The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - Essay Example

Introduction The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the more pervasive and protracted of our times. It is hardly, however, one of irreconcilabledifferences since a critical review of the six-decade history of this conflict indicates that periods of calm and tolerant co-existence are not uncommon and that, indeed, more than once, peace transitioned from a distant dream to a semi-tangible reality. The implication here is that peace is possible. This essay will try to establish this argument by focusing on the imperatives of reconciling competing narratives. Proceeding with a historical overview of the conflict, the competing Israeli-Palestinian narratives will then be reviewed, following from which Oslo, despite its eventual failure, will be used to establish the possibility of reconciling the said narratives. Historical Overview The origins of today’s conflict between the Jewish and Palestinian people lie in the birth of political Zionism at the end of the 19th century and the development of Arab nationalism in response to colonization during the British and Ottoman empires in the 19th and 20th centuries.1 Violence between the two groups first erupted in the 1920s and has continued to plague their relationship ever since. After World War I, the British promised Palestine to the Palestinian Arabs for a homeland while simultaneously guaranteeing it to the Zionists as a Jewish homeland. In 1947, a British royal commission recommended the partition of Palestine in order to create a Jewish state, which ceded 55 % of Palestine to the new state of Israel.2 This recommendation was approved by the United Nations (UN) but rejected by the Arabs. Therefore, in 1948, when the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of Israel without specifying the state borders, seven Arab states attacked Israel. The 1948 war was the first military clash between the two nationalist movements of Zionism and Arab nationalism, comprised of conventional state-to-state, military- to-military combat in the name of national security. Ultimately, Jewish forces defeated the opposing Arab forces, and the UN then negotiated armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.3 As a result of this war, the state of Israel won additional land but lost old Jerusalem, a city that is considered sacred and holy to the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. At this time, the West Bank of the Jordan River was ceded to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt. However, Israel took control over these territories as a result of the Six-Day War of 1967. It was not until the Oslo Accords of 1993 (roughly 45 years later) that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was created as an interim body to administer the Palestinian-populated West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both Palestinians and Israelis agreed that the PNA— working in coordination with, but subordinate to, the Israeli government— was eventually to secure an independent Palestinian state, as well as complete control over these areas in return for Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel and assurance of its security. Israeli and Palestinian Competing Narratives The conflict, as outlined in the preceding, can also be considered a collision between two different narratives. That is to say that there are two completely different Israeli and Palestinian accounts of this history.4 Political scientist, Marc Howard Ross, explains that these seemingly contradictory narratives are important for three main reasons: A narrative’s metaphors and images tell a great deal about how individuals and groups understand the social and political worlds in which they live. Narratives can reveal deep fears, perceived threats, and past grievances that drive a conflict. Narratives sanction certain kinds of action and not others.5 In any conflict, each side believes in the righteousness of its own side (the narrative) and consequently will perceive its actions to be just, no matter how vicious or destructive. In the Palestinian-Jewish confrontation, on the one hand the Israeli Jews perceive their actions against the Palestinians and other Arabs as self-defence against an enemy that seeks their extermination. In fact, from the Jewish perspective, one of the driving forces behind Arab actions is the long history of anti-Semitism around the globe. Having already lived with the possibility of annihilation during the time of the Holocaust, many Israeli Jews perceive that their safety and security is only guaranteed through a homeland that exists specifically for the Jewish people and is governed almost exclusively by Jews. Thus, Israeli Jews often feel threatened and angered by the many Palestinians who still do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.6 In addition, Israeli Jews tend to blame the Arab nations for keeping Palestinian refugees in refugee camps while Israel, in contrast, has accepted and settled millions of Jews who have fled to Israel from Arab and European countries. They view Palestinian refugees as being used by Arab countries and the Palestinian people as a living weapon against the state of Israel. 7 That said, since the first intifada in 1987, the Palestinians’ concerns and the legitimacy of their identity have become increasingly salient issues among Israeli Jews. This change is evident, for example, in the continuing talks and political agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians throughout the Oslo peace process. In fact, Oslo’s mutual recognition of the rights of the two nations to exist, side-by-side, ultimately raised hopes of moving all three domains of the conflict (e.g. Palestinians in the West Bank/ Gaza, Arab-Israelis, and Jewish Israelis) toward a more peaceful co-existence.8 Fuelling the war of opposing group narratives, Palestinians in the occupied territories have very different perceptions of the history and politics of the region than do the Israelis. Many Palestinians perceive their political behaviours as legitimate means to fulfil their right to self-determination, which had originally been promised, but then denied, to them by the British in 1947.9 The Palestinian narrative expresses the belief that they have been dispossessed of their rightful homeland by war, annexation, and Jewish colonization. This narrative thus leads Palestinians to mourn the day that Israel was created, May 14, 1948, which is also Israel’s Independence Day. For Palestinians, this day has been termed the Al-Nakba, meaning “the Catastrophe” in Arabic. Furthermore, Palestinians, who fled the region in 1948 when Israel was created, have mostly held onto their life-long dream of returning to their homeland. Many of these Palestinian refugees had expected Arab nations to fight for their cause. However, having experienced a lack of initiative and action in their defence by the larger Arab world, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have assumed leadership over their own struggle for a Palestinian homeland and the “right to return” for refugees, which was initially manifest through the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987. In terms of social-psychological explanations for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, each side tends to view its own beliefs as true and objective, while perceiving the beliefs of the other side to be false and subjective.10 They are “two asymmetrical communities of fear,” with one group [Israeli] dominating and both groups fearful of the other.11 The conflict-ridden, violent political history of these two groups further fuels these fears. As a result, each side feels threatened by the other and also tends to believe that it has the monopoly on truth and objectivity in the conflict. 12 Oslo It is within this context of competing narratives and intractable conflict that the Oslo peace process was born. Guided by the hope of arriving at a just and lasting peace, Israeli and Palestinian leaders designed, composed, and signed seven interim agreements, known as the Oslo peace process. These agreements were intended to resolve their differences on issues such as borders and security, Jerusalem, and the right of return for refugees. They were also meant to mark a time of relative tranquillity in the region, particularly as compared to violence that has been witnessed throughout Israel- Palestine’s troubled history. Agreements were reached through various means, such as public, back-channel, official, and non-official efforts. Throughout this process, the United States was involved as a mediator, though less so during the initial stages, which included the composition and signing of the Declaration of Principles, Oslo I, and Oslo II. However, following the 1997 election into office of the Likud party’s Benyamin Netanyahu, the U.S. became more involved through subsequent agreements, including the Hebron Agreement, the Wye River Memorandum, and the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. While conceding to the fact that Oslo ultimately failed, it significantly contributed to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. First, Oslo succeeded in transforming the conflict from a struggle over identity (which is an existential and intractable one) to a struggle over concrete and potentially tractable issues (e.g. Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security). Second, Oslo proved that political leadership and breakthroughs may be drawn from the bottom-up, rather from the top-down, at crucial moments in history. After all, at a time when the official Israeli and Palestinian leaders were not even speaking to one another, the secret, backchannel negotiators were the ones who remarkably reached an agreement, which later became the 1993 Declaration of Principles. Third and finally, in 1993, incrementalism appeared to be the only feasible way to revive the Israeli- Palestinian peace process. At this time, a comprehensive agreement would have been out of the question given that the parties were coming from such widely disparate perspectives, had markedly divergent narratives of the conflict, and sets of demands, making their zone of possible agreement (ZOPA) quite small indeed. That said, as each side pointed to the failed adherence of the other side over the course of Oslo, it slowly became evident that this incremental, piecemeal approach to the peace process was not working. For instance, many Israeli leaders believed that the Palestinian leadership was in violation of several provisions of the Oslo I, Oslo II, and Wye River agreements. Such violations included the failure of the Palestinians to mandate the collection of illegal weaponry, to act to prohibit incitement against Israel, to limit the size of the Palestinian police force, and to educate its people for peace.13 Likewise, the Palestinians blamed Israelis for failed adherence. Israeli land transfers were routinely delayed as the West Bank and Gaza were sliced up by Israeli bypass roads and the expansion of Jewish settlements.14 This caused the Palestinians to become increasingly disillusioned with the peace process. Palestinians still controlled only 13.1 percent of the West Bank and none of East Jerusalem, which is where the Old City is situated (including the major religious sites central to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity). Further, since the signing of the Declaration of Principles, new Jewish settlements had been built in the Palestinian territories under both Likud and Labor party governments, violating both international law and the Oslo principles.15 For example, even Barak, who was elected on a peace platform in 1999, continued to increase the rate of settlement building on key strategic settlements, like those which would close the ring of settlements in the southeast of the Old City, Jerusalem, segregating it from the eastern Palestinian neighborhoods.16 Finally, the expected economic dividends of the Oslo peace process never materialized for the Palestinians as they watched their standard of living drop by roughly 20 percent between 1993 and 2001.17This deteriorating economy is largely explained by the Israeli military blockades that came as a response to Palestinian suicide bombings and violence, which had threatened the very security that was guaranteed to the Israelis through the Declaration of Principles. Further, Palestinian unemployment, which had affected roughly 6 percent of the able-bodied Palestinian population in 1993, reportedly reached 29 percent by 1996, while the average Palestinian private income allegedly declined.18 Conclusion Proceeding from the above stated, two things are clear. The first is that while there may be a general, or loose agreement over the historical facts which led to the conflict, both sides have different narratives/understandings/interpretations regarding the source of the Palestinian-Israeli divide and the reasons for its perpetuation. At their most extreme, both narratives are driven by the assumption that the other is intent on their destruction. The first implication, therefore, is that disparate narratives have significantly contributed to the protracted nature of the conflict and, indeed, to its seeming intractability. The second point to be deduced from the foregoing is that disparate narratives are not an insurmountable obstacle to peace; they certainly make peace negotiations and agreements all the more difficult, complicate and complex but they do not make peace impossible. It is, thus, that this research maintains that peace can be attained despite disparate narratives but the reconciliation of disparate narratives will render peace more stable and lasting. References Abdo, N., and N. Yuval-Davis. “Palestine, Israel, and the Zionist settler project.” In Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class, ed. D. Stasiulis and N. Yuval-Davis, 291 – 322. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Bar-Tel, Daniel. “The Elusive Nature of Peace Education.” In Peace Education: The Concept, Principles, and Practices Around the World, ed. Gavriel Salomon and Baruch Nevo, 15 – 25. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2002. Bar-Tel, Daniel. Group Beliefs: A conception for Analyzing Group Structure, Processes and Behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000. Enderlin, Charles. Shattered Dreams: The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, 1995 – 2002. Translated by Susan Fairfield. Paris: The Other Press, 2003. Kelman, Herbert. “Group Processes in the Resolution of International Conflicts: Experiences from the Israeli-Palestinian Case.” American Psychologist 52 (1997): 212 – 20. Robinson, Glenn E. “Israel and the Palestinians: The Bitter Fruits of Hegemonic Peace.” Current History 100, no. 642 (2001): 15 - 20. Ross, Marc Howard. “The Political Psychology of Competing Narratives: September 11 and Beyond.” In Understanding September 11, ed. Craig Calhoun, Paul Price, and Ashley Timmer, 303-320. New York: New Press, 2002. Said, Edward. The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self- Determination (1969 – 94). New York: Random House, Inc., 1994. Sontag, Deborah. “Quest for Middle East Peace: How and Why it Failed.” New York Times, July 26, 2001. Stephan, Cookie White, and Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz, Tamar Zelniker, Walter G. Stephan. “Introduction to Improving Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel: Theory and Practice in Coexistence Educational Programs.” Journal of Social Issues 60, no. 2 (2004): 237 – 252. Weinstein, David. “The Fallacy of Camp David Revisionism (Robert Malley and Deborah Sontag’s Accounts of Camp David).” Midstream 47, November 2001. Read More