderly, made them unworthy partners for peace Just in the first two years after the Oslo Accord was signed, Palestinian terror claimed the lives of about 150 Israelis, most of whom were civilians killed in suicide attacks aimed at crowded places such a buses or shopping centers In fact, some of the terror acts occurred during the first months following the signing of the Oslo Accord This is not say that Israel has complied with all of its own obligations under the Oslo Accord The virtual tie between the two camps was briefly broken during the elections campaign of May 1999, when the then Prime-Minster and leader of the Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, was defeated in his race against Ehud Barak, the Labor’s party candidate This outcome is reflected in the “peace index6”, which at that time reached one of its highest levels since June 1994, when it was first measured and constructed As indicated by the pre-elections polls of the peace index, as well as by segmentation of the voters according to their party affiliations, Barak won the race because he was able to get the support of some of the right-wing voters, particularly of the moderate, more pragmatic members of this camp Barak’s added value for this group of voters mainly derived from his much-acclaimed military background (‘the most decorated soldier in the history of the Israeli army’) and his image as ‘Mr Security’, namely one who would not compromise Israel’s vital national interests and security However, Barak’s personal victory against Netanyhu in the direct race between them was not accompanied by a similar victory for his Labor party in the general Parliamentary election In fact, the right wing camp was able to preserve its power in the Knesset, and it took Barak considerable amount of effort and manipulation before he was able to put together a coalition government His coalition, once formed, quickly proved fragile and was finally dissolved just about eighteen months after it was formed Our main source of data is an ongoing longitudinal survey of Israeli attitudes toward the peace process, known as the Peace Index The time frame of the findings we present here extends from June 1994, when the first poll was conducted, to May 2004 when the last survey included in this study was performed The polls continue at present The main dependent variable is a monthly index constructed from two questionnaire items pertaining to the Oslo process between Israel and the Palestinians The first item is a standard attitudinal question in which respondents were asked to indicate the degree to which they support or oppose the Oslo process on a five-point Likert scale, with coded for ‘strongly oppose’ and for ‘strongly support.’ The second item probes to what extent the respondents believed that the Oslo process would lead to a peace agreement between the two sides in the coming years This item also was designed as a five-point Likert scale, ranging from (‘do not believe at all’) to (‘completely believe’) For the sake of clarity we rescored the original scales from a low of zero (originally 1) to a high of 100 (originally 5), by: (old score - 1) x 25 This linear transformation preserves the original distances between individual scores while presenting the results in a more convenient metric, anchored between zero and 100 Correlations and similar statistics are unaffected Some experts on Israeli elections have suggested that Netanyahu lost the support of some members of his own party because of their disaffection with his personal behavior Peace Index Over Time Peace Index Value Rabin/Peres Netanyahu Barak Sharon 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Quarters (Three m onth groupings) Indeed, within a few months following his electoral victory, it became clear that Barak’s policies had not yielded the promised results, due to little or no gains either in the Palestinian or Syrian arenas Furthermore, the public didn’t appreciate the costs that Barak was willing to pay in order reach an agreement, especially in light of the common belief that the Palestinians have not given any sign of reciprocity, particularly with respect to the elimination of terror and of the viciously anti-Israeli propaganda by prominent Palestinian leadership, religious figures, school teachers and the mass media In fact, findings of the Peace Index polls have consistently shown that the majority of the Israeli Jewish public, including a significant minority on the left, mistrusted the intentions of the Palestinians to the extent that they did not believe that the historical conflict with the Palestinians would be brought to an end even if the two sides were to sign a formal peace agreement The trend of growing dissatisfaction of the Israeli Jewish public with the Oslo process was clearly evident during the Camp David Summit Meeting of July 2000, when Barak’s farreaching proposals, as reported by the media, were totally rejected and rebuffed by the Palestinians8 Indeed, the Israeli public not only disapproved of Barak’s concessions but also widely believed that during the negotiations in Camp David, Arafat represented the Palestinian national interests more wisely and shrewdly than Barak did In short, just a little over one year after being elected, by a comfortable margin, Barak’s policy lost the support of the majority of the Israeli Jewish public The subsequent eruption of the Palestinian uprising (Intifada) in the fall of 2000, barely two months after the failure of Camp David Summit, can probably considered as the last blow given to the Oslo process and the leadership responsible For a systematic discussion of different explanations given to the failure of the Camp David Summit see Rabinovich, Itmar: Waging Peace, Princeton University Press, 2004, pp 160-180 for it Towards the end of his term and after announcing his resignation, Barak still made a last minute attempt to salvage the peace process by initiating an Israeli Palestinian conference in Taba, Egypt However, by this time he had already become a ‘lame duck’ head of state, lacking the legitimate authority to conduct further negotiations with the Palestinians Collective disdain was clearly evident in the outcomes of the elections of February 2001, when Ariel Sharon defeated Ehud Barak by a landslide, with a margin of slightly over 25% of the votes These political developments have been clearly reflected in the trend of Peace Index, both during Barak and Sharon’s governments, when there was a decrease from a score of almost 60 at the beginning of Barak's government, to nearly 30 points in last several years The observation that the decline of the peace index has been gradual rather than abrupt is telling It suggests that the disaffection with the Oslo process should not be interpreted as whimsical and emotional – characteristics, which have often been attributed to fluctuations in mass behavior and attitudes Instead, it represents a learning process based on the accumulation of Israeli experience with the Palestinians during the decade of the Oslo process Interestingly, the downward trend of the Peace Index has cut across all parts of Israeli-Jewish society, including political parties and religious identities This is illustrated the following graphs In other words, despite the differences between left and right in their initial dispositions towards Oslo, both camps have responded uniformly to the signals sent by the Palestinians and have adopted, accordingly, a deeply structured resentment and mistrust toward them Indeed, findings of the Peace Index during the last few years reveal that about 50% of the IsraelJewish public define themselves as right, 20% as center and another 20% as left (the remaining 10% are undecided) 70 Rabin/Peres Netanyahu Barak Sharon 60 50 Orthodox 40 Traditional 30 20 Secular 10 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Peace Index Average Peace Index by Religious Tradition 19951996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 20032004 Date in Quarter Peace Index and Political Identitiy Netanyahu Barak Sharon left other right Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Peace Index Value Rabin/ Peres 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 20032004 Date (in yearly quarters) However, the shift to the right does not necessarily mean that the public still adheres to the same views that were held before the signing of the Oslo Accord In fact, the entire left-right scale has moved considerably towards the left, so that many members of the right camp of to-day are willing to accept some critical concessions that were totally rejected by the right before In particular, there is a clear majority within the right camp that supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the acceptance, with some modifications, of the "Green Line" of the pre 1967 era, as the future border between the two states and, perhaps most importantly, the evacuation of all the Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and most of the settlements in the West Bank These prevailing attitudes suggest that the spirit of Oslo has nevertheless left its mark on Israeli society At the same time, it should be born in mind that on two critical issues – Jerusalem and the refugees – the Israeli public is unwilling to compromise, even at the cost of continued violence and no prospects for peace These attitudes imply that the collective state of mind of the Israeli Jewish community is, to a large extent, pessimist in regard to the chances of genuine peace with the Palestinians, with the latter considered totally untrustworthy and deeply resentful of Israel's existence as a Jewish state It is because of this state of mind that the Israel public overwhelmingly supports the construction of a fence that would separate the two peoples, both physically and symbolically Indeed, since the construction of the fence has been underway, there has been a considerable reduction in Palestinian terror inside Israel, though other factors affected this trend as well In other words, in contrast to the idea of a “New Middle East,” based on close ties and economic cooperation between the countries and the peoples in the region, the Israelis opt for a two-state solution, one that is based on mutual separation and closed borders Under these circumstances, and given the large gaps between the two sides, particularly with respect to the issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees, it should become clear that at present time, renewed direct negotiations between the two sides are not likely to be fruitful It follows that only through outside intervention, in which the United States should play a central role, can put new life to the prospects of peace between The Israeli and the Palestinians Alas, with its current problematic situation in the Middle East and vulnerability in other parts of the world, the chances for a rigorous effort on behalf of America to renew the peace process are not very promising At least in the short run, therefore, we should accept the discouraging message according to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may perhaps be managed but not really resolved 10 ... Palestine has historically been the "Land of Israel", some Israelis raised the argument that the construction of settlements, at least in some areas, such as the Jordan Valley and the mountainous... of the Israeli-Arab scene, is that the tolerance and encouragement of civilian Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli authorities, has been a grave historical mistake- the. .. renewed effort by the international community and the parties involved in the conflict to bring peace to the Middle East It is beyond the scope of this presentation to discuss these historical developments,