A common space for harmonic peacemakers

The New Peace Process put in Perspective

With the start of new U.S.-brokered direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis, IPS presents a collection of articles, insider accounts, and documents covering the negotiations, from Madrid through Annapolis, over the past two decades. Throughout the period, the issues to be resolved remain the same, including settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, right of return, borders, security, and water resources.

The analysis and documentation presented here highlight the persistent obstacles to successful negotiations. Chiefly, the massive power imbalance between the two sides and Washington’s virtually unconditional backing of Israel, even as it acts as mediator stand in the way of successful peace talks. A study of the selections would seem to suggest that a U.S. structural bias in favor of Israel precludes the possibility of the evenhandedness necessary to redress the power imbalance – itself a product of cumulative U.S. political, diplomatic, military, and financial support of Israel.

From the Start: The Madrid Peace Talks

In "Negotiating Self-Government Arrangements" (1992), Raja Shehadeh considers the Madrid talks' ambiguous terms of reference, essentially starting with discussion of a "self-government arrangement." This neglected Israel's established facts on the ground, or the changes Israel implemented within the occupied territories. He contended that excluding the settlements, and the wider web of Israeli legal and administrative mechanisms that effectively annexed portions of occupied territories, from the initial Madrid negotiations precluded the possibility of real progress.
The late Haydar `Abd al-Shafi shared his reflections on the peace process in this insightful 1992 interview. Head of the Palestinian negotiating team during the post-Madrid peace talks, ‘Abd al-Shafi gave an insider account of the negotiations with the Israelis, the role of the U.S. and Arab states, the expectations and goals of the Palestinians, and much more. Read retrospectively, one can get a sense of how some of his fears materialized, while many of his hopes did not.

In his 1993 article, "The Palestinian-Israel Peace Negotiations: An Overview and Assessment" Camille Mansour gives a detailed account of the post-Madrid negotiations in Washington, DC and assesses what they achieved. Mansour, who advised the Palestinian delegation, concluded that "assessed against the Palestinian national agenda, the results of fifteen months of negotiations are meager."

His criteria for assessing the talks up to that point were their progress towards Palestinian statehood, a solution of the Palestinian question in all its aspects, and finally, the unity of the Palestinian political movement. Perhaps, these fundamental criteria should be applied to the current talks.

Israeli Domestic Politics: Challenge to Negotiations

"Israel," Henry Kissinger once remarked, "has no foreign policy, only domestic politics." Avi Shlaim considered Israeli politics in light of peace efforts, especially the competitive relationship between then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, on Israeli policy during peace negotiations. This 1995 article shows Israel's "complex relationship" between domestic politics and its relationship with the Palestinians. This is a dynamic that could determine the fate of direct talks.
Israeli domestic politics produce factions capable of extreme action to undermine negotiations. Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote about the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995. The politics of assassination have been raised in current discussion of the possibility of spoiling tactics by groups opposed to peace concessions. Fearing a potential Israel "civil war" over the settlements, Morris warned that the ability of an assassin to alter Israel's political agenda would "haunt the Israeli polity during the negotiation and implementation of the final stage of the Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement."

The Absence of 'Justice' in Peace Talks

In his 1998 article, "The Peace Process and the Politics of Conflict Resolution," Amr Sabet took a step back, suggesting that in principle, conventional Western conflict resolution mechanisms remove justice from the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a result he predicts the failure of the process because it cannot fulfill basic demands for justice, which are inherent to the Palestinian narrative. Thinking about the current direct talks, it is worth considering the role of justice in a final agreement as this could affect the sustainability of a peace deal.

From Oslo to Ross: Partisan Mediators

In one of the most important JPS articles on the Oslo process, the Norwegian historian Hilde Henriksen Waage analyzed her country's role in the peace process (2005), starting with the secret initial “back channel” negotiations that eventually led to the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreement of September 1993. She details Norway’s heavy bias in favor of Israel and the inherent problems posed by the wide power asymmetry between Israel and the Palestinians -- an essential characteristic that defines the negotiations.

Taking a closer look at “The Camp David II Negotiations," Norman Finkelstein (2008) argues that, judged from the perspective of Palestinians’ and Israelis’ respective rights under international law, all the concessions at Camp David came from the Palestinian side, and none came from the Israeli side. Yet, Dennis Ross, a U.S. mediator and government official through several administrations, blamed the Palestinians for the breakdown in the talks. This flows from a central belief of Ross that "Palestinians are in thrall to a victim syndrome," as Finkselstein writes.

(I'm sorry many of the links don't link but some do.)

This es