Oslo and Its Aftermath: Lessons Learned from Track Two Diplomacy

Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the violence that followed, many scholars have reflected upon the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Most of this analysis has focused on official negotiations without considering the substantial role that unofficial peace efforts have played in peacebuilding, both prior to and after Oslo. This article, in contrast, seeks to better understand the application of “track two” diplomacy to the Israeli–Palestinian case. It reports on a self‐reflection effort by numerous Israeli–Palestinian peace practitioners to better understand what has worked, what has not, and how new initiatives could be more effectively organized and carried out in the future. The research presented is based on an inventory of seventy‐nine track two projects that occurred between Israelis and Palestinians between 1992 and 2004, personal interviews with many of those who organized and oversaw these projects, and two focus group meetings that brought together a total of forty practitioners. In this article, we seek to better understand two issues: (1) how track two initiatives have changed in scope, organization, and intent; and (2) how track two practitioners have sought to disseminate their work beyond the participants of those initiatives. Our findings present an overall picture of the Israeli–Palestinian second track practice and identify a number of trends and common types of practice. Among the trends we have identified are the following: during the peace process years, more track two initiatives were undertaken with elite/professional participants than with representatives of the grassroots, but in the subsequent decade‐and‐a‐half, Israeli–Palestinian grassroots, track two initiatives gradually replaced senior‐level track two exchanges; most of the grassroots initiatives we studied were relationship focused, whereas those involving elite participants are outcome focused; the track two community subscribes to a set of theoretical propositions about which conditions and contexts facilitate the transmission of track two insights and ideas to the political process, but these propositions have yet to be validated; and track two specialists do little strategic planning about ways to most effectively transfer track two insights and ideas to the political process. Our research also identified four distinct, but not mutually exclusive, approaches to practice: the psychological, the constructivist, the capacity building, and the realistic interest.     

Rashomon in Jerusalem: Mapping the Israeli Negotiators' Positions on the Israeli–Palestinian Peace Process, 1993–2001

To understand the complexities and dilemmas of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict this paper maps the divergent Israeli positions along the route of the "Oslo" peace process of 1993–2001, including the negotiations at Camp David (July 2000), and Taba (January 2001). This paper is based upon a qualitative content analysis of 20 in-depth interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a broad range of Israeli negotiators, including senior politicians, foreign ministry officials, senior military officers, former members of the security services, and political aides. This paper tackles the question of how Israelis who were directly involved in the peace process now evaluate it, offering a portrait of how sharply at odds were the various perceptions of what happened and who was responsible for the ultimate failure.     

"Sticking One's Neck Out": Reducing Mistrust in Sri Lanka's Peace Negotiations

Lack of trust has been widely used as an explanation for the failure of peace negotiations. However, we know little about how mistrust can be reduced between belligerents involved in negotiating peace. Why are some confidence‐building strategies more successful than others? For theory‐building purposes, this article explores how a party can send conciliatory signals to the other party that increase trust by exposing itself to three different kinds of political risks. More specifically, it compares the variables that reduced mistrust — or failed to reduce mistrust — during two peace negotiations in Sri Lanka: in 1994–1995 and in 2002. Using a theoretical framework that combines social psychology and rational choice approaches, this article examines the communicative signaling process between the parties. In addition, by drawing out the implications from this argument, we offer some insight into why the peace process in Sri Lanka became politically stalemated in 2003. We also use our comparison of Sri Lanka's peace processes to develop general propositions about the dynamics that can reduce mistrust. The main proposition that remains to be tested empirically is whether obstacles to peace can be transformed into important catalysts for the reduction of mistrust.     

Blueprint for Arab–Israeli Peace? President Carter and the Brookings Report

After the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, the American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, conducted a series of negotiations between Israel and its Arab adversaries, culminating in three disengagement agreements. As successful as these were, by late 1975 Kissinger’s step-by-step approach had stagnated. New approaches seemed essential to push the peace process forward. Throughout 1975, a Brookings Institution study group wrote a report on how the United States could better approach Arab–Israeli peacemaking. It recommended a comprehensive approach, aimed at solving all outstanding questions, by including all the parties within the same framework. The recommendations advocated including the Soviet Union in the peace process and that the Palestinians should represent themselves. The report was highly influential on President Jimmy Carter’s subsequent approach towards the Arab–Israeli conflict—and many of the report’s authors staffed his Administration. Carter’s perceived adaptation of the report aggrieved the Israelis, whilst for others the Brookings report served as a normative benchmark for the Carter presidency.     

Motivation and Intervention in the Northern Ireland Peace Process: An Interview with President Bill Clinton

The role of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace process has been acknowledged as an example of political risk‐taking and leadership driven by political interests and strategic post–Cold War aims. The tendency to examine Clinton's role from the perspective of international and global policy objectives, however, has obscured consideration of his motivational role in the Northern Ireland peace process and of how he moved between encouragement and intervention to help the political parties reach a settlement. This article, which is drawn from an extended interview conducted with Clinton in 2017, seeks to paint a more comprehensive picture of Clinton's participation in the peace process, showing how his combination of motivational and interventional skills enabled him to help convince others of the need to take risks for peace and gave him greater influence and leverage over the peace process as a result.     

The Arabs in Israel: Identity,criminality and the peace process

The basic datum that criminality among the Palestinian Arabs of Israel is nearly double the average among the population in general begs some hard questions and answers. It is suggested here that, besides the regular crimes endemic in Israeli society of which Arabs and Jews alike partake, there is a category of criminal activity that is peculiar to the Arabs, under the heading of ‘ideological’, namely nationalistically and/or religiously induced. It is suggested here that the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians does not necessarily reduce the rate of criminality among Israeli Arabs. Quite the contrary, in some cases it might increase criminal partnerships between Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line divide even when the peace process is alive and kicking; and when it is not, things might even get worse with the Israeli Arabs increasingly identifying with their brethren across the border in their struggle against the right‐wing government of Israel from which they are totally alienated.     

The nature of Islamic fundamentalism in Israel

This article focuses on the nature of Islamic fundamentalism in Israel. The interplay of Islamic fundamentalism's attitude toward the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict and the extent of the movement's integration into Israeli political life is explored. In addressing these themes, the history of Israeli Islamic fundamentalism is reviewed from the pre‐state period through the present, as are effects of both internal and external factors on the movement's development. In general, the movement has followed a pragmatic line, although its future endeavors and nature will undoubtedly be influenced by the continuing peace process.     

Reframing Sacred Values

Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values — such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice — are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable.
Counterintuitively, understanding an opponent's sacred values, we believe, offers surprising opportunities for breakthroughs to peace. Because of the emotional unwillingness of those in conflict situations to negotiate sacred values, conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators should either leave sacred values for last in political negotiations or should try to bypass them with sufficient material incentives. Our empirical findings and historical analysis suggest that conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, offering to provide material benefits in exchange for giving up a sacred value actually makes settlement more difficult because people see the offering as an insult rather than a compromise. But we also found that making symbolic concessions of no apparent material benefit might open the way to resolving seemingly irresolvable conflicts.
We offer suggestions for how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect and/or by apologizing for what they sincerely regret. We also offer suggestions for how to overcome barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritizing values, and reframing responsibility.     

International Dimensions: What Is the Role of Third Parties?

In the Arab–Israeli arena, third parties have traditionally played a prominent role. External intervention has tended to peak when violence threatens international interests (e.g., the 1973 Arab–Israeli War), or when the parties are unable to sustain a negotiating process. Whether providing political and security assurances aimed at mitigating insecurity or offering economic inducements to underwrite peace accords, third parties have made a number of positive contributions toward managing the conflict.     

Framing Peace Policies: The Competition for Resonant Themes

Political organizations make use of culturally resonant symbols to bring their message to the public. In response to a political organization's use of a culturally resonant symbol, competing political organizations attack the connection between that organization's message and the symbol. Rochon and Wolfsfeld propose a process for the movement of policy justification symbols from interest groups and social movements to governments. This article examines this process in the context of the struggle among the Israeli nationalist movement, the Israeli peace movement, and the Israeli government, identifying a typology of tactical frames applicable to research beyond the Israeli context: denial, incorporation, and end run. Press releases by these political competitors show a specialization of tactical frames by social organization. Nationalists prefer to deny the validity of competing resonant symbols. Peace activists prefer to invent or search for new symbols, in an end run. Governments tend to absorb and redirect symbols initially used by the competing movements to justify government actions. An analysis of the political opportunity structures and organizational conditions that determine a political organization's tactics for attacking resonant frames is conducted.     

Problems of the press in Latin America

This article examines whether the inauguration of peace between countries has a significant effect on how the news media cover the other side. It is argued that, due to the nature of news, leaders will generally find it easier to mobilize the media for conflict than for peace. However, the actual role the media will play in such attempts can be understood by looking at the political and media environments in which journalists construct news about peace. A joint project was conducted involving both Israeli and Jordanian researchers. The methodology included in-depth interviews with journalists from both countries and a content analysis of newspaper articles published during three different historical periods. The findings demonstrate that although there was a temporary improvement in the media image of the other side, there was little evidence that peace had a significant and lasting influence on coverage. There were, however, some important changes in the prominence of certain news slots. The interviews with the journalists provided valuable insights about some of the political and professional reasons for these findings.     

Ingredients of a Successful Track Two Negotiation

During three days in 2003, an Israeli–Palestinian group met in London to negotiate the draft of the “Geneva Initiative,” which offered a potential final status agreement between Israel and Palestine. In this article, I analyze the video recording of these unofficial negotiations and examine how the framing and conduct of the talks enabled significant progress toward reaching an agreement. I describe six main framing techniques used by the mediators: calling the meetings an “exercise,” which reduced restraints on the participants and enhanced their flexibility, avoiding deep historical issues to focus solely on future‐oriented pragmatic solutions, allowing the participants to discuss any topic they chose while deliberately avoiding crucial narrative issues, convincing the participants that this track two negotiation was crucial for the future of official Israeli–Palestinian relations, accentuating the parties' understandings and agreements with each other, and building a sense of superordinate group identity among the participants, to encourage cooperation. These components were the key “ingredients” for the first — and still the only — (unofficial) detailed proposal for an Israeli–Palestinian peace agreement. They provide lessons that could improve the success of other track two negotiations.     

Change Nobody Believes In: Obama and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Despite the promise of ‘change’ in President Barack Obama's early dealings with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the policy that has since emanated from the White House was in fact commensurate with those of preceding administrations. Rather than heralding a new direction for American engagement with the conflict, the Obama Administration had displayed more patterns of continuity than change in its dealings with both parties. Specifically, by continuing to act as “Israel's attorney” during negotiations, the Obama team had in effect negated the president's early pledges to act as an honest broker in the conflict. In assessing the (in)effectiveness of the Administration's management of the Israeli–Palestinian issue, it seems that on-going mediation efforts to revive the moribund peace process have exhausted their potential. Arbitration may be explored as a more effective method to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian territorial dispute.     

Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process

The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was one of the most brutal conflicts in Europe since the end of World War II. Thirty‐four cease‐fires failed to produce peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the late American diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, brokered one that set the stage for a series of negotiations—starting in the Balkans and ending in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton peace process finally terminated the Bosnian War. The interplay of military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and diplomacy by the United States was remarkable. This article highlights thirteen conflict resolution lessons or “Holbrookeisms” that can be learned from the Dayton peace process. Some aspects of Holbrooke's approach toward the peace process helped him to successfully mediate an end to the Bosnian War, while others contributed toward some of the existing cleavages in today's Bosnian society.     

Foreign affairs in the Italian party congresses; the PCI

Incentives are capable of creating favourable environments in which peace processes can make progress. This is especially true for mega incentives, which can assist in overcoming political and socio-psychological barriers to peace. In Israeli–Arab peacemaking, incentives have not yet proven efficient. To date, they have been used in a limited and inefficient manner. In 2010, the US offered Israel incentives in return for an extension of Israel's settlement freeze. This move failed due to unfavourable political conditions and scepticism regarding its ability to bring about a major breakthrough. Nevertheless, it signaled that incentives are now an integral tool in US diplomacy and could serve as a step towards crafting a multi-national mega incentive package for Middle East peace.     

De-terrorising the Palestinian national struggle: the roadmap to peace

This article follows the representation of Palestinian nationalism as a history of terrorism. This representation was produced in the Israeli media and academia, and broadcast by the state's political elite in international arenas. In the West, this image was accepted in many circles and affected the chances of the Palestinians having a fair hearing in the peace negotiations which began after the 1967 war. The article follows the construction of the equation of Palestinian nationalism with terrorism, assesses its impact on the peace process, and suggests the deconstruction of this narrative as the best way forward in future negotiations.     

International relations scholarship,academic institutions and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

This paper explores the role of academic scholarship and practice in constituting, aggravating, and resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The first section of the paper examines how scholarly discourse and methods of analysis contribute to shaping (mis)understandings of on-the-ground conflict dynamics. To demonstrate this point, the paper first overviews conventional social science methods used in mainstream international relations (IR) scholarship that tend to reify, freeze and homogenize ‘the conflict’ as well as conflict parties and then uses a different scholarly approach—namely a processual, peace-studies-oriented methodology—that provides a very different ‘picture’ of the conflict, its parties and appropriate strategies of engagement in the pursuit of peace. The second section of the paper uses three brief case studies to demonstrate how Israeli and Palestinian academics help constitute ‘the conflict’ and its parties not only through their scholarship but also through their ‘practice’. These examples also show the importance of re-evaluating analytical models to include contextual dynamics such as time, place and sources of available power as well as to recognize the diversity of Palestinian and Israeli views regarding the sources of—and best approaches for addressing—‘the conflict’.     

Back-Channel Negotiation: International Bargaining in the Shadows

Back‐channel negotiations (BCNs) are officially sanctioned negotiations conducted in secret between the parties to a dispute. These extraordinary negotiations operate in parallel with, or replace, acknowledged front channels of negotiation. Back channels are like the black markets of negotiation; they are separate tables where bargaining takes place in the shadows. When front‐channel negotiations fail, they are sometimes eclipsed by successful BCNs even though the same principals, conflicts, and sociopolitical contexts are involved. This article asks: Why do decision makers deploy back channels? What is the impact of BCN on international peace processes? The Palestinian–Israeli peace process, in which both back and front channels have been used consistently, provides the basis for comparing channels and offering initial answers to these questions. The author concludes that while BCN can facilitate breakthrough agreements, it can also damage a peace process by helping to reinforce some of the uncertainties that gave rise to the use of back channels in the first place.     

Reconstructing post-war Lebanon: A challenge to the liberal peace?

This piece uses the example of reconstruction following the July–August 2006 Israeli–Hezbollah war in Lebanon to reflect on the existence of alternatives to the liberal peace. The term ‘liberal peace’ is used as shorthand for internationally-sponsored peace-support and reconstruction interventions and it is marked by its increasingly formulaic, top–down and ethnocentric nature. Two significant non-western actors were apparent in Lebanon's post-war reconstruction: the Gulf States and Jihad Al Bina (the reconstruction wing of Hezbollah). Using fieldwork, this article examines the extent to which the reconstruction activities of these non-western actors constitute an alternative to the liberal peace. It finds that these activities do not have the critical mass or ambition to form a fully-fledged alternative but argues that they reveal serious limitations in the liberal peace approach to post-war reconstruction.     

Europe under occupation: the European diplomatic community of practice in the Jerusalem area

ABSTRACT

This article shows how the existence of a community of European practitioners in the Jerusalem area gives substance to the European stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The often-stated European Union (EU) support for a two-state solution could appear meaningless in the absence of peace negotiations. However, European diplomats (i.e. diplomats of EU member states and EU officials) in the East Jerusalem–Ramallah area are committed to specific practices of political resistance to Israeli occupation and recognition of Palestinian institutions. These practices have led not only to a specific political geography of diplomacy, but also to a community of practice, composed of European diplomats and based on their daily experience of resisting occupation and bestowing recognition. It is this group of officials who represent and actively “do” Europe’s position and under occupation.