THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: TIME FOR A NEW STRATEGY Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D. Copyright © 2016 by Alon Ben-Meir All rights reserved. Material included in this paper may not be copied or duplicated without written authorization. Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D. Tel: 212-866-5998 Email: [email protected] www.alonben-meir.com Table of Contents Introduction....................................................................................................................................................1 The Role of Psychological Resistance...........................................................................................................2 The Changing Political Conditions in Israel and Palestine............................................................................5 A Conducive Geopolitical Environment........................................................................................................8 Why Have Past Negotiations Failed?...........................................................................................................10 The EU’s Indispensable Role.......................................................................................................................13 Exacting an irrevocable commitment to peace...............................................................................13 Abandoning the Quartet in favor of the API...................................................................................15 Demonstrating commitment to peace on the ground......................................................................20 Provisions for a Framework for Peace.........................................................................................................22 Overcoming Potential Obstacles..................................................................................................................26 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................27 Appendix......................................................................................................................................................28 1) Historical Experiences and Perception.......................................................................................28 2) Religious Conviction and Reality...............................................................................................30 3) The Self-Imposed Ideological Siege...........................................................................................31 4) United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)...........................................................32 5) United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 (1973)...........................................................34 6) The Arab Peace Initiative (March 28, 2002)..............................................................................34 Endnotes.........................................................................................................................................36 TIME FOR A NEW STRATEGY Introduction: The enduring obstacles to peace between Israel and the Palestinians coupled with their changing internal political dynamics have made it extremely difficult for them to resolve their conflict. The resumption of bilateral peace negotiations with US mediation alone will not succeed any more than the Obama administration’s two previous efforts. Past failures in the negotiations, however, provide constructive lessons and strongly point to the need for a new strategy, a new framework, and the involvement of new players who can apply conducive, and when necessary, coercive measures that would compel Israelis and Palestinians to commit to reaching an agreement for their own sake. Before the resumption of the negotiations, however, it will be critical to understand the role of psychological resistance, how the changing political conditions in Israel and among the Palestinians make it impossible for the two parties to negotiate a peace agreement on their own, and why past negotiations failed. In the wake of the shifting geopolitical environment throughout the Middle East, new conditions have been created that make the prospect of negotiating peace far more conducive than in the past decade. To translate that into productive negotiations that will in fact lead to a peace agreement, one critical prerequisite must first be established—a real commitment to peace by both Israel and the Palestinians, which is still lacking. To demonstrate such commitment, both sides must simultaneously take conciliatory people-to-people measures for at least a year before the resumption of negotiations to foster mutual trust towards forging a peace agreement. In that regard, the European Union (EU) has a critical role to play to create fertile ground for the resumption of peace talks. These measures are indispensable to begin the process of reconciliation between the two sides as they are central to mitigating the psychological impediments—historical, religious, and ideological—that made it impossible to reach an agreement in the past. On that basis, this paper advances a framework for peace which is founded on three central pillars: 1) a careful consideration of prior agreements and past negotiations on various conflicting issues, 2) the outside players who are needed to act as facilitators/observers/enforcers/peacekeepers, and 3) a new framework and time frame for the negotiating process. This proposal further provides some measures to deal with problems that could potentially arise during the negotiations that could impede progress once the talks resume. Finally, this paper concludes with a warning to Israeli leadership that unless they change course immediately toward a two-state solution, Israel will become a bi-national state with a Palestinian majority and sacrifice its democracy in favor of an apartheid garrison state. 1 THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESISTANCE The most puzzling aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that after 68 years of mutual violence, enmity, and suffering, it remains unresolved even though coexistence is an irreversible fact and a two-state solution remains the only viable option. Although there are many contentious issues that must be specifically addressed, it is the psychological dimension of the conflict which directly impacts every conflicting issue and makes the state of affairs increasingly intractable. Therefore, to resolve the conflict, we must first look into the elements that inform the psychological dimension, the alleviation of which is sine qua non to finding a solution. On the surface, the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems illogical and unsettling. After all, a majority of Israelis and Palestinians realize that coexistence, whether under conditions of enmity or friendship, is a fact that neither side can change short of a catastrophic development. Both sides also understand that the general parameters of a sustainable peace agreement must rest on a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with some land swaps, Jerusalem remaining a united city (but a capital of two states), and compensating and/or resettling the vast majority of Palestinian refugees in the newly-created Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These fundamental imperatives, coupled with long-term mutual security measures, represent what was on the negotiating table in 2000 at Camp David and in 2010/2011 and 2013/2014 under the Obama administration’s auspices in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Each round, with various degrees of progress, aimed at finalizing an agreement and yet ultimately failed to do so. The question is: why? Biased and selective perceptions, reinforced by historical experiences, religion, and incompatible ideologies, have locked both sides into immobile positions. The factors that maintain and enhance these patterns include emotions such as fear, distrust, and insecurity. The psychological outcome is mutual denial of the narrative of the other and mutual delegitimization. Put together, the operative result is stagnation and polarization. What is therefore needed is a consensus-oriented dialogue at the leadership level by both officials and non-officials, and people-to-people interactions, to resolve the issues of perception – a tall order given the current environment that buttresses rather than ameliorates prejudiced perceptions. There are certain psychological concepts which are relevant to understanding the Israeli- Palestinian conflict; the concept of illusion is an essential one. In The Future of an Illusion, Freud offers the following definition: “…we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification.”1 An illusion then is not necessarily an error, unlike a delusion – that is, illusions “need 2 not necessarily be false… unrealizable or in contradiction to reality.” What is characteristic of illusions is that 1) they are derived from deep human wishes, and 2) the belief is held (or would be held) in the absence of any compelling evidence, or good rational grounds, in its behalf. Both Israelis and Palestinians are clearly in the grip of very powerful illusions which only serve to prolong the conflict and prevent any mutual understanding. In particular, the belief shared by many Israelis that they have a biblical right to the land (including Judea and Samaria)