The study of conflict resolution is prefaced on the notion that two parties in
conflict desire a mutually acceptable resolution to their dispute, however
intractable it may be. The behavior by Israel and the Palestinians, however,
suggests otherwise. Both parties are defying essential principles of conflict
resolution, serving to prolong rather than conclude their festering
conflict.
Diminishing returns To achieve a resolution, parties in
conflict must believe that continuing their dispute provides diminishing
returns. That is, they have exhausted all possibilities to improve upon their
position, and the situation of both sides can only be further improved through
compromise and cooperation. Recent developments indicate that neither Israel nor
the Palestinians have come to this conclusion. In fact, each side has
contributed to a preservation of the status quo: Israel through settlement
construction and arrogant intransigence in recognizing any merit to Palestinian
positions, and Palestinians through their refusal to return to the negotiating
table and insistence on the right of return for the Palestinian refugees, which
Israel cannot accept.
The status quo has become a political asset for
each side, even at the risk of serving as a strategic liability for the future
of both peoples. Furthermore, with shortterm political considerations dominating
the discourse in Ramallah and Jerusalem, neither side has indicated any
willingness to take even the kind of calculated risk that will be necessary to
resolve the conflicts. In addition, the cost of maintaining the conflict today
is currently acceptable to both sides. The economy in Israel and the West Bank
is thriving, and it is even improving in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has an
ameliorated relationship and a renewed open border with Egypt. From each side’s
perspective, the conflict is manageable in the immediate term, even if both
parties appear to be headed off a cliff in the not-too-distant future.
A
zero-sum game Successful conflict resolution also requires a non-zero-sum
approach based on mutual compromises and mutual gains. Today, there is no such
give and take between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides believe that any
compromise constitutes a “loss” and the other side’s “gain.” This situation is
aggravated by the complete lack of trust between them. Without trust, risks – be
they political or real, such as security – are perceived as virtually impossible
to take.
Through their hard-line postures and rhetoric, each side is
diminishing the prospect of mutual gains in the future. Their actions are even
worse. Here, the “giving” – for example, in relation to territorial concessions
– is seen as a sacrifice, and the “taking” is considered
overdue. Positions are not described in terms of what is possible, but
“what is ours.” This diminishes the value of any give and take, makes it more
difficult to conduct, and even harder for conflict resolution efforts to
succeed.
Lack of outside pressure If parties in conflict are under some
level of outside pressure to reach a compromise, there is greater incentive to
do so. Today, the international community is weary of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and its resulting approach is serving to perpetuate rather than
resolve it. There is no pressure on Israelis or Palestinians to act. In
fact, their intransigence has been aided and even encouraged by their
international benefactors. For Israel, the image of over two dozen standing
ovations by members of Congress for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s diatribe
of preconditions and insults, confirms the unhelpful and even harmful laissez
faire attitude Congress has taken toward Israel’s self-destructive policies.
Meanwhile, the American Jewish community has been similarly idle. Rather than an
outcry, the Jewish community is providing support for whatever happens to be
Israel’s policy, however reckless it may be.
For the Palestinians, their
refusal to return to the negotiating table has been encouraged by the
international community’s burgeoning support for a UN General Assembly
resolution that ignores any possibility of a negotiated agreement. The
Palestinians may have greater international support today than at any point in
their history. Instead of interpreting this as backing for calculated risks
toward peace, the Palestinians have understood it as providing further
incentives to refuse a return to talks, and hold out for greater gains in the
future. In addition, like American Jews standing by Israel in its foolhardy
approaches, the Arab world is blindly supporting the Palestinians, rather than
encouraging them toward a historic peace agreement. Even worse, Iran is serving
to encourage continued conflict through its support of its proxies, Hamas and
Hezbollah.
Domestic complacency
Domestic outcries for conflict resolution
create greater political will to generate steps to achieve it. In Israel,
economic growth and a stable security environment have blinded Israelis into
believing the status quo is sustainable. Support for making necessary
concessions to reach an agreement hardly exists. Following Netanyahu’s address
to Congress – in which he provided a blueprint for prolonging the current
stalemate – his approval rating soared by 13 percent. The public has been
similarly complacent on the Palestinian side. The surge of Palestinian activism
has been focused on efforts to isolate Israel and to demand an end to the
Fatah-Hamas split, not efforts to reach a historic compromise with
Israel.
The reasons for this complacency are threefold. First, each side
fears the unknown. The Arab Spring has the region facing a period of
unprecedented change. Rather than proactively seeking to shape this period of
change, each side’s reluctance is based on a fear that the devil they know –
continued conflict – is perhaps safer than the devil they don’t – a
comprehensive resolution.
Second, there is a lack of political consensus
on both sides. Without a clear path developed by policymakers on both sides,
each is settling for the lowest common denominator. Without consensus, Jerusalem
and Ramallah have settled on internal compromises of mediocrity and
inaction.
Finally, each side is locked into old political narratives
against one another while each side is suffering from internal division hardly
conducive to a united political action. Israel remains focused on an archaic
notion of security despite the changed landscape of warfare and defense in the
region. Rather than recognize that the only guarantee for security is through a
comprehensive peace, Israel is locked into an inability to compromise because of
the security liabilities it worries peace would create. Meanwhile, Palestinians
remain committed to the impossible return of refugees, and Hamas’s repeated
existential threats. The teaching of this narrative in schools, and politicians’
espousing the “right of return” to the Palestinian public, is politically
expedient. However, doing so has created a hardened position that is
incompatible with genuine efforts to reach a lasting two-state
solution.
Prevailing pessimism
To achieve a resolution to a conflict,
both sides must believe they can succeed. If you are entering a room to
negotiate without a belief that it will lead anywhere, it will be a
self-fulfilling prophecy. That is what is happening today in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither side believes in the merits of
negotiations at the present time. The publics are equally skeptical about the
prospects for peace. This is a dangerous combination. If peace is not possible,
why try?
Without hope that the conflict can be resolved, there is no motivation
to work toward a historic compromise – and violence becomes the more likely
outcome. Even more, in the current pessimistic atmosphere, creative ideas in the
search for a solution are being stifled and readily dismissed, if not ostracized
and condemned. After years of failure, the parties and the international
community are as wary of concepts that have been tried and failed as they are of
new and inventive ones.
The religious component
In conflict resolution,
different political ideas are considered and negotiated until a compromise is
reached, provided the parties are committed to a resolution. Even in intractable
conflicts, time eventually highlights the inability to sustain hardened
ideologies, leading to an eventual realization of the benefits of a change in
tactics toward greater compromise and cooperation.
The religious
components of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have obfuscated this process. The
Jews’ affinity, for example, for Jerusalem and the Palestinians’ claim of east
Jerusalem to be their future capital are deeply rooted in religious, rather than
political, convictions. Regardless of how much time passes and what
developments occur, religion, particularly in its fundamentalist forms, provides
a solid foundation from which parties cannot deviate. It is very difficult,
though not impossible, to reconcile these convictions.
PEACE IS still
possible, however bleak the picture may appear today. The geopolitical dynamics,
though, must be changed in profound ways to overcome the current shortcomings in
achieving a successful conflict resolution. Each of the aforementioned
obstacles must be addressed, because the alternative to the current impasse is
mutually perilous. What is needed, then, are bold actions that can change the
dynamic of the conflict in a dramatic way.
A visit by President Barack
Obama to Jerusalem and Ramallah to speak directly to the Israeli and Palestinian
people and spell out the advantages of peace and the adverse effects of
continued stalemate, could have a significant impact on creating incentives for
the parties to act and to adjust their internal calculations regarding the
continuation of the conflict.
Similarly a push by the leading Arab states
to reinvigorate the Arab Peace Initiative could begin to reverse the atmosphere
of pessimism and intransigence that pervades the region. Indeed, regardless of
the regional Arab turmoil, and perhaps because of it, the initiative remains
central to any successful negotiations to ending the conflict.
In
addition, sustained dialogue among the religious groupings is required. Jewish
and Muslim religious leaders, have a responsibility to rise up in the name of
their teachings to find a solution to the religious element of the conflict,
which bears heavily on the overall conflict.
Most importantly, any chance
to improve the prospects for conflict resolution will require one critical
element that is in extremely short supply: leadership. Without leadership
to act in recognition of the danger the current stalemate poses, Israelis and
Palestinians – and their enablers – will continue blindly prolonging a conflict
that appears manageable yet is dangerously simmering. If that occurs,
they will one day be awakened by the kind of horrific, violent eruption that
could spin the region out of control.
The writer is adjunct professor of
international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches
international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.