Mediation: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - Research Paper Example

Mediation: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Introduction The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is among the most long-standing and intractable of the modern era. The conflict began at the end of the nineteenth century as a struggle between two national movements, the Palestinian and the Zionist, over the same piece of land. The decisive point of the conflict was the year 1948, when the Zionist movement won the war and established the state of Israel. The fulfilment of Zionist aspirations came about at the expense of the Palestinians, who remember the same date as Al Naqba – the Catastrophe.1 Lack of consensus over the issue has led to various complexities that are made up of a mixture of religious, ideological and political factors. Combined, they have led to more than 50 years of inter-community violence, several wars, and regional instability. More significantly, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has caused an estimated 100,000 casualties, the crumbling of Palestinian society, billions in economic losses, and the loss of opportunities to millions of people for a better life2. According to Bassiouni, Shlomo Ben-Ami, “all parties concerned are to blame, as is the international community, which has all too frequently failed to bite the bullet and impose a fair peace with which all sides could live.”3 In spite of the mediation efforts that have been in progress regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the situation in the Middle East still looks bleak. For instance, in 2008, it was hoped that the worst had occurred and that the prospects for peace were better than in the past years. But from experience, every time a new depth has been reached, leading to a belief that the conflict has reached the bottom, another lower level is reached. This was the state of affairs when Israel invaded Gaza on December 27, 2008, and the harm that it caused the Palestinians during that attack.4 The build up of human material and moral damage has led to bitter harvests. Although recent events might suggest to some people that no worse can happen, it still can, and this calls for more mediation between the conflicting sides. When negotiation fails in conflict resolution, or for some reason one or both parties in conflict refuse to communicate, states will often seek or accept mediation by an outside party, person or organisation to assist with their conflict resolution efforts.5 Of essence is that for a mediation process to be successful, the parties involved must have a common desire for the mediation to succeed6. According to Wiles, the Palestinian-Israel case has shown an element of a common desire to end the stalemate7. This is highlighted by the fact that polls have shown that both the Israeli people and Palestinian people have the desire to negotiate a two state resolution between the Palestinians and Israelis. Further, the vast minority of Palestinians and Israelis want peace between their populations.8 With the background information, this paper seeks to address the fundamental aspects of successful mediation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This will be achieved by analysing the role of the mediator in bringing about and sustaining peace talks, effective timing to ensure the mediation’s success, and challenges that are encountered during the mediation process. The paper will highlight a mediation process in which the United States president is directly involved in mediating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict talks. It will also highlight the issues regarding meetings with top Middle East leaders. I. Role of the Mediator A mediator acts as a neutral third party by actively engaging in a dispute settlement process. Mediation may be carried out by a government, an individual, group of states, or an agency of an international organisation. The mediator is expected to advance informal and non-binding, but concrete, proposals for resolving substantive questions in the dispute.9 Mediation includes a wide array of activities, which should be non-coercive and non-binding.10 The mediator helps the conflicting parties directly, either jointly or separately. The benefit of using a mediator stems from two major factors. First is that the mediator is considered to be impartial and thus able to sponsor proposals that might not have occurred to either disputant. The second point is that the mediator creates an opportunity for the parties in conflict to save face by accepting a neutrally sponsored proposal rather than one that is presented by an adversary to the dispute. The success of any mediation process lies on the negotiated agreement between the disputant parties. Needless to say, the critical ingredient in the mediation process is that the disputants must trust the integrity and neutrality of the mediator.11 It is with the knowledge of the role of the mediator that Wiles suggests that “it is obvious that a new tactic is needed to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.”12 The author further argues that the way to get a negotiated agreement between Palestine and Israel is through mediation. The author then suggests that the mediator is the key fixture in mediation, and that the United States could use its auspices to mediate the end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The mediator also needs to understand the individual aspects of the parties they are dealing with. For instance, in the Arab world (which can be used in the context of the Palestinian people), the role of the mediator is important in resolving disputes13. Along with this, “the greater the prestige of the mediator, and the deeper the respect he commands, and the better the chances that his efforts at mediating a dispute will be successful.”14 The United States is a classic example or a party that can play the role of a mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for a major reason that over the years, both sides have valued their relationship with the United States. For Israel, the United States its staunchest ally; and for the Palestinians, the value of the relationship is founded on the fact that the United States provides the much-needed aid and it can use its power to nudge the Israeli government toward peace.15 In this paper, the roles of the mediator are separated into communication, formulation and manipulation as pointed out by Tocci.16 a) The mediator as a communicator The role of the mediator as a communicator is that of facilitating communication, identifying interest and issues, changing points of view, and persuading principal parties to increase their flexibility in understanding. The mediator acts as a passive channel and a repository of information, perceptions and aims. Importantly, the mediator as a communicator or facilitator serves as a channel of communication between two parties when an impasse has been reached or when there is a communication breakdown, and as such, face-to-face negotiations are not possible.17 By doing this, it unravels the bargaining range and attempts to create empathy which in turn facilitates an agreement. In spite of the differences that may occur, the mediator as a communicator also engages in conciliation and consultation. Consultation helps the parties involved to analyse issues and re-conceptualize their relations and their conflict by viewing each other as collaborators tackling the joint problem. Conciliation offers additional communication links, lowers tensions and promotes direct interaction.18 b) The mediator as a formulator Acting as a formulator, the mediator provides good offices, establishes protocol and procedures, draws up the agenda, suggest plans for face-saving de-commitments, creates the formula for negotiation, and actively introduces new ideas and proposals.19 The mediator provides substantive contribution to the negotiations so as to assist the conflicting parties in envisaging a way to resolve the dispute when the parties reach a rigid impasse in the negotiation process.20 This role is particularly effective when the parties’ emotions are running high, and the mediator may intervene in a number of ways: requesting the parties to brainstorm, suggesting that the issues in question be fractioned or linked together, coming up with new solutions, and so forth.21 The mediator as a formulator needs to also persuade the parties involved in addition to suggesting solutions to the dispute or disputes. Effective persuasion requires power and this implies that there is need for more involvement than mere communication. The mediator thus needs to not only get involved in the substance of the issue, but also lean on the parties - even though in the subtlest of ways – to approve its perspectives of a way out. In order to a successful formulator, the mediator must be capable of thinking of ways of unblocking the thinking of the conflicting parties and to work out imaginative ways to contain the limits on the part of the conflicting parties.22 c) The mediator as a manipulator The mediator can also act as a manipulator, that is, the third party can engage in principal mediation. In this sense, the mediator adopts a structural role in the negotiations. Acting as a manipulator, the mediator negotiates directly with the conflict parties, hence changing negotiations from a dyad into a triad (except if the mediator forms coalition with one of the parties).23 In some instances, the principal mediator may actually become the main negotiating partner of the conflict parties. As a manipulator, the mediator uses its local, regional, or international position and its influence that is “resources of power, influence and persuasion”24 to “manipulate the parties into agreement.”25 In such cases, the mediator becomes a party to the solution, if not the dispute itself, and often needs to support the appeal of the appeal of solution by applying carrot-and-stick measures (that is adding and subtracting the perceived benefits to and from the proposed solution). It is important to note however that only a powerful mediator can play this role, and the intervention can be in two ways: influencing the direction of the negotiation process by raising the costs of disagreement and the rewards for agreement; and influencing the international environment to push the parties toward agreement.26 II. Timing Timing is a crucial factor for the mediation process. The timing of mediation is critical because its affects chances of success.27 Like all other social processes, conflicts have their own life cycles (they may last for days, months or years) as has been shown by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Further, there are times when a conflict may be “ripe for mediation” and times when mediation can only serve to worsen the conflict or obliterate the credibility of the mediators.28 There are conflicting views on the appropriate timing of mediation. Diehl and Goertz29 discuss these views by analysing various works done in the past and note that mediation should take place at a favourable moment. However, the difficulty lies in determining this “favourable” moment. One viewpoint is that mediation efforts should be initiated as early as possible in a dispute, definitely long enough before positions become fixed, attitudes harden, and an escalating cycle becomes engrained. Looking at this point from an ethical perspective, it is an attractive position as it is meant to contain the conflict before it spreads to unmanageable limits. But it may be true that at such an early stage the parties may not be willing to partake in mediation. Further, it may not be possible to detect a window of opportunity so early in the rivalries.30 The other perspective about the timing of mediation is that conflicts have to go through some phases, including moves and countermoves before serious attempts to mediate them should be made. This is because mediation is likely to be successful when disputants think that they can gain a better settlement through mediation than through their own unilateral action.31 This usually occurs when a dispute has gone through a few phases and crises, and a workable alternative to getting a solution appears feasible. This juncture is usually referred to as the “ripe moment,” and occurs when, first, the parties perceive a hurting stalemate or an impeding disaster, or all possible unilateral actions are blocked, and second, when a powerful mediator can, by applying leverage, create a perception that the timing of mediation is appropriate.32 Many authors agree that the best timing of mediation is when a conflict has reached a hurting stalemate or an impeding disaster as noted by Paul F. Diehl and Gary Goetz.33 For instance, Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson34 argue that mediation is more likely to succeed when there is a hurting impasse such as when there is a military setback, a failure to impose a unilateral outcome, or a change in power relations. The authors add that disputants usually reach a mutually hurting stalemate when their own efforts to resolve a conflict have reached a gridlock, when the costs, both material and human, of pursuing the conflict begin to outweigh the benefits, and when at the same moment both parties recognize some windows of opportunity. Another point that seems to invite the process of mediation is when the parties perceive significant failure in the impasse. Notably, this when “the relationship between the parties has deteriorated significantly,”35 such that the interests are often interfused with needs and seem nonnegotiable, and the respective positions of the disputants have become intransigent through a sequence of past commitments. Effect of timing and maturity on the success of the mediation As discussed above, matters of ripeness and timing are based on perception. However, when the disputants perceive that a conflict is ready for mediation, they will accept an offer for mediation.36 This notwithstanding, being able to precisely identify when the perceptions of the disputants take hold is still a matter of much debate and uncertainty.37 Closely related to the issue of perfect timing, and hence maturing and success of mediation is the notion of intensity. Here again, literature on mediation offers two contradictory notions. First is that the greater the intensity of a dispute, the higher the likelihood that mediation will be acknowledged and be successful (as a way of mitigating the losses, if nothing else).38 This is supported by the view that there are more mediation attempts in conflicts where parties have been engaged in conflicts before, but these efforts depict the lowest degree of successful outcomes.39 The second, contradictory view is that the greater the intensity and the higher the losses, the more polarised the disputants’ positions will become and the more resolute each party will be to reject any mediation effort and attempt to win at all costs.40 Paul F. Diehl and Gary Goertz also support the notion that mediation is best done when it initiated at the point of an impasse. They argue that “mediation will be more successful if it is initiated well into a conflict, when costs have become intolerable and both parties accept that they may lose too much by continuing their dispute.”41 Thus it seems that the best time to initiate mediation is after the conflicting parties reach a dead end. But this raises a lot of questions; for instance, what happens in the event that there are deaths during the conflict, as happened in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? What of the material losses that occur as a result of the stalemate? Earlier intervention may as well be the solution to these problems. Along the same line, Paul F. Diehl and Gary Goertz also pose a number or questions such as: “What happens if a conflict is of long-standing duration with repeated resorts to militarised conflicts? (Such is the case in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict). Is mediation timing different in enduring rivalries than in proto- or isolated rivalries? And what if there are a few mediation attempts, as is the case in most conflicts? Do they occur at the beginning, middle, or final phases of a militarised competition? How, in short, is mediation embedded in an enduring rivalry?”42 In essence, mediation timing should create an appropriate atmosphere of political willingness and dyadic impasse. III. Challenges of Building a Negotiating Structure a) Institutional barriers During the course of negotiation, internal political and organisational factors may impede arrival at a negotiated agreement.43 This is especially significant in intractable and protracted conflicts where hard-liners consistently seek to block the moderates’ attempts to reach a negotiated agreement. For instance, terrorist attacks by extremist groups, can effectively undermine the negotiation process.44 Yet this has for a long time been characteristic of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If such happens, leaders and moderates at all levels need to work hard to foster and sustain public support for the peace process. Therefore, the negotiation team must be well organised and have the authorization to devote the necessary resources to the process. b) Cultural barriers Culture plays a significant role in building the negotiation structure. In a situation where culture is characterised by ethnocentrism, this becomes one of the main obstacles to overcome in the negotiation and bargaining process. Culture also affects communication and decision making processes during negotiation and bargaining. Differences in the disputants’ cultures may inhibit or sanction distinctive patterns of decision making and communication.45 c) Misperceptions, bias or overwhelming emotional barrier Misperceptions and distrust between bureaucratic and political elites and institutions are often a source of conflict when building the negotiation structure.46 This may imply that it may be difficult for the mediator to bring the disputants or their representatives to the negotiating table. There may also be partisan perception, in which the perceptions of the parties regarding the situation at hand and each other’s actions may make the negotiation process difficult.47 d) Variations in assessment or evaluation of what will happen One aspect of a right-based mediation process (which occurs where the parties to the dispute want a neutral third party to provide them with an independent assessment of the likely outcome of the situation)48 is that the mediator offers an assessment of the legal; and equitable rights of the parties. It is then left to the parties to choose to accept or reject or modify the assessment offered.49 Since the parties are at an impasse, it is likely that they may not easily want to go by what is suggested by the mediator. IV. Mediation Guidelines As mentioned earlier, the United States is the country best place to act as mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For the reasons that were mentioned earlier, the United States has the power to influence the mediation process. “Power” refers to the ability to move a party in an intended direction – and in this referred to as leverage.50 This notwithstanding, the extent of the mediator’s power depends entirely on the parties, whose acceptance of a mediator depends on its likelihood of producing an outcome pleasurable to both sides. 51 a) Involving the Unites States president directly Wiles52 suggests that the Palestinian-Israel problem needs to be resolved by engaging a chief mediator and four associate mediators. Further, the process should involve long term mediation, implying that it takes between two and three years. It is thus suggested that the chief mediator in the process be the president of the United States himself. In deed, President Barack Obama’s administration has been staffing its peace process team to support the President, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the Special Envoy (for Middle East Peace) Mitchell. The support comes from different sources: Within the State Department, there is a Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs, the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Other departments that are involved include the National Security Council, Department of Defence, and the United States Agency for International Development. The president’s direct involvement in the mediation process will signify the commitment of the mediator to the process given that the United States has a lot of leverage in this matter.53 b) Private meetings with top Middle East leaders A number of United States presidents have been involved in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For instance, former the Bush Administration envisioned a two-sate solution, with Palestine and Israel living side by side in peace and security. However, the various agreements, including the Permanent Two-Sate Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict or the “Roadmap”54 have remained but agreements on paper. The current United States president thus needs to focus on a number of issues that can be perceived to affect both parties significantly. These include the role of Hamas, strategies to assist Palestinians, Israeli settlements in the east Jerusalem and West Bank, and possible constructive involvement by Arab states.55 c) Dealing with hard-core principles between parties The United States has historically approached the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with a near-monopoly policy. In spite of its ambition to act fairly over the matter, the United States has persistently portrayed its view of Israel as a strategic ally.56 This position however has to change if the mediation process has to bear any success. To avoid hard-line stances by the parties, the United States president should use different approaches such as establishing “talks about talks”, using a problem solving approach and helping the parties to identify, prioritise, and communicate interests and work with them to develop a refine a range of innovative proposals that meet the parties concerns. These proposals should be developed from previous talks such as the Camp David agreement and the Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 so as to avoid more impasses deep into the negotiation. Another option is to let the parties suggest provisional, contingent, partial or nonbinding measures. Throughout the talks, the United States president should manage the process by providing a neutral site, discouraging discussion of hard-line positions, encouraging acts of good will, keeping emotions under control, and excluding audiences57. d) Venue for the negotiations The venue for the negotiations should be adequately isolated in order to prevent gratuitous media access to the negotiators. As a rule, negotiations and mediations should be conducted within the country in conflict, or nearby. When negotiations are carried out far from the location of the conflict, they leave a lot of uncertainty behind. A case of two regions however dictates that the negotiations must be done on a neutral ground.58 Again, this poses challenges for the parties involved, including the mediators. Norway would act an appropriate venue for the mediation process. The nation has been involved in many peace accords and is a supporter of many United Nations peace resolutions. In addition, Norway was successful in brokering the Oslo pact in at some time in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Norway is also one of the United Nations member states whose policies tend to be neutral even with international scofflaws such as Hamas.59 Importantly, Norway is a good facilitator as was depicted in the Guatemala talks in which the country offered to bring the parties together and provided offices to promote and explain the difficulties that each side faced.60 Conclusion This paper has highlighted the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the issues that surround such conflicts such as the role of the mediator, the timing of mediation, the challenges that mediators face in the mediation process and guidelines for mediating in the Palestinian-Israel conflict. The prospect that Palestinian-Israeli can be mediated successfully has also been discussed. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has persisted for a long time and needs fresh rejuvenated talks to end the stalemate. The various roles of the mediator in the conflict, in this case the United States, have been discussed. It has also been noted that the best time to mediate is when the parties involved reach a stalemate. Nevertheless, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been in existence for a long time and intense lobbying through mediation is long overdue. It is pointed out that the United States president should be actively engaged in the process given the leverage that the United States has. Key issues that need to be revisited include the Camp David agreement and the Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and others such as the Oslo pact. Norway has been chosen as an appropriate venue for the mediation given its long-standing position on and cooperation in peace agreements. Read More