COUNTRY BRIEFING
FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
With the Middle East’s latest civil war now in full flow in the Gaza Strip and with Israel hit by the first Palestinian suicide bombing for nine months, the prospects for a resolution of the Palestine problem have never appeared so bleak. The persistent violence is a symptom of the utter failure of all the main political actors–Palestinian, Israeli, Arab and international–to deliver results, and none of the “initiatives” now doing the rounds, such as the proposals for a Palestinian government of national unity and the various peace plans of Israeli rivals to the battered prime minister, Ehud Olmert, hold out much promise.
Nevertheless, in this strategic vacuum, there may be scope for some lateral thinking. At a public meeting at Davos on January 25th, Israeli and Palestinian youth activists from the peace NGO OneVoice made emotional pleas for progress to Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, and to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, who they had persuaded to share a platform, along with Shimon Peres, Israel’s vice-prime minister. In live broadcasts from Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the 18-to-30-year-old campaigners made parallel statements saying “No more excuses!”
Negotiation begins at home
OneVoice (OV) was born out of a frustration with the lack of progress made by the political leaderships, and a belief that Israeli and Palestinian societies need to focus more on the concessions that they themselves need to make–as expressed in their slogan “What are YOU willing to do to end the conflict?” Some of its Israeli activists joined out of frustration with the left-wing Israeli peace movement, arguing that minority groups such as Peace Now have been too arrogant in assuming they can impose their own design for peace on the majority.
Thus, much of the group’s work involves consensus-building within each community–or what they call “consensus-revealing” through “citizen negotiations” involving town-hall discussions and detailed surveys. First, they tried a survey where they asked people from each side whether they agreed or disagreed with statements on ten key issues relating to the conflict. This questionnaire was based on a framework designed by a team of Israeli and Palestinian lawyers, academics and NGO leaders who attempted to draw out common principles from previous governmental and non-governmental peace proposals, and was refined through months of consultation with focus groups.
The survey quickly ran into an obstacle as respondents expressed their readiness to compromise on any number of issues, but refused to put that it writing owing to their claim that the other side would be unwilling to reciprocate.
OV then designed an ingenious new version where answer options included “yes”, “no”, and “yes, contingent on acceptance by a majority on the other side”. To avoid a situation where people simply said “no” to everything, the respondents were asked to weight the relative importance of the issues on which they were not prepared to move, using a total of 100 “negative points”. Muli Peleg, OV’s director of youth leadership in Israel, describes this process as “encouraging people to negotiate with themselves”. The survey is still ongoing; OV says they have had about 120,000 people–roughly half from each side–sign up to all ten principles so far.
Don’t call us peaceniks
OV’s offices in Ramallah and Tel Aviv operate independently of each other. There is room for much work to be done in coming to an agreement within Israel, and within the Palestinian Territories, on a platform on which their leaders can negotiate.
But another reason for working within each community is that the opportunities for OV’s Israeli and Palestinian activists to work together are limited by the practical restrictions on movement between Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. On a recent visit to London, Odeh Awwad, a Palestinian OV activist, explained this was the first time that he had met any of his Israeli counterparts and that he was not at all used to meeting Israelis other than soldiers. Indicating a nearby Israeli activist, Mr Awwad said: “We need to find a way to stop the conflict. But we don’t have to love each other.” In the Palestinian Territories, OV activists say: “Want to end the occupation?” when they’re handing out leaflets or collecting signatures. In Israel, they ask: “Want to end suicide bombings?”
Back to the roadmap?
In response to OV’s statements at Davos, Mr Abbas and Ms Livni spoke passionately of the need to move forward and to continue talking. Mr Peres (who is being widely touted as Israel’s next president) conjured up stirring images of Israeli-Palestinian economic co-operation to come. Ms Livni even invited the World Economic Forum to hold its 2008 meeting in Jerusalem, prompting a round of applause. Afterwards, Ms Livni and Mr Abbas whispered emotionally over a long handshake.
But what did the politicians actually say? Mr Abbas reiterated that the Palestinian government should respect all previous peace agreements and expressed his confidence that talks would lead to a Palestinian state on the basis of the pre-June 1967 borders .Ms Livni also affirmed her commitment to a Palestinian state “as the only right and just solution to the refugee issue”, though not necessarily on 1967 borders.
Ms Livni also invoked the long-stalled road map, specifically the requirement in its first phase for the Palestinian leadership to renounce terrorism–whereas recent statements from EU officials have suggested leapfrogging the plan’s phased approach. The political landscape was very different when the roadmap was designed in 2003; it is difficult to see how the first-phase requirement for Palestinian security forces to begin the “dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure” can be carried out when the Palestinian government represents a party that Israel (along with many other states) defines as being a terrorist organisation itself.
Reasons to be doubtful
The Israeli leaders’ remarks at Davos suggested that they continue to hope (in Ms Livni’s words) that the international community can “disempower the extremists and to empower the moderates”–or (in Mr Peres’s less guarded words) that “Hamas is the past and Fatah is the future”, a statement that elicited smiles from Mr Abbas. Ms Livni spoke of offering financial support and “political horizons” to strengthen the “moderates” in future elections. (Mr Abbas has been threatening to call early elections as the only means to resolve the Hamas-Fatah dispute.)
However, it remain doubtful whether weakening Hamas through an ongoing financial squeeze on its institutions will necessarily strengthen the old Fatah establishment, which is still seen as corrupt by many Palestinians. In a January 22nd survey by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion, which asked “Who do you blame for the current Palestinian crisis?”, 45% of respondents blamed Israel and the US (26% blaming Israel and 19% the US), while 31% blamed Hamas and 10% Mr Abbas.
Disillusionment with Hamas might yet lead to support for more rejectionist groups, rather than a resurgence of Fatah. Indeed, one of the 14 conditions that Israel attached to the road map in May 2003, when Mr Abbas was prime minister under late president, Yasser Arafat, was “The emergence of a new and different leadership in the Palestinian Authority”–a reminder to be careful what you wish for.
Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit
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