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THE ENTANGLEMENTS BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL
POLITICS IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS

By

Ali Ahmed Alghafli

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fiJlfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Political Science

1997

ABSTRACT

THE ENTANGLEMENTS BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL
POLITICS IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS

By

Ali Ahmed Alghafli

The general topic of this dissertation is the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy. This
research concerns itself with analyzing how the crisis of cooperation postulated by the
literature on structural and protracted variant of social conflicts was approached. In so doing,
I examine linkages between domestic imperatives and the international negotiating table.
Chiefs of Governments’ strategic actions are construed to reconcile domestic and
international imperatives when going about making peace. In addressing the problem of the
study, I employ Putnam’s two-level games theory, thus making the analysis theory-driven
throughout. Two peace agreements and four critical episodes comprise the major cases under
analysis. The disciplined-configurative variant of the case-study method is selected because
of its value in satisfying the substantive and theoretical objectives of this dissertation. The
method of “structured, focused comparison” is used for collecting and processing the data.
In addition to verifying our conceptualization of structural conflicts and the crisis of
cooperation, this research has concluded that the logic of Putnam’s two-level games theory
is applicable to negotiating contexts inflicted with the challenging characteristics of structural
and protracted conflicts, that the theory is relevant to negotiating contexts in which one of
the parties is a non-state actor and, finally, that the theory can be equally useful in both

explaining formal international agreements and the sustainability of the negotiation process.

Copyright by
Ali Ahmed Alghafli
1997

To my parents, wife, and family members.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to extend my appreciation to the Government of the United Arab Emirates for
financially supporting my graduate-level studies. My thanks also go to the chairperson of my
dissertation committee, Professor Gretchen Hower, whose resourcefiil insights, constructive
research guidance, and encouragement have helped me bring this research project to fruition.
I also wish to express my thanks to members of my dissertation committee, Professor Paul
Abramson, Professor Jefl‘rey Riedinger, and Professor Barry Stein for advising me at different

crucial stages of the research process.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM ....................................... 1
Introduction to the Study ........................................... 1
Background of the Research Problem .................................. 2
The Research Question of the Study ................................... 7
Objectives of the Study ............................................. 8
Importance of the Study ............................................ 9
Theoretical Framework ............................................. 10
The Relevance of Putnam’s Theory to the Research Question ................ 13
Topics in the Literature to Be Reviewed ............................... 14
Assumptions of the Study .......................................... 15
Limitations of the Study ........................................... 16
Data and Method of Analysis ........................................ 17
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................ 18
Introduction ..................................................... 18
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict And the Peace Process ..................... 19
A Brief History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ................... 19
Religious Fundamentalism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ......... 25
The Occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations ......... 34
Structural and Protracted Conflicts ................................... 46
Structural Social Conflicts .................................... 46
Protracted Conflicts ......................................... 50
Explaining Foreign Policy Decisions ................................... 55
Levels of Analysis in Foreign Policy Studies ...................... 55
International Explanations of Foreign Policy Decisions ............... 56
Domestic Explanations of Foreign Policy Decisions ................. 59
The Two-Level Games Theory and the Present Study ............... 64
CHAPTER 3
THE METHODOLOGY ................................................. 67
Introduction ..................................................... 67
Description of Methodology Selected ................................. 68
Configuring the Case Study ......................................... 70
The Two-level Games Theory ....................................... 74

vi

Theoretical Propositions of the Study ............................... 77

Sources of Data .................................................. 77
Instrumentation .................................................. 78
Data Collection and Analysis ........................................ 79
CHAPTER 4
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS ................................. 83
Introduction ..................................................... 83
The Peace Agreements ............................................ 84
The Case of Oslo One Agreement ............................... 84
The Case of Oslo Two Agreement .............................. 101
Saving thewa Process .... . .113
The Case of Palestrman Deportees to Southern Lebanon ............ 116
The Case of the Hebron Massacre .............................. 126
Preempting the Final Status of Jerusalem: The case of land-confiscation
plan in East Jerusalem ........................................ 142
Preempting the Final Status of Jerusalem: The case of the US.
embassy transfer from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ...................... 153
Conclusion.....................................................162
CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................... 166
LIST OF REFERENCES ................................................ 184

vii

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM
Introduction to the Study

For more than forty-five years the Palestinian issue has been at the core of the conflict
in the Middle East. This conflict has given rise to five wars and exacted a considerable human
and economic toll. Political unrest in Israel and the occupied Arab territories, a lingering
Palestinian refugee problem, terrorist acts against Israeli and Western interests launched by
militant identifiers with the Palestinian cause, and strained economic relations between Israel
and the Arab world have also clearly indicated the complex nature of the conflict in the
Middle East.

The structural-social character of the Arab-Israeli conflict in general and the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict in particular, along with their persistent nature, makes them striking
examples of a distinctive type of interstate belligerence known as protracted conflict (Azar,
Jureidini, and McLaurin, 1978; Azar and Cohen, 1979; Azar, 1985). Protracted conflicts are
qualitatively different from the standard types of conflict ofien characteristic of Western
interstate disputes, in that the former find their impetuses in the domestic politics of the
disputant countries; that animosity tends to become institutionalized and, thus, displays
formidable resistance to resolution. Structural protracted conflicts also involve negative
psychological predispositions which are espoused by the disputing parties toward each other,

mainly because the substance of the dispute involves ethnic, cultural, and religious claims and

2

is not confined to disagreements over material issues.

Attempts to resolve structural protracted conflicts present a major crisis that must be
effectively addressed in order to effect peacefiil settlements. In fact, the literature on
protracted conflicts considers hostility in conflict-ridden societies the norm and peace as the
crisis. This study will concern itself with analyzing the way the crisis of peace inherent in the
diplomatic negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been approached within

the framework of the Middle East peace process.

Background of the Research Problem

Recent global and regional political developments served as catalysts for the initiation
of the Middle East peace process (Spiegel, 1992, chapters 1 and 2). However, the process
of negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has its
own underlying logic that can explain the dynamics of the peace process as well as the
substance of the agreements.

Rounds of diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the PLO must be analyzed in
order to ascertain their value in explaining the attempt to break free from the protracted
conflict in the Middle East. Therefore, the problem of this study concerns the Middle East
peace talks between Israel and the PLO that began in 1991 in the aftermath of the Gulf War.

The Middle East peace process, as developed along the Israeli-Palestinian track, has
assumed an undisputed significance on the domestic, regional, and global levels. In Israel, the
peace process with the PLO has foreign and domestic bearings simultaneously. Not only have
diplomatic talks with the PLO leadership proven to be considerably diflicult foreign policy

undertakings given the history of the conflict, but they have also invited unavoidable concerns

3

on the part of the Israeli leadership regarding domestic coalitions and preferences that, given
our understanding of the protracted conflict, have been active in influencing the substance and
outcome of the diplomatic negotiations. The Israeli government, then, has faced a formidable
political challenge in pursuing the peace discourse with the PLO and reaping its benefits
despite the Israeli domestic landscape that has not been completely supportive of the peace
process. In essence, the government has found itself in an unenviable situation in which it has
to grapple simultaneously with domestic and international concerns over an issue that has
overwhelming foreign and domestic security consequences.

The PLO leadership has been similarly confronted with the domestic and foreign
aspects that have culminated in, and then accompanied, the peace talks with Israel. Forced
to make the best out of the political situation in which it found itself in the aftermath of the
Gulf War, the PLO’s commitment to a peaceful settlement of its struggle with Israel is in large
part strengthened by its appreciation of the political losses which it was dealt as a
consequence of its support of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In essence, the peace talks appeared
as an attractive foreign policy alternative to the PLO leadership in view of its political
alienation from many parts of the Arab World.

Yet not unlike in the case of Israel, the PLO’s participation in diplomatic peace talks
is presumed to have significant linkages to its domestic politics. Given the nature of the
protracted conflict, the PLO leadership must have found itself in a situation that required it
to draw upon its asset of creativity in order to handle the crisis of its cooperation with Israel.
Of particular importance is the interaction between the domestic and international imperatives
and the strategies that must be adopted on both sides of the negotiation table in order to

reconcile those imperatives with the need to sustain diplomatic talks and conclude peace

agreements.

The Middle East peace talks are consequential at the regional level as well. The peace
process has called upon the disputants to engage in a pattern of relations that represents a
significant departure from the conflictive and hostile relations which have come to
characterize interstate interactions in the region. The leadership and people in Israel, Jordan,
and Syria are faced with the need to revise their views regarding their conceptualizations of
national security and, more importantly, their very definition of “enemy.” The governments
in these states are also confi'onting the challenge of gleaning the fiuits of peace and
synthesizing a regional system designed to foster cooperation in economic, environmental,
and security issues. In view of the protracted nature of the conflict in the Middle East, it is
incumbent upon the governments of these three countries to make sure that the negotiated
peace is invested withthe ingredients necessary to ensure its sustainability and that it is not
just another episode of the “protracted peace” in the region.

In the larger context of the Middle Eastern region a recurrent hope is that normal
relations between Israel and its neighboring Arab states will help assuage the violent
connotations usually associated with Middle Eastern politics and change the authoritarian
character of Middle Eastern regimes.l For hostility to become an antiquated notion, however,
and for peace to be based on solid foundations, massive cultural, political, economic, and
social changes must take place in order to make the environment receptive to the imperatives

of the new era. The essence of the challenge is that most of the required changes are

 

I For the likely social, political, and economic ramifications of the culmination of the peace process, see
Augustus Richard Norton and Robin Wright, “The Post-Peace Crisis in the Middle East,” Survival, Winter
1994. 36(4):7-21.

5
structural in nature and can only be achieved over a lengthy period of time. The payoff, it is
hoped by some forces in the region, is that entrenched peace would unleash the joint potential
of Israeli cutting-edge technology and Arab capital and markets in a way that could enhance
the chances of the Middle East becoming a major power in the international scene.

In the same vein subscribers to the broad theories of “fiinctionalism” in the sub-fields
of international relations and comparative politics propose that peace in the Middle East
would be greatly bolstered by the economic growth resulting from cooperative interactions
between Israel and its neighboring Arab states.2 This proposition argues that an economic
transformation of the Palestinians and supporters of violent political activism against the State
of Israel would curtail their hostility and, in efl’ect, contribute to peace. Clearly, such hopefiil
expectations could form the basis of a research agenda in the event that lasting peace and
economic growth in the Middle East become a reality.

At the global level the Middle East peace process has commanded the attention and
political auspices of many countries.’ The United States and Russia are two major powers
whose political pressure and diplomatic inputs have been present right from the early stages
of the peace process. The United States’ foreign policy in particular has been crucial in
bringing Israel and the PLO to the negotiating table and in maintaining the talks as an ongoing
process. The United States’ erstwhile Secretary of State James Baker (1995) in his recent

book, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989-1992 describes the role

 

2 The United States’ Secretary of State Warren Christopher emphasized the importance of establishing a
Regional Development Bank by Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinians in order to strengthen peace by
encouraging regional development and integration. See Middle East Policy. April 1995, 3(4): 155-158.

3 Western European countries’ role in the Middle East peace process has been less than their economic and
political potential. For an analysis of this topic and its causes, see Francois D’Alancon, “The EC looks to a
New Middle East,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1994, 23(2): 41-52.

6

of the United States in making the Israelis and the Arabs agree to negotiate (see chapters 8,
23, 25, 27, and 29). According to Baker’s description, the task of launching the peace
process was anything but easy. To be sure, the brokering diplomacy of the United States
required American foreign policy makers to advance creative peace proposals and to display
a persistent, yet flexible, behavior conducive to continuing negotiations. Former Israeli
Foreign Minister Moshe Arens has also provided an insider’s account of the role of the United
States in the peace process and its impact on American-Israeli relations (Arens, 1995).
Norway, Spain, Germany, and Japan are some of the other countries whose contributions to
the diplomatic talks attest to the global dimension of the Middle East peace process during
both its infancy and later maturity.

In addition to the political overtones of conflict and peace in the Middle East, the
sociological underpinnings of the processes that produced both confiontation and
reconciliation are also present. A study (Rabbie, 1993) that was conducted to test the causal
relationship between ingroup cohesion and outgroup hostility concluded that intergroup
relations are not always more competitive and aggressive than interpersonal relations, as often
has been assumed. Furthermore, intragroup cohesion and intergroup hostility are not
inevitably positively correlated with each other, but are rooted in two independent social-
psychological processes: intragroup cooperation and intergroup competition. According to
this analysis, intergroup cooperation and peacefiil coexistence may not be unrealistic
propositions after all but rather workable options. This study presents some hope for peaceful
relations to counterbalance the notion of the internalization of conflict that Rapoport (1974)
has described. Especially those who might be doubtful of the possibility of long-term peace

between Israel and its neighboring Arab states could find some solace in some successful

7

examples in which protracted hostile relations have improved. The end of the cold war, the
somewhat successful normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt, and the significant
improvement of relations between France and Germany since the Second World War are
some illustrative cases which can be used to support the findings of Rabbie’s study.

In short, the diplomatic peace talks between Israel and the PLO invite our attention
to a research area that has at least three distinct, yet interrelated, levels of analysis: domestic,
regional, and global. This research area, as the above discussion has illustrated, is replete with
potential research questions that are worthy of political scientists’ attention. While some of
those questions may cater to the specific research interests of students of either comparative
politics or international relations, other questions are best addressed by approaches that would
integrate an appreciable understanding of the two sub-fields.

Such approaches must be based upon theories that make assumptions about, among
other things, how domestic and international politics interact in order to shape a political
phenomenon. They must also be able to provide more adequate explanations of aspects of
that phenomenon than what either the domestic or international imperatives alone would be
capable of explaining. I will develop my argument about the proposed theoretical approach

in a subsequent section in this chapter.

The Research Question of the Study
The problem of this study is to address the issue of how the interactions between
international and domestic politics can explain the dynamics of the diplomatic negotiations
and the substance of peace agreements that Israel and the PLO eventually endorsed. Since

the peace talks have actually resulted in two major peace agreements, Oslo One and Oslo

8

Two, the general research question with which this dissertation will be concerned is how the
crisis of cooperation between the Israelis and the Palestinians was handled in order to make
these two agreements possible.

My choice of this specific research question is based on my belief that it captures an
important aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that remains largely terra incognita.
Although the linkages between domestic and international politics in the negotiations between
the two parties are suspected, a systematic understanding of the nature and direction of those
linkages is still lacking. By establishing and validating those linkages, I hope to make a
seminal contribution to the literature on the interactions between international and domestic
pohfics

Furthermore, I believe this question is worthy of researching because of Azar and
Cohen’s contention that the crisis of cooperation represents challenging questions as to the
“creativity” of decision-makers when tackling the issue of making peace (1979, p. 167).
Indeed, decision-makers are required to strike the right balance between securing peace deals
on the one hand and securing their ratification without jeopardizing their own bases of
popularity or legitimacy on the other hand. Whatever Azar and Cohen mean by the term
“creativity” must be sought in the diplomatic interactions between Israel and the PLO within
the framework of the peace process, as well as in the agreements the two parties have

managed to complete.

Objectives of the Study
1. To analyze the dynamics of the diplomatic negotiations process between Israel

and the PLO. This will be done by monitoring the substantive shifts that have taken place in

9

each side’s stances at the negotiating table over the course of the peace process. An
important element of this objective will be to identify the strategic shifts that have led to the
two parties’ convergence toward making peace agreements.

2. To explain these shifts, or lack thereof, by emphasizing the entanglements between
the domestic and international politics. At this juncture I will attempt to show how the
interactions between these two spheres influence the negotiators’ strategies at the negotiating
table, and, in efl‘ect, the prospects for reaching agreements and the substance of those

agreements.

Importance of the Study

1. Given our understanding of protracted conflicts in general, diplomacy seems the
only means by which belligerence can be settled. In other words, the fact that military actions
have proven incapable of ending the conflict in the Middle East makes it impossible to
exaggerate the importance of diplomatic negotiations as a method of attempting to break the
cycle of conflict in that part of the world.

2. The above observation leads us to believe that the outcome of diplomatic
negotiations between the two parties is not inconsequential. The success of diplomatic
interactions in terminating the conflict in the Middle East would set a model for approaching
similar protracted conflicts elsewhere. Failure of diplomacy, however, may set the stage for
renewed violence either by giving anti-peace forces more reason to resort to violence or
simply by reinvoking the basic logic of protracted conflict--i.e., periodic occurrence of war.

In either case we need to be able to understand the motivations.

10

3. By employing Robert D. Putnam’s (1988) theory of two-level games, the study will
also serve as an opportunity to respond to Putnam’s concluding statement that “far-ranging
empirical research is needed now to test and deepen our understanding of how such games
are played.” The present study will attempt to apply the theory within the peculiar context
of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, thus testing its propositions within the structural and
protracted structures of the conflict.

4. The concept of protracted conflict as portrayed in the literature is still vague, to
say the least. One way of enhancing our understanding of this concept, I believe, is to
communicate it in difl‘erent ways while preserving its basic characteristics. Therefore, by
analyzing the manner in which examples of protracted conflict are approached in an effort to
find peaceful resolution to them, we avail ourselves of an important opportunity to cast some

light on this concept.

Theoretical Framework
The analysis of the entanglement between domestic and international politics in the
Israeli-PLO peace talks will be informed by Robert D. Putnam’s two-level-games theory.
This theory provides an integrative analysis of domestic and international politics in a manner
that surmounts the deficiencies usually associated with the application of either the
international or domestic approaches in addressing the dynamics of international relations.
Analysis in terms of two-level games offers a promising
response to [the challenge of formulating concepts and
theories which take into account the entanglement between
domestic and international politics]. Unlike state-centric
theories, the two-level approach recognizes the inevitability of

domestic conflict about what the “national interest” requires.
Unlike the “second-image” or the “second-image-reversed,”

11

the two-level approach recognizes that central decision makers
strive to reconcile domestic and international imperatives
simultaneously. . . statesmen in this predicament face
distinctive strategic opportunities and strategic dilemmas

(Putnam, 1988, p. 460).

Putnam’s theory posits that international negotiations incorporate two simultaneous
games. First, there is bargaining between negotiators at the international table with the
purpose of striking a deal that might constitute a basis of agreement. Second, each chief
negotiator is involved in some sort of bargaining with his own domestic politics. Put
succinctly, the two-level approach emphasizes a number of momentous characteristics of the
links between diplomacy and domestic politics, such as:

l. The theory distinguishes between cases of voluntary and involuntary defection
fiom international agreements (Putnam, p. 460).

2. The theory establishes a contrast between two tendencies toward domestic
interests. First there are issues on which domestic interests can be described as homogeneous,
“simply pitting hawks against doves.” Second, there are “issues on which domestic interests
are more heterogeneous, so that domestic cleavage may actually foster international
cooperation” (Putnam, p. 460).

3. The theory posits that strategic moves at one game-table may give rise to
unanticipated coalitions at another table, thus making synergistic issue linkages possible
(Putnam, p. 460).

4. Domestic institutional arrangements which enhance the power position of
decision-makers in relation to their constituencies can play the paradoxical role of weakening

their bargaining position at the international negotiating table (Putnam, p. 460).

12

5. Chief negotiators target international threats, offers, and side-payments while
assessing their domestic effects at home and abroad (Putnam, p. 460).

6. In order for agreements to be reached, negotiators on each side of the negotiating
table must be convinced that the proposed deal is within the opposite side’s win-set and that
it is ratifiable. Uncertainty about the ratifiability of the agreement in side A’s domestic politics
lowers the expected value of the agreement to side B and enables side B to demand more
favorable side-payments fiom side A than otherwise would be needed under conditions of
certainty (Putnam, p. 453).

7. Occasionally, international pressures tend, perhaps unintendedly, to “reverberate”
within domestic politics, thus changing the domestic balance and, consequently, influencing
the international negotiations (Putnam, p. 454).

8. Chief negotiators are not disinterested actors; rather, they are motivated by three
concerns. First, they endeavor to strengthen their political standing in the domestic game by
“increasing their political resources or by minimizing potential losses” (Putnam, p. 457).
Second, they are interested in influencing the domestic balance of power in favor of policies
they privately prefer but are incapable of pursuing at home. And third, chief negotiators are
interested in pursuing their own visions of national interest in the international arena (Putnam,
p.457)

In Double-Edged Diplomacy (1993) Putnam’s two-level games theory has been
applied in a host of case-studies dealing with different research areas. The authors of the
twelve studies in the book have demonstrated that Putnam’s theory is capable of explaining
the dynamics of negotiations in many international relations problems such as security issues,

interstate economic disputes, and North-South tensions.

13

The Relevance of Putnam '3 Theory to the Research Question

Putnam’s theory is relevant to this topic for the following reasons:

1. Putnam’s two-level games theory purports to explain both international
negotiations and the domestic ratification (formal and informal) of negotiated agreements.
The research question of this study endeavors to cast light on these two aspects in the case
of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and, therefore, Putnam’s theory is a commendable
candidate for handling the theoretical and empirical purposes of the study.

2. The Arab-Israeli conflict is conceptualized as a protracted conflict. One basic
characteristic of this variant of conflict is the fact that hostility is institutionalized in the
domestic politics of the belligerents. Therefore, when studying the process by which this
conflict is being resolved—ie, bilateral diplomatic peace negotiations-- it is only appropriate
to take into consideration the role that domestic politics plays in shaping the substance of both
the negotiations and peace agreements.

If our understanding of the way protracted conflict is conceptualized is correct, we
should expect to see the structures of opportunities and constraints inherent in domestic
politics influence the peace process and its outcomes in two important ways. First, domestic
politics should play a role in determining the substance of negotiations as well as the
agreements reached. Domestic forces, coalitions, and preferences should present the national
leaders of the countries participating in diplomatic negotiations with an amalgam of challenges
and incentives which we can expect to see reflected at the negotiating table. Second,
domestic politics should serve as a crucial arena of strategic actions for the national leaders.
The purpose of these strategic actions should be to make the domestic political landscape

more susceptible to the dynamics of the negotiation process as well as the dictates of the

14

peace agreements reached. Putnam’s two-level games theory, I believe, lends itself very well
to capturing the logic of the Israeli-PLO peace process on both counts.

3. The political atmosphere in which the diplomatic peace negotiations are carried
out is generally characterized by the absence of a crisis situation in the relations between
Israel and the PLO and, therefore, is very receptive to the logic of the two-level games theory.
The assumption of the absence of a crisis can best be defended by saying that neither Israel
nor the PLO found themselves on the verge of an imminent military entrapment. The logic
behind this line of reasoning is that, unlike crisis situations in other types of conflicts,
protracted conflicts are characterized by lengthy periods of relative peace--i.e., absence of
military engagements between the belligerents. In the case of the Israeli-PLO conflict, peace
negotiations were initiated and conducted during a period that cannot be characterized as a
military crisis in any meaningful way and, therefore, is suspected of having invited domestic
politics to play an important role.

The presumption of an absence of a military crisis situation, and hence the lack of a
basis on which domestic politics may legitimately and effectively be forced to the sidelines,
if correct, would allow domestic politics in both political systems to play a more conspicuous
and sustained role in influencing the negotiation strategies that national leaders adopt. It
would also give the national leaders ample opportunity to handle domestic politics in ways

that would favor their strategies at the international negotiation table.

Topics in the Literature to Be Reviewed
Three bodies of literature will be reviewed in order to present the theoretical and

empirical contexts within which this topic is nested. First, I will review the literature on the

15

Arab-Israeli conflict and some pertinent aspects of the Middle East peace process. The
purpose will be to acquaint myself and the reader with the history and substance of the
conflict, to ascertain the domestic and international dimensions of the territorial dispute
between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and to discuss the different political, economic, and
psychological issues attending the peace talks. Second, I will review the literature on
structural and protracted conflicts with the purpose of illuminating the special theoretical
character of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its implications for the crisis of negotiating
peace between the two parties. The third body of literature to be reviewed pertains to
explaining foreign policy decisions. The issues involved in the choice of level of analysis in
international relations studies and the international and domestic explanations of foreign

policy behavior will be addressed in this section.

Assumptions of the Study
The following are the major assumptions of the study:

1. In international negotiations, Chiefs of Governments endeavor to propitiate
domestic and international imperatives at the same time.

2. Although a Chief of Government acts as a representative of his constituents’
preferences most of the time, at the international negotiation table he may well pursue his own
preferences which could be different fi'om those of his constituents.

3. Individual negotiators on each side of the negotiation table do not have
independent preferences. A team of negotiators acts with a set of coherent preferences.

4. As the negotiations go on, negotiators acquire fairly accurate information about

their own and each other’s constituents’ preferences.

16

Limitations of the Study

1. The Middle East peace process comprises a multiplicity of negotiation tracks.
Among these are the diplomatic talks between Israel on the one hand, and the PLO, Jordan,
Syria, and Lebanon, on the other. This study will concern itself with the Israeli-Palestinian
track and may deal with the other tracks only where they seem to have direct implications on
the dynamics of the Israeli-PLO peace talks.

2. Although this study is concerned with, first, the dynamics of the diplomatic
negotiations between Israel and the PLO within the framework of the Middle East peace
process and, second, the resulting peace agreements, it will not be directly concerned with
the efl’ectiveness of either the process or its outcomes in successfiilly breaking the cycle of the

protracted conflict.

Data and Method of Analysis

In order to meaningfully approach the present study’s twofold objective of theoretical
and intrinsic knowledge, the analysis will follow case-study method and will be theory-driven
throughout. Although a filler discussion of the pertaining methodological aspects of this
study will be developed in the third chapter, a brief account will be given in this section.

The design of the analysis will combine the great virtues of two types of case studies,
the disciplined-configurative type and the heuristic type. The choice of these two types is
based on their potential for contributing to the process of theory building. A fastidious
application of theoretical propositions to the case-study method requires that careful
attention be devoted to configuring the empirical case under examination in order to make

sure that, first, the theory receives unbiased opportunity to perform and, second, that the

l 7
contextual underpinnings of the case chosen are highlighted and correctly incorporated into
the analysis. As will become evident in the methodology chapter, this consideration is
especially crucial in view of the asymmetry between the Israeli and the Palestinian contexts,
as well as in view of the intention of the present researcher to introduce aspects derived from
the structural and protracted nature of the conflict into the analysis.

The data collection and analysis procedures will also emphasize theory and, therefore,
will adopt the method of “structured, focused comparison.” Accordingly, the analysis will
address only those aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic peace talks which I have
theoretical justifications to highlight. As a result, the analysis will proceed by breaking the
general research question outlined in this chapter into more specific, theoretically-driven
questions.

Inasmuch as this study is an attempt to theoretically and empirically contribute to the
project embraced in Double-Edged Diplomacy, the analysis will be structured comparably.
In this sense, I will examine the process and outcome of the Israeli-PLO negotiations and

relate my findings to potential generalizations about domestic-international interactions.

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction

Since no research topic exists in isolation it is necessary to establish where it is placed
within the relevant literature. This chapter will review the pertinent scholarly works in three
bodies of literature. These are the literature on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the ensuing peace
process, the literature on the interactions between domestic and international politics as
exemplified by research concerning war and security issues, and finally the literature on
structural and protracted conflict.

Overall, the purpose of revieWing these three bodies of literature is to place the
present research topic within its proper subStantive and theoretical contexts. It should be
noted, however, that any attempt to cover these subjects, especially the first and the second,
in an encyclopedic manner runs the risk of obfiiscating the research topic. Instead, the
discussion in the present chapter will concern itself with, first, exploring the multiple
dimensions of the subject matter, i.e., the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace process, and,
second, ascertaining the theoretical orientation of the research question, i.e., the interactions
between domestic and international politics. In addition, valuable theoretical insights made
by the literature on protracted conflict will be presented in order to fiirther illuminate some

germane aspects of the topic under examination.

18

19
THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT AND THE PEACE PROCESS
A Brief History of the Israeli—Palestinian Conflict

The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict not only provides a background to the Middle
East peace process but also provides the bases of the territorial claims of the two disputing
parties. Since the Israelis’ interpretation of the history of the conflict is fundamentally
different from that of the Palestinians, it is best to begin by presenting the two versions. As
this is not primarily an attempt to summarize the history of the conflict, many of the details
will be left out.

The Jewish people’s nationalistic dream, accompanied by sustained efforts to establish
a homeland of their own in Palestine, had culminated in the creation of the State of Israel in
1948.4 Religious claims, modernism, and the Holocaust, as well as a determined political
program and active diplomacy effectively carried out by the Zionist movement, worked to win
the support of the international community for the new state.5 In addition to the theological
origins of the Jews’ claims to the land of Palestine, they contend that their stance is legally
reinforced by the principles of the Balfour Declaration of 1917;6 by the historical status of
Palestine under the Ottoman rule, in which Palestine did not constitute a distinct political

entity; by the fact that the Arabs lost all five wars against Israel, making Arabs’ claims to

 

’ At various stages, other locations were considered for settling the Jews. such as Argentine and Uganda.
However, Theodor Herzl quickly opted for Palestine.

5 For an excellent historieal analysis of the role of modern bureaucracy in administering the Holocaust under
Hitler’s dictatorship, see Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1989).

6 The Balfour Declaration states that “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing will be done which may prejudice the civil
and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed
by Jews in any other country.”

20

Palestine substantially unrealistic; and by the observation that the Arabs already enjoy control
over the overwhehningly greater geographic area that encompasses the Arab World, which
is capable of easily accommodating their Palestinian brethren (Zilkha, 1992).

The Palestinians’ historical version of the conflict emphasizes the fact that the land had
been predominantly inhabited by Palestinian Arabs for hundreds of years. Generally accepted
figures estimate that, by the time of the Balfour Declaration, the population of Palestine was
570,000 Muslims, 70,000 Christians, and 60,000 Jews. However, the Palestinians
acknowledge that, fiom the beginning, they were no match for the Zionist program, and,
therefore, they have been on the defensive. More specifically, the Zionist movement
benefitted from its close strategic alliance with Britain, which, at its peak of power, provided
it with the necessary political, material, and moral support. Even after the demise of the
British empire, the United States became a close ally of Israel. In addition, while the
Palestinians lacked organizational and political skills, the Zionist movement enjoyed the
advantage of understanding the inner workings of Western society and was able to influence
centers of power in favor of the Jewish cause (Muslih, 1992). Whatever support the
Palestinians received from Arab governments proved to have hindered the former from taking
control over their own national cause. The entanglement of Arab states in the Palestinian
question doesn’t seem to have offset the initial disadvantage that has characterized the
Palestinians’ power position in relation to that of the Israelis.

The creation of the State of Israel has resulted in the creation of a refiigee problem,
caused by the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands during
the 1948-1949 war. Like with other aspects of the conflict, the Israeli explanation of the

origins of the refugee problem differs from that of the Palestinians. While Israel claims that

21

the Palestinian refugees abandoned their homes, partly willingly and partly in response to calls
from the Arab armies for evacuation during the militarily engagement, the Palestinian
explanation claims that the refiigees were deliberately driven out of their homes by the Israeli
forces in an attempt to create new realities on the ground. Joel Beinin’s (1992) essay on the
revisionist history of specific aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict cites research works which
question the oficial Israeli explanation of the Palestinian exodus and provides evidence
suggesting that numerous cases of Palestinian expulsion reflected an ofiicial Israeli policy.7

Initially waged by the Arabs but decisively won by Israel in June 1967, the Six Day
War marks a significant phase in the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the aftermath
of the war, Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank, previously under the control of Egypt
and Jordan, respectively. While before the war Israel had controlled about 77 percent of
Mandatory Palestine, the devastating defeat of the Arab armies brought Palestine in its
entirety under Israeli control. The outright loss of Palestine along with Jerusalem dealt a
psychological and political blow to the Arab intellect; the setback was of catastrophic
proportions, hence the use of the Arabic term al-naksah (catastrophe) to describe the whole
episode.

The war has had some other important consequences as well. Israel has become
aware of the evident threat leveled at her existence by the hostile neighboring Arab states

(Belofli 1994, p. 33), but at the same time the American mind began to rank Israel at the top

 

7 For a detailed discussion of the evidence pointing to the active involvement of the Israeli authorities in the
creation of the problem of the Palestinian refugees, see Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee
Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). For a general discussion of the
Palestinian refugee problem and its bearings on the Middle East peace process, see Don Peretz, Palestinians,
Refugees, and the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press,
1992).

22

of its priorities (Reich, 1994, p. 66). In fact, the new military and political balance brought
about by the outcome of the Six Day War confirmed Israel’s utility to the United States’
Middle East policy (Stork, 1993, p. 132). Israel’s domestic politics have also been affected
by the acquisition of Gaza and the West Bank. The question of what to do with regard to the
'Occupied Territories has become the central issue on the Israeli political agenda. Political
parties and extraparliamentary groupings have engaged in debates spanning the gamut from
the annexation to the partition of the territories (Bar-On, 1993, p. 29; Dowty, 1994, p. 76).
The glorious proportions of Israel’s victory in the 1967 war had contributed to the re-
emergence of the radical right; the victory was interpreted by the proponents of the
annexation of the territories as a message from God signaling the historical relevance of the
right’s grand vision of the kingdom of Israel (Sprinzak, 1993a, p. 121)“.

On the Arab side, the defeat of June 1967 contributed to another outcome that was
instrumental to the policy objectives of Israel and the United States, namely, the political
defeat of Nasserism and its associated Arab nationalistic program (Aruri, 1993, p. 99).
Furthermore, the defeat was conducive to the creation of an Islamic-oriented political climate
precisely because, first, the military blow to Nasser’s Egypt made Nasserism appear
groundless. The ideological vacuum that the defiinct Nasserist agenda left behind was
occupied by the seemingly more original Islamic agenda. Second, the Saudis, to whom
regional power shifted after the 1967 war, brought secularism under increasing attack and

advanced the idea of “Islamic Solidarity.” And third, the loss of Jerusalem to Israel moved

 

8 Jewish fundamentalists believe that God communicates to his chosen people through history. Therefore,
while the Holocaust is interpreted as God’s way of driving Jews to the Promised Land, the Six Day War is
seen as a heavenly signal that the process of Redemption has begun (Lustick, 1993, p. 113).

23
the issue of Palestine well beyond the borders of the Arab World, taking it to the more
encompassing Islamic agenda (Piscatori, 1993, p. 82-83).

Any discussion of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, no matter how brief, is
incomplete without dealing with the entanglement of the United States in this conflict. The
special relationship between the United States and Israel has had its origins in, first, the
cultural, religious, and ideological affinities, and, second, the strategic importance of Israel
to the superpower. Profound biblical and historical emotions and ideology, in addition to a
guilt factor resulting fiom the annihilation of six million Jews by Nazi Germany, made
president Harry Truman and others receptive to the idea of creating a safe refuge for the
Jewish people in a nation state all their own.’ Although the camaraderie that joins the United
States and Israel has certain strategic values, the ideological-emotional factors pre-date
whatever overt or covert strategic cooperation the two states have synthesized. In fact, the
strategic value of Israel for the United States can only be fathomed in view of the Cold War
and the United States’ concern with checking the Soviet Union’s attempts to make ideological
and political inroads in the Middle East. With the exception of the 1973 oil embargo, the
United States’ interests in the Middle East have not suffered any significant inimical effects
because of this special relationship (Reich, 1994).

According to Naseer Aruri (1993), the U.S.-Israeli special relationship began to
evolve at the point when the Eisenhower Doctrine became law on March 9, 195 7, matured

in the aftermath of the Six Day War, and graduated into a strategic alliance during Reagan’s

 

9 The United States’ support to the creation of a national home for Jews had been evident even before the
creation of the state of Israel. For example, Woodrow Wilson, along with Congress and numerous state
govemments, endorsed the Balfour Declaration Also, in 1922 Congress sanctioned the Lodge-Fish resolution
that supported a national home.

24

presidency. Originally formulated to target Egypt’s advocacy of revolutionary Arab
nationalism, the Eisenhower Doctrine threatened to employ US. military force against “overt
armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism.” The Doctrine
meant in essence that Israel would be considered the only remaining pro-West power in the
Near East (Chomsky, 1983, pp. 20-21). It also reflected the US. policy of checking the
advances of communism through military alliances.

The outcome of the June 1967 war not only augmented the United States’
commitment to the security of Israel, but also made the utility of the latter to the forrner’s
interests in the Middle East all the more evident. In fact, the Nixon-Kissinger Doctrine was
articulated in recognition of the ability of Israel, supported, of course by American economic
and military reinforcements, to enforce the policies and protect the interests of the
superpower in the region The Nixon-Kissinger Doctrine was expressive of the United States’
policy of containing the threat of communism in the Middle East through influential regional
actors.

Overall, both the religious aflinity and strategic utility bases of the special relationship
between the United States and Israel have contributed to the asymmetrical character of the
relationship between the superpower on the one hand, and the Israelis and the Palestinians on
the other. The elevation of Israel’s ranking in the United States’ policy priorities from that
of client to surrogate to strategic ally has been in contrast to the marginalization of Palestinian
claims in US. policy (Aruri, 1993, p. 113). Successive American administrations, for
example, have continued to I'CfiJSC to negotiate with the PLO until the latter unilaterally
declares its recognition of the State of Israel and its acceptance of United Nations’ Security

council Resolution 242. In addition, the United States continues to refiise to deal with the

 

 

25

Palestinian question as anything more than a refirgee problem. It was not until the first year
of Carter Administration that American verbal acknowledgment of Palestinian claims was
made. But even Carter was opposed to the idea of an independent Palestinian state by the end
of 1977. Finally, Reagan’s rejectionist years were conducive to an Israeli massive invasion
of Lebanon with the aim of curtailing the Palestinian presence there (Stork, 1993, pp. 136-

140).

Religious Fundamentalism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Religious fundamentalism is a significant factor in the conflict between the Israelis and
the Palestinians, if only because of the theological predicaments of the territorial dispute. The
territorial claims made by the Israelis and the Palestinians rest not only on secular nationalistic
foundations, but are also compounded by traditional religious beliefs. However, certain
strands of Islamic and Jewish fundamentalisms espouse ideological views which are not

1° Because the

necessarily harmonious with the nationalistic objectives of the politicians.
geographic proximity of Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists has contributed to the creation
and persistence of the conflict in the Middle East, we need to investigate the role of religion-
based politics. Also, religious fiindamentalism is theoretically suspected to have contributed

to shaping the dynamics of the peace negotiations, not the least because extremist religious

groups and activists are profoundly interested in the outcome of the peace process.

 

1° In this chapter only Islamic and Jewish fundamentalist forces will be considered. A more complete picture
of religious and secular forces will be presented in Data Presentation and Analysis Chapter.

26

Despite the conceptual and methodological difliculties inherent in the definition of the
concept of firndamentalism," most authors believe that Jewish, Christian, and Islamic
fundamentalist groups share opposition to modernity, secular Western values, and antipathy
toward “others” outside their own historic groups (Silberstein, 1993; Lazarus-Yafeh, 1993).
Lazarus-Yafeh adds that fundamentalists oppose the idea of the nation state and the
democratic system of governance, denigrate institutionalized religion, which they associate
with the corrupt political system, and call for the establishment of a Muslim or Jewish state.
They also believe in the unqualified validity of their respective holy Scriptures and give their
unquestionable allegiance to charismatic religious leaders, whom they believe are endowed
with unrelenting and infallible shrewdness.12

In their encounter with modernism, religious fundamentalists experience pressures
which amount to an identity crisis. Fundarnentalists, who emerge as a result of the interaction
between orthodoxy and modernity, believe that history has gone astray and, therefore, are
faced with three options as to how to deal with the world outside their community. They can
simply refuse to deal with the outside world, reconcile the sacred traditions with the social
and cultural forces of the modern world, or actively resist modernity and its associated

pressures which would dilute the purity of religious traditions (Hunter, 1993).

 

n The following three books are especially relevant on the subject of defining fundamentalism: Lionel Caplan,
ed., Studies in Religious Fundamentalism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987); Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of
God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and
Martin E. Marty and R Scott Appleby, eds., F undamentalisms Observed (Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1991).

’2 Lazarus-Yafeh enumerates ten characteristics of fundamentalism; however. only those which are relevant
to the present research are mentioned here.

27

To better understand the political dimension of fiindamentalism, which is an important
defining aspect of the phenomenon, the focus must shift from the domain of ideas to the
socio-structural realm. Accordingly, the social base of fundamentalism, its style of
legitimating social action, and the social structural relationships out of which it arises are
elements important to comprehending modern fundamentalism (Mittleman, 1993).
Expressing cosmically ordained and unyielding imperatives, the political activism of
fundamentalists is directed toward achieving the swift and comprehensive transformation of
the society (Lustick, 1993).

The recent electoral successes of the ultra—orthodox religious parties in Israel,
according to Kirschenbaum (1993), should not be seen as an indication of a sudden upsurge
of fiindamentalism Instead, he explains the rise of the religious right in terms of the general
growth of Jewish orthodoxy since the Second World War, which is fueled by increased birth
rates among the Orthodox, the resurgence of ethnic pride among Sephardic Jews (Jews fi'om
oriental origins), and the growing movement of Baalei T eshuvah (Bom-again Jews) (p. 20).
The fact that during the previous 15 years neither the Labour nor the Likud party has been
able to secure a governing majority in Israel without receiving the support of the religious
camp should attest to the electoral strength of the religious parties (Capitanchik, 1994).

The fact that Zionism has been involved in providing novel alternatives to the
traditional theological conceptions of Judaism, Jewish identity, and Jewish history has placed
it onto a collision course with anti-modernity Dati ’im (orthodox Jews). More specifically,
by advocating a secular nationalist way of Jewish life and history, molding religious terms in
a secular language, and flouting the hegemony of traditional religious authorities, Zionism as

a political program and socio-cultural movement has posed itself as the “other” in relation to

28

the traditional Jewish establishment.

Two radical Jewish forces are especially relevant in this regard. These are the
Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox Jews) and Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful). The political
program of anti- and non-Zionist Hwedim espouses the goal of replacing the present secular,
nationalist Zionist ideology with a spiritual, religious ideology (Friedman, 1993; Cromer,
1993). The orthodox Jewish Gush Emunim, on the other hand, seeks to replace the prevalent
secular connotations of Zionism with a religious, messianic Zionist discourse (Lustick, 1993;
Sprinzak, 1993b). Therefore, whereas Haredim’s raison d ’etre has been to do without the
Zionist movement altogether, Gush Emunim’s has been to change the secular character of
Zionism in favor of a an overtly religious make-up.

Although various levels of fundamentalism exist within the Haredi community, the
Edah Haredi! and the Neturei Karta (Guardians of. the City) are the most extreme in their
opposition to Zionism as well as the State of Israel it has created. Hence Edah Haredit and
Neturei Karta are best characterized as anti-Zionist groups. The majority within the Haredi
community, however, is more pragmatic in that it rejects secular Zionism and extends a de
facto recognition to the State of Israel. Hence Haredi is characterized as a non-Zionist force
in Jewish life. Both anti-Zionist and non-Zionist groups, and the Haredi community in
general, have adopted policies favoring withdrawal from, and conquest of, Israeli politics as
their response to modernity (Cromer, 1993).

Religious Jewish groups like Neturei Karta define their present historical reality as a
state of Exile, and consider traditional Jewish society as their context of reference. They,
therefore, are classified as conservative fiindamentalists. These groups consider zealotry a

legitimate religious phenomenon in the context of Judaism, and therefore tend to express their

29

views in violent activities. The purpose of zealotry is to confront Zionist Israeli politicians’
plan to abolish the state of Exile. In fact, extremist Haredi zealots are not driven by an
_ interest in assuming positions of power within the Israeli state apparatus. Haredi zealots’
violence is largely limited to verbal and written harassment, as well as the destruction of
property (Friedman, 1993).

While the Haredi community considers itself in a historical state of Exile, Gush
Emunim deems itself in the state of Redemption. The latter’s historical frame of reference is
broader than that of the former in that it incorporates the political realities which emerged in
the aftermath of the Six Day War. Hence, Friedman describes Gash Emunim as an innovative
fiindamentalist group. The purpose of Gash Emunim’s religious orthodoxy is to replace
Zionism’s pragmatic, defense-oriented political discourse with a religion-based Zionist
discourse. Also, Gash Emunim differs form mainstream Zionism with respect to the place of
Western values in Jewish culture; whereas prevailing Zionist thinking has sought to
incorporate the values of Western humanism, Gush Emunim considers the Jewish faith and
the humanism of the West as disapproving of each other (Lustick, 1993).

Put succinctly, the group views its mission as that of the revitalization of Zionism. It
does not share the rejection of the state of Israel with extremist groups such as Neturei Karla
and Satmar Hsidics and the ultra orthodox Agudat Israel (Association of Israel). The
homage paid to the state of Israel, however, has not prevented Gush Emunim from engaging
in confrontations with the government, the police, and the army (Sprinzak, 1993b).

The question of the Occupied Territories is well within the orthodox right’s zone of
deference. In fact, the Israeli right is not characterized by a conservative social or fiscal

program, but rather by its militaristic view of the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as

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30

well as a maximalist vision of the proper borders of Israel. Two political orientations can be
identified among the Israeli right with regard to this issue. The “pragmatic right”, while loyal
to the notion of the Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), is considerate of the imperatives imposed
by the opinions and interests of external forces, and is cognizant of the possible role of
diplomacy and foreign policy. The “radical right”, on the other hand, is so immensely
attached to the idea of Eretz Yisrael that it tends to ignore Israel’s inability to defy the
pressures of the world community. In the view of the “radical right”, neither diplomacy nor
foreign policy are relevant to the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict (Sprinzak, 1993 a).13

Members of Gush Emunim view the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza as a
theological requirement and the settlement of Eretz Yisrael as the most important Zionist and
Jewish value. The group considers the problem and plight of the Palestinians non-existent,
and the Arabs’ territorial claims as an attempt to destroy the State of Israel (Sprinzak, 1993b).
The capture of the territories by Israel in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 are
interpreted as episodes in the redemptive process communicated to the Jewish people through
history (Lustick, 1993).

In addition to articulating ideas, Gush Emunim has been successfully active in
disseminating its ideology, thus achieving political and cultural supremacy within the populace
in the West Bank and Gaza. An elaborate, yet invisible, political, economic, and cultural
network has been especially serviceable in promoting the group’s cause and firrthering its
influence. As a result, important aspects of the affairs of the approximately 100,000 Jewish

settlers in the Occupied Territories are administered by Cash Emunim, which exercises solid

 

’3 Sprinzak’s chapter also gives a historical account of the evolution of the Israeli Right from the Revisionist
Movement in 1925 until the ousting of the Likud Government in 1992.

3 1

control over fiscal, educational, and political jurisdictions (Sprinzak, 1993b).

Gush Emunim pioneered Jewish settlements in the West Bank in the aftermath of the
1973 Yom Kippur War. To the adherents of the group, the creation of civil settlements has
meant the realization of a permanent Israeli presence in the Occupied Territories. According
to Mordechai Nisan (1994), five factors are especially important in explaining the group’s
drive toward civil settlement in the disputed region. First, the members of the group believe
that Jewish people possess a clear sense of national identity and carry with them historical
roots; therefore, the mandate of contemporary Israel cannot be anything less than ancient
Israel. Second, Gush Emunim’s unwritten ideological law with respect to settling Eretz
Yisrael recognizes the right of any Jew to dwell anywhere on the Land of Israel. Third, the
bond between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel has been recognized by the Balfour
Declaration of 1917, as well as by solidified international support of the Zionist claim received
in 1920 and even after the 1948-49 Palestine War. Fourth, from a security standpoint, the
acquisition by Israel of the West Bank is integral to any effort to protect the otherwise
vulnerable boundaries of the state against any Arab army poised to attack from the Jordanian
direction. Finally, the question of the Occupied Territories affects the ideological justification
behind the right of Israel to exist. More precisely, “if the Jews have no legitimate claim to
these parts of Eretz Israel, what legitimate claim can she have to other parts of the country
which, ideologically, are less historically significant (Tel-Avivl), than Shiloh, Beit-El, and
Hebron? The real ideological strength of Zionism is rooted in Judea and Samaria before
anywhere else” (Nisan, p. 20).

As mentioned above, the Arab defeat in the 1967 war and the attending political

turmoil and sense of shame contributed to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism as a

32

significant force in Middle Eastern politics. A fatwa (a ruling made by Muslim religious
authorities) issued in early 1968 categorically rejected the notion of making peace with Israel
on the basis that the latter usurped holy Islamic cites, foremost among which was the al—Aqsa
mosque. In addition, after the October War of 1973, sheikh Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz, a
prominent Muslim scholar and director of Dev al-Ifta (the religious institution responsible for
issuing fatwas in Saudi Arabia) declared that “the Palestinian problem is an Islamic problem
first and last.” (Piscatori, p. 85).

Disapproval of the existence of the State of Israel on Arab land is shared by many
Islamic religious groups, such as aI-Ilthwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brethren), Hizbullah (Party
of Allah), and Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (the Movement of Islamic Resistance),
known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, the Arabic word for enthusiasm. Hamas, the principal
Islamic organization in the West Bank and Gaza, is committed to the liberation of the land of
Palestine and the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian nation.

The first Islamic fiindamentalist group to emerge on the Palestinian scene was the
Islamic Jihad, whose advent in the late 19703 was greatly influenced by the success of the
Ayatollah Khomeini revolution in Iran. While the PLO made Islam one element in its national
political theory, the Islamic Jihad made Islam the primary theme of its definition of enemies
and its actions toward them. Generally speaking, the Islamic Jihad, borrowing from Iranian
activism, chose the tenets of martyrdom and self-sacrifice as representative of their conception
of militant activism. During the first year of the Palestinian Intifada (Shake-off, or Uprising)
against the occupation authorities, the group played a leading role in mobilizing the masses
around a proclaimed Islamic revolution. But soon afterward the Islamic Jihad was succeeded

by Hamas as a central Islamic power in the West Bank and Gaza, partly because of the heavy-

 

(‘1

ll.

33
handed policy of Israel against key figures in the group (Rekhess, 1993).

The Muslim Brethren movement in the Gaza Strip was the first fundamentalist Islamic
group to call for the return to orthodox Islam in the region. Muslim Brethren escaped Israeli
persecution partly because its members disassociated themselves from overt activist
encounters with the occupation reminiscent of those of the Islamic Jihad. The brunt of the
group’s activism involved political and educational work, but with the outbreak of the
Intifada, Muslim Brethren created Hmnas to serve as a special military arm of the movement,
causing direct confrontation with Israeli authorities. The organization was later outlawed.

Hamas believes that nationalism and religion are integral to building a Palestinian
state, that jihad (holy warfare) is the means by Which Palestine in its entirety is to be liberated.
Hamas sees the liberation of the Palestinian land as a collective Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim
responsibility and believes that Palestine must remain an Islamic waqf (trust) until the Day of
Judgement. Therefore, it is safe to say that despite the group’s success in mobilizing the
Palestinian masses in the West Bank and Gaza around an Islamic sentiment toward the
conflict with Israel, the soundness of its political program is wanting because its realization
is dependent upon an unforeseeable pooling of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim wills and
resources (Tarald, 1994). In addition, the organization presents itself as an alternative to the
PLO as long as the latter continues its conciliatory, secularist, peacefirl approach to the
resolution of the conflict. Also, during the Palestinian Uprising Hamas appeared to be
competing with the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising to direct the daily course of
the struggle in the Occupied Territories. In fact, the powerful Islamic orientation of Hamas
in the West Bank and Gaza has contributed to the ideological and political erosion of the

Palestinian unity as well as the Islamicization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Rekhess,

34

1993)

The Occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations
Israel’s present geographic boundaries are of two kinds. First, the colonial boundaries
were created by colonial powers during the first quarter of the twentieth century, with Britain
playing a significant role in drawing them. The second kind of boundaries are called post-

,, 6‘

1948 boundaries, known formally as “armistice lines, cease fire lines,” or “lines of
separation,” created in the aftermath of the Palestine War, the Six Day War, and the Yom
Kippur War, respectively. The creation of the Gaza Strip was based on a formal international
agreement signed in 1949 over a bulge of Egyptian-held territory. Gaza’s present population
is more than 700,000, fully exploiting its meager agricultural resources. There are 14 Jewish
settlements in the strip, with a population of 5,000 settlers, controlling approximately five
percent of the territory. The West Bank (historically known as Judea and Samaria) was
created as a result of the armistice agreement signed by Israel and Jordan in the spring of
1949, which delineated a boundary made up partly by the former colonial boundary between
Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. The new boundary of the West Bank, also known in
Israel as “the Green Line”, was arbitrarily drawn, thus leaving each of the villages through
which it cuts divided between the Israeli side and the Jordanian side. The line contributed to
recurrent violent border disputes, as well as depriving many of the villages of their arable land
and water resources. (Brawer, 1994). After the 1967 war, the West Bank in its entirety came
under Israeli control, including eastern Jenrsalem. After more than twenty years of

occupation and generous Israeli investments, there are about 1,050,000 Palestinians and

approximately 120,000 Jews living in the West Bank, thus making Israel’s settlement

 

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capability in the Occupied Territories, according to Elisha Efrat (1994), seem largely
restricted on economic and demographic grounds. Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian
Declaration of Principles of September 1993 has served to bring the Jewish settlement
activities in the West Bank and Gaza to an end, thus contributing to the growing frustration
among the Jewish settlers.

According to Ian Lustick, the issue of the annexation of, or withdrawal from, a
closely-held territory can be depicted as a model of territorial state-building. The model
emphasizes three stages and two thresholds which are bound to be experienced by the central
state. The stages are “Incumbency Stage”, “Regime Stage”, and “Ideological Hegemony
Stage.” The two thresholds must be crossed by the state in the direction of territorial
incorporation if the territories are to be annexed on a permanent basis. Applied to the case
of Israel and the Occupied Territories, Lustick’s model estimates that incumbency and regime
risks are present in case of Israeli withdrawal from the territories and that psycho-cultural
risks are not present if Israel decides to disengage its military presence from the territories
(Lustick, 1994a). Elsewhere, Lustick shows that the decisiveness of the “Incumbency stage”
in annexing the Occupied Territories to Israel was evident during the period between 1967
and 1977, and that Israel actually moved past the regime crisis attending the incorporation of
the territories and toward annexation during the period between 1977 and 1984. This means
that an Israeli territorial compromise with the Palestinians in the direction of withdrawal from
the West Bank and Gaza involves a difficult regime-level struggle, the passage of which
would require the Israeli government to “strip the territories question of its regime-

threatening aspect” (Lustick, 1994b).

36

The Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza have availed
themselves of a number of non-violent strategies in an attempt to combat the Israeli military
presence there. These strategies reflect the structures of opportunities and constraints with
which Palestinians living under occupation have to deal, such as the lack of arms and military
training, the absence of lines of communication through which arms can be transferred to
them, the economic dependence on Israel, the lack of a local leadership, as well as persistent
Israeli plans to add a Jewish character to the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian response
to the occupation has been to call for demonstrations to articulate positions and express
solidarity, to obstruct Israeli authorities from pursuing their policies of land seizure and
building settlements, and to refuse to cooperate with the occupiers, thus making it difficult
for the latter to govern them. The occupied people have also harassed the Israelis and their
collaborators as they administer the occupation policies, boycotted Israeli goods in the Arab
markets, created alternative institutions and methods in order to avoid dealing with those of
the occupier, and adopted civil disobedience as a method of downplaying the effects of the
instruments of repression on themselves (Awad, 1994).

The eruption of the Intifada in December 1987 represented a very unusual mixture
of civil disobedience and sub-conventional force on the part of the Palestinians. The Intifada
reflected the communal dimension of the protracted conflict between the Israelis and the
Palestinians. Caught by surprise, the crystallization of the Israeli response to the Intifada
went through four chronological stages (Inbar, 1994). During the first stage, which began
with the outbreak of the Intifada and lasted until January 1988, the civil unrest was
considered by the Israeli government to be a typical “current security” problem, one that

customary measures would suffice to handle. The seriousness of the situation was realized

37

by Prime Minister Rabin only toward the end of December 1987, at which time a contingency
plan was implemented to handle the unruly behavior of the Palestinian masses with “wise
firmness.” The second stage of the Israeli response began in early January 1988 and lasted
for two months. During that period the Intifada called for a political campaign against the
very existence of the State of Israel, thereby heightening the Israeli perception of threat. In
response, the number of Israeli troops deployed in the territories was increased, and the role
of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) was changed from one of providing back-up to one of
charging Palestinian demonstrations. In addition, the Border Police were ordered to use
sticks, and a policy of beating was initiated. The new policy, nonetheless, failed to end the
demonstrations.

The third stage commenced in March 1988 and lasted until the new Likud
Government came to power in June 1990. In that stage the Rabin Government perceived the
Intifada as a surprising display of Arab struggle against the Israeli state and, therefore, started
to integrate civilian and military means to confront the situation and force the Palestinians in
the territories to eschew their ambitions for an independent state. The Israeli response was
characterized by a novel strategy of attrition, composed of a sustained sequence of
intermittent actions. Limited use of military force, judicial and administrative measures, and
administrative and economic pressures were all used in this stage to curb the violence. With
the beginning of the fourth stage under the Likud Government, the level of friction with the
Palestinians was lowered due to the reduction of military presence in areas farther away from
the main roads. The troops were also ordered to minimize their contact with the Palestinians,

thus lowering the level of violence and the number of fatalities sustained by the Palestinians.

38

In Walking the Red Line: Israelis in Search of Justice for Palestine (Hruwitz, 1992),
the notion that the Israelis are united with regard to the status and firture of the Occupied
Territories comes under a dashing attack in writings by several Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.
The essays in the book attempt to argue the need to arrive at a just and dignified resolution
to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the civil unrest of the Intifada draws
the world’s attention to the plight of the Palestinians. The diverse Israeli peace groups
struggle to combat the inevitability of the Arab-Israeli conflict by searching for common
grounds of peace which could mitigate the troubling side effects of living in an overly
militarized society.

Whereas before the outbreak of the Uprising the Israelis saw the West Bank and Gaza
neither as part of Israel nor as part of a foreign country, after the Intifada they saw the
territories as a zone where they could not feel comfortable. The message that the Palestinians
tried to send to the Israeli public was that occupation could not be cost fiee, and the message
seemed to be getting through. On the issue of the final status of the Occupied Territories, the
Palestinian Intifada intensified and deepened the political division in Israel. The implications
of the message sent by the Intifada differed substantially between those who championed the
annexation of the territories and those who advocated territorial compromise. More
precisely, territorial maximalists interpreted the Intifada as another episode of the Arab Israeli
conflict designed to threaten the existence of Israel and therefore became less willing to
accept withdrawal as a viable option. The advocates of territorial compromise interpreted the
Uprising as an indication of the hefty moral and political price Israel would have to pay if the
occupation were to continue, and therefore became more committed to their conclusion that

the Palestinians’ national aspirations must be accommodated in order to steer Israel away

39
from a disastrous kismet (Tessler, 1994).

The Intifada not only renewed the Palestinians’ hopes for ending the occupation but
also inaugurated a serious discussion about the problems attending the creation of an
independent Palestinian state. These problematic aspects of Palestinian statehood concern
the process and form of the firture state. First, there is the problem of redefining the
relationship between the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories and those living in the
Diaspora. Second, in view of the fact that the Occupied Territories lack the firnctional
equivalent of a national elite group, the relationship between the internal forces in the West
Bank and Gaza on the one hand, and the external leadership assumed by the PLO on the
other, is largely articulated through factional bodies in the Occupied Territories, not through
the bureaucracy of the PLO. The reason behind this situation is that while PLO’s constituent
factional and non factional components are located in the territories, its bureaucratic
apparatus was developed in the Diaspora (Tamari, 1992).

0

An analysis of the resolutions issued by the Palestinian National Council (PNC) shows
that the legislative body’s characterization of the objectives of the Palestinian nationalistic
movement, as well as the means of achieving these objectives, have evolved through three
major phases. The first phase, which encompasses the first four PNC resolutions from 1964
to 1968, championed the total liberation of Palestinian land by Arab armies. It was not before
the fourth PNC resolution that the burden of liberation was shifted to the Palestinians
themselves. The spirit of the phase was dominated by the bitterness caused by the creation
of the State of Israel on 77 percent of Mandatory Palestine in 1948, an episode that the Arabs

refer to as the al-nakbah, or calamity. The second phase, which began with the fifth PNC and

lasted until the eleventh in 1973, advocated the establishment of a secular democratic state

40

which would include Arabs as well as all Jews who would disavow Zionism. The third and
final phase began in June 1974 and lasted through November 1988, when the Palestinian state
was declared. The PNC’s resolutions during this phase were expressive of Palestinian
pragmatism which culminated in a rhetoric heralding a decrease in the emphasis placed upon
the armed struggle, and acceptance of the two-state solution (Muslih, 1994).

The 1967 war and the subsequent occupation of the territories have had enervating
ramifications on Israel’s foreign policy. The domestic political cleavage caused by the debate
over the fate of Gaza and the West Bank resulted in the collapse of national consensus and,
hence, impasse and immobilism of Israel’s foreign policy during the period between 1967-
1973 (Shlaim and Yaniv, 1994). Israeli foreign policy also suffered major setbacks, foremost
among which was the adoption by the United Nations’ General Assembly of an anti-Israeli
resolution on 10 November 1975, which called Israel a racist regime in Palestine and equated
Zionism with racism. Furthermore, on 14 December 1984 more than 140 United Nations
state members endorsed a resolution identifying Israel as a non peace-loving member state
and called upon the world community to suspend economic and technological relations with
her. The brunt of Israeli diplomacy during the previous two decades had been driven by a
defensive orientation designed to control the damage to the state’s foreign policy. That
picture to the contrary, Israel’s foreign policy has made vigorous strides in the present
decade, largely due to increases in the decision-making power of the foreign ministry
compared with that of the ministry of defense, as well a successful restructuring of foreign
policy objectives and the techniques employed to achieve them. (Klieman, 1994).

During the years of occupation, the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have

been negatively affected by the occupation policies of Israel, most notably by the one-sided

41

customs and the de facto monetary union systems. Suffice it to say that the better proportion
of the Palestinians’ income in the territories is nondomestically generated, and that the already
small economies of the territories have been dealt fiscal and political shocks associated with
the occupation. In addition, over the period between 1970 and 1987 the commercial and
monetary integration of the Occupied Territories with Israel resulted in a substantial resource
transfer fiom the former to the latter, estimated to range between 13 percent and 25 percent
of the Palestinian GNP (Hamed and Shaban, 1993).

The economy of the Gaza Strip under occupation grew increasingly weaker between
1967 and 1987. Unable to provide adequate employment opportunities to its people and
incapable of generating more than 55 percent of its national income from local resources, the
Gazan economy became heavily reliant on the Israeli economy, as well as economic aid from
external sources. In general, Israel’s revenues from the Occupied Territories have
consistently been larger than her expenditures there. In 1985 Israel accrued a net profit of
over 25 million dollars fi'om the Gaza Strip alone. The economic hardship in Gaza was
exacerbated by the outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987. By the second year of the
Uprising, Gazan Gross National Product fell by 35 percent of its 1987 level due to a
combination of Israeli and Palestinian policies. The agricultural, industrial, trade, and labor
force patterns have all been negatively affected during the years of the Intifada (Roy, 1994).

It is presumed that the resolution of the territorial conflict would bring about a
peaceful environment that would yield some level of economic benefits to the Arabs and the
Israelis. A number of studies have dealt with the economic effects of reaching a just and
lasting peace between Israel and Egypt (Handoussa and Sahfik, 1993), Israel and Syria (Hilan,

1993), and Israel and Jordan (Abu-Jabarah, 1993). Hopes on the economic front, however,

42

are largely conditional upon the implementation of workable political settlements to the
dispute. For the Israelis, ending the state of belligerency is thought to translate into less
societal efi’ort expended for defense requirements, recently calculated to be consuming 15
percent of the GNP. Nevertheless, even after concluding peace settlements with the Arabs,
Israel is very likely to find herself needing to continue her high level of defense spending in
order to deter those countries with whom she has no peace agreements, as well as to
discourage Arab countries with whom she has peace agreements from reneging from their
commitments. Consequently, the potential economic dividends of peace are likely to be
wiped out by the persistence of the country’s defense concerns (Zakheim, 1994).

By entering into negotiations with the Palestinians within the framework of the peace
process, Israel’s economic development is positioned to benefit in many ways. First, foreign
governments will be willing to lend Israel the funds necessary to absorb the Jewish
immigrants, and the promised peace will attract foreign private investments to the country’s
markets. Second, the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict will result in lifting the Arab
secondary economic boycott imposed against foreign firms conducting more than “normal”
business with Israel. Third, by putting an end to the Intifada Israel will be able to shift part
of its security spending to the economic realm, although the net gain is estimated to be
approximately only 1 percent of the Israeli GNP (Halevi, 1993). The Israeli economy is also
predicted by Ben-Zion Zilberfarb to indirectly benefit from the peace process through the
establishment of trade relations with countries outside the Middle East region with which
Israel did not have economic relations in the past and also through possible increases in

foreign investments in Israel (1994).

43

According to Ephraim Ahiram (1993 ), “dovetailing” seems the best strategy for the
development of the Palestinian economy. The strategy entails, first, the establishment of
industries for production of goods for domestic demand, as well as for firture export. Second,
as the Palestinian entrepreneurs and laborers eventually acquire the experience necessary to
produce quality goods, the industrial establishment should shift to producing purely export-
oriented goods. The firture investments by Palestinians in the Diaspora in the West Bank and
Gaza will revive the Palestinian economy and also encourage foreign investors by convincing
them of the lowered economic and political risks associated with investment in the Palestinian
economy (Harned and Shaban, 1993). Hisharn Awartani (1993) studies the possibilities of
cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian economies in trade, agriculture, industry,
tourism, and water and concludes that such cooperation hinges upon a political decision
aimed at restructuring the relationship between the two entities in order to replace subjugation
with complementarity. Zilberfarb (1994) argues that because of economic factors and
political constraints, the direct effects of cooperation between the Israelis and the Palestinians
in the areas of trade, industry, infrastructure, and agriculture will be minimal. Ephraim
Kleiman (1993) discusses the predicaments concerning the flow of goods and of factors of
production in the firture economic relationships between Israel and whatever Palestinian
political entity that may emerge as a result of the peace process. Kleiman conCludes that the
Palestinians’ choice of one economic regime or another depends to a large measure on
decisions made by neighboring countries such as Jordan and Israel, thus placing some
restrictions on the Palestinians’ political sovereignty as well.

The onset of the Middle East peace process in the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991

marked changes in the positions held by Israel, the PLO, and major Arab states with regard

44

to the Palestinian question. The Israelis were faced with a choice between dealing with the
risks presented by peaceful settlements on one hand, and the risks presented by the
continuation of the conflict, on the other. They also discovered the historical irony that the
creation of an independent political entity for the Palestinians is a prerequisite for the
preservation of Israel as a Jewish, not bi-national, state. In addition, the Palestinians’ support
of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait eroded much of their credibility and caused the popularity of
their national cause to dwindle among Arab intellectuals. Furthermore, the role played by
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria in sanctioning a military action under the leadership of the
United States against the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait made these states sensitive to Arab
public opinion demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the territories (Harkabi, 1992).
These developments resulted in making the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based
on the land for peace formula seem increasingly acceptable to the parties concerned.

Challenges to peace in the Mddle East are suspected to arise from the attitudes of the
Arab masses to the state of Israel. However, Tessler and Sanad’s study of the attitudes of the
Egyptians, Kuwaitis, and Palestinians found that, in the case of Palestine, economic and
political factors are sometimes more important than cultural considerations in explaining the
varying attitudes among the Arabs toward Israel. Moreover, the study concludes that “there
is no Arab way of looking at Israel, and certainly no innate and immutable Arab hostility
towards the Jewish State” (1994, p. 70).

In order to address the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, best characterized
as the mutual denial of national identity, certain psychological prerequisites must be satisfied
to foster acceptance. First, both the Palestinians and the Israelis must develop adequate

insights into each other’s concerns, as well as the perspectives which produced them.

45

Second, each side must be convinced that there is an element to talk about and that there is
someone on the other side who is willing to talk. Third, each party to the talks must be able
to divorce the dreams from the operational programs of the other side. In other words, the
Palestinians’ dream of a united Palestine and the Israelis’ dream of the ingathering of the
exiles must be distinguished from what each side is actually capable of achieving. Fourth, the
Palestinians and the Israelis must be persuaded of the importance of creating a new situation
by making mutual concessions, thus laying the groundwork for a process of negotiation and
change. Fifth each side must also become convinced that the leadership on the other side has
undergone structural changes and now is willing to make moves conducive to stabilized
peace. Finally, each side must demonstrate sensitivity to the firndamental human concerns and
psychological needs of the other side, typically through specific gestures calculated to reflect
the acceptance of each other as fellow-human beings (Kelman, 1994).

Palestinian and Israeli peace negotiators are faced with serious difficulties, such as the
discontentment of religious zealots and right wing nationalists with such concepts as
compromise and political accommodation, especially when the subject of negotiation concerns
an issue of utmost religious and national value. Also, there is a lack of trust between the
adversaries in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, largely due to the longevity of the conflict and
the profound sufferings, to different degrees, the two peoples have had to endure (Vatikiotis,
1994). Of utmost importance, therefore, is the fostering of a semblance of trust between the
Palestinians and the Israelis through the application of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)
(Ben-Dor and Dewitt, 1994). Designed to help the disputing parties avoid mutually ill-
omened outcomes, these techniques should be sensitive to the security concerns of the Israelis

(Dowty, 1994) and the implications of statelessness for the Palestinians (Brynen, 1994).

46

Religious and political groups on both sides are primary candidates for the application of
CBMs in the efi’ort of resolving the outstanding conflict (Gal-Or, 1994).

According to Edward F. Sherman (1992), there exist three levels at which dispute
resolution techniques could be applied in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first of these
concerns addressing distrust and misunderstandings between individual Palestinians and
Israelis. The second has to do with resolving sources of dispute at the level of religious and
nationalistic groups. This level is much more difficult to handle because the group as a
collectivist entity must agree to reconcile its hostility with the enemy. The third level involves
setting in motion mediation and reconciliation efl‘orts by a recognized international diplomacy
body which has the consent of the disputing parties. Robert A. Rubinstein (1992) discusses
the role of introducing culture, and consequently symbols and negotiation styles, in increasing
the possibilities of arriving at successful outcomes in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Cultural factors, such as meta-communicative expectations, affect how negotiators respond

to their interlocutors, perceive the fairness of offers, and conduct rounds of negotiations.

STRUCTURAL AND PROTRACTED CONFLICTS
Structural Social Conflicts
Johan Galtung (1969) gives a broad definition of violence and argues that “it is present
when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations
are below their potential realization” (p. 168). In what Kenneth E. Boulding (1977) has
described as a normative thought that views reality in a manner that lacks dynamism, Galtung
highlights the “structural” sources of violence as well as the “personal” or direct ones. In

general terms, Galtung steers his discussion toward investigating types of violence (which he

 

47

makes very inclusive) and actors who inflict violence. From among six dimensions of violence
inherent in his definition, Galtung makes a basic distinction between “structural” and
“personal” violence.

Structural violence is characterized by the inability to identify the actor, and instead,
is attributed to factors built into the structure within and between countries and not
necessarily intended by anybody. Conversely, in personal or direct violence, the actor
inflicting damage can be identified and his motives known. Galtung then devotes a substantial
part of his study to examining the relationship, if any, between personal and structural
violence. He raises some important questions, such as: “Is there a distinction between
personal and structural violence at all?” “Are personal and structural violence empirically,
not merely logically, independent of each other?” “Are there structures where violence is
structure-variant?” And finally, “is one type of violence, structural and personal, necessary
or sufficient to abolish the other type?”

Galtung’s discussion of these questions concludes that “the two types of violence
simply do not seem to be more tightly connected empirically than logically--and as to the
latter, the whole exercise is an effort to show that they may be seen as logically independent
even though they are continuous with other, one shades into the other” (p. 182).

Anatol Rapoport (1974) recognizes two types of conflict: endogenous, “wherein the
conflicting systems are parts of a large system that has its own mechanisms for maintaining
a steady state,” and exogenous, characterized by the absence of a common authority over the
conflicting parties. The question that he seems to be interested in addressing is whether the
“internalization of endogenous conflict by individuals in a society facilitates or inhibits the

institutionalization of exogenous conflict.” Rapoport’s answer to this question is that

48

conflict-prone individuals add up to a warlike society.

Central to Rapoport’s “frustration-aggression theory” is the notion of “Us against
Them,” which he claims is essential to every serious conflict involving aggregates. Also, of
similar relevance to his theory is the distinction among three ways of perceiving the opponent.
In a “fight,” the opponent is perceived as an “enemy” who must be removed. A “game,” on
the other hand, is characterized by an analysis of a situation. Here stress is added to the
situation while attitudes toward the opponent are generally neutral or even fiiendly. In the
third way of perceiving an opponent, “debate,” the purpose of the conflict is to convince
rather than to eliminate the opponent (as in a fight), or to outwit him (as in a game).

Elaborating on aspects of endogenous conflicts, Rapoport identifies three sources of
conflict-namely, conflict over the allocation of resources, the struggle for power, and the
need for autonomy. The fact remains, however, that according to the author, “strong and real
as the substantive issues may be, the need for identifying with a group remains the strongest
factor in instigating, perpetuating and exacerbating social conflict” (p. 190).

The idea of the institutionalization of conflict, and hence of war, is brought home by
Rapoport in his concept of the “internalization of conflict,” according to which “the ‘enemy’
in a fight is an enemy not only because one happens to be fighting him. He is identified as an
enemy, regardless of time and place” (p. 197). Furthermore, Rapoport describes conflict as
a perpetual perception of “Self and Other” in the sense of being culturally transmitted and
thus resulting in attitudes toward conflict being inculcated in each individual and internalized
by the larger systems: groups, tribes, societies, and nations. Consequently, “all aspects of
organized conflict have been conducive to the internalization and the institutionalization of

war in almost all societies” (p. 200). Likewise, war and war systems serve the twofold

 

49

function of promoting domestic cohesion and cooperation as well as providing the basic
motivation for primary social organization.

Rapoport’s theoretical formulation has many levels of analysis, such as the experiences
of conflict individuals have through their life, the groups which share common attitudes
toward feuds, and nations which may be characterized by specific, culturally-based, conflicts
predispositions. The multiplicity of levels of analysis has clearly enriched the theoretical
construct presented by Rapoport by giving the reader a usefill sense of the whole picture,
although it leaves much to be desired in the way it presents the evidence necessary to link
these levels of analysis to one another in the manner the author would like us to believe.

In evaluating Rapoport’s theory, one needs only to contrast the rigidity of his notion
of the institutionalization of conflict with what has actually happened in some nations. Until
a few years ago, the socialist states were largely successful in constraining both protest and
rebellion. On the rare occasions when domestic resistance did occur, it was repressed with
intense violence, as was the case in Hungary in 1956 and China in 1989. After 1989,
however, the patterns of political conflict and violence in the socialist bloc increasingly
resembled those of Western democracies: Protest became widespread and authorities were
restrained in their use of violence by the new institutional arrangements.

A number of comments are in order. First, the fact that Galtung has maintained
personal and structural types of violence as independent from each other drives home the idea
that concerns about peace should lead to concerns about both types of violence, not just
personal violence. Second, while Rapoport concludes that the internalization of conflict at
the individual level leads to the internalization of conflict at the system level, Galtung argues

that structural violence (which can be viewed as parallel to Rapoport’s system conflict) is by

50

no means influenced by lower-level types of violence. Another difference that can be shown
between the two theories is that conflict in Rapoport’s conceptualization takes the form of
“fight”and often assumes pronounced forms (i.e., wars and revolutions) and thus can be
expected to find expression through violent developments, whereas, according to Galtung’s
formulation, violence and damage can be said to have been inflicted even during generally
peaceful times (e.g., violence to mind and spirit). Third, the difference in perspective between
Galtung and Boulding is evident in the latter’s argument that violence can best be dealt with
by recognizing the dynamic, evolutionary, nature of violence and its associated ills, not (as
Galtung has argued) by structural changes. In fact, I find Boulding’s advocacy of our need
to address the processes which produce violence through increased “production” more
reasonable than Galtung’s prescription of power and wealth “redistribution” because no
structural change is conceivably possible without first understanding the processes of

interaction and then changing them in a way conducive to more peaceful structures.

Protracted Conflicts
Edward Azar and Stephen Cohen (1979) pursue the same line of thought followed by
Rapoport and Galtung and propose the notion of “protracted conflict” that is characteristic
of the Third World. According to the authors, the Arab-Israeli conflict is best conceptualized
in terms of a protracted conflict, which they define as one which “lingers over time and
appears to have no single or distinguishable breakpoint . . . Compared with standard
conceptualizations of conflict, protracted conflict is characterized by the following features:
1. Protracted conflict is viewed in terms of a process that is part of a social system.

As such, protracted conflict displays the tendency to recur because of disputes over the same

51
issues which find their origins in the social system.

2. Borrowing from Rapoport (1974), the prevailing nature of conflicts in European
countries is issue-oriented and conflict is exogenous (i.e., agents of conflict are governments),
whereas in protracted conflicts in the Third World, conflict is endogenous (i.e., whole
societies are the agents of hostility and hatred).

3. Protracted conflict is also characterized by the observation that agents in dispute
are incapable of settling their differences once and for all through a major war that might
ordinarily give rise to an arrangement that could institutionalize a semblance of peacefirl
relations between the disputants.

4. Azar and Cohen, following Rapoport’s delineation, argue that protracted conflict
is internalized and, hence, institutionalized.

Azar and Cohen utilize what is referred to as the “Normal Relations Range” (NRR)
to conceptualize the structure of interactions between Israel and the Arab states, or any two
states for that matter, and argue that movements toward cooperation or toward conflict are
constrained by a “Lower Critical Threshold” and an “Upper Critical Threshold” respectively.
These constraining thresholds make both cooperation and conflict equally serious matters for
national decision makers, hence the notion of peace as crisis. “For the leaders of Israel and
the Arab confi'ontation states, it is actually the crisis of cooperation which raises the larger
number of new questions as to the nature of their decisions and their creativity as leaders” (p.
167). The crisis of cooperation, according to the authors, is further reinforced by the problem
of communication which makes it difficult for the parties in conflict to send or receive
messages of cooperation. Azar and Cohen then proceed to propose that “whatever can be

done to free the content of the message from ambiguity will increase its chances of delivery.

52

Considering the context as well as the content is one way to help do just this” (p. 173).

Azar (1985) contends that the identity group--social, religious, ethnic, cultural--is a
more compelling choice of unit of analysis in protracted conflicts than either the nation state
or the international system. The domestic struggle to satisfy the basic needs of social groups,
according to Azar, finds expression in international conflict, thus making the demarcation
between domestic and international conflict largely artificial and misleading. The resolution
of protracted conflict requires, first, addressing the needs of the Opposing parties and, second,
effecting structural changes in order to overcome underdevelopment.

Michael Brecher (1984) in “International Crises and Protracted Conflicts” uses the
basic characteristics of protracted conflict set forth by Azar and Cohen (1979) to unfold the
differences in crisis profiles between protracted and non-protracted conflict cases in the
period between 1945-1975. The first difference is that international crises within protracted
conflict systems are more likely to be triggered by violence than in other types of conflict.
Second, crises within this type of conflict are more likely to involve a perceived threat to
higher stakes, i.e., a threat to more firndamental values related to ideology, civilization, and
belief systems. Third, crises within the protracted variant of conflict are more likely to be
characterized by violent response to the actor who initiated the crisis, as well as a more
conspicuous role for violent acts in managing the crisis, including outright war. The fourth
difference is that crises in protracted conflicts invite greater involvement and higher military
activity on the part of superpowers because of the potentially dangerous threat they pose to
the stability of the international system. Fifth, the United Nations tends to become involved
in handling crises within protracted conflict systems more frequently than it does in non-

protracted conflict crises. And the sixth difference between the two types has to do with the

 

 

53

substance of the outcome; while crises within protracted conflict systems tend to culminate
in indecisive stalemates and compromises, crises outside this type of conflict end in victory
fifty percent of the time.

Having reviewed these different arguments about structured conflict and violence, one
is tempted to look into the incentives for providing breakpoints (i.e., sustained peace and
cooperation) inherent in the concepts of “protracted conflict,” “structure of conflict,” or
“systemic conflict.” As Boulding has commented, “there does seem to be a certain underlying
tendency for a structuralist to think in a rather deterministic term” (p. 78), yet some authors
give some hope for cooperation and peace either through better communication (Azar and
Cohen) or through influence on the process that produces violence (Boulding). In contrast,
Rapoport’s notion of institutionalized conflict and war makes peace a rather difficult objective
to achieve. Similarly, by arguing that neither personal nor structural violence is influenced
by the other, Galtung does not make the task of achieving peace any easier. In short, the
authors’ difl’erent ways of conceptualizing conflict have resulted in differences in the
feasibility of peace.

Philip A. Schrodt (1981) in “A Mathematical Model of the Persistence of Conflict”
postulates that in every nation there are two groups with opposing interests in interstate
conflict. The first is comprised of “nationalists,” who are interested in supporting and
maintaining conflictive foreign policy because of economic, military, or political interests. In
order to preserve their interests, this group of people opposes any tendency to allow conflict
to drop below a certain level. The second group is made up of “intemationalists” whose
economic, budgetary, or philosophical interests drive them to support lower levels of conflict

as long as the very presence of the state is not threatened. The mathematical model

54

developed by Schrodt is capable of simulating a conflict process that captures the underlying
logic of protracted conflict theorized by Azar and his associates.

Also capable of capturing the protracted conflict variant of interactions is the more
simplified mathematical model developed by Walter Hill (1990) in his “Persistent Cyclical
Conflict by Way of a Time Lagged Logistic.” Hill, however, refers to the two basic groups
which drive the process of “Protracted Social Conflict” as the government and the opposition.

Azar, Jureidini, and McLaurin (1978) explain the long duration of protracted conflicts
in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular by stating that “forces very much part of
the conflict dynamics constantly work to return deviations from the NRR in interaction levels
or frequencies back to the Arab-Israeli norm, to the NRR, to the dominant tenor of the
relationship” (p.55). Powerful identity crises on a personal, structural, as well as national
scale are brought on by movements signaling attempts to terminate the conflict.

In this section I have reviewed the major works in the literature on the structural and
protracted variants of conflict. It is well to conclude this section by emphasizing that the
literature on structural and protracted conflict has identified the domestic origins of interstate
conflict. In addition, the literature has captured the difliculty inherent in the movement
toward peacefirl settlements and has convincingly characterized it as a crisis of peace. My
contention that the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic peace talks are expected to invite the active
involvement of the domestic politics of both parties is justified by the plausible insights drawn
from this literature. This contention will be shown to be further justified by the following

review of the literature on the origins of foreign policy behavior.

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EXPLAINING FOREIGN POLICY DECISIONS

In this section scholarly approaches pertaining to the explanation of foreign policy
decisions of nation states will be reviewed. The purpose in so doing is to shed light on the
theoretical purport of the present study by emphasizing its relation to the established literature
and its contribution to it. Due to the nature of the substance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
it should be noted that only studies pertaining to war and security issues are reviewed, while
those concerning international political economy are deliberately left out.

Levels of Analysis in Foreign Policy Studies

The issue at hand concerns the level of analysis which the researcher should consider
when attempting to account for foreign policy decisions such as the initiation of war.
Generally speaking, there are three such levels or images, each claiming some support in the
writings of a group of major philosophers. The first level is that of individual statesmen as
decision makers (St. Augustine, Spinoza, Nrebuhr, and Hadley Cantril); the second level deals
with certain characteristics, both political and economic, of individual nation states as
sovereign actors in the international arena (Kant, Gladstone, Mill, and Woodrow Wilson); and
the third level is found in the anarchic nature of the international system comprising all nation
states (Jean Jacques Rousseau) (Waltz, 1959). K. J. Holsti (1972), in International Politics:
A Frwnework for Analysis, argues that all three levels of analysis are needed, since no single
level can account for all aspects of reality, and that the choice of level of analysis depends on
the nature of the problem under examination. Holsti, however, concludes that the state and
individual decision makers are the two most important levels in explaining the formulation of
foreign policy objectives. Holsti (1991) employed all three levels in Peace and War: Armed

Conflicts and International Order 1648-1989 to inform his analysis of the issues which cause

 

56

foreign policymakers to decide to go to war, the attitudes toward war among those who make
state policy and how these attitudes have changed over time, and, finally, the determinants of
the problem of building the international order and who defines this order.

James Rosenau’s essay, “Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Approaches
to Comparative and International Politics (Farrell, ed. 1966), provides five clusters of
variables which influence foreign policy choices. These are “idiosyncratic” variables
pertaining to the values, talents, personality traits, and experience of the makers of foreign
policy; “role’” variables which capture the behavior resulting from organizational imperatives;
“governmental” variables which reflect the structure that constrains or facilitates foreign
policy behavior, “societal” variables emphasizing all informal social aspects which bear on the
state’s behavior in relation to other states; and “systemic” variables which reflect events
occurring at the international level and shape foreign policy decisions of individual states. The
choice of which level should be employed in foreign policy analysis, Rosenau contends,
should be informed by the “issue area” under examination and the nature of both the political

and national systems involved.

International Explanations of Foreign Policy Decisions
International systemic theories associated with both the Realist and neo-Realist
approaches have tended to explain changes in nation states’ foreign policy choices mainly in
terms of changes in the external international environment but not in terms of domestic
variables. Morgenthau’s (1954) Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace
is a classic example of the Realist variant which emphasizes the role of power at the systemic

level in explaining war. As Vasquez (1983) concludes after reviewing the theoretical and

57

empirical literature on international relations covering a period of three decades, the realist
paradigm has dominated the major activities of scholars in the field. Three central
assumptions have characterized most of the research carried out by international relations
scholars. These are that nation states are considered the most important actors in the
international arena, that international relations are reduced to the struggle over peace and
power, and that a conspicuous conceptual demarcation can be drawn between domestic
politics and international politics.

The more recent liberal orientation of the neo-Realist approach, on the other hand,
stresses the notion that war is an inevitable outcome largely because of the interdependence
among states in the world community. Kenneth N. Waltz’s (1979) Theory of International
Politics advances the concept of “structure” as the basis for a productive utilization of the
systemic approach and argues that structures can be either anarchic or hierarchical. Waltz’s
book provides a basis for the balance of power theory but falls short of expounding the
explanatory and predictive power of this theory. Criticism of the book also points to Waltz’s
tendency to define the international system in a manner that ignores the possible effects of
international economic processes and institutions on states’ behavior. In addition, Waltz has
been hasty in assuming that the differentiation in states as units can be dropped as a
characteristic of the structure of the international system (Keohane, ed., 1986). In War and
Change in World Politics, Robert Gilpin (1981) theorizes that the international system
experiences a state of disequilibrium in which economic, political and technological
developments have increased considerably the potential benefits or decreased the potential
costs to one or more states seeking to change the international status quo. This disjuncture

within the system represents a crisis in the international system which, as history has

 

58

demonstrated, can be resolved through the principal mechanism of systemic change:
hegemonic war. Richard Rosecrance (1986) concludes that although world reality has
changed since the end of the Second World War, the academics are still embracing such
notions as power conflicts and state hegemony. Rosecrance argues that transitions to
economic prosperity and even world leadership can be achieved through international trade.
The effect of economic interdependence has been to dramatically increase the benefits of
peace and decrease the attractiveness of war as a method of expanding influence.

The concepts of rationality and preferences are at the heart of international relations
studies.l4 Systemic explanations of foreign policy decisions have tended to consider the
introduction of domestic politics into the study of international relations problematic,
especially because of the potential threat posed to the rational behavior assumption.
Therefore, some scholars have resorted to using psychological factors for the dual purpose
of bridging the gap between psychology and foreign policy as well as accounting for the
departures of systemic analysis from the assumption of rational behavior. Robert Jervis
(1976), for example, applies the concepts of perception and misperception of decision makers
to the problem of state actors within the context of international relations. However, in
marrying insights from the perceptual psychology of individuals to foreign policy decision
making, Jervis does not pay due attention to the plausible role of political institutions and

processes in shaping individual perception and behavior.

 

1’ For the “thin” and “broad” definitions of rationality and a lucid discussion of the problems of rational
decision making in conflict situations, see Michael Nicholson Rationality and the Analysis of International
Conflict (England: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

59

Likewise, Deborah Welch Larson (1985) provides a psychological explanation for the
evolution of the US. containment policy toward the Soviet Union during Truman’s
presidency. Larson uses the cognitive social psychology explanation to account for the
conviction held by President Truman that he understood the Soviet leader Stalin. The
author’s psychological explanation posits that Truman’s encounter with the Soviet dictator
reminded him of Kansas City political chief Tom Pendergast, an authoritarian figure whom
he knew well. Also, according to psychologists’ characterization, individuals, including
foreign policymakers, are prone to oversimplifying complex information and remembering
events which never took place. Truman’s false retrospective claim that he had issued an
ultimatum to Stalin to withdraw Russian forces from northern Iran in 1946 is an example.

Stephen Walt (1987) entertains the question of what determines the state’s decision
to join one alliance or another and concludes that such decisions are driven by state
preferences which are unrelated to either bandwagoning or reactions to power by itself.
Instead, Walt asserts that states choose to join alliances based on their desire to counter a
nation that poses threats. He explains threats in terms of “perceived intentions,” which he

postulates largely in terms of domestic factors.

Domestic Explanations of Foreign Policy Decisions
The domestic explanations of foreign policy can be classified into three tendencies.ls
The first of these places emphasis on legislatures, interest groups, and public opinion as means

of translating societal pressures into foreign policy objectives. The contributors to Domestic

 

’5 I have benefitted from the categorization provided by Andrew Moravcsik in Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam’s
Double-Edged Diplomacy, 1993.

60
Sources of Foreign Policy (Rosenau, ed. 1967) attempt to ascertain the relationship between
societal variables and foreign policy choices, but they generally fail to establish a
comprehensive fiamework. The essays by Lester W. Milbrath and Theodore J. Lowi can be
considered the finest among the eleven. Milbrath examines the methods and objectives of
interest group representation with respect to foreign policy issues. Lowi attempts to
determine the sorts of power patterns found in foreign policy, and argues that whereas during
crisis situations the handling of foreign policy tends to be accomplished by a narrow
consensual elite, noncrisis foreign policy situations which involve either the regulation or
distribution of resources tend to invite domestic political forces. In New Directions in the
Study of Foreign Policy (Hermann, Kegley, and Rosenau, eds, 1987), additional insights are
provided with regard to the role of societal forces such as opposition (e. g., Joe Hagan’s
chapter) and culture (e. g., Martin Sampson’s chapter) in shaping foreign policy behavior.
John Lewis Gaddis (1981) argues that from the Truman Administration to the Carter
Administration, US. containment policies employed against the Soviet Union have alternated
between two major types: symmetrical containment and asymmetrical containment. Gaddis’
analysis theorizes that shifts in American strategies between the two types have been
influenced by economic considerations, the most important of which was the perception of
resources available. Bruce Russett and Thomas W. Graham (1988) conclude that, in the
process of making foreign policy decisions, public opinion is responsible for structuring
constraints and providing incentives in very important ways. An additional example is
provided by Bruce Russet’s (1990a) “Economic Decline, Electoral Pressure, and the Initiation
of Interstate Conflict,” in which he finds that in both democratic and nondemocratic states,

domestic conflict in terms of civilian protest is positively related to interstate dispute

61
participation.

The second scholarly tendency has been to identify the administrative and executive
apparatuses of the state as sources of foreign policy behavior. Graham Allison (1971), in
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, delineated three analytical models
to explain the crisis. These are the rational actor model, the organizational process model,
and the bureaucratic politics model. The second and third models are representative of the
state-based origins of foreign policy behavior. The organizational process model assumes that
international politics is comprised of standardized organizational outputs designed to handle
standard day-to-day situations. During the Cuban crisis, however, each agency performed
what it was designed to do without adherence to the same security standards. Therefore,
bureaucratic confirsion is theorized to account for the US. decision to blockade Cuba and the
Soviets’ decision to withdraw their missiles. The bureaucratic politics model, on the other
hand, characterizes foreign policy decisions as the product of decentralized coordination of
the various pressures leveled by representatives of interest groups inside and outside the
government. Waltz (1967) compares the effectiveness of the American presidential system
with the British parliamentary system in matters of foreign policy and concludes that the
former is superior to the latter. More precisely, the observations that the Prime Minister is
more inclined than the President to value party unity above that of the public interest and that
parliamentary debates thwart deliberation and hamper policy adjustments reinforce the
conclusion that American governmental structures are more effective in determining and
steering domestic and foreign policy.

Another example of state-centered explanations of foreign policy is found in John

Steinbruner’s cybernetic theory (1974). Applied in the context of the US. Air Force decision

 

 

62

to purchase the B-71 bomber over objections expressed by the Department of Defense in the
early 1960s, the cybernetic theory holds that the Air Force officers were focusing on a set of
a few selected variables for which they were receiving information feedback, i.e., the
characteristics of the forces accumulated by the enemies. Morgan and Campbell’s (1991)
finding that, for major powers, the level of domestic structural constraint in the form of the
executive selection process, decisional constraints in terms of the number of individuals and
institutions that must approve of a decision for war within a state, and the level of political
competition, are all linked to a state’s likeliness to engage in war also supports state-centered
explanations. To cite an additional example, Morgan and Bickers (1992) found that in the
United States from the year 1953 to 1976 the presidents have resorted to using low levels of
external force whenever they suffered a deterioration of support from within their ruling
coalitions.

The third orientation with respect to explaining foreign policy behavior has been to
establish linkages between state and society through the representative and administrative
institutions, including education. R J. Rummel (1983) shows that political freedom (i.e., civil
liberties and political rights) and the freedom of groups and individuals to pursue their
socioeconomic interests flee from government coercion are conducive to the reduced use of
foreign violence. Charles W. Ostrom, Jr. and Brian L. Job (1988) use cybernetic theory to
specify a model that predicts the American President’s decision to use foreign force for
political purposes (i.e., use of force short of war). The model incorporates international,
domestic, and political variables, where the latter two categories capture internal variables.
The authors operationalize the domestic and political variables in terms of public opinion

attitudes toward the use of force, the state of the economy, and presidential approval rate.

63

They find that a president’s decision to use foreign force for political purposes is influenced
more by the internal variables, both domestic and political, than by the international ones.
Similarly, Bruce Russet (1990b) examines the relationship between international politics and
democracy and concludes that public opinion, measured in terms of percentages of approval
or disapproval of the President’s performance in office, influences national security policy by
constraining the options available to the chief executive.

In War cmd Reason: Domestic and International Imperatives, Bueno de Mesquita and
David Lalman (1992) concern themselves with trying to explain why leaders of nation states
choose certain courses of action, but not others, as these states engage in different interactive
processes. After testing international and domestic models against each other, they decide
to give more credence to the domestically constrained perspective. In so doing, the authors
advance the International Interactions Game Theory, which posits that domestic
considerations constitute the structure of constraints and incentives within which foreign
policy decision makers firnction. These constraints and incentives, in turn, are believed to
shape most leaders’ preferences, influencing the prospects for cooperation or conflict between
pairs of states. Domestic political opposition against the use of foreign force, as well as costs
in terms of lost life and property, according to the authors’ specification, reduce the decision
maker to an agent of implementation for whatever objectives the domestic political process
produces, although the authors do not explicitly include their ideas on domestic constraints

in the model that they have formulated.

64

The T wo-Level Games Theory and the Present Study

The central ideas of Putnam’s theory were presented in the first chapter and will be
further delineated in the following chapter. The present study is based upon Putnam’s theory,
and both should be viewed within the context of studying the linkages between domestic
politics and foreign policy behavior. The theory concerns itself with the dynamics of
diplomacy and interstate negotiations and, as its author has claimed, is applicable to all issues
of negotiation in all contexts.

The process of empirically testing Putnam’s theory, or any theory for that matter,
should satisfy two important purposes. The first has to do with introducing new ease-specific
contextual elements to the application of theoretical propositions, with the objective of
exploring the universality claims of the theory. In Double-Edged Diplomacy: International
Bargaining and Domestic Politics, the theory has been tested within twelve cases comprising
four areas of research. However, as Peter B. Evans has rightly noted in the concluding
chapter of the volume, “[flocusing on cases where interactive dynamics play a role leaves
instances of unremitting bilateral hostility or xenophobia under-represented relative to those
where differences were negotiable” (p. 398). The present study, therefore, should be noted
for endeavoring to correct for this shortcoming by testing the Two-Level Game theory within
the Israeli-Palestinian context, which is characterized by institutionalized and protracted
conflict. The religious, ethnic, and cultural aspects of the conflict, along with its persistent
nature, should be viewed as new dimensions which are going to be introduced by this study
to the process of testing the theory.

The second purpose behind conducting theory-driven empirical studies has to do with

the need to continually refine the theoretical propositions by simply applying them to as many

65

cases as possible. By so doing, the theoretical specification of the propositions is fine-tuned
in response to the new insights gained along the way. The theory can still benefit even when
different authors apply the same theoretical propositions to the same case. Jeffrey W. Knopf
(1994), for example, has refined the Two-Level Game theory by emphasizing the role of third
parties in his analysis of domestic-international interactions in the INF talks, thus giving a
different analysis from that presented by Richard Eichenberg in Double-Edged Diplomacy.
Knopf 5 analysis introduces three levels of domestic-international interactions, which he calls
transgovemmental, transnational, and cross-level. Knopf also introduces the role of
institutional links among groups of states, reminiscent of military alliances.

A number of studies also attempted to construct formal models in order to capture
some aspects of the logic of the two-level games theory. James Morrow (1991) empirically
examined the outcome of the bargaining behavior between the United States and the Soviet
Union over the question of arms control during the 1970s He found that in view of
reelection pressures, the US. tended to make increased concessions when inflation and
unemployment were on the rise, but the concessions decreased when the economy became
very weak. The soviets’ willingness to negotiate, on the other hand, was influenced by
Congressional action on defense bills: they made less concessions when Congress was voting
on critical bills, offered additional concessions after bills favoring defense passed, and offered
fewer concessions otherwise.

Keisuke Iida (1993) also used the two-level games theory to integrate international
negotiations and domestic decision-making in a simplified formal model, and concluded that
the reality of international negotiations was much more complicated than Putnam’s initial

framework. Iida asserted that perceptions of domestic constraints were as significant as the

66

actual constraints themselves, but in either case the analyst was faced with the challenging

task of discovering both types of constraints.

Chapter 3
THE METHODOLOGY
Introduction

The purpose of this study is to address the question of how the crisis of cooperation
was handled in the diplomatic peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO. Toward this
objective, the interactions between international and domestic politics in both Israeli and
Palestinian contexts will be analyzed in order to assess their role in shaping the dynamics of
the diplomatic negotiations and the substance of the two peace agreements that Israel and
the PLO eventually reached.

Based on our understanding of the structural and protracted nature of the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians, it is necessary to identify the domestic variables on both
sides which have influenced the dynamics of the negotiations over the Arab territories (Gaza
Strip and the West Bank) occupied by Israel since 1967. According to the logic of integrative
analysis inherent in Putnam’s theory, the interactions between domestic and international
politics within the peace process between Israel and the PLO are assumed to have been
present in the “bargaining” and “ratification” stages of negotiating the two peace settlements
in 1993 and 1995.

The case-study method is especially serviceable for achieving the theoretical and
substantive objectives of this research. The present research will attempt to arrive at the two

kinds of knowledge usually associated with the use of the case-study method: intrinsic and

67

 

68

instrumental (Stake, 1995; Becker, 1968). More precisely, our interest in understanding the
role of the recent rounds of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in resolving the crisis of
cooperation that has long characterized the protracted conflict between the two belligerents
will be addressed by utilizing the functionality of the case-study method in arriving at an
intrinsic knowledge of the phenomenon being analyzed. In addition, the present research will
attempt to utilize this method as an instrument to test the explanatory performance of the

two-level games theory within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Description of Methodology Selected

In “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” Harry Eckstein (1975) distinguished
among five different types of case studies. These are configurative-ideographic studies,
disciplined—configurative studies, heuristic studies, plausibility probe studies, and crucial-case
studies. In conducting my research I propose to utilize a combination of the disciplined-
configurative type and the heuristic type; I base my choice on the import of these two variants
of case studies in the process of theory-building.

As explained by Eckstein, disciplined-configurative case studies are constructed so as
to test theoretical propositions within the contexts of particular cases and also to “impugn
established theories if the theories ought to fit it but do not. It may also point up a need for
new theory in neglected areas. Thus, the application of theories to cases can have feedback
effects on theorizing . . . ” (p. 99).

The “disciplined” element in such case studies requires that any interpretation of a
particular case be based upon comparatively valid theoretical propositions (Putnam’s theory

in the present study); the “configurative” element means that an attempt is made to present

 

69

an overall delineation of the configuration (i.e., those aspects of the peace process between
Israel and the PLO which are highlighted by the theory employed).

Succinctly put, the method of disciplined-configurative case studies is tied into
theoretical inquiry essentially because it provides the researcher with the opportunity to test
theory, interpret specific cases, and identify new puzzles (Eckstein, p. 100). It is this strength
of the disciplined-configurative case study method that the present researcher hopes to
capitalize on when attempting to make his contribution to the substantive and theoretical
elements inherent in the topic being researched.

More importantly, the present study is even fithher tied into the process of theory
building by the heuristic purposes it endeavors to fulfill. By testing the performance of
Putnam’s two-level games theory within the particular context of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and the ensuing peace negotiations, this study, in fact, adopts the building-block
technique believed to be conducive to constructing more plausible and increasingly refined
theoretical constructs (Becker, 1968). The heuristic fiinction of this study is dictated by my
belief that Putnam’s theory needs to be evaluated within as many different bargaining contexts
as necessary in order to discover new ways to further refine it (see Knopf, 1993, p. 601). My
expectation about the heuristic merits of the present study is based upon the plausibility of the
notion that the basic characteristics of structural and protracted conflict may play a role in
revealing new theoretical knowledge. Such theoretical discoveries could give us more reason
to believe that some theoretical relationships posited by Putnam’s theory are valid, that some
others need to be specified differently, or that a more convincing interpretation of the case

calls for a theoretical modification of some sort.

70

In short, the disciplined and heuristic calibers of the method selected in this study
reinforce each other in both structure and function: they make the inquiry theory-driven--
hence disciplined; they also make the analysis based on clearly specified hypotheses-~the
applicability of which are to be tested and, if necessary, the refinement of which are to be
sought—hence heuristic. The configurative caliber of the method pemrits the analysis to take
into account the relevant attributes of the particular case being examined, thus facilitating
incorporation of the systemic attributes of the two polities under examination as well as the
basic characteristics of structural and protracted conflict in the process of evaluating Putnam’s

two-level games theory.

C onfiguring the Case Study

The purpose of configuring the case study is twofold. First, it is important to make
sure that the design of analysis gives the theory being tested an unprejudiced opportunity to
perform within the chosen context, so that whatever conclusions reached with regard to the
acceptance or rejection of the theoretical propositions are based upon considerations of
explanatory emcacy, rather than the unsuitableness of the cases selected.

This first consideration is especially relevant in the present case study because of the
evident asymmetry between the two parties to the diplomatic peace negotiations, i.e., Israel
and the Palestinians. This asymmetry warrants commenting on the similarities and differences
between the two species, with the purpose of showing that both the Israeli and the Palestinian
politics are in fact suficiently comparable in ways which allow us to use them to test the two-
level games theory while avoiding methodological charges over the inappropriateness of the

choice of the empirical context.

71

It is apparent that while Israel is a democratic, modern, and powerful state with
entrenched political institutions and defined boundaries, the Palestinians are still by and large
a stateless community. Yet this difference between the two entities does not make the
utilization of the two-level games theory any less relevant. Rather, Israeli and Palestinian
contexts are equally capable of providing the sophistication necessary to handle all of the
theoretical propositions that guide the analysis in this study. Much to the credit of Putnam’s
theory, the fact that the Palestinians have been lacking in terms of entrenched statehood has
not thwarted the theory’s ability to point to those concepts, variables, and theoretical
constructs in the Palestinian context which are functionally equivalent to those found in the
more entrenched Israeli political system.

First, both Israeli and Palestinian national aspirations and movements are strong.
There is certainly no shortage of evidence pointing to the ability of the Jewish and Arab
Palestinian peoples to perceive themselves as holding two distinctive national identities.
While the creation of the State of Israel represents a culmination of the Jewish people’s
striving to firlfill their nationalistic dreams, the mere fact that the Palestinians have been able
to maintain their collective nationalistic attributes intact both inside and outside the occupied
territories (despite relentless Israeli attempts to deny, and at times even suppress, Palestinians’
national claims) should attest to the strength of their sense of nationhood.

Second, Israel’s modern procedural democracy could be said to be paralleled by the
competitive nature of Palestinian politics. Here, it is essential to emphasize that neither the
Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority is immune from influences and pressures
arising from the complex and highly active domestic politics of the two polities, especially

when it comes to an issue of prominent political significance such as the diplomatic peace

72

negotiations. State-society interactions are thus believed to be present in both the Israeli and
the Palestinian contexts, although each context retains its own distinctive patterns of shaping
and processing these interactions.

Third, comparability can also be established with regard to the formal and informal
political institutions in the two contexts. The Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian National
Council, Fatah’s Central Council, the Executive Committee, along with a host of Palestinian
political parties and societal forces, constitute a functional match to the Israeli state apparatus
as well as the overall political system within which it is immersed. These three areas of
comparability between Israeli and Palestinian politics are sufficient to mitigate the apparent
asymmetry between the two entities to an extent that should make the application of Putnam’s
theory meaningfirlly relevant.

The second reason behind the need to carefully configure the case study is to make
sure that the language of the theory being tested is congruent to the peculiar contexts of the
polities comprising the case study in terms of both conceptualization and identification of
variables. In other words, the proper names of the political systems should give way to the
theoretical concepts, variables, and relationships which guide the analysis, without, of course,
losing sight of those traits of the overall context which made the choice of the political
systems empirically relevant in the first place. It is exactly here where some of the basic
properties of structural and protracted conflict should be meaningfiilly integrated in the
present case study.

At this juncture, two important properties of protracted conflict are of immediate
relevance. The first is that conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is endogenous,

meaning that whole societies are the agents of hostility and that the Israeli government and

73

the Palestinian Authority are not the sole agents of conflict. The second is that the conflict
is both internalized and institutionalized, meaning that hostility is deeply rooted in the
domestic politics of the two polities, both in political and ideological terms. The combination
of these two prOperties along with the characterization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as
an existential one has two crucial implications with regard to the dynamics of peace
negotiations between the two parties and therefore should be incorporated in the
configuration of the study.

The first implication is that the purpose of the resolution of the conflict through
diplomatic negotiations has been to change the status quo (i.e., the occupation of the
territories and its accompanying policies), rather than preserve it. This fact means that
negotiating peace is likely to invite difi’erent social and political forces (much to the pleasure
or displeasure of COGS) to become interested actors in the dynamics of the diplomatic efi’orts
to negotiate a peaceful settlement. It is precisely because the process of resolving the conflict
between the Israelis and the Palestinians touches upon many profound ideological and
political preferences on both sides that the two political communities are expected to actively
become entangled in the diplomatic negotiations.

The second implication is closely related to the first one and concerns identifying those
forces and political preferences in the Israeli and Palestinian politics which are believed to
bear influence on the dynamics of peace negotiations. In so doing, we should be guided by
our understanding of the protracted conflict as internalized and institutionalized in the
domestic politics of the two disputant parties. Here, we should be able to filrther configure
the analysis in this study by identifying the different political and ideological preferences and

actors, institutionalized or otherwise, within the Palestinian and the Israeli political

74
communities.

In both the Palestinian and Israeli context, four major political forces which espouse
distinguishable attitudes toward peace negotiations can be identified. In the Palestinian
context, these are the pragmatic nationalist supporters, the pragmatic nationalist critics, the
national rejectionists, and the Islamic rejectionists (Brynen, 1994). In the Israeli context these
are the ideological hawks on the right of the political spectrum, the ideological doves on the

far left, the pragmatic hawks, and the pragmatic doves (Dowty, 1994, p. 84).

The T wo-level Games Theory

Putnam’s two-level games theory emphasizes a number of concepts, variables, and
theoretical relationships. In this section I will identify those concepts and variables, both
dependent and independent, which constitute the essence of the hypothesized relationships
outlined in Chapter One.

Domestic win-set for a given domestic constituency is defined as the set of all possible
agreements reached at the international bargaining table that would win the necessary majority
among the constituents when presented for ratification by vote at the domestic level (Putnam,
1988, p. 43 7). The efi'ects of win-set on international agreement:

I. The larger win-sets we, the more likely it is that an international agreement will
be reached Agreements are capable of being reached only when win-sets overlap.

2. The relative size of win-sets influences the bargaining advantages of the
respective negotiating parties and, in turn, the distribution of gains fiom the international

agreement. Determinants of the win-set:

75

Domestic Actors and Preferences:
i) Actor Preferences:
- Hawkish;
- Dovish.
ii) Preference Configuration:
- Preferences are homogeneous;
- Preferences are heterogeneous.
iii) Transboundary Domestic Alliances:

- Domestic groups form transboundary connections with the domestic
forces in the other polity to enhance their resources toward
common goals;

- Domestic groups form transboundary connections to influence the
government of the other polity.

Domestic Political Institutions:
i) Formal Domestic Institutional Opportunities and Constraints:

- Ruling party’s (or faction’s) relative power position;

- Legislative requirements for ratification of international
agreements.

ii) Informal Domestic Institutional Opportunities and Constraints:
- Party discipline within the governing party or faction;
- The importance of securing the informal support of political forces

interested in the outcome of the agreement.

 

76

Negotiation Strategies at the International Negotiation Table:
i) Side-Payments, Offers, and Threats:

- Chiefs of Governments use side-payments, offers, and threats to
attract marginal supporters of the agreement within their respective
polities;

- COGS use side-payments, offers, and threats to increase the

likelihood of ratification within the recipient nation.
ii) Negotiators’ Status:

- Negotiators (COGS) try to enhance one another’s standing within
their respective domestic politics;

- The enhanced status of COGS enables them to make more side-
payments;

- A “kinky” domestic win-set is utilized by a COG to convince his .
counterpart on the opposite side of the international negotiating table
that firrther concessions will make ratification of the agreement
unlikely.

iii) Restructuring And Reverberation:

- COGS resort to restructuring their respective as well as one another’s
domestic politics in order to influence the size of win-sets;

- International pressures have the potential of reverberating within

domestic politics, and, as a result, influencing the international

negotiating table.

77

Theoretical Propositions of the Study

The substantive question of the present study deals with explaining how the crisis of
cooperation between the Israeli government and the PLO was handled within the framework
of the diplomatic peace negotiations. In order to address this research question, two
theoretically-derived questions are asked. The first question is based on the proposition that
the negotiating status of Chiefs of Governments influences the chances of completing peace
agreements. The question asked is whether in the course of the diplomatic negotiations the
PLO leader and the Israeli Prime Minister attempted to enhance each other’s standing within
their respective domestic politics, and whether resolving the crisis of cooperation can be
attributed to the facilitating effect of such attempts. And the second question is based on the
proposition that Chiefs of Governments resort to restructuring their respective domestic
politics in order to enhance the chances of reaching international agreements. The question
asked here is whether the diplomatic talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians were
accompanied by efforts to restructure the domestic politics, and whether the handling of the

crisis of cooperation throughout the peace process was influenced by such efforts.

Sources of Data
Sources of data used for the purpose of this study are diverse. First, the diplomatic
records of the peace process between Israel and the PLO will be consulted. These records
should include the documents of the peace agreements as well as the records pertaining to
press conferences and media briefings reflecting the accounts given by key participants to the
proceedings of negotiations. Second, Arabic and English language newspapers will be

consulted in order to monitor the dynamics of Israeli and Palestinian domestic and interstate

78

politics over the course of peace negotiations. The information pertaining to the peace
process as well as the Israeli and Palestinian domestic politics are mainly drawn from the
following news sources:

The Jerusalem Post, June 1992 — June 1996;

Journal of Palestine Studies, June 1992 — June 1996;

Mideast Mirror, January 1993 — December 1995;

The New York Times, June 1992 — December 1995;

The Sunday Times (London), January 1993 — December 1995; and

The Times (London), January 1993 — December 1995.
And third, some collected data pertaining to opinion polls and socioeconomic measures in

Israeli and Palestinian politics will be obtained from the relevant published reports.

Instrumentation

Instruments used to collect data are of two sorts. The first is electronic and makes
use of computer-assisted data retrieval systems. Conspicuous among these is the Internet (for
the advisability of using the Internet for academic purposes see King, 1995), on which
valuable and updated data about the peace process is readily available. Only those documents
downloaded fi'om Internet sites maintained by scrupulous sources are consulted and used for
purposes of analysis in this study. The documents of the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements,
as well as media briefings and press conferences pertaining to the diplomatic negotiations
between the Israeli and Palestinian teams are the only type of data downloaded from a World
Wide Web-server maintained by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest. Whenever

possible, due care is exercised in order to ensure the legitimacy and transparency of data

79
downloaded from the Internet. In addition to gaining access to the Internet, Computer-
assisted retrieval instrumentation is also used to read and collect data from The Jerusalem
Post on CD Rom, which is published by the C.D.I. Systems (1992) LTD. Israel. The second
instrument of data collection utilizes the library setting and is especially useful for the
collection of data fi'om printed sources such as newspapers, learned journal articles, and other

publications.

Data Collection and Analysis

The process of data collection will be informed by the method of “structured, focused
comparison” recommended by Alexander George and Timothy J. McKeown (1985) and
praised by King and colleagues as a systematic procedure for gathering information (King,
et. al., 1993). This method emphasizes theory for guiding the process of formulating
explanatory questions. Additionally, this method places high importance on discipline in the
way data is collected in that an attempt is made to compile information about the same
variables across the selected units. According to George and McKeown, the method of
“structured, focused comparison” contributes to making a useful and explicit methodology
for case studies:

A comparison of two or more cases is “focused” insofar as the researcher

deals selectively with only those aspects of each case that are believed to be

relevant to the research objectives and data requirements of the study.

Similarly, controlled comparison is “structured” when the researcher, in

designing the study, defines and standardizes the data requirements of case

studies. This is accomplished by formulating theoretically relevant general

questions to guide the examination of each case. The method is presented as

a way of performing a small number of case studies in such a way as to make

the assessment of the comparability of the cases much more systematic and

defensible, but the general approach we outline also is well suited to the
performance of a single case study (p. 41).

80

The great virtue behind employing the method of “structured, focused comparison”
when conducting case studies is twofold. First, by emphasizing the role of theory in guiding
the analysis, this method represents a commendable departure from these case studies which
have failed to contribute satisfactorily to the development of theories because they lack
theoretical focus. Second, the method of “structured, focused comparison” encourages
structuring case studies in a comparable fashion and thus facilitates the cumulation of the
results of individual cases (p. 42).

The notion of the comparability, and thus cumulation, of results derived fi'om
individual structured case analyses, according to George and McKeown, constitutes the basis
of the much needed theoretical rigor in case study research. The essence of this rigor is the
“congruence procedure” that George and McKeown describe as one variant of explanations
based upon a within-case, as contrasted with cross-case, comparison of relationships between
variables. The underlying logic of the “congruence procedure” is that the researcher begins
the analysis of the case with a sufficiently defined theory. Next, “the researcher . . .
establishes the value of the independent and dependent variables in a particular case. The
researcher then compares the observed value of the dependent variables with those predicted
by the theory, given the observed independent variables. Ifthe outcome is consistent with the
prediction, then the possibility of a causal relationship is strengthened” (p. 30).

It is, however, necessary to safeguard against making indefensible claims of causal
relationships based upon mere consistency between empirical observation and theoretical
predictions. More precisely, it is necessary to make sure that “consistency is not spurious.”
Here, the importance of structuring individual case studies which purport to explain a

common general phenomenon with the same theoretical body in a comparable fashion

81

becomes all the more manifest. Using the same logic inherent in Bayesian decision theory,
the researcher’s posterior assessment of the hypothesized theoretical relationship between the
dependent and independent variables is partly determined by the researcher’s prior estimate
of the probability that the relationship is actually causal. The higher the prior probability that
the theoretical relationship is valid, the higher the posterior probability the researcher may
assign to the claim that consistency between theory and empirical evidence is not spurious.
It is therefore crucial to determine how the researcher’s prior probability with regard to the
performance of the theory is set. According to George and McKeown, prior probability is
estimated from research findings of previously completed and similarly structured case studies
(pp. 30-32).

In short, both the logic of the congruence procedure and the requirements of the
method of “structured, focused comparison” should contribute to making across-case causal
interpretations more disciplined and knowledge increasingly cumulative. They both reinforce
the notion that a research project is best conceived of as a process in which theory is
continuously refined through iterative formulation, observation, and revision (George and
McKeown, p. 34).

The process of collecting data for the purpose of satisfying the objectives of the
present case study will be guided by the prescriptions of the “structured, focused comparison”
method. This means that the analysis will deal only with those aspects of the Israeli-
Palestinian peace negotiations which are called upon by the two-level games theory.
Therefore, I will procwd by first identifying the general questions which reflect the postulated
propositions in the theory being utilized; 1 will then ask these questions of the case being

analyzed. The formulation of these general questions will be informed by the outline

 

82

presented above under the “The Two-level Games theory” section in this chapter. Answers
to these questions will then constitute evaluations of the theoretical hypotheses of Putnam’s
two-level games theory within the Israeli-Palestinian context of diplomatic negotiations. The
performance of the theoretical hypotheses will be monitored within Israeli and Palestinian
contexts, as well as over the international negotiating table, in order to assess their
explanatory value. The evaluation of working hypotheses will be guided by the congruence
procedure described above, in which the observed relationships will be compared with the

predicted theoretical relationships. .

 

Chapter 4
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

Introduction

In this study the diplomatic talks between the Israeli government and the Palestine
Liberation Organization were treated as a discrete system. Within this system, two
theoretically-derived questions were asked of the Oslo One (1993) and Oslo Two (1995)
agreements which had been concluded between the two parties. In addition, four crises were
identified during the course of peace talks and the same two questions were asked of them.
These questions were formulated by the theoretical and substantive considerations
accentuated in the Literature Review chapter, as well as by the methodology employed and
described in the Methodology chapter. Answers to these questions constitute the body of
this chapter and are treated as the bases upon which the two theoretical propositions
advanced by the two-level games theory are assessed.

The first issue concerns the negotiating status of Chiefs of Governments. The
question asked here is whether, in the course of the diplomatic negotiations, the PLO leader
Yasir Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attempted to enhance each other’s
standing within their respective domestic politics and whether concluding the two agreements
and resolving the four crises can be attributed to the facilitating effect of such attempts. The
second issue concerns the influence of restructuring domestic politics on facilitating

agreements and successfiilly settling the crises. The question raised within this respect is

83

 

84

whether the diplomatic talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians were accompanied by
efforts to restructure domestic politics and whether the accomplishment of the two
agreements and salvaging the peace process was made more feasible by such efforts.

The boundaries of the search for information necessary to answer these questions
, were set to begin with the inauguration of the Rabin Government in July 1992 and end with
the election of the Netanyahu Government in June 1996. The choice of these two dates was
dictated, first, by the fact that the election of Rabin and the ousting of Shamir marked the
beginning of a new set of rounds of more promising and engaging negotiations between the
Israelis and the Palestinians. Very little was achieved in the first five rounds of negotiations
between the two parties under the Likud Government, largely because of Shamir’s strategy
which was designed to evade making any progress in diplomatic talks with the Palestinians.
Second, the two major breakthroughs, i.e., Oslo. One and Oslo Two agreements, are
encompassed within the designated boundaries of the search and, therefore, any information
necessary to assess the theoretical propositions are expected to be found within the

designated period.

THE PEACE AGREEMENTS

The Case of Oslo One Agreement
In this case, the concept of domestic win-set pertained to reaching a formal agreement
at the international negotiation table between the Israeli government and the PLO. Foremost
among the domestic factors which influenced the win-set and, consequently, facilitated the
accomplishment of the Oslo One Agreement were the dovish preferences of Prime Minister

Rabin and Chairman Arafat relative to those of Israeli and Palestinian forces which opposed

 

85

the prospect of peacefully settling the dispute. In addition, negotiation strategies at the
international negotiation table embodied in the two leaders’ efforts to restructure, both
conceptually and practically, certain aspects of their respective domestic politics firrther
consolidated the convergence toward concluding a formal peace agreement. By utilizing the
tied-hand technique, however, Chairman Arafat convinced the Israeli government that
amending the Palestinian National Charter to be agreeable to the Israeli public would damage
the chances of ratifying the agreement.

According to the rules established at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, the
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were formally structured to be between representatives
of the Israeli government on one hand, and representatives of the Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip on the other hand. The PLO, therefore, was formally barred from
directly engaging in the peace talks with Israel, primarily because under the National Unity
Government the Israeli Knesset passed a law in 1986 which made it illegal for Israelis to meet
with members of the PLO. The Palestinian delegation to the talks, however, conducted the
negotiations with its Israeli counterpart while maintaining close consultation with the PLO
leadership in Tunis, and the Rabin Government was aware of that liaison and tolerated it.

Oslo One Agreement, also known as The Declaration of Principles (DoP), was signed
in Washington on 13 September 1993 and dealt with the interim Palestinian self-govemment
arrangements in Gaza and Jericho. The agreement represented a major breakthrough in the
long process of resolving the crisis of cooperation between the Israeli government and the
PLO. The agreement was facilitated by a number of linkages between the domestic politics

and the international negotiating table.

86

From the Palestinian perspective, the conditions under which the Palestinians engaged
in the diplomatic peace negotiations with Israel were, to say the least, less than ideal. To be
sure, the balance of negotiating power was tremendously tilted in favor of the Israeli
government. Whereas the Israeli government was enjoying actual control over, and presence
in, the territories, the Palestinians believed that the Israeli presence there was illegal.
Although the Palestinians, as occupied people, had little to offer Israel beside promises of
peaceful coexistence in return for Israeli withdrawal from the territories, the Palestinian
negotiators believed that the legal foundations of the PLO’s territorial claims were,
theoretically, bolstered by their interpretation of the United Nations Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338 which called upon Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories,
by the refusal of the world community to recognize the Israeli occupation of the territories,
as well as by the lack of any legal justification for the occupying government to continue to
rule a distinct people.

Within the framework of diplomatic talks, however, the legally-based reasoning
championed by the otherwise militarily and politically weak PLO was rendered less relevant
by the fact that Israel wielded actual control over the territories despite the Palestinian
conception that the Israeli occupation was legally-barren. To be sure, when the peace process
was initiated in 1991, it was the Israeli government which enjoyed control over the land and
people of the territories, through both military and administrative apparatuses. Assured of
the futility of any non-peaceful option as a means of realizing any degree of foothold over the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, obviously, having to negotiate fiom the unenviably
underdog position, the PLO’s leadership was thus willing to negotiate on Israel’s terms.

Therefore, while the Palestinians’ claims were supported by what they believed to be

87

undisputed legal bases, the Israelis enjoyed the uncontested discretional decision of how much
control they should transfer to the PLO, according to what terms of reference and at what
price. The formal Palestinian negotiating team’s conviction that the Israeli control of the
territories was illegal, however, appeared as the major obstacle that seriously stood in the way
of making progress toward reaching peace agreement. Negotiating on Israel’s terms,
therefore, meant that the government must first effectively shift the terms of reference-i.e.,
the very characterization of Israel’s control of the territories--away fiom the underlying
connotations of the occupation in order to counterbalance what the Palestinians believed was
the legal bases of their territorial claims. Israel needed to affect such a shift, and the fact that
she was the more powerful party which was wielding actual control over the territories
enabled her to achieve it. The Palestinian negotiating team insisted that Israel was an
occupier and considered Israelis’ attempt to make the shift as a vicious misrepresentation of
the issue under negotiation and, therefore, resisted it.

At least for the benefit of validating the diplomatic talks as a means of resolving the
territorial dispute, as well as the completion of Oslo One and Oslo Two Agreements, an
explicit, though major, restructuring was achieved with respect to the characterization of
Israel’s relationship to the territories under her control since 1967. Israel was interested in
mitigating the problematic consequences the connotations of occupation could have on both
her negotiating status and the feasibility of concluding a formal peace agreement with the
Palestinians. The Israeli government, therefore, had to affect a different characterization of
the nature of her control over the territories from that emphasized by the Palestinians.
Without such restructuring, the very notion of negotiating a settlement would have seemed

untenable. In other words, had the Israelis accepted at face value the implications of the

 

88

Palestinian negotiating team’s characterization of the occupation of the territories as illegal,
they really would have stripped themselves of much of the maneuvering space they needed
in order to negotiate with the Palestinians on more constructive terms.

The Palestinian negotiators understood that, legally speaking, nothing less than
expeditious and full evacuation may correct for an illegal occupation of land and people.
Israel’s concerns with security and ideology, however, prevented her fiom accepting the
notion of outright evacuation from the territories. Israel, therefore, had to reconstruct the
terms of reference in order to push the prospect of full military evacuation out of any short-
terrn settlement agenda by basically downplaying the occupational dimension of her control
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A review of the media briefings and press conferences
delivered by key participants in the diplomatic talks on both sides revealed that during the
phase of negotiating the Palestinian Interim Self-Govemment Arrangements (PISGA), Israel
actually succeeded in changing the flame of reference to fit her preference.

Israel’s exit out of the dilemma, during the negotiations, was to emphasize the
administrative dimension of her control over the territories without denying the military
dimension of the occupation. Israeli negotiators utilized the fact that there had been an
elaborate administrative dimension to the occupation of the territories to propose a handover
of functional and administrative responsibilities to the Palestinians while keeping the land
under Israeli control. The Israeli negotiators tried to convince their interlocutors that self-
rule, or autonomy, was better than nothing and urged them to seize the offer. The Palestinian
negotiators repeatedly protested and resisted Israel’s attempts, which were designed to draw
a distinction between delegating administrative functions and granting autonomy to people

on one hand and conceding legislative functions and autonomy of land on the other hand. The

89

response of the Palestinian negotiators, as conveyed by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, spokeswoman
for the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace talks, was that “they [the Israelis]
don’t want us to start on the track of statehood and we don’t want them to close the door to
statehood and to preempt the outcome by keeping us under occupation perpetually.”16

In fact, a running theme throughout much of the peace talks had been the contention
between the Israeli and the Palestinian positions with respect to what powers to transfer to
the Palestinians and upon what legal basis. As early as the beginning of the sixth round of
talks in August 1992 (the first under Rabin’s Government), the Palestinian delegation to the
diplomatic talks argued that within any peacefiil settlement, legally speaking, it was only
befitting to have a Palestinian source of legislative authority because the Israeli source of
authority, which had been based on occupation of land and people, was illegal itself. Clearly,
the Palestinian rationalization flew in the face of Israeli designs to retain any degree of
legislative control over the disputed land after reaching peacefirl settlement. Even as late as
the end of the ninth round of negotiations held in May 1993, and just a few months before
signing the Oslo One Agreement in September, the Israelis had been insisting that they were
not willing to concede more than administrative functions to the Palestinians. Asked whether
there actually existed a basic difference between the Palestinians’ and Israel’s perceptions of
the relationship between the latter and the territories, Elyakim Rubinstein, Head of the Israeli

delegation to the talks with the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, emphasized the

administrative liaison between Israel and the territories, without denying the military

 

‘6 Media Briefing: Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, August 27, 1992. The Information Division of the Israeli Foreign
Ministry-Jerusalem. Downloaded from WWW-server maintained by the Consulate General of Israel to the
Midwest, Chicago, IL.

90

dimension of the relationship. He went firrther to expound Israel’s position which held that
since there had never been a recognized sovereignty in the territories before the 1967 period,
Israel cannot be said to be occupying the territories. As he put it, “if there is no sovereignty
you do not occupy a territory.”17 The Palestinian delegation was agitated by Rubinstein’s
statement and considered it indicative of Israel’s future attitude toward the territories during
the final-status negotiations. By refirsing to admit that the West Bank and Gaza Strip were
Occupied Territories, Israel effectively weakened the legal basis of Palestinians’ claims and,
consequently, escaped what the Palestinian negotiators believed was Israel’s obligation of full
and unconditional withdrawal.

Although the formal Palestinian delegation to the peace talks with Israel, which were
held in Washington, consistently refirsed the Israeli delegation’s proposals to concede
administrative power to the Palestinians without legislative authority, PLO Chairman Yasir
Arafat was willing to accept them through his secret talks with the Rabin Government held
in Norway. Amidst initial Palestinian surprise and later skepticism, the Rabin-Arafat behind-
the-scenes agreement, known as Oslo One, seems to have incorporated the same formulation
advanced by the formal Israeli delegation to the talks with the Palestinians in Washington.
By accepting the administrative autonomy formula, Arafat was considered, by Palestinian
friends and foes alike, to have forfeited the Palestinians’ legal claim to the land. The fact
remains, however, that the negotiations in Washington, which had been going on for two

years when the Oslo One Agreement was reached, were stalled. The formal negotiators failed

 

’7 News Conference: The Israeli Delegation, May 13, 1993. The Information Division of the Israeli Foreign
Ministry-Jerusalem. Downloaded from WWW-server maintained by the Consulate General of Israel to the
Midwest, Chicago, IL.

 

91

to make the breakthrough necessary to arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement. Had it not
been for Arafat’s acceptance of the transfer of administrative functions to the Palestinians
without sovereignty over the land, chances are the Oslo One Agreement breakthrough would
not have materialized.

A number of factors contributed to facilitating Arafat’s acceptance of the Israeli
formulation, which had been originally resisted by the formal Palestinian delegation to the
negotiations in Washington. First, Chairman Arafat, perhaps more than many other
Palestinian forces and groups, correctly judged the power position of the Palestinians in
relation to that of Israel and, thus, concluded that the PLO, at least in the Short-term, stood
little chance of getting more concessions from Israel than those related to the delegation of
administrative and functional powers. Second, the fact that Israel already had an extensive
administrative structure in place throughout the territories--which had been perceived by the
Palestinians as a constant reminder of the occupation--served as an incentive for the PLO’S
leadership to accept Israel’s proposed transfer of administrative powers. Acquiring control
over administrative fiinctions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho was
certainly no trivial achievement for the PLO and its supporters, especially in view of the fact
that the Palestinians had little to offer Israel in return. Although the self-rule arrangement fell
short of the Palestinians’ aspirations after political freedom, dismantling the occupation’s
administrative apparatus and redeploying the military forces could reasonably be utilized by
the PLO leadership as reasons to convince its constituents that their daily lives were about to
improve, despite the vexatious mystery that was allowed to cloud the final status of the
territories. Third, it seems that the formal Palestinian and Israeli delegations to the diplomatic

talks in Washington had real difficulty coming to terms with the distinction between

92

negotiations over the interim self-govemment phase and negotiations over the final-status
phase. A review of the media briefings and press conferences showed that the Palestinian
negotiators in Washington continually expressed their dissatisfaction with Israel’s refusal to
negotiate matters considered by the latter as appropriate for the final-status phase. Israel’s
insistence on maintaining the distinction between the two phases enabled her to exclude
discussing the fate of Jewish settlements and Palestinian statehood from the interim self-rule
phase. Chairman Arafat was more willing than his representative delegation in Washington
to respect the distinction drawn between the two phases, apparently out of recognition of the
limits of the Israeli govemment’s concessions. By accepting Israel’s formulation of
administrative concessions and troop redeployment, Arafat agreed to withdraw the
Palestinians’s demands for immediate Israeli evacuation of the Occupied Territories and put
aside their claim to East Jerusalem Arafat, therefore, was accused by members of the formal
Palestinian delegation to the diplomatic talks in Washington as well as fellow Palestinians of
giving up too much, too soon.

Therefore, the validation of diplomatic negotiations as a means of resolving the
outstanding territorial dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis was facilitated by a
crucial conceptual restructuring which the Israeli government implemented and Chairman
Arafat had no choice but to realistically accept. More specifically, by shifting the
characterization of Israeli control over the territories away from an outright occupation and
toward a greater emphasis on the administrative dimension of that control, the Israeli
negotiators created the space they needed in order to escape what the Palestinian negotiators
believed was Israel’s obligation to unconditionally evacuate the territories. Although the

formal Palestinian delegation to the negotiations in Washington resisted that conceptual

 

—fi-___

93
restructuring, Chairman Arafat accepted it and, thus, facilitated the arrival at the Oslo One
Agreement of September 1993.

In addition to the above-mentioned conceptual restructuring, the Israeli government
and the PLO restructured other aspects in their respective domestic politics in order to
successfully approach the crisis of cooperation and facilitate the completion of the Oslo One
Agreement. Those restructuring measures were designed to overcome many of the taboos
which have long characterized the Palestinian-Israeli relations.

Chronologically ordered, the Israeli government undertook the first restructuring
according to which the Parliament passed a resolution which lifted the proscription imposed
on establishing contacts between the Israelis and the PLO. Lifting the ban on contacts with
the PLO—by 39 votes in favor to 20 votes against--in the Knesset in January 1993 legalized
meetings between members of the Israeli government and members of the organization which
once was considered a terrorist group. As expected, the resolution represented a woefiil
development to the right-wing opposition, especially the Likud which resented the notion of
legitimizing the PLO, which the Knesset’s move amounted to. As Likud MK Uzi Landau
stated, “If you recognize the legitimacy of this organization, you can’t avoid also granting
legitimacy to its objectives.”

Although the repealing of the ban was sponsored by MKS from the governing coalition
led by the Labor Party, the Rabin Government reafirmed its rejection of the notion of directly
negotiating with the PLO during the interim self-rule phase of the negotiations. Rabin himself

insisted that the formal Palestinian delegation to the negotiations in Washington be limited to

 

‘8 The New York Times, 1/21/1993.

 

94

representatives from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. ‘9 Lifting the ban on contacts with
the PLO, nonetheless, was a significant restructuring because it proved to be especially
serviceable to the secret diplomacy between the Israeli government and the PLO in Norway.
The initiation of the Norwegian diplomatic channel in January 1993 which brought together
Yossi Beilin, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, and Abu Ala, the PLO’s Financial Chief, was
a direct beneficiary of the Knesset’s resolution to repeal the ban on contacts with the PLO
during the same month.20 Had it not been for the Knesset’s move toward legalizing direct
talks with the PLO, the Norwegian channel, along with nine months of secret negotiations
and 14 meetings between the representatives of the PLO and the Israeli government, would
have been rendered-from the perspective of the Israeli domestic politics--a legally
questionable basis on which to conclude any agreement with the PLO. Without first
legalizing direct negotiations with the PLO, the Rabin Government would have found it
extremely diflicult to push the Oslo One Agreement through the Knesset, let alone defend it
against attacks from the opposing factions. . Had the ban on contacts with the PLO been left
intact, the Rabin Government would have been found at fault for breaching the ban, thus
tremendously diminishing its chances of successfirlly defending the concessions it offered to
the PLO.

The second step toward breaking the proscription imposed against the formal
participation of the PLO in the peace negotiations was undertaken by Chairman Arafat in

August 1993. The essence of Arafat’s move was to appoint the three most prominent

 

‘9 The New York Times, 1/20/1993.

2° The Times, London, 9/15/1993.

95

members of the Palestinian delegation to the negotiations with Israel, held in Washington, as
officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization. By transforming the status of Dr. Hanan
Ashrawi, Faisal al-Husseini, and Sa’eb Erekat from representatives of the Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories to ofiicial members of the PLO’s negotiations steering committee,
Chairman Arafat had effectively ended the interdiction which Israel had been imposing on the
formal participation of the PLO in the peace negotiations in Washington.21 Arafat made the
move after meeting with the three negotiators and successfully convincing them to withdraw
their resignations, which they sought in protest against the Chairman’s handling of the
negotiations and his authoritarian leadership style. Therefore, the fact that the Rabin
Government accepted to continue to negotiate with the three Palestinian negotiators, despite
their new status (thus abandoning a policy which had been stipulated by the Shamir
Government at the beginning of the Madrid Conference in 1991 and continued to be observed
by the Rabin Government for two years later), meant that Israel would be negotiating openly
for the first time with the PLO officials. In addition, Arafat’s move demonstrated to the
officials of the Israeli government, especially the Leftist doves, that he was the only
Palestinian leader with whom they could conclude a peace agreement, primarily because he
was demonstrably powerful enough to silence internal opposition to any concessions he was
about to make to the Israelis through the secret talks in Norway. Therefore, while the
Knesset’s resolution to repeal the ban on contacts with the PLO represented an Israeli step
toward establishing direct, albeit secret, linkages with the organization once considered

terrorist, Arafat’s decision to transform the status of the three Palestinian negotiators by

 

2‘ The New York Times, 8/13/1993.

96

appointing them as officials of the PLO secured the Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement by
establishing a direct and formal bridge to the Israeli government.

Arafat’s ability, and perhaps willingness, to restructure his domestic politics, however,
stopped short of yielding to the Rabin Govemment’s demand that an article considered by the
Israelis as controversial be removed from the Palestinian National Charter. At issue was both
the Charter’s description of the existence of the state of Israel as illegal and its call for the
liberation of all of Palestine. The disputed article states that “Palestine, within the frontiers
that existed under the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit,” and it is the goal of
the PLO to “liquidate the Zionist presence in Palestine.” From the perspective of Prime
Minister Rabin, It was important that Chairman Arafat see to it that the Charter be made
agreeable to the Israelis, in order for him to present his constituents with a meaningftu
convincing case in favor of the fiill recognition of the PLO as the legitimate representative of
the Palestinian people. Chairman Arafat, on the other hand, believed that he had already
made substantial concessions to Israel through the Gaza-Jericho deal and, therefore,
calculated that it was not to the best interest of the PLO to be viewed by Palestinians as
prematurely relinquishing fundamental elements of its historical claims in return for securing
Israel’s recognition of the organization. Arafat preferred to spare himself, as well as the
peace negotiations, the troublesome effects of attempting to press the member factions of the
PLO to formally modify the Charter. Accordingly, the PLO’s response to the Israeli demand
was twofold. First, referring to the remarks Arafat made on May 2, 1989, Bassam Abu
Sharif, a Senior Adviser to Chairman Arafat, announced that the disputed article was no
longer operative because “President Arafat already declared in Paris that the Charter was

Caduque (null and void). This means that the present program of the PLO has superseded

 

97

the Charter.”22 Second, Arafat utilized the tied-hand technique by publicly arguing that it was
beyond his ability to secure the modification of the Charter. As part of a concerted public
campaign to that effect, Arafat stated in interviews with Egyptian newspapers that since a
two-third majority of the Palestine National Council must be secured in order to amend the
Charter, any attempt to do so might blow a setback to finalizing the Oslo One Agreement by
needlessly provoking a rancorous debate among the different Palestinian factions. In the same
vein, Nabil Sha’ath, a Senior Aid to Chairman Arafat, emphasized the potential difficulties
inherent in altering the Charter by stating that, “We are just looking for a word or two,
something that would allay Israeli fears but at the same time not strike at the constitutional
complications of changing a Charter. The issues new are purely logistic, purely linguistic, not
political at this stage.”23

The combination of first, verbally declaring that the controversial parts of the Charter,
for all intents and purposes, were already null and void, and, second, giving the appearance
of being expressively incapable of afl’ecting the modification required by the Rabin
Government, seemed adequate to convince the latter that Chairman Arafat had actually gone
as far as he could in renouncing the objectionable parts of the Palestinian National Charter.
The PLO’s twofold response to the Israeli demands successfiilly averted a setback to the
conclusion of the Oslo One Agreement; so much so that on September 9 Arafat and Rabin
exchanged letters of recognition in which, first, the PLO recognized the right of Israel to exist

in peace and security and renounced terrorism and other acts of violence, and, second, the

 

32 The Times, London, 9/1/1993.

23 The New York Times, 9/8/1993.

98
Israeli government, only 10 hours later, recognized the PLO as the representative of the
Palestinian people."

The announcement of the Declaration of Principles (DoP) accord between the
Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel was received by varying degrees of support and
rejection fi'om difi’erent forces in the region. The Islamic Conference Organization (ICO)
endorsed the accord and Hamid al-Ghabid, ICO Secretary-General, described it as a “bold
first step towards achieving the goal of a just and comprehensive settlement.” Also, member
states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) supported the accord and called it a first step

”25 Among the Palestinian forceS, the

to achieve a “just, lasting and comprehensive peace.
Palestine People’s Party (PPP) expressed its support for the DoP accord and referred to it as
a step toward resolving the problematic issue of Palestine.26

Embittered Palestinian forces were quick to express their opposition to the Israeli-
PLO deal. A statement signed by over- 100 notable Palestinian figures attacked both
Chairman Arafat’s single-handedness in finalizing the agreement, as well as his failure to
deliver on most of the issues at the core of their zone of deference. The notables expressed
profound dissatisfaction with the fact that Arafat accepted Israel’s reformulation of her
relationship to the West Bank and Gaza Strip under her control since 1967-- a reformulation

according to which Israel was not considered occupying but administering the territories-thus

rendering the sovereignty of the Palestinian land and people disputable. They also criticized

 

2" Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, Autumn 1993.
25 Mideast rlvlirror, London, 9/6/1993.

26 al-Dustur, Jordan, 9/7/1993.

99

the failure of the deal to address the issue of Jewish settlements and the fiiture of J erusalem.27
Strong opposition to the DoP accord was also expressed by Nayef Hawatmah, Head of the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), who said that it would enable Israel
to “liquidate the intifada,” and George Habash, Head of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP), who denied Arafat the status as representative of the Palestinians
because the DoP was concluded without reference to the rights of diaspora Palestinians.28
Arafat’s greatest challenge, however, was to allay the potentially explosive opposition
of Hamas, whose rhetoric and militant activism in its stronghold, the Gaza Strip, afi‘orded it
with the opportunity to disrupt the implementation of the DoP accord. In fact, the
announcement of the Israeli-Palestinian Gaza-Jericho deal brought about fears of intensified
Palestinian infightings which could amount to a civil war. It seems, however, that the
prospect of a Palestinian civil conflict--an outcome which almost all Palestinian forces and
groupings, including Hamas, detested--contributed to forcing Hamas to behave responsibly
by not escalating its dispute with the PLO to alarming levels during that crucial juncture of
the Palestinian struggle for independence. In fact, Hamas even made a conciliatory gesture
to the PLO when Muhammad Nazzal, its Spokesman in Amman, announced that his
organization might participate in the Palestinian elections in enclaves vacated under the Gaza-
Jericho plan.29 Also, in a joint effort to prevent, no matter how temporarily, the prospect of

a civil conflict fi'om materializing, Chairman Arafat and Hamas concluded a six-point truce

 

27 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Winter 1994.
28 Mideast Mirror, London, 9/2/1993.

29 illideast Mirror, London, 8/31/1993-

100
under which both sides agreed to disavow violence among Palestinian people while tolerating
their freedom to peacefully protest against the DoP accord.3o In their joint statement, PLO
and Hamas asserted that “stemming from our keenness to maintain our people’s unity and its
coherence, we forbid fighting and violence and guarantee the right of self-expression” through

3‘ As the discussion in the next section shows,

demonstration and other peaceful means.
however, the conclusion of the Oslo One Agreement brought to the forefront the need to
continually safeguard the status of Chairman Arafat against the vehement opposition of
radical Islarnist and nationalist Palestinian forces. In fact, much of the period that elapsed
between the Oslo One Agreement and Oslo Two agreement was signified by attempts to
protect the status of Chairman Arafat from dangerously eroding.

To summarize, crucial linkages between domestic politics and the international
negotiating table facilitated the completion of the Oslo One Agreement in September 1993.
Those linkages found expression in a number of restructuring measures which the Israeli
government and the Palestine Liberation Organization implemented in order to overcome the
obstacles, both conceptual and practical, which impeded the accomplishment of the
agreement. More specifically, the Rabin Government conceptually reformulated the very
characterization of Israel’s control over the territories by emphasizing the administrative
dimension of that control and de-emphasizing its occupational dimension. That reformulation

effectively caused the issue of Palestinians’ sovereignty to become negotiable and, therefore,

enabled Israel to escape what the formal Palestinian delegation to the negotiations in

 

3° The Sunday Times, London, 9/19/1993.

3‘ The New York Times, 9/17/1993.

101

Washington believed was Israel’s obligation to unconditionally evacuate the territories.
Chairman Arafat accepted that reformulation through his secret negotiations with the Rabin
Government in Norway. In addition, in order to facilitate formal negotiations, both the Israeli
government and the PLO undertook restructuring measures which amounted to breaking the
taboos which once had prevented them fiom establishing direct contact. By utilizing the tied-
hands technique however, Arafat convinced the Rabin Government that it was beyond his
ability to satisfy the Israelis’ demand that the PLO Charter be amended. Finally, in order to
prevent the Palestinian forees’ disagreement over the concessions which Arafat made to the
Rabin Government from evolving into a Palestinian civil conflict, Arafat and Hamas jointly

agreed to confine the opposition to the Oslo One Agreement to nonviolent means.

The Case of Oslo Two Agreement

In this case, at issue was the domestic win-set in the Israeli and Palestinian politics
which pertained to concluding a second formal agreement with the PLO. Several deadly
militant attacks carried out by Palestinian religious groups against Israeli civilians caused
support for a second peace agreement to dwindle among the Israeli people. In order to
facilitate the conclusion of the agreement, Prime Minister Rabin needed to strategically
enhance Chairman Arafat’s negotiating status, and the latter needed to consolidate his status
by cracking down on Islamic activism.

Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat signed the Oslo Two Agreement in
Washington, DC. on September 28, 1995, two years after the Oslo One Agreement was
signed. Known formally as ‘The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and

the Gaza Strip,’ the agreement marked the conclusion of the interim self-govemment phase

102

of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Designed to incorporate and replace the Oslo
One Agreement of September 1993, Oslo Two Agreement extended Palestinian self-
govemment to several more cities and hundreds of villages in the West Bank. The agreement
promised the Palestinians self control over most of the area of the West Bank. It also
specified the mechanism of Palestinians’ exercise of their autonomy by calling for the election
of 82 representatives to a Palestinian Council entrusted with running local affairs until May
1999. In addition, the agreement called for the election of a Ra ’ees (Chairman or President
in Arabic) to head the Palestinian Authority which was instituted after the Israeli-based Civil
Administration had been dismantled and the occupation’s military forces had redeployed.
According to the agreement, the Palestinians were given legislative and administrative power
over areas relegated to them by the Israeli government, but the latter retained both the power
to examine the policies made by the Palestinian Authority, as well as control over the self-rule
government’s foreign policies and diplomatic relations.

The Spirit of the Oslo Two Agreement is similar to that of the Oslo One Agreement,
primarily because both are based on continuing to deprive the Palestinian people of both
actual political fieedom and sovereignty over the territories. Therefore, it is safe to argue that
the negotiation of the Oslo Two Agreement benefitted from the same conceptual restructuring
which facilitated the accomplishment of the Oslo One Agreement and, according to which,
the very notion of the Palestinian people’s sovereignty was made disputable and, hence,
negotiable. In addition, the process of negotiating the agreement was facilitated by the same
restructuring measures which Israel and the PLO implemented in order to legalize formal and

direct contacts between their respective negotiators.

103

The essence of the unique crisis of cooperation which Chairman Arafat and Prime
Minister Rabin had to handle in preparation for the Oslo Two Agreement can only be
sketched by examining the political situation that prevailed in the territories in the aftermath
of the Oslo One Agreement. More specifically, a meaningful analysis of the developments
which facilitated the accomplishment of the Oslo Two Agreement necessitates emphasizing
that both Palestinian domestic politics and the rejectionist forces’ mood inside and outside the
Occupied Territories differed from those which prevailed at the time when the Oslo One
Agreement was being negotiated two years earlier. Since this study deals with the
entanglements between domestic politics and the international negotiating table, it is
important to take these differences into consideration, in order to provide an accurate
description of the way the domestic politics in the territories were configured when the Oslo
Two Agreement was being negotiated.

The first difi‘erence has to do with the fact that whereas before the completion of the
Oslo One Agreement the PLO was negotiating with Israel from its exile in Tunis, the
implementation of the agreement gave the PLO the right to operate fiom within the Occupied
Territories. More importantly, by enabling the PLO to establish its political and
administrative apparatuses in the Gaza Strip, Oslo One Agreement emphasized the governing
dimension of the organization’s operations at the expense of the revolutionary one. By
gaining a foothold in the Gaza Strip and Jericho, the PLO became primarily concerned with
empowering itself as a governing body entrusted with direct administrative responsibilities
toward the Palestinian people, as well as political and security obligations toward the Israeli
government. In order to meet these responsibilities and obligations, the PLO established new

bureaucratic bodies in the Gaza Strip. Foremost among these bodies were the Palestinian

 

104

Authority (PA) headed by Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces (PSF)
headed by Colonel Jibril Rajoub. While the PA was vested with the responsibility of carrying
out local government functions, the PSF was made responsible for maintaining security and
public order.

Second, the conclusion of the Oslo One Agreement demonstrated to the different
rejectionist Israeli and Palestinian forces that, in spite of the outstanding structural conflict,
finalizing a peace deal between the Israeli government and the PLO was not impossible. In
fact, Oslo One Agreement served to alarm both Palestinian Islamic militants and extremist
Jewish settlers about what the future could potentially be holding for the rest of the Occupied
Territories, especially the main cities in the West Bank. As the Israeli-PLO negotiations
progressed after the signing of the Oslo One Agreement in September 1993, Islamic and
Jewish rejectionist forces in the Occupied Territories grew more forcefirl in attempting to
derail the peace process and hampering a peace deal that would extend Palestinians’ self rule
to the West Bank Whereas Islamic militants were alarmed by the prospect of a second peace
agreement that could amount to the PLO’s completely forfeiting the Palestinian people’s
aspirations after firll political freedom over the land of Palestine, ultra-religious and nationalist
Jewish settlers in the West Bank were alarmed by the fact that the peace negotiations were
increasingly zeroing in on their existence on the land which they considered an integral part
of Eretz Yisrael.

The combination of these two domestic politics considerations constituted the essence
of the crisis with which Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat had been presented when
negotiating the Oslo Two Agreement. From the perspective of Islamic militants and Jewish

settlers, the surprise element that would have accompanied finalizing a second Israeli-PLO

105

peace deal was consumed by the declaration and subsequent signing of the Oslo One
Agreement. Therefore, from September 1993 onward, Palestinian and Israeli rejectionist
forces became increasingly convinced that it was not enough to adopt the ‘expectant mode’
toward the evolution of the peace process, but that they should adopt an ‘active mode’ in
approaching the future of the peace talks between the PLO and the Israeli government.32
Accordingly, instead of remaining contracted against an overpowering environment by
waiting for the future to bring about a second much detested peace agreement, Palestinian and
Jewish rejectionist forces in the territories calculated that they ought to go into the firture of
peace negotiations with greater control over theevents which determined their environment.
Much to the displeasure of the Israeli government and the newly-founded and struggling
Palestinian Authority, that active mode meant greater violent opposition on the part of the
rejectionist forces designed to derail the peace process and weaken the prospect of a second
compromise peace deal.

In what follows, both Chairman Arafat’s and Prime Minister Rabin’s dilemma with
Palestinian religious extremists’ active resistence to the prospective Oslo Two Agreement that
would extend Palestinians’ self-rule over the West Bank is discussed. The analysis focuses
on evaluating the restructuring proposition and the status of the Chief of Government
proposition in view of the crisis created by the violent opposition of Palestinian Islamic

militancy.

 

32 The distinction between the expectant and active modes toward the future was formulated by Eugene
Minkowski in Lived Time: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies (Evanston, 1970). For an
interesting discussion and application of these concepts see Stephan Kern, The Culture of Time and Space:
1880-1918 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983).

106

The fact that Palestinian rejectionist forces engaged in the active mode in their
opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations while the PLO was engaged in
establishing itselfas a local government in the territories had meant that Chairman Arafat
became doubly accountable; first to the Palestinian people and second to the Israeli
government. Arafat was required to demonstrate that the Palestinian Authority could cater
to the Palestinians’ economic and political needs through an effective and praiseworthy
government. He was also required by the Rabin Government to demonstrate that Israel’s
security interests were better protected against militant Islamists’ attacks with the PA than
without. Therefore, the real challenge which Arafat’s newly-founded Palestinian Authority
had been facing was to satisfy its obligations toward protecting Israel’s interests against
threats leveled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, lest the Israeli government conclude that
expanding Palestinians’ self-rule was conducive to compromising the security of the Israeli
people and, thus, decide to refrain from making firrther conciliatory concessions to the
Palestinians.

On several occasions throughout 1994 and 1995, Hamas and Islamic Jihad carried out
a series of violent attacks in the Occupied Territories and Israel proper, leaving tens of
innocent Israeli civilians and military personnel dead. A partial list of some of the most deadly
attacks includes two strikes carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers in April 1994, one in
the northern Israeli town of Afirla which killed eight Israelis and wounded 44 others and
another in Hadera which killed five and wounded 30 people. Again, in one of the deadliest
militant attacks in Israel’s history, in October 1994 Hamas claimed responsibility for a bomb
attack in Tel Aviv which killed 20 Israelis and wounded 48 others. Also, in January 1995

Palestinian suicide bombers set off two deadly explosions at the Beit Lid junction in the

107

central Israeli town of Nordiya killing 21 people. In April 1995 Arafat’s ability to protect
Israeli interests in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority became increasingly
questionable when Palestinian militants killed six Israelis and wounded 45 others in two car
bombings in the Gaza Strip. Also, in July 1995 five Israelis were killed and 32 were wounded
when a militant suicide bomber set off a bomb in a bus in Tel Aviv during morning rush hour.
Finally, in August 1995, in an attack which was expressively designed to weaken Rabin’s
chances of getting reelected in the 1996 Israeli General Elections,33 a Hamas suicide bomber
killed five Israelis and wounded 100 others aboard an Israeli bus in Jerusalem.34

The Palestinian militants’ suicidal attacks against the Israeli people inside Israel and
the Occupied Territories acutely endangered the continuation of the peace negotiations
between the Israeli government and the PLO, but they fell Short of actually fulfilling their very
objective of fatally disrupting the drive toward a peacefiil agreement. The deadly attacks
managed to create an angry uproar among the Israeli people against the peace talks with the
Palestinians. For example, on February 1, 1995; thousands of Israelis, including MKS from
the Likud, Tsomet, Moledet, and Shas parties, demonstrated against the continuation of the

5 Clearly, from the point of view of the Israeli public, seeing Islamic-

peace process.3
Palestinian militants cause bloodshed on the streets of the Israeli cities did not coincide with

what they envisioned as a logical outcome of the peace negotiations with the Palestinian

 

33 According to the statement issued by Hamas after the August 1995 attack, the objective which the extremist
group was trying to achieve was to ensure that Rabin didn’t get reelected. Since that was the first time that
Hamas ever stated such a political objective behind any of its militant attacks, it is safe to say that the group
became convinced that it could not derail the peace process as long as Rabin continued to head the Israeli
government.

3" This partial list of Palestinian Islamists’ militant attacks was compiled from The New York Times.

3’ Mideast Mirror, London, 2/2/1995.

108

Authority. So how were the potentially damaging ramifications of the Palestinian militants’
attacks kept from actually disrupting the drive toward the accomplishment of Oslo Two
Agreement?

Chairman Arafat needed to achieve two things in order to ensure that the peace
negotiations progressed toward an agreement over the West Bank despite the negative
ramifications of the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. First, Arafat
was required to demonstrate that he was forcefirl in cracking down on Palestinian militant
fundamentalists in order to preserve the image of his Palestinian Authority as a credible
protector. of Israeli security interests. The fact that the militant attacks which were executed
in Israel proper originated from the Occupied Territories made Arafat’s obligation to fight
Palestinian religious rnilitancy appear all the more pressing. Second, Arafat needed to secure
a sympathetic understanding fi'om the Israeli government of any shortcomings on his part to
effectively and quickly eradicate Islamic rnilitancy and ensure the cessations of their deadly
attacks. These two objectives were Arafat’s majorconcerns during the better part of the
period that separated the signing of Oslo One and Oslo Two Agreements.

Whereas Arafat’s first concern amounted to the need to institutionalize a special
structure, under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority, that would be responsible for
curbing the militant activism of Palestinian religious firndamentalists, satisfying Arafat’s
second concern meant that the Rabin Government ought to demonstrate a renewed
commitment toward enhancing the Palestinian Authority’s status as a partner in the peace
negotiations and a legitimate governing body for the Palestinian people in the territories. An
analysis of the data collected with respect to these two considerations showed that both of

Arafat’s concerns were adequately handled in a manner that facilitated the accomplishment

109

of the Oslo Two Agreement.

In a move that was criticized by the PLO’s Palestinian National Council and fellow
Palestinians as an infiingement upon human rights and democratic practices, Chairman Arafat
established a military court system to try offenders of security. and public order"5 Arafat was
so determined to firlfill his obligation to crackdown on Islamic rnilitancy that his police even
arrested Raji Sourani, a Palestinian human rights lawyer and a prominent critic of Arafat, on
charges of protesting the decision to set up the military court.37 In addition, Arafat’s
Preventive Security Forces resolutely persecuted Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants during
a number of raids on their centers. For example, on January 25, 1995, the Palestinian police
arrested 20 members of the Islamic Jihad, including Abdullah al-Shami, the group’s chief
ideologue.” Also, on March 22, 70 members of Hamas were arrested. By April the
Palestinian Authority detained more than 300 Islamic extremists, many of whom were sent
to the military court for trial and sentenced to difi’erent prison terms. Arafat’s decisive
measures against Palestinian militants prompted 497 Islamist and nationalist leaders
representing difl’erent parts of the Muslim world to issue a “Statement of Support and
Solidarity” in which they praised Hamas’ struggle to liberate Palestine and remonstrated with

39

Arafat about detaining Islamist Palestinians. Arafat’s offensive against radical Islamist

militants, nonetheless, prompted Israeli officials to declare that they were impressed by the

 

3‘ .tlideast Mirror, London, 2/13/1995.
3’ The New York Times, 2/16/1995.
38 The New York Times, 1/26/1995.

3’ Mideast Mirror, London, 5/5/1995.

110

Palestinian Authority’s efforts to curb Palestinian extremism and enhance security."0 By and
large, therefore, Chairman Arafat succeeded in demonstrating that he was adequately forcefiil
in meeting his obligation to enhance the security of the Israelis against militant attacks.
Consequently, Chairman Arafat’s need to ensure that the Israeli government
understood the sensitivity of his position was also satisfied by a number of measures which
Prime Minister Rabin undertook in order to defend the status of the Palestinian leader and,
at times, even attempt to enhance it. First, in spite of the angry reaction of the Israeli public
opinion in the aftermath of each of the terrorist attacks carried out by militant followers of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside Israel, Rabin repeatedly resisted calls for terminating the peace
negotiations with the PLO and instead aflirmed renewed commitment to conclude a peace
agreement with Chairman Arafat. More importantly, Rabin even I'CfUSCd to accept Israel’s
President Ezer Weizman’s call to temporarily suspend the peace talks with the PLO in
response to the January 1995 bombing attack in Beit Lid until the Palestinian Authority
effectively suppressed Islamist fundamentalists.‘l Clearly, President Weizman, generally
described as a supporter of the peace talks with the PLO, stepped out of his prescribed
domain of formal prerogatives when he interfered in a critical foreign policy issue such as
deciding the fate of the diplomatic talks with the Palestinian leadership. President Weizman,
nonetheless, was reflecting the Israeli public mood which was outraged by the militant attacks
down the streets of the Israeli towns. In his television appearance on the Israeli Channel One,

Weizman’s argument held that the Israeli government was “conducting negotiations with

 

‘0 The New York Times, 7/10/1995.

4‘ The Jerusalem Post, 1/23/1995.

111

[Chairman Arafat] on the assumption that he is the leader of the Palestinian side. The
government ought now to suspend these talks and tell Arafat to make a greater effort to put
an end to this slaughter.” Weizrnan added that, “If Arafat has no influence or control . . . then
the talks with him ought to be halted and there must be some very tough, hard, and thorough
rethinking . . . I know am saying harsh things and that when these words come from someone
like me, they carry no small significance.”42 Despite his dovish record, the President even
suggested that the government consider taking military actions against militant Palestinian
Islamists in the self-rule areas.

Although irate Prime Minster Rabin dismissed President Weizman’s advocacy of
terminating negotiations with Chairman Arafat, he, nonetheless, could afl’ord to completely
ignore neither the Israelis’ hostile sentiments toward the peace negotiations with the PLO, nor
the President’s unequivocal representation of those sentiments. Rabin needed to demonstrate
that his government was sensitive to the Israeli public’s despair, lest he fiirther estrange
embittered Israelis by giving the impression that blindly pursuing what they believed was an
illusionary peace program with the Palestinians was his primary concern. Therefore, instead
of actually halting the negotiations with the PLO, Rabin decided to slow down the pace of the
peace talks by suspending two conciliatory gestures which the Israeli government had earlier
agreed to make toward the Palestinians before the January bombing. In an emergency
Cabinet meeting on the day of the bombing, Rabin decided to freeze the release of Palestinian

prisoners and to indefinitely delay the opening of the “safe passage” between the Gaza Strip

 

‘2 Ibid.

112

and the West Bank city of Jericho.‘3

The second measure which the Rabin Government undertook in defense of Chairman
Arafat’s status, in view of the increased rate of Islamic militants’ suicidal attacks, was to ward
off criticisms of the Palestinian Authority’s performance in fighting terrorism emanating from
the self—rule areas. More specifically, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin asked the
American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to stop monitoring and compiling the
PA’s compliance with its obligations toward cracking down on Palestinian terrorism. Beilin
actually linked the negative effects of the compliance reports which AIPAC prepared with the
prospect of the continuation of the American financial aid to the PA. He asserted that “The
issue is sensitive. If it’s portrayed that we [i.e., the Israeli government] think aid should
continue, and AIPAC says no, then it hurts not only the Palestinians, but us.”“ In the same
vein, Beilin also asserted in a meeting with a group of Jewish-American activists that, “If
Arafat complies exactly with the Oslo Accords or not, it is none of your business. It’s not the
business of Jewish organizations, not of AIPAC, not of the American Congress and not of any
other country in the world except the State of Israel. Only Israel signed the agreement with
the PLO and only Israel will decide when and in what form it will demand from Arafat to
behave.”45 By so doing, therefore, the Israeli government demonstrated that it was concerned
with enhancing Arafat’s status by, first, ensuring the flow of international financial aid to the

Palestinian Authority and, second, by reserving to itself the right to judge Arafat’s

 

‘3 The New York Times, 1/23/1995.
‘4 The Jerusalem Post, 3/30/1995.

45 The Jerusalem Post, 4/2/1995.

113

performance with respect to curtailing Palestinian Islamists’ militant activism.

To summarize, therefore, the efforts expended by the Rabin Government to defend
and enhance the status of the Palestinian Authority contributed to preserving the peace talks
with Chairman Arafat amidst an Israeli public Opinion that was disenchanted with the peace
diplomacy because of the Palestinian Islamists’ deadly militant attacks. More specifically, by
affirming his renewed commitment to reaching a peace deal with Chairman Arafat in the
aftermath of each terrorist attack, and by repeatedly rejecting calls to suspend the peace
negotiations with the PLO, Prime Minster Rabin demonstrated an adequate understanding of
the importance of protecting the status of the Palestinian leader. In addition, by asking
AIPAC to stop recording and publishing information about the performance of the Palestinian
Authority in fighting terrorism, and by asserting that the Israeli government alone reserved
the right to judge Arafat’s fulfillment of his obligations toward the security of Israel, the Rabin
Government displayed strong concern with enhancing Arafat’s status by ensuring that the

flow of American financial aid to the PA was not hampered.

SAVING THE PEACE PROCESS
Sustaining the momentum for peace agreements by at least not allowing the talks to
stall in disruptive ways had been a source of concern for the Palestinian and Israeli
negotiators. Salvaging the peace process at hazardous junctures was especially crucial in
view of the protracted nature of the conflict and the efforts made by the enemies of the peace
talks to derail the peace process. Certain of these junctures were of crisis proportions and
exceptionally perilous because the threat to the perseverance of the diplomatic negotiations

was heightened to alarming levels.

 

114

Allowing the diplomatic talks to degenerate into stalemate or disenchantment with the
prospect for a peaceful resolution of the conflict had been construed to result in renewed and
increased violence. Militant attacks on Israeli targets would increase because religious
Palestinian radicalism embodied in Hamas and Islamic Jihad would attempt to seize on the
opportunity to regain the popularity lost to the secular PLO. Even secular Palestinian groups
like the Fatah faction of the PLO would be lead to conclude that resuming violence was their
best bid in view of the political uncertainty produced by a degenerate peace process. Finally,
renewed violence would frustrate the flow of international economic aid, thus contributing
to a deepened sense of hopelessness among the Palestinians which, in turn, would result in
more violence. After all, violence had always been a conspicuous component of the
protracted conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and, therefore, resorting to it
remained an option The efl’orts expended by the Israeli government and the PLO leadership
in order to salvage a degenerate peace process was, therefore, expected to parallel those
allotted to negotiating the peace agreements themselves. More specifically, the negotiating
parties were hypothesized to engage in restructuring their respective domestic politics, as well
as strengthening each other’s status in relation to the domestic constituents.

Four critical instances were identified throughout the duration of the peace
negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The first of these was the decision
made by the Rabin Government in December 1992 to deport more than 400 Palestinians from
the Occupied Territories to a no-man’s zone in southern Lebanon. The second was when
Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein massacred about 29 Muslim worshipers in the West Bank
city of Hebron in Febmary 1994. And the third and fourth cases concern attempts to preempt

the status of Jerusalem when, first, the Rabin Government announced a plan to expropriate

115

134 acres of Arab-owned land in East Jerusalem in April 1995 in order to expand Jewish
neighborhoods, and, less than two weeks later, the Republican Congressional leadership
announced its proposal to transfer the US. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The critical
dimensions of the four episodes as well as their ramifications on the peace talks is expounded
below.

These precarious junctures represented shocks to the system of diplomatic
negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and therefore were included in the
analysis. The inclusion of these shocks was dictated by substantive and methodological
considerations. Substantively, the fiiture of the entire peace process seemed to be dependent
upon preventing the dire consequences of these critical junctures fi'om toppling the
negotiating table itself. Analyzing how these four crises were resolved is integral to the
analysis of the overall crisis of cooperation between Israel and the PLO which this study
attempts to examine. In addition, the successful emergence from each of these crises was a
breakthrough at par with those of reaching the peace agreements of 1993 and 1995
themselves.

Methodologically, these crises served as four additional opportunities to ask the two
theoretical questions which informed the analysis. They, therefore, were utilized along the
Oslo One and Oslo Two Agreements to contribute to the evaluation of the two theoretical
propositions advanced by the two-level games theory. In other words, the explanatory
efficacy of the restructuring proposition and the Chief of Govemment’s status proposition
was tested within the context of a total of six cases, instead of only two. By so doing, we
should be in a better position to evaluate the two propositions within a research design that

better approximated the virtues of the method of “structured, focused comparison.” This gain

 

i

116

on the methodological front was achieved in conjunction with increased intrinsic

understanding of the dynamics of the peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The Case of Palestinian Deportees to Southern Lebanon

In this case, the domestic win-set within the Palestinian context pertained to
overcoming the threat leveled against the international negotiation table and resuming the
peace talks with the Israeli government. Prime Minister Rabin initially failed to appreciate the
damaging consequences of his decision to deport hundreds of Palestinian militants on both
Chairman Arafat’s political status and the Israeli-PLO peace diplomacy. Both resolving the
deportees crisis and salvaging the negotiation table were facilitated by restructuring measures
which the Rabin finally managed to implement in his respective domestic politics. More
specifically, the government modified the deportation decision and defeated the hawkish
Likud party’s attempt in the Knesset to thwart the return of the deportees.

The Israeli government’s decision to deport more than 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad
militants to a no-man’s zone in southern Lebanon had echoed in the negotiating room
between the Israelis and the Palestinians in Washington. The sensitivity of the forcible
transfer of those Palestinians which was carried out in a manner that deliberately short-
circuited the Israeli judicial process was emphasized by Nabil Sha’ath, Palestinian Delegation
Political Adviser, when he said:

We are all very sensitive to Jewish fears, and therefore of Israeli fears of

security. But if there is anything the Palestinians are sensitive about is

throwing them out of their very homes. This has been the tragedy of Palestine

since 1948; then 1967; then 1982. And everybodynone of the wars that Israel

has actually waged against our people, it is the fear of deportation, the fear of

losing one’s roots, the fear of being thrown out of one country--transfer,
ethnic cleansing. This is a war crime by the Geneva Conventions, a war crime

 

117

that cannot possibly be pardoned.46

The Palestinian delegation refirsed to attend the negotiations in protest and demanded
an immediate reversal of the deportation decision. During the same news conference, Dr.
Haidar Abdul Shafi, Palestinian Delegation Spokesperson, described the magnitude of the
disruptive efl‘ects of the deportation decision when he said, “certainly, this act comes as a
terrible blow where we feel it has, you know, it has ignited the emotions of the people in such
a manner that it makes it really impossible for us to come back to the negotiating [table] if no
measures are taken to raise the hopes of the people in the peace process.” Nabil Sha’ath even
went fiirther to emphasize one more troubling aspect of the Israeli government decision by
drawing a distinction between random actions and concerted state actions.

But here this is not a random killing, this is not like somebody who really has

acted out of revenge or out of insanity or out of anything like that. This is an

action that took actually 48 hours between the Cabinet decision and the

Supreme Court decision. Mr. Rabin had ample time to reconsider that

decision. Four hundred people out of a population of 700,000 in Gaza is

equivalent to 150,000 Americans in terms of American population. This is a

very, very large number-~in fact the largest ever deported by any Israeli

government, including that of Mr. Shamir. And therefore the matter is really

entirely different fiom random killings here and there, which we condemn on

both sides.

The deportation decision served as an occasion of potential rapprochement between
Hamas and the PLO, its political and ideological rival, in order to jointly confront the

common Israeli challenge. In a meeting between Chairman Arafat and four Hamas leaders

in Tunis, Hamas proposed heightening the armed attacks against Israeli targets and the

 

46 News Conference: The Palestinian Delegation, December. I 7, 1992. The Information Division of the
Israeli Foreign Ministrquenrsalem. Downloaded from WWW-server maintained by the Consulate General
to the Midwest, Chicago, IL.

 

118

withdrawal of the Palestinian delegation from the diplomatic talks.47 In fact, the very decision
of the PLO to discontinue its participation in the talks represented the determination of
mainstream PLO to stand by Hamas, whose members constituted the majority of the
deportees. The deportation decision, therefore, had the effect of, first, embarrassingly
weakening Chairman Arafat’s standing in relation to his Palestinian constituents by
demonstrating that, despite engaging in the peace talks, he could not stop the excesses of the
Israeli government against their basic human rights. Second, it afforded Hamas the pretext
to escalate its militant attacks, thus counteracting the effect of the policy of mass deportations
as an Israeli tool of curbing militant activism. Third, it threatened the peace process by
drawing the PLO and Hamas closer in opposition against continuing the negotiations with
Israel. Yet the Hamas-PLO’s coming together was only indicative of the weakened status of
Chairman Arafat and his conciliatory course with Israel.

Prime Minister Rabin’s stance with respect to the deportation decision was so
adamant that he initially repeatedly insisted on denying the delegation of the International
Committee of the Red Cross access to the deportees through Israeli lines. Israel even rejected
appeals from the United States to permit Palestinian deportees to locate in the security zone
along its northern borders."8 In an attempt to deflect international criticism, however, Rabin
later agreed to permit two officials of the ICRC to visit the deportees."9 The crisis lingered

on and the peace process came to a complete halt before it was resumed in April 1993.

 

‘7 The Jerusalem Posi, 12/25/1992.
‘8 Davar, 12/24/1992.

‘9 The Jerusalem Post, l/8/l993.

119

On 18 December 1992, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted
Resolution 799 which was drafted by the Council’s Third World members and the PLO.
Quoting directly from the text of the resolution, the Security Council declared that it:

1. Strongly condemns the action taken by IsraeL the occupying power,
to deport hundreds of Palestinian civilians, and expresses its firm opposition
to any such deportation by Israel;

2. Reafiirms the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12
August 1949 to all the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967,
including Jerusalem, and affirms that deportation of civilians constitutes a
contravention of its obligations under the Convention;

3. Reafi‘irms also the independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Lebanon:

4. Demands that Israel, occupying Power, ensure the safe and
immediate return to the occupied territories of all those deported;

5. Requests the Secretary-General to consider dispatching a
representative to the area to follow up with the Israeli government with regard
to this serious situation and to report to the Security Council;

6. Decides to keep the matter actively under review. (Emphasis from
original).50

In accordance with paragraph Five of the United Nations Security Council Resolution
799, Secretary-General Butrus Butrus-Ghali dispatched special U.N. envoys on multiple visits
to Israel. However, the envoys’ discussions with Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Affairs
Minister Peres failed to produce a reversal of the deportation decision in fiilfillment of Israel’s
obligations under Resolution 799. Reporting back to the Security Council, Mr. Ghali called
upon the Security Council to make “whatever measures are necessary” to enforce Israel’s
compliance with the Resolution. Mr. Ghali’s report to the UNSC on the outcome of the visits

made a draft resolution submitted by the PLO calling for sanctions on Israel appear likely to

 

50 Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXII, No. 3, Spring 1993.

120

receive considerable backing.51

The United States, nonetheless, played a significant role in influencing the course of
events away from imposing sanctions against Israel and more toward the resolution of the
deportees crisis. More precisely, because of its desire to avoid vetoing a United Nations’s
Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions on Israel for deporting the
Palestinians, the United States urged the Rabin Government to find some solution to the
deportees issue. Acting Secretary of State Eagleburger vented his concerns over the
increasing pressure in the Security Council for a forcefiil implementation of UNSC Resolution
799, a development which he thought would put Israel and the United States “in an awkward
spot.” Eagleburger proceeded to strongly emphasize Israel’s obligation “to find some
solution to the problem, whether it’s to take them [the deportees] back and put them in jail
or whatever it is.”52 Also, as a telephone exchange between U. S. Assistant Secretary of State
Edward Djerejian and Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval made clear, the Clinton
Administration was convinced that a US. veto would blemish American credibility among the
Arab public by giving the impression that Washington favored Israeli interests over theirs.
Washington calculated that a US. veto that would have embittered Arab states would cause

Arabs to withdraw from the peace process and undermine efforts to maintain support in the

United Nations for the US. policies in Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia. 53

 

5‘ lbid.
52 Mideast Mirror, London, 1/15/1993.

53 The Jerusalem Post, 1/31/1993.

121

In response to the pressure exerted by the newly-inaugurated Clinton Administration
which encouraged the Israeli government to act on the deportees problem and, in a gesture
to the Clinton Administration and in response to expectations of the European Community,
the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to permit “about 100 selected Hamas activists” to return
from Southern Lebanon. The “package deaL” which was announced by Prime Minister Rabin
after an extraordinary session, was the culmination of several days’ worth of very extensive
consultations on the deportation issue between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and
the Israeli Premier. The deal also included slashing the terms of expulsions for the remaining
300 deportees in halfand reviewing deportation cases on an individual bases.

The White House described the measures as “a step in the right direction,” and Rabin
himself emphasized that ‘Vve [Israelis] needed to reach an understanding with the U. S. for the
four years ahead and buttress our position in the international arena.” The “package deal”
therefore was made with, and in deference to, the Clinton Administration, and not with
Hamas itself. Israeli Ambassador Gad Ya’accobi stated, “US-Israeli compromise would
remove almost all danger of [UN Security Council] sanctions, and would hopefully lessen
the possible need for a US. veto.”"’

The Israeli Cabinet’s resolution with respect to the deportees issue was partial and
failed to yield to the PLO’s demand that the deportation decision be rescinded before the
negotiations could be resumed. That partial resolution, however, represented a domestic
restructuring which the Israeli government implemented with little enthusiasm in order to

salvage the negotiation process from further devastating suspension. The restructuring was

 

5‘ The Jerusalem Post, 2/2/1993.

 

122

especially significant in view of the Rabin Govemment’s concern with curbing the threat
Hamas’ rnilitancy posed to the security of the Israelis. The fact that the Israeli government
has always preferred to have fewer Hamas militants operating in the territories is indicative
of the magnitude of the concessions the PLO could muster from Prime Minister Rabin.
Chairman Arafat understood the Israeli offer as important concessions to the
Palestinians’ staunch stance which demanded the reversal of the deportation decision before
going back to the negotiation room. In response to the Israeli ofl’er, Arafat’s mainstream
PLO also reviewed its uncompromising stance by accepting the immediate return of 100
deportees and proposing the bringing back of the remainder in groups of 50 to 100 to
incarceration in the Israeli-controlled security zone over a period of four to five months.55
Christopher also presented the Palestinian officials a plan that included six points in
order to encourage them to resume peace talks with Israel. The plan included a US.
statement describing expulsions of civilians illegal and pressing the implementation of the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 799; affirmation that Resolutions 242 and 338
are bases for peace diplomacy and Jerusalem can be negotiated; Israel makes a binding
commitment against expulsions; Israel ensures the speedy return of current deportees; Israel
agrees to the return of many of the Palestinians who were deported after the 1967 War; and
Israeli commitment to stop human rights violations in the Occupied Territories.”6 In a
statement he delivered on the resumption of peace talks, Prime Minister Rabin affirmed an

important concession that his government made to the PLO’s demand that Israel commit itself

 

55 The Jerusalem Post, 2/5/1993.

56 The New York Times, 2/25/1993.

123

to refrain from deporting any Palestinians in the future.’7

The Israeli govemment’s efforts to find a passageway out of the stalemate caused by
the deportees crisis involved a further dynamic linkage between the domestic politics and the
negotiating table. On March 11, 1993 the Knesset defeated, 23 to 22, a bill initiated by
Binyamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party, designed to temporarily suspend the rights of
Palestinian deportees to petition the High Court of Justice before being evicted from the
Occupied Territories. The narrow defeat was achieved in the last moment when the Labor
Members of the Knesset rushed to the Plenary Hall in order to swing the vote against the
proposal. The proposed bill attempted to facilitate the expedited deportation of Palestinians
from the territories by eschewing the right of deportees to petition the High Court of Justice,
a right that was granted to them after the 1967 Six Day War. Had the proposal been allowed
to graduate into a binding law, it would have made the government’s decision to deport the
415 Palestinians—which was carried out in full denial of their legal prerogatives to petition--
legal. In fact, Netanyahu defended his proposed bill by referring to the legal difficulties which
the government encountered when it tried to evade the law. He said that because the law
permitted the 415 deportees to petition the High Court of Justice, the government was found
at fault and the deportees, therefore, had the right to return back to their homes within a year.
Because of their fierce opposition to the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Netanyahu’s
Likud party did not want to see the crisis of the deportees unravel successfully and wanted

instead to see the peace process collapse because of it.58 Rabin’s Labor party, on the other

 

57 Journal of Palestine Studies, 4/21/1993.

’3 The Jerusalem Post, 3/12/1993.

124

hand, preferred to acknowledge the fact that the forceful eviction of the 415 Palestinians was
not administered with due respect to the legal process in order to secure a resolution to the
impasse caused by the crisis. By defeating the bill the government seemed to have valued the
resumption of the diplomatic talks with the PLO more highly than avoiding the
embarrassment of accepting the accusation that the deportation decision was handled in a
manner that infiinged upon the deportees right to petition. By relinquishing their initial
unyielding positions, and by moving toward exchanging offers and counter-offers that
contemplated the crisis in a more engaging manner, both the Israeli government and the PLO
leadership actually implemented actions that amounted to restructuring their policies with
respect to the deportation issue. The effect of such restructuring had been to simultaneously
reinvigorate the momentum for the peace process to an extent suflicient to make it bearable
for the Palestinian delegation to resume meeting with its Israeli counterpart at the negotiating
table.

Both the Israeli proposal and the Palestinian counter pr0posal failed to resolve the
deportation crisis altogether. The resolution was barely adequate to allay the opposition to
the resumption of the diplomatic talks which remained strong among the Palestinian
rejectionist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad as well as the communist People’s Party.
Defending the PLO’s decision to resume talks with Israel, Faisal al-Husseini, the Coordinator
of the Palestinian Bilateral and Multilateral Teams, told around 300 Palestinian demonstrators
and the wives of some of the deportees that “this is not a battle for liberating Palestine . . . We
are trying to reach a political solution, not an ideological one.” The political support among
the Palestinian groups for resuming the talks was the narrowest possible as, in addition to

Hamas, ten delegates out of the 22 that comprised the PLO opposed the decision to return

125

to Washington.” These ten rejectionist PLO factions issued a statement condemning the
resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy and called for a strike.‘50 When the PLO
made the decision to resume the diplomatic talks, Hamas became so frustrated that it issued
a death threat against the Palestinian delegation, the first such escalation in PLO-Hamas
relations since the peace process began in 1991. The death threat was delivered to the wife
of the Deputy Head of the negotiating team, Sa’eb Erekat, in an attack on their residence at
Jericho, in the West Bank.“

To summarize, the diplomatic negotiations between the Israeli government and the
PLO went through a four-month hiatus because of the devastating ramifications the deportees
crisis had inflicted on the Palestinians’ psyche in general and Chairman Arafat’s conciliatory
course in particular. Overcoming the crisis and salvaging the diplomatic negotiations was
facilitated by linkages between both the Israeli and Palestinian domestic politics on the one
hand and the intermtional negotiating table on the other. Both the PLO and the Israeli
government preferred to resume the negotiations and, therefore, restructured their policies
with respect the deportees issue accordingly. But it was primarily the United States’ concern
over averting the repercussions of vetoing a UNSC resolution on the peace process--a
resolution that would have imposed sanctions on Israel for its failure to comply with
Resolution 799—that served as a catalyst which facilitated the movement toward resolving the

crisis. In addition, the Labor Party thwarted the Likud’s abortive efforts in the Knesset by

 

59 The Jerusalem Post, 4/25/1993.

6" al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio, April 25, 1993, in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXII, No. 4,
Summer 1993.

6‘ The Times, London, 4/20/1993.

126

defeating a bill designed to obstruct the readmission of the deportees. The effect of the
restructuring had been to facilitate a compromise resolution of the deportees issue to the

benefit of convincing the Palestinian delegation to return to the negotiating table.

The Case of the Hebron Massacre

In this case, the Palestinian domestic win-set pertained to salvaging the international
negotiation table in the aftermath of the devastating effects of the Hebron massacre on both
the Palestinian psyche and Chairman Arafat’s political status. By strategically implementing
certain restructuring measures in the Israeli domestic politics and the Occupied Territories,
Prime Minister Rabin significantly revived Chairman Arafat’s political status among the
Palestinian constituents and, consequently, the peace diplomacy. However, by utilizing the
Jewish settlers’ staunch opposition to the notion of dismantling their settlements in Hebron,
Rabin successfirlly used the tied-hand technique to convince Arafat that any direct attack on
settlers’ presence there would greatly harm the negotiation table.

Although violence in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is epidemic, within
the peace process certain acts of violence take on added facets of danger. One such action
was the massacre perpetrated by Dr. Baruch Goldstein, follower of anti-Arab Meir Kahane,
of 29 Palestinian Muslims on the holiest day in the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, while
performing the holiest religious duty in the Islamic faith. The massacre of those worshipers
by the Brooklyn-bom Jewish settler of Kiryat Arba on Friday in the month of Ramadan while
performing the dawn prayer in a mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs (also known as al-
Haram al-Ibrahimi in Arabic) in Hebron dealt a major setback to the peace negotiations

between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Palestinians’ familiarity with the culture and

127

substance of the protracted conflict made the killings appear as a validation of what many
rejectionist forces among themselves believed was true about the improbability of peacefirlly
resolving their dispute with the Israelis. The impact of the incidence was so profound that
it caused Arab and Muslim people to question the very wisdom of negotiating peacefirl
settlements with the Israeli government.

The essence of the shock caused by the massacre was simultaneously human and
religious. The loss of so many civilians in a killing rampage endangered the already vulnerable
peace discourse by exposing it to the most flagrant expression of Orthodox Jews’ contempt
toward Palestinian Arabs. Although the massacre left many Israelis crestfallen, remorseful,
and scared,62 many Jewish settlers rejoiced over Goldstein’s assault and considered his action
heroic, thus further exacerbating the psychological crevasse that separated the two peoples.‘53
A poll conducted by Teleseker and sponsored by the International Center for Peace in the
Middle East found that 3.6 percent of Israelis praised Goldstein for his action, 51.7 percent
strongly condemned him, 27.1 percent condemned him, and 6.8 percent expressed no
opinion.“ Moreover, schoolchildren in Kiryat Arba sang a new national hymn which read
“The holy doctor is a saint in his heart, humble in his ways, generous in his acts and holy in
his death.”65 Even a year later, hundreds of settlers from Kiryat Arba, under the leadership

of the Head of Kach (which means “thus” or “this is the way” in Hebrew), Baruch Marzel,

 

62 The New York Times, 2/27/1994.
63 The New York Times, 3/28/1994.
6“ The Jerusalem Post, 3/1/1994.

65 The Sunday Times, London, 3/6/1994.

128

celebrated the massacre and praised Baruch Goldstein.“5 In addition, the fact that the assailant
chose a timing of profound religious underpinnings to commit his offensive caused the
massacre to be interpreted by Palestinians as an outright sacrilege. The attack brought to the
forefront the human and religious connotations of the structural conflict and was considered
by the Palestinians as the apotheosis of the animosity between themselves and the Israelis.

In addition to the 29 civilians immediately killed during the massacre, six more
Palestinians were killed and hundreds were wounded during clashes between angry Arab
protesters and the Israeli Defense Forces, thus making the day of the massacre the bloodiest
single day in the Occupied Territories since the 1967 War.‘57 In only three days of Palestinian
rioting after the massacre, 65 died and 360 were wounded.68

The massacre episode constituted a genuine crisis in the course of the peace process
and the negotiating table was impacted by the damaging implications it created. The PLO
leadership’s peacefirl discourse with Israel was blazed by Palestinians’ rage in the aftermath
of the massacre, and Chairman Yasir Arafat’s status was especially weakened in relation with
the forces which had been steadfastly challenging or doubting any peaceful outcome of the
diplomatic talks. Because of the religious dimension of the massacre, Chairman Arafat’s
standing among his fellow Palestinians was so expressively shaken that he was called “the
enemy of God” by demonstrators who demurred the peace negotiations with Israel.69 The

Chairman’s personal safety was threatened as many Palestinians called upon him to commit

 

66 Palestine Report, 2/20/1995.
‘7 Mideast Mirror, London, 2/25/1994.
68 Washington Post, 2/28/1994.

69 The New York Times, 2/27/1994.

129

suicide and some groups threatened to kill him. Nor was his status spared from the wrath of
other PLO’s Fatah omcials. “It is hard to imagine how Arafat could ever again shake the
hand of (Yitzhak) Rabin which is now covered in so much of our people’s innocent blood,”
commented one PLO omcial.70 Peace process momentum plummeted and the Palestinian
negotiators practically terminated their participation in the diplomatic talks with Israel, as did
the Jordanian, Syrian, and Lebanese governments.

In general terms, because of the shocking magnitude of the Hebron massacre, Israel’s
human-rights lapses and the issue of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories were
brought under increased criticism. The Israeli government launched investigations into the
massacre and entrusted a special commission of inquiry with reporting back on the
circumstances which contributed to the failure of security forces to prevent it. The
revelations proved to be equally shocking. Commander of Israeli Border Police in Hebron
told the commission that, according to regulations, it was forbidden to fire on settlers, even
when they were firing on Palestinians.71 Israeli Defense Forces Brigadier General Moshe
Yaalon also informed the commission that the use of live ammunition against settlers was
absolutely prohibited.72 Prime Minister Rabin conveyed, to his cabinet, his concerns over
what he described as the “incalculable” damage the findings of the commission of inquiry had
caused to Israel’s reputation. In addition, Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem charged that

the IDF, Police, and courts had failed to enforce the law on crimes committed by settlers

 

7° The Times, London, 2/26/1994.
7‘ Mideast Mirror, London, 3/10/1994.

72 The New York Times, 3/22/1994.

130

against the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In the report that it released, B’Tselem
pointed out that 62 Palestinians were killed by settlers between 1988 and 1993, but only one
settler was actually convicted of murder. The IDF did not dispute the report.73

The Hebron massacre was a violent expression of the treacherously weak balance
between three different parties in the Occupied Territories: the Palestinians, the army, and the
Jewish settlers. In fact, periodic assessments by the IDF and the General Security Service
recommended that security operatives not consider Jewish zealots and messianic individuals
in the territories as simply insane or deranged, but to take into account the cultural and
political contexts which produce their interpretations of what was politically permissible.
Those assessments had been warning that because of the political uncertainty which
characterized the firture of the settlements in view of peace negotiations, and because of the
uncompromising ideological beliefs and objectives of hundreds of settlers, politically
distressed zealots were increasingly perceiving themselves as being delegitimized by the rest
of the Israeli society." The fact that the massacre became part of the bitter reality in Hebron,
however, was indicative of the government’s failure to pay due respect to what the Israeli
preventive intelligence had long warned about.

Attempts to resolve the crisis caused by the Hebron massacre involved endeavors of
varying degrees of success to establish linkages between certain domestic politics aspects and
the international negotiating table. Those linkages were especially important in view of the

pressing need to revive Chairman Arafat’s status among his fellow Palestinians--a need which

 

’3 The New York Times, 3/15/1994.

74 The Jerusalem Post, 2/27/ 1994.

131
the Clinton Administration stressed when it called upon the Rabin Government to provide the
Palestinian leader with some visible concessions which he could present to the Palestinian

masses in order to bolster his political stature.75
The massacre had an immediate effect on Arafat’s political status by demonstrating
to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories that, despite the peace negotiations with Israel,
he still could not ensure their personal safety against the threats which the settlers leveled at
them. Therefore, the disparity between the settlers and the Palestinians in the territories
prompted Arafat to demand that Israel make concessions with respect to the issue of
settlements before agreeing to resume the peace talks. Foremost among those demands was
the presence of international forces in order to provide protection for the Palestinians in the
territories, restricting settlers from Palestinian cities and population centers, dismantling some
settlements, as well as measures to disarm the settlers and restrain them. According to the
reasoning provided by PLO Official in Tunis Yasir Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian leadership is
“not trying to freeze the peace talks . . . We are looking for their resumption. But we have
our own public opinion, which demands a minimum for the security of Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories?“
In response to Palestinian leadership’s pressure for Israeli actions to quell Arab anger
and strengthen Arafat’s political standing, the Israeli government pledged to crack down on

Jewish settlers deemed dangerous and the Cabinet followed suite by ordering some settlers

disarmed. In addition, orders for immediate ‘administrative detention’ of five members or

 

’5 The Jerusalem Post, 3/1/1994.

76 Ibid.

132

sympathizers of the Kach and Kahane Chai (Kahane Lives in Hebrew) movements were
issued.” Also, in an attempt to provide firrther assurances to the Palestinians by distancing
himself fi'om Jewish extremism, Prime Minister Rabin relentlessly castigated extremist settlers
in a speech he delivered to the Knesset saying:

Today I stand before you , members of Knesset, and before the citizens of the

State of Israel—and in front of the entire world--and as a Jew, as an Israeli, as

a man and as a human being, I am ashamed over the disgrace imposed upon

us by a degenerate murderer. . . You are not part of the community of Israel.

You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in

this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the

Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed.

Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish

law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.78

The Israeli Cabinet also attempted to attract the PLO back to the negotiating table by
releasing Palestinian security prisoners on three difl‘erent occasions: on February 27 about
1,000 prisoners were released; on March 1 another 500 were released; and on March 3
another 400 were released. Those freed were all afiiliated with PLO factions which supported
the peace process.” The measures, however, were perceived by the Palestinian leaders in the
territories as suflicient neither to allay the anger caused by the Hebron massacre, nor bring
the PLO back to the diplomatic peace talks. PLO Executive Committee member Samir

Ghawsha called the gestures a “cosmetic surgery,” and negotiator Ghassan al-Khatib

dismissed them as a “cosmetic measure.”

 

’7 The New York Times, 2/28/1994.
7" Mideast Mirror, London, 2/28/1994.

79 The Jerusalem Post, 3/2/1994.

133

Responding to the Israeli government’s decision to disarm some extremist Jewish
settlers after the massacre, prominent Palestinian leader Faisal al-Husseini underscored the
PLO’s assessment of the dangerous balance in the territories by saying that the Israeli
conciliatory measures were inadequate. Speaking at an Eastern Jerusalem press conference,
he also warned that the PLO leaders would call on Palestinians to take up arms if the Israeli
government did not effectively disarm the settlers. “If the settlers need guns because they
don’t trust the army to protect them,” al-Husseini reasoned, “then you can’t expect the
Palestinians to accept being protected by the army.” Husseini also established a link between
the requirement that the Israeli government redefine who was considered extremists and the
PLO’s decision to return to the negotiating table. Largely hinting at the settlers’ excesses
against the Palestinians in the territories, he said that “before returning to the peace
negotiations, the Palestinians now want to see what criteria the Israelis set in determining who
is an extremist and should be dismissed.” As regards the issue of the settlements in general,
al-Husseini stated, “What happened in Hebron proved that there is no way to have peace and
settlements together . . . It’s either peace or settlements.”80

The Israeli government’s concessions, however, stopped short of accepting the major
demands advanced by the PLO, including the disarming of all settlers, the dismantling of
militant Jewish settlements in Hebron, and permitting international forces to protect the

Palestinians in the territories.81 From the Palestinians’ perspective, therefore, the concessions

made by the Rabin Government neither comforted their popular human grief nor satisfied their

 

80 The Jerusalem Post, 2/28/1994.

81 The Times, London, 3/3/1994.

134

political leadership’s expectations of Israeli compromises sufficient to bring them back to the
negotiating table. The concessions, nonetheless, were not actually as trivial as the Palestinians
considered them, primarily because they were central to the rivalry between Israeli hawks and
doves. As former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon (Likud) stated three days after the massacre,
“the tragedy at Hebron must not influence Israel’s ability to stand firm . . . Even though the
killing in the Cave of the Patriarchs is a mortal shame for the man who did it and the few who
support such a deed, the Government must not feel obligated in any way to make firrther
concessions.” Right-wing Tsomet Party even took issue with the Rabin Government’s
decision to free Palestinian prisoners as a measure designed to convince the PLO to return
to the peace negotiations."2 The opposition of the Likud and other right—wingers to providing
concessions to the Palestinians notwithstanding, the Rabin Government was required by the
Palestinians to provide even more concessions in order for the peace process to be salvaged
from the massacre crisis.

Major strides toward resolving the impasse caused by the Hebron massacre were
achieved when the Israeli government restructured important aspects of domestic politics in
Israel proper and the Occupied Territories. The proposition of evacuating militant settlers
from Hebron received increased support from Israeli ministers on both the left and the center
at a weekly Cabinet meeting, a development which represented a significant, albeit still
premature, departure from the kind of thinking that prevailed immediately before the
massacre. Explaining why they thought that Jewish settlers should be evacuated from

Hebron, Housing Minister and former West Bank Army Commander Binyamin Ben-Eliezer

 

‘2 The New York Times, 3/3/1994.

135

said, “so long as they are still there, I believe the thing itself creates friction and draws fire.”
Also, the Minister of Immigrant Absorption Yair Tzaban stated, “To guard the settlers in the
midst of the Palestinian population in Hebron, we need to put many forces there.”83

Although the final decision to actually evacuate the settlements rested with Prime
Minister Rabin, who himself appeared to oppose the idea of inrplementing such a major
concession on a highly divisive issue between Israeli hawks and doves, the very notion of
elevating the issue to the level of a cabinet debate must have demonstrated to the PLO how
serious the Israeli government was about resuming peace diplomacy. The fact that evacuating
the settlements represented a potentially explosive concession that could profoundly anger
Israeli right-wingers and, consequently, derail the peace process, however, availed Rabin with
the opportunity to convincingly appear to Chairman Arafat that his hands were tied down.
Tied-hands technique was especially serviceable to Rabin’s desire to, first, not upset militant
settlers in Hebron and, second, not to allow the issue of settlements in general to be
negotiated during the Interim Self-Govemment stage of the peace process. Rabin calculated
that yielding to the PLO on the settlements in Hebron could incite the Palestinians’ appetite
for similar Israeli concessions on other Jewish settlements. The fact that by signing the Oslo
One Agreement in September 1993 (in which the future of the settlements was relegated to
the final-status phase of the negotiations) Arafat had been unexpectedly cooperative with
respect to the Israeli Prime Minister’s tied-hands claims on the issue of Jewish settlements

must have encouraged Rabin to believe that similar cooperation could again reasonably be

expected from Arafat on the settlements in Hebron six months later. In short, debating the

 

‘3 The New York Times, 3/7/1994.

136

fixture of the settlements at a cabinet-level meeting was an occasion to demonstrate to Arafat
that although the Israeli government was sensitive to the PLO’s concerns over the safety of
the Palestinians, the Prime Minister could not go as far as evacuating militant settlers because
their expected violent response could explode the peace process. Partly because of its
weakness in relation to Israel, and partly because of its desire not to jeopardize Rabin’s
political standing in view of settlers’ militancy, the PLO recoiled from insisting on the
evacuation of settlements as a prerequisite for resuming peace diplomacy.

Prime Minister Rabin, nonetheless, still needed to make tangible concessions to the
PLO in order to encourage it to return to the negotiating table. Therefore, meeting Arafat’s
demands for providing greater security to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories
appeared of utmost priority to the Israeli government. In order for him to be able to satisfy
Arafat’s demands, however, Rabin had to implement an important restructuring in the Israeli
domestic politics.

The government which Prime Minister Rabin was leading was a product of aminority
coalition in which he was assured of 44 Labor MKS and 12 leftist Meretz MKS, giving him
a total of only 56 out of the 120 MKS in the Knesset, in addition to five Arab party MKS who
supported the government from outside the coalition. Rabin expressed the difficulty which
the narrowness of the base of his government had been causing to his ability to deal with
intricate decisions on the peace talks with the Palestinians. Rabin complained to a Labor
Ministerial Caucus by asking “How can a minority government, with only 56 MKS, continue
to make all those diflicult and fateful decisions on the peace process? How can we deal with

the extremist fiinges among the settlers when we must look over our shoulders during every

137

Knesset vote and make sure that we have an ad hoc majority? How can we go on this way?”’"

In order to correct that troublesome Situation, Rabin considered inviting two right-
wing religious parties, Tsomet and the Orthodox Shas, to join the coalition he was leading.
Junior partner Meretz Party, however, vehemently rejected the participation of the Tsomet
Party into the coalition and the Meretz Knesset faction vetoed making any deal with Tsomet
and stated that “Meretz supports the coalition’s expansion, especially the return of Shas. But
the entry of Tsomet at this juncture is undesirable and should be vigorously opposed, as it
would constitute a negative message to the Palestinians, to Israeli Arabs, and to the successful
continuation of the peace process.”85 In fact, Meretz opposed the participation of Tsomet
because the latter demanded that the government strengthen the Jewish settlements as a
condition for joining the coalition. Meretz and segments of Labor also opposed the notion
of giving Tsomet any say in the government, fearing that the mere mention of Tsomet’s
Rafael Eitan--a former Chief of Staff implicated into the Sabra and Shatila massacre during
the Israeli invasion of Lebanon--would torpedo the peace process. Rabin, however,
calculated that bringing Tsomet into his government and securing its support for any peace
deal with the PLO would signify the “disintegration of the right”“ and remove major
obstacles from the road to peace. But Rabin finally acquiesced to Meretz’s opposition to the
inclusion of Tsomet and finalized a deal with Shas, thus reaffirming the Labor’s partnership

with Meretz while expanding the base of the coalition rightward. By joining the coalition,

 

8“ The Jerusalem Post, 3/4/1994.
8’ Ibid.

‘6 Ibid.

138

Shas received promises from Rabin not to dismantle Jewish settlements before their status is
determined through a national referendum, thus enabling Rabin to further bolster the
appearance that his hands were tied down on the settlement issue.87

After expanding the base of the governing coalition, the Cabinet of Prime Minister
Rabin implemented a more resolute restructuring against militant settlers in the Occupied
Territories by unanimously approving to outlaw two radical Jewish groups, Kach and Kahane
Chai, thus making it illegal for individuals to belong to these Arab—hating forces and a crime
to give financial or verbal support to them. In making its decision, the Cabinet relied on
antiterrorist laws which, until the Hebron massacre, had been applied against Palestinians and
not Jews. Commenting on the urgency of the step, Environment Minister Yossi Sarid said,
“only a few years ago, I thought that maybe it would not be necessary to outlaw Kach,
because Israeli democracy should make the efl‘ort to let that despicable thing called Kach stay
alive. I was wrong, as were others. Now it may be late, but not too late.”88

The PLO welcomed the decision to outlaw the two extremist groups as a positive
step, but insisted on extracting Israeli concessions on allowing international forces to protect
the Palestinians in the territories. Marwan Kanafani, Senior Aid to Chairman Arafat,
commented that “Yasir Arafat cannot resume talks without the tangible, concrete measures
we are asking for. Any attempt to push him into doing so places the credibility of the peace

process on the line with our people in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere.”89

 

‘7 The Jerusalem Post, 3/11/1994.
88 The New York Times, 3/14/1994.

“9 The New York Times, 3/18/1994.

139

In a difficult concession which represented a major restructuring in Israel’s policy of
refusing the presence of foreign forces in the Occupied Territories, the Rabin Government
agrwd to permit 160 lightly-armed observers (35 observers from Denmark, 35 from Italy, and
90 from Norway) to deploy in Hebron and report to a joint Palestinian-Israeli commander.
According to the agreement reached between the two parties, the international force was
vested with the responsibility of promoting stability in Hebron and ensuring the safety of the
Palestinians,” thus satisfying a major precondition which the PLO had set for the resumption
of the peace talks. The magnitude of the Israeli concession to the PLO’s demand on the
deployment of foreign forces, as well as the significance of the restructuring it implemented
with this respect, should become evident by the fact that Israel had been continually opposing
the internationalization of the issue of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since
these territories became under her control in the aftermath of the 1967 War. Even when the
peace process was initiated after the Gulf War, Israel forcefirlly resisted placing the
negotiations within the framework of the United Nations, or under any other international
umbrella, and insisted instead that her dispute with the Palestinians be directly addressed with
the occupied people. Therefore, the concession to allow foreign forces to patrol Hebron was
an occasion for the Likud to attack the Labor coalition government. Former Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir (Likud), for example, commented that “the whole world knows that
international observers mock a country’s independence and sovereignty,” and former Defense
Minister, Ariel Sharon (Likud), said that the agreement to permit foreign forces in Hebron

“created a precedent for international presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and, mainly,

 

9° Mideast Mirror, London, 3/31/1994.

140

Jerusalem . . . This will worsen the security situation and will undermine our grip on
Jerusalem and our ability to hold other places.” Rabin’s response to those criticisms was that
the presence of international forces was an “exceptional case” to which Israel had to agree
only because of the massacre in Hebron.91

Finally, a more complete analysis of the manner in which the crisis of the Hebron
massacre unraveled requires mentioning the interactions between the United States, the PLO,
and the United Nations during the course of the episode. The PLO pressed for a United
Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Hebron massacre of Palestinian Muslims,
but the United States, with Israeli advocacy, initially resisted such efforts by threatening to
veto the resolution. AS PLO Executive Commander member Samir Ghawsha stated,
Chairman Arafat, however, insisted on making the decision to resume peace diplomacy with
Israel contingent upon the adoption of such a resolution.92 The United States and the PLO
reached a standoff because of the refirsal of the latter to yield to the Clinton Administration’s
demand that Chairman Arafat agree to resume negotiations with Israel before the adoption
of the resolution. The deadlock was also caused by the United States’ objection to the
wording of the proposed resolution which referred to Jerusalem as part of the Occupied
Territories, and not part of Israel proper.93 Eventually, however, the United States cleared
the way for Security Council Resolution 904 deploring the Hebron massacre by voting for it

and abstaining from voting on paragraphs referring to Jenrsalem as an occupied territory. The

 

9‘ The New York Times, 4/1/1994.
92 Mideast Mirror, London, 3/17/1994.

93 The New York Times, 3/11/1994.

141

US. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeline Albright commented that her country
allowed the passage of the resolution “with great reluctance,” but was encouraged by its
importance for restarting the peace process. Although the PLO stopped short of explicitly
promising to immediately return to the negotiating table, it nonetheless praised the
condemnation resolution.”

To summarize, therefore, the successful resolution of the Hebron massacre was
primarily attributable to the linkages between the domestic politics and the international
negotiating table which Chairman Arafat resolutely insisted on establishing and Prime Minister
Rabin, in view of his concerns over preserving the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy, had
no choice but to implement. By bringing the structural underpinnings of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict to the forefi'ont, the massacre caused the popularity of the notion of peacefirlly
resolving the outstanding dispute to dwindle among the Palestinian masses and political
forces, thus enabling Arafat to translate his weakened political standing into greater ability to
extract major concessions from the Israeli government. More specifically, revoking the
licences to possess weapons from Jewish settlers deemed dangerous, releasing large numbers
of Palestinian security prisoners, inviting the Orthodox Shas party to join the governing
coalition, outlawing two extremist Jewish groups, and taking the unprecedented step of
accepting the presence of foreign forces in Hebron in order to protect the Palestinians were
major manifestations of the restructuring measures which the Rabin Cabinet implemented in

order to secure the PLO’s agreement to return to the negotiating table.

 

9‘ The New York Times, 3/19/1994.

142

Preempting the F inal Status of Jerusalem:
The case of land-confiscation plan in East Jerusalem

In this case, the Palestinian domestic win-set pertained to salvaging the negotiation
table in the aftermath of the Israeli government’s decision to confiscate 134 acres of Arab
owned land in East Jerusalem. By threatening to curtail Chairman Arafat’s ability to deliver
to his constituents on the Jerusalem front, the decision had the efl’ect of dangerously
weakening the Palestinian leader’s political Standing within his respective domestic politics.
Prime Minister Rabin showed no interest in directly protecting Arafat’s status and was so
determined to implement the confiscation decision, thus threatening the peace process. The
negotiation table was saved when the Rabin Government implemented a restructuring
measure by freezing the confiscation decision. That move, however, resulted fiom the motion
of no-confidence which two Arab parties in the Knesset presented in a bid to prevent the
implementation of the confiscation decision and protect the peace process.

Israel captured and annexed East Jerusalem after the downfall of the city from
Jordan’s control in the aftermath of the 1967 War. Since then the Israeli government had
carried out property rights encroachments by continually confiscating Arab-owned land in
order to expand Jewish neighborhoods and strengthen her claim to the city. Although
Jerusalem technically had been excluded fiom the Interim Self-Govemment phase of the peace
negotiations, an understanding between the two parties relegated deliberating the status of
the disputed city to the final-status phase. The Palestinians, however, had been sensitively
cognizant of the Israeli government’s efforts to change the facts on the ground in Jerusalem

in a manner that prejudiced the outcome of any future negotiations in her favor.

143

The total population of Jerusalem is 405,000 Jews and 155,000 Palestinians. The
population in the eastern precincts of the city is 155,000 Palestinians and 160,000 Jews.
Jerusalem is considered a holy city by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. For Jews the holy sites
in Jerusalem are the Western or Wailing Wall, which is believed to be the last remnant of the '
Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and the holiest site of Judaism. The
Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem where Jesus Christ is believed to have been
crucified and buried has endeared the city to Christians. Muslims consider Jerusalem the third
holiest shrine after Mecca and Medina. Al—Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock where
Prophet Mohammad is believed to have been ascended to heaven are considered Islamic holy
sites.

Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis could afford a zero-sum resolution with regard
to the disputed city. Still, the rhetoric employed by both parties has been indicative of the
maximalist stances which they espouse with regard to the preferred final status of the city and,
therefore, the issue of Jerusalem has had the potential of becoming the obstacle on which the
whole peace process may devastatingly stumble. Certain developments which amounted to
preempting the firture of Jerusalem, however, caused the problematic complexity of the fate
of the holy city to threaten the peace process during the self-rule phase of the negotiations.
More specifically, the Rabin Govemment’s decision to confiscate 134 acres of Arab-owned
.land in April 1995, the largest single confiscation in Jerusalem in 15 years,”5 and the
Republican Senate leadership’s proposal in the following month to transfer the American

embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem caused the question of the future of the disputed city to

 

95 Mideast Mirror, London, 4/28/1995.

144
disruptively dominate the international negotiating table.

Because the maple of Arab countries have spiritual affiliations with Jerusalem, Arab
leaders called for an extraordinary summit meeting to discuss the plan declared by the Israeli
government to confiscate 134 acres of Arab-owned land in East Jerusalem. The issue of the
confiscation plan also assumed an international status when it was voted in the United
NationS’s Security Council. A UN. resolution that would have asked Israel “to rescind the
expropriation decision and to refiain from such actions in the firture,” however, was aborted
by the Clinton Administration’s first veto, thus engendering the embitterrnent of the Arab
League. Madeleine K. Albright, the Chief United States Representative, said, in a statement
delivered to the Council:

This council is not able—and should not seek—to try to resolve sensitive issues

in the Middle East peace process . . . That is for the parties, who must live

with the outcome of those negotiations . . . The United States has expressed

the view that the Israeli notice to expropriate land in Jerusalem is unhelpful.

Clearly, this Israeli decision does not move the peace process in the right

direction. But by injecting the Council into this issue, this resolution would

merely compound the problem.96
Nonetheless, State Department Spokesman, Nicholas Burns, expressed the United States’
languid criticism of the land confiscation plan by stating, “It’s difficult to see how this type
of action, this land confiscation, can be helpfirl at this time in the negotiations.”97

Although the Israeli government had previously expropriated Arab-owned land in East

Jerusalem, the fact that the latter expropriation plan was announced while the diplomatic

negotiations were underway imparted unique implications to the matter. Responding to the

 

9" The New York Times, 5/18/1995.

97 The Jerusalem Post, 5/3/1995.

145

confiscation designs, Chairman Yasir Arafat impugned the Israeli government and declared
that “they [the Israelis] are daily breaching what had been agreed upon, and this confiscation
of land is one of those violations.”98 Arafat was troubled because the Israeli confiscation plan,
by depleting the Arab residents’ property rights, curtailed his ability to territorially deliver to
his constituents in Jerusalem during the final-status phase of the negotiations. He also was
troubled because the plan made him appear powerless and ineffective in front of Israel’s
failure to appreciate the perilous position in which he found himself within his own domestic
politics, as well as because of Rabin’s willingness to demonstrate his ability to act unilaterally
and irresponsibly on such a pivotal issue as Jerusalem.

Sa’eb Erekat, an official in charge of the local government in the Palestinian
Authority, condemned the confiscation plan saying, “This constitutes the highest form of
terrorism against the Palestinian people, which really threatens their existence.” Hamas also
issued a leaflet in which it demanded the PLO to withdraw from the peace talks. “This
Zionist crime represents one of the destructive and catastrophic results of the Oslo-Cairo
agreements . . . We hold the Palestinian Authority directly responsible for this crime and we
ask it to pull out immediately fi'om the negotiations with the Zionist enemy,” Hamas declared
in the leaflet.”

As The Jerusalem Post reported, the land confiscation plan was strongly attacked by
some members of the Israeli Cabinet itself in a meeting in which Prime Minister Rabin

declared his approval of the plan. Communication Minister, Shulamit Aloni of the Meretz

 

98 The New York Times, 4/28/1995.

99 The Jerusalem Post, 4/30/1995.

146

Party, presented Rabin with a query indicating that Meretz wanted the issue to be debated.
Aloni reportedly said that “The Meretz ministers have discussed the issue of land confiscation
in Jerusalem with the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, and we are at odds with them.
We were told that as soon as possible a general plan of construction for the Arab residents
of Jerusalem will be submitted to the cabinet.” Rabin answered Aloni by saying that he was
not in favor of mixing Arabs and Israelis in the same neighborhoods and, therefore, Jewish
neighborhoods had to be enlarged by further construction. Absorption Minister, Yair Tzaban,
disapprovingly intervened in the dialogue and reminded Rabin that most of the land was
expropriated from Palestinian residents. “Allow me to provide you with some facts and
figures . . . Of the 70,000 dunamswo [in what was Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem], Israel
expropriated 23,000. Some 85 percent were expropriated from Arabs and 15 percent fi'om
Jews. However, 35,000 apartments were built for Jews, not even one for Arabs. Whoever
thinks we can go on with this policy is making a grave mistake,” said Tzaban. Environment
Minister Yosi Sarid expressed his concerns over the political ramifications of the confiscation
decision by asking “How big a burden can we place on the Palestinian Authority? It also has
public opinion to reckon with.” But Rabin, as some Ministers reported, showed ambivalent
attitudes toward the notion of paying attention to Chairman Arafat’s status within Palestinian
public opinion and blasted Sarid by angrily emphasizing that “I’m asking the Palestinians to

fight terror. This has nothing to do with the public opinion.”101

 

‘00 One acre equals four dunams.

101 The Jerusalem Post, 5/1/1995.

147

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, who opposed the land confiscation
decision, announced that he was of the opinion that Israel should reexamine the decision in
order to avert dangerous complications in the peace process. “We have to reconsider this
issue. We are in a very sensitive situation, both with the Palestinians regarding an interim
agreement and in a struggle towards final-status negotiations, where we seek to maintain a
united Jerusalem under our sovereignty. This is more important to me than anything else,”
Beilin said in a television appearance on Israeli Channel 2.102 The opposition to the
confiscation decision notwithstanding, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres declared in an Army
Radio interview, that the cabinet would not rescind its confiscation designs and reasoned that
“It’s not so acceptable for a government to renege in the middle of a campaign and I don’t
think there is room to do so.”103

From Chairman Arafat’s standpoint, the crisis created by the Rabin Govemment’s
decision to confiscate Arab-owned land in East Jerusalem was a serious blow to his personal
status in relation to Arab public Opinion, in general, and Palestinian constituents, in particular.
Rabin jeopardized the international negotiating table by hurting Arafat’s domestic status
twice: first by announcing the confiscation plan and graduating it into a Cabinet decision and
second by refirsing Arafat’s appeals to rescind the decision. During that episode, Prime
Minister Rabin was completely adamant that his government should implement the

confiscation decision despite the strong opposition expressed by the Palestinian Authority and

prominent members in the Israeli Cabinet. Even Foreign Minister Peres’ reasoning that it was

 

“’2 The Jerusalem Post, 5/11/1995.

'03 The Jerusalem Post, 5/14/1995-

148

politically inappropriate for a government to rescind its decision in the middle of a policy
campaign might not have been totally convincing for Arafat and the Palestinian Authority,
mainly because only two days before Peres made his statement the Israeli government
announced that it had dropped plans to expropriate Vatican-owned land fiom the Cremisan
Monastery outside of Jerusalem--a plan which was to be carried out concurrently with that
of confiscating the Arab-owned land--largely in deference to protests from the Vatican.

The land confiscation decision survived Arab and European attacks, U.S. criticism,
as well as strong opposition from within the Israeli Cabinet, and was described by Prime
Minister Rabin as final, despite the fact that it weakened Arafat’s status and placed the peace
process in a perilous position. Speaking in the Knesset Plenum, Rabin reportedly described
the opposition to the confiscation decision as “much ado about nothing.”‘°" From the Prime
Minister’s perspective, the confiscation decision amounted to little more than the prerogative
of his coalition to conduct the usual business of governance, which he believed was a
legitimately integral part of Israeli sovereignty over its territory, including Jerusalem. Rabin
seemed to have refirsed to establish any linkage between the consequences of the land
confiscation decision and concerns over the preservation of the international negotiating table
at which the Israeli delegation had been meeting with its Palestinian counterpart.

The Rabin Government, however, unexpectedly suspended the land seizure decision
and the threat to the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy was averted. The sudden reversal
of the government’s position was announced only minutes before a parliamentary vote of no-

confidence which threatened to topple the Labor-led coalition. The resolution of the land

 

10" The Jerusalem Post, 5/16/1995.

149

confiscation crisis, therefore, cannot be directly attributed to the Prime Minister’s willingness
to salvage the peace process by sparing Chairman Arafat firrther damage to his status among
the Palestinian constituents. The unraveling of the crisis, nonetheless, involved portentous
linkages between Israeli domestic politics and the international negotiating table.

The no-confidence motions were submitted by two Arab parties in the Knesset, the
Democratic Arab Party (DAP) and Hadash, whose support was crucial to the survival of the
parliamentary coalition that Prime Minister Rabin was leading. The motions specifically asked
the government to either rescind or freeze its decision to confiscate the 134 acres owned by
J erusalemite Arabs. Understandably, Rabin was alarmed by the motions and, therefore, tried
to talk DAP and Hadash out of it. MK Taleb A-Sanaa turned down Rabin’s request to
abandon the motion and reasoned that DAP would pursue the no-confidence motion “if the
government contimres making decisions which harm the peace process and/or does not meet
its obligations towards the Arab sector.” Adding that his party might even withdraw fiom the
governing coalition, A-Sanaa maintained that “we are not captives of this government and our
support of it was never unconditional.”105

Although leaders of the Opposition factions in the Knesset who supported the
confiscation plan disagreed with the substance of the motions of no-confidence submitted by
DAP and Hadash, they nonetheless expressed their position which held that they would
support the motions if they appeared to have a chance of passing. “Our aim is to topple the

government. If there is a chance of this, we won’t check the reason for the motion too

 

‘05 The Jerusalem Post, 5/22/1995.

150

carefirlly,” Likud faction Chairman Moshe Katsav commented. "’6

Likud and religious factions in the Knesset strongly supported Rabin’s land
confiscation decision because they believed it represented an additional welcomed measure
toward consolidating the Jewish character of Jerusalem. In fact, Likud even wanted Rabin
to confiscate greater land from Jerusalernite Arabs and Netanyahu declared, on the day on
which voting on the no—confidence motions was scheduled, that his faction would refrain from
supporting the motions if Rabin would “publicly state that the government would continue
with the expropriation of the 500 dunams and their development, continue carrying out
expropriations and support opposition bills strengthening the status of Jerusalem and closing
the Orient House.”‘°7 The no-confidence motions submitted by Arab MKS, nonetheless,
presented Likud and religious MKS with an even more appealing consequence-i.e., the defeat
and eventual ouster of the Rabin governing coalition. So, although they detested the notion
of Rabin’s rescinding the confiscation decision, they announced that they preferred to support
the motions because they calculated that the payoff was the destruction of the peace talks
with the Palestinians. In the context of Israeli domestic politics, for Hawkish Opposition MKS
to align with anti-Zionist Arab MKS was something of a parliamentary stigma; but that was
a small price to pay compared with the highly prized outcome of deposing the Rabin’s
coalition and terminating the conciliatory concessions he offered to the Palestinians through

what they thought was a highly permissive and liberal peace diplomacy.

 

“’6 lbid.

“’7 The Jerusalem Post, 5/23/1995.

151

Ironically, Chairman Arafat asked the Democratic Arab Party to withdraw the no-
confidence motion, primarily out of concern that deposing the Labor-led government would
almost certainly explode the peace diplomacy with Israel. DAP leader Abdul Wahab
Darawshe disclosed that Arafat’s Bureau Chief, Rarnzi khouri, had asked, in a telephone call,
that the DAP drop the motion in order to avoid its serious repercussions on the peace
process. Darawshe’s response, however, was that “if we decide to drop it, it will be for
internal party considerations . . . The same way as we did not consult with Arafat before
presenting the motion, we will not, with all due respect to him, drop it just because of
Arafat’s wishes.”‘°’ Arafat’s intervention with the DAP represented an attempt to directly
influence Israeli domestic politics with the purpose of securing the very status of Rabin as
head of the coalition government. Although he strongly supported the substance of the
motions, he was understandably worried that the peace process would irreparably sufl‘er if the
government disintegrated over the no-confidence motions and a Likud-led government was
instated. Arafat’s direct intervention indicated that he opted for the lesser of the two evils;
either bowing to the confiscation of Arab-owned land in Jerusalem or risking the Israeli-
Palestinian peace diplomacy.

On what Israeli Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer described as “a black day,”
the government announced the reversal of the expropriation decision in order to avoid the no-
confidence motions. As a result of the reversal decision, the problematic issue was
effectively dropped out of the political agenda and momentum for Israeli-Palestinian peace

diplomacy was restored. Likud MKS received most of the blame for freezing the

 

108 The Jerusalem Post, 5/18/1995.

152

expropriation of the 134 acres and the Haredi factions lost the estimated 1,000 housing units
which were to be constructed on the expropriated land. Rabin’s efforts to solidify the status
of Jerusalem as a united Jewish city was depicted by the government as had been victimized
by the Likud’s blind and parochial concern with toppling the government. “The battle was
not with those who brought this no-confidence motion,” Foreign Minister Peres stated, “The
battle was with . . . Likud, which decided that toppling the government was more important
than a united Jerusalem.” Embittered Rabin vented his accusation that the Likud was
responsible for his decision to suspend the land confiscation by charging that “We were
prepared to stand up against the whole world, the Arab League and the UN. Security Council
. . . The last thing we expected was that the Likud and the Opposition parties would harm the
decision over the development of Jerusalem.” Not to be overwhelmed by the accusations
leveled against his party by the Rabin Government, Netanyahu charged that “the government
had to decide between Jerusalem and Arafat and chose Arafat. The Prime Minister would
have won the full support of the Opposition had he promised to support the unity of
Jerusalem [and confiscated more than 134 acres]. Rabin easily gave in to every one of
Arafat’s dictates.”‘°9

Did Prime Minister Rabin actually choose to capitulate to Arafat’s influences as
Netanyahu had charged? Not quite so. Granted, the Arab factions in the Knesset achieved
an unprecedented victory by simultaneously forcing the government to fi'eeze the land
expropriation decision and, consequently, saving the peace process; but that victory was

neither the result of influences from Arafat’s Palestinian Authority nor Rabin’s concerns over

 

“’9 The Jerusalem Post, 5/23/1995.

153

saving the peace process. Blaming the Likud for declaring that it would side with the DAP
and Hadash MKs on the no-confidence motions is pointless, mainly because, theoretically
speaking, it is the firnction of opposition factions in parliamentary systems to unseat the
government of the day. Rabin could have spared his coalition the predicaments of that
episode had he simply shown sensitivity toward the negative repercussions of the land
confiscation decision on both Chairman Arafat and the international negotiating table. But
Rabin’s ambivalence, coupled with Likud’s active engagement in attempting to topple both
the government and the peace process, left Arab MKS with what they perceived as their
responsibility to establish and successfirlly pursue the linkage between Israeli domestic politics
and the international negotiating table. In the final analysis, although freezing the land
confiscation decision was a restructuring that Rabin involuntarily implemented in his
respective domestic politics in order to save his government from being brought down over
the motions of no-confidence, that restructuring also turned out to be instrumental to saving

the peace process.

Preempting the Final Status of Jerusalem:
The case of the US. embassy transfer from Tel A viv to Jerusalem

In this case, the domestic win-set pertained to saving the international negotiation
table by averting the potentially damaging consequences of the Republican Congressional
leadership’s proposal to transfer the US. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. By
threatening to foreclose the firture of the disputed city in Israel’s favor, the proposal
threatened to embarrassingly weaken Chairman Arafat’s political standing in relation to his

domestic constituents. Prime Minister Rabin understood the negative effects of the proposal

154

on the Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy and, therefore, resisted it. In this episode Rabin had been
sensitive to the importance of not weakening Arafat’s political status. By discouraging the
transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem, Rabin effectively shifted Israel’s national priority from
securing the US. recognition of the disputed city as the united capital of Israel to sparing the
peace process. He however needed to collaborate with President Clinton in order to make
his resistance to the passage of the proposal practical. By so doing, the President and
Congress reached a compromise deal on the issue which effectively contributed to the
resolution of the crisis.

In pursuit of its parochial political interests, the Republican Congressional leadership
proposed to move the US. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Senator Robert Dole first
announced the transfer legislation at an American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
conference on May 8, 1995.110 The proposed bill, which commanded considerable bipartisan
support in Congress, required that the United States begin the construction of the embassy
in Jerusalem by the end of 1996. The proposal, spearheaded by the Senate Majority Leader
Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, not only caused many Palestinian forces to question
the impartiality of the United States as a peace broker, but also jeopardized the peace process
in that it could easily be interpreted by the PLO as an indication of America’s support to
Israel’s claims to Jerusalem in its entirety. In addition, the Palestinians have wanted East
Jerusalem as the capital of the firture state which they aspire to declare after the final status

111

of the city is determined in May 1999, hopefully.

 

”0 Mideast Mirror, London, 5/10/1995-

‘“ The New York Times, 5/8/1995.

155

Chairman Yasir Arafat described the Republican Congressional leadership’s move as
“dangerous,” and Secretary of State Warren Christopher dismissed it as “ill-advised and
damaging to the success of the peace negotiations.”112 Arafat’s status amongst his critics and
opponents was weakened because the perception of his ability to deliver on the Jerusalem
front dwindled tremendously in view of the US. Senate’s move which had the potential of
foreclosing the future of the disputed city in Israel’s favor. In addition, his peacefirl course
was inflicted with the discrediting ramifications of the increasingly questionable role of the
United States as a trustworthy guarantor of the peace process.

Israel had been viewing Jerusalem as the united capital of the country and for decades
Israeli officials and pro-Israeli lobbyists in Washington of all political colorings had been
advocating the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. Theoretically,
therefore, the Rabin Government must have enthusiastically welcomed the transfer proposal
which amounted to the United States’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s united capital and,
consequently, her territorial claims to Jerusalem in its entirety, including the eastern portion.
The fact that the embassy transfer initiative was made while the diplomatic peace negotiations
were still underway, however, ascribed critically unorthodox implications to the issue. The
Republican leadership’s proposal immediately echoed in Israel’s domestic politics and stirred
a controversy dominated by concerns over the preservation of the peace process. Although
the debate reflected Israeli politicians’ continued interest in maintaining control over
Jerusalem as their united capital, proponents of the peace talks with the Palestinians were

especially sensitive to the potentially precarious position in which Israeli-Palestinian

 

”2 The New York Times, 5/18/1995.

156
diplomacy would be placed because of the timing of the Senate’s initiative. In fact, Israeli
politicians who desired to guard the peace process even ventured that Likud’s attempts to
sabotage the peace process eventuated in the embassy transfer bill.

The initial response of the Rabin Government to the embassy transfer proposal was
to disapprove of the timing of the move because of the threat it posed to the peace talks with
the Palestinians. Rabin commented on the Republicans’ proposal by maintaining that
Jerusalem was the capital of Israel and that “if other countries, including the US, have not
recognized it for the last 27--by now, almost 28--years, it’s their problem.”113 Also, during
his visit to Washington, Rabin emphasized that “the issue is unity of Jerusalem under Israeli
sovereignty, regardless of who recognizes it and who does not. I of course, encourage
everyone to move their own embassy, but this is not the issue.”1M

Rabin’s comments reflected a calculated attempt to discourage the transfer of the
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because he thought the timing of the move would not
be beneficial to the peace process. Granted, his government wanted to see the Americans
make the decision to transfer their embassy to Jerusalem during his premiership, but he,
nonetheless, understood the disruptive consequences of the move on the peace process, and
made his opposition to it public. AS one Israeli official traveling with Prime Minister Rabin’s
entourage to the United States hinted, moving the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem was not a top

Israeli priority. ‘ ‘5

 

“3 The Jerusalem Post, 5/ 7/1995.
1” The Jerusalem Post, 5/8/1995.

“5 The Jerusalem Post, 5/7/1995.

157

In a special recess session called by the Likud Party, Police Minister Moshe Shahal
defended Rabin’s cool response to the US. Congressional proposal by telling the Knesset
Plenum that “Israel does not need any other country to tell it where its capital is.” During the
same session the Rabin Govemment’s handling of the transfer proposal was attacked by Likud
MK Yehoshua Matza, who charged that:

For 47 years of Israeli independence, the US stood by its refusal to recognize

Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And now, as fate would have it, when at

long last nearly the entire top political echelon in the US . . . declares, ‘The

time has come,’ it encounters an Israeli government with shaking knees,

stammering with embarrassment, and saying: ‘It’s not the time.’116

Prime Minister Rabin’s lackadaisical response to the embassy transfer bill represented
an important restructuring that he implemented in Israeli domestic politics. That restructuring
was signified in resetting the country’s priorities with respect to the United States’
recognition of Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel. Rabin shifted Israel’s priority from
having the American embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem toward sparing the peace
process the disruptive effects of the move. Rabin performed the restructuring despite the
staunch opposition displayed by the Likud party against the way the Senate’s proposal was
received by his government, and despite the value Israel, in general, and the government, in
particular, attached to securing the status of Jerusalem as their united capital. In order for
that restructuring to become conceivably practical, however, Rabin needed to orchestrate his

actions with those of President Clinton, who was himself facing the domestic predicament of

the embassy transfer proposal.

 

”6 The Jerusalem Post, 5/10/1995.

158

The Clinton Administration was confi'onted by a situation in which it had to make a
strategic choice between either supporting the embassy transfer proposal, thus jeopardizing
the peace process, or vetoing it, thus damaging its own standing with Jews. The Clinton
Administration chose to save the peace process by opposing the embassy transfer bill and
expending efforts in order to fi'ustrate its passage. Director of the National Security Council
Anthony Lake prepared a briefing paper informing three Democrats in the Senate, Senator
Daniel Inouye, Senator Joseph Lieberman, and Senator Daniel Moynihan that:

the President’s views [on Jerusalem] are well known and have not changed.
However, we also have to weigh the impact our actions have on the peace
process . . . At this delicate time, what we do not need is to introduce an
issue so emotionally charged into the mix. However, if we can keep the party
focused on substance, and away from divisive issues, I am convinced-~and I
think they [the Republicans] are as well—that we can achieve real progress and
get to a real peace over time . . . My honest assessment is that bringing the
issue of Jerusalem to the fore, which this legislation would do, will have a
devastating impact on the peace process. It would lead to a breakdown in the
negotiations, and halfthe gains on normalization that Israel has been making
in the Arab world . . . We need your support to insure that we aren’t faced
with legislation on Jerusalem that undermines our efforts and fi'ankly, put us
out of business as a facilitator in moving the parties forward. I am, therefore,
asking that if you are asked to support or co-sponsor Senator Dole’s bill, that
you refrain from doing so.117

The White House was frustrated by Congress’ meddling in purely foreign policy issues
such as those of the transfer of the embassy and the peace process. Secretary of State Warren
Christopher even threatened to recommend to the President vetoing the transfer bill. “Few
actions would be more explosive and harmful to [safeguarding the negotiations] than for the
US, as the key sponsor of this process, to be pushing the Jerusalem issue forward . . . The

last thing we should want is for the US. at this very moment to put the focus back on

 

“7 The Jerusalem Post, 5/11/1995.

159

Jerusalem,” Christopher said in a letter he addressed to Senate Majority Leader Robert
Dole.118 The entanglements between the Administration’s concern over the firture of the
peace process and the electoral calculations of both Senator Dole and President Clinton were
compounded by Israeli hawks’ interest in derailing the peace process and the political
considerations of the 1996 Israeli General Elections. Reconciling electoral interests with
concerns over preserving the peace process was a rather difficult undertaking for both the
American President and the Israeli Premier. Neither of them could strike a balancing position
without help fi'om the other Chief of Government across the Atlantic. The complex
predicaments of the embassy transfer proposal that faced the Clinton Administration and the
Rabin Government, nonetheless, provided both COGS with the opportunity to collaborate in
order to achieve mutually desirable outcomes.

Because of the political calculations of the 1996 Israeli General Elections, Prime
Minister Rabin expressed a muted support to the transfer bill when Senator Dole directly
confronted him with the question whether he supported his Congressional proposal to move
the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A participant in the meeting between the two
dignitaries reported that Senator Dole asked the Israeli Premier whether he supported his bill
to require transferring the US. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem within the next four
years. Rabin replied “We welcome all embassies that move to Jerusalem.” It was only when
Senator Dole pressed firrther, “Does that include the American Embassy?” that Rabin
answered, “Yes.” Rabin’s shift away from discouraging the transfer bill and toward

expressing half-hearted support to it in his meeting with Senator Dole was a middle-ground

 

“8 The Jerusalem Post, 5/21/1995.

160

course that the former opted for in view of the escalation of Likud’s accusations that he was
yielding to the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem. A feature article authored by David
Makovsky and published in The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli Senior Official
commented on the shift by saying, “Once the Likud started exploiting this issue, the Prime
Minister had no choice but to change gears. From now on you will see more and more of our
policy decisions colored by our electoral considerations. It’s unfortunate, but true.””9

In addition to his desire to avoid the Likud’s electorally damaging accusations on the
Issue of Jerusalem, Makovsky provided another explanation to Rabin’s move toward
unenthusiastically supporting Dole’s bill. Rabin’s experience with the American political
system-~the cornerstone of which was serving as Ambassador to Washington from 1968 to
1973--had convinced him that it was the Executive Branch, not Congress, which mattered
most for Israel. Therefore, by expressing his muted support to Senator Dole’s embassy
transfer proposal, Rabin behaved that appeasing Congress’ leadership was inconsequential for
the actual firture transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem. He, instead, was cognizant of the
Executive’s position which continued to oppose the transfer proposal, and wanted to spare
the President a no-win situation in which he had to choose between jeopardizing either his
Presidential election interests or the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. By giving a
semblance of cool support to the transfer proposal, both Republicans and Democrats in
Congress would feel freer to support moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and the President

would avail himself of a greater maneuvering space by reducing his strong opposition to the

transfer proposal and, possibly, facilitating a compromise between the White House and

 

”9 The Jerusalem Post, 5/19/1995.

161

Congress.

Rabin’s hopeful expectations of a compromise between the Executive and the
Legislative Branches materialized when Congress overwhelmingly approved, 93 to 5 in the
Senate and 374 to 37 in the House, legislation to transfer the US. embassy to Jerusalem by
the year 1999 after adding a provision that would give the President the power to delay the
move indefinitely for national security reasons. The compromise also reflected Senator
Dole’s consent to remove from the legislation language requiring that ground-breaking for
the construction of the embassy in its new location begin in 1996. Representative Lee
Hamilton of Indiana, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee,
commented on the legislation by saying that “All sides should seek to avoid provocative acts,
and this is a provocative act . . . We pass this bill to win political and financial support. We
pretend we are acting, when we are really just passing this back to the President. We get the
political advantage and then we pass on the responsibility to the President.”120 Inasmuch as
Representative Hamilton’s observation that the President possessed the ultimate decision on
when the embassy would actually be transferred to Jerusalem was accurate, the legislation and
the compromise it incorporated was a fulfillment of Prime Minister Rabin’s conviction that
it was the President who mattered most when it came to Israel.

To summarize, the Republican Senate leadership’s proposal to transfer the American
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem endangered the peace process along the Israeli-
Palestinian track by bringing to the forefront the highly divisive issue of the firture of the holy

city. The resolution of the crisis was facilitated by a linkage that Prime Minister Rabin

 

12° The New York Times, 10/25/1995.

162

established between Israeli domestic politics and the international negotiating table. More
specifically, for the sake of saving the diplomatic negotiations, the Rabin Government
implemented a crucial domestic restructuring which found expression in relegating both the
US. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s united capital and the transfer of the embassy to a
secondary national priority compared with the priority of avoiding the explosion of the
diplomatic talks. The significance of that restructuring in Israeli domestic politics was that
for decades the United States resisted Israeli pressures to secure the forrner’s recognition of
Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. In order for the restructuring to become tenable,
moreover, the Rabin Government had to establish a linkage with the White House. Reducing
the potential electoral costs of opposing the transfer of the embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem for both the American and the Israeli COGS required Rabin to express lukewarm
support to the proposal, a shift which facilitated the passage of a compromise legislation in

Congress.

Conclusion

In this chapter the research problem of the present study was squarely addressed. In
accordance with the method of “structured, focused comparison,” the general crisis of
cooperation between the Israeli government and the PLO was broken down into six major
cases which covered the better part of the peace negotiations. These cases were identified
as crises, and the critical nature of each was discussed in order to present the context within
which the theoretical propositions were evaluated. The analysis raised two theoretically-
derived questions based on the Chief of Govemment’s negotiating status proposition and the

restructuring of domestic politics proposition. The discussion then attempted to answer the

163
two questions within the context of the six cases. In accordance with the “congruence
procedure,” the explanatory efficacy of the two propositions was evaluated by comparing the
theoretical predictions with the answers obtained from analyzing the six cases.

First, in the case of the Oslo One Agreement, a conceptual restructuring in the
characterization of Israel’s control of the Occupied Territories facilitated a compromise
settlement between Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin through the secret Norwegian
diplomatic channel. In addition, a number of restructuring measures which the Israeli
government and the PLO implemented validated direct and formal contacts between the two
parties. The agreement however failed to address the most problematic issues of Jewish
settlements, the firture of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian refirgees.

Second, in the case of Oslo Two Agreement, Islamic firndamentalist groups’ militant
attacks against Israeli civilians and military targets succeeded in creating an angry uproar
among the Israelis. Consequently, those attacks greatly eroded support to the peace talks
with the PLO and made strengthening Arafat’s status appear of utmost priority to the Rabin
Government. The analysis showed that the latter’s efforts to protect and enhance Chairman
Arafat’s status were effective in preventing the Israeli public’ 3 disenchantment with the peace
process from blocking the prospect of accomplishing the Oslo Two Agreement.

Third, in the case of the Palestinian deportees to south Lebanon, the analysis revealed
that the Rabin Govemment’s decision to expel hundreds of Islamic militants echoed in the
Palestinian domestic politics and damaged Chairman Arafat’s political standing. Prime
Minister Rabin’s position during that episode showed very little concern with directly saving
Arafat’s status in relation with the Palestinian public opinion in general and the rejectionist

forces in particular. The Israeli government’s concession on the deportees issue was made

164

in deference to the newly elected Clinton Administration, not to either Arafat’s PLO or
Hamas. The Rabin Government, however, engaged in actively defeating a bill proposed by
the Likud Party that would have hampered the return of the Palestinian deportees and,
consequently, the resumption of the peace talks.

Fourth, in the case of the Hebron massacre, at issue was the damaging effects of the
killings on both Chairman Arafat’s political status and the peace diplomacy. Salvaging the
peace process necessitated addressing the issue of the relationship between Jewish settlers and
the Palestinians in the territories through the implementation of a number of restructuring
policies. The analysis showed that the Rabin Government, to the best of its conceivable
political ability, actually undertook a number of important and unprecedented restructuring
measures in the territories and in Israel proper designed to revive both Chairman Arafat’s
political status and the diplomatic peace negotiations.

Fifth, in the case of the land-confiscation decision, the political status of Chairman
Arafat suffered fi'om the Rabin Govemment’s move which amounted to curtailing the
forrner’s ability to deliver on the Jerusalem front during the final-status phase of the
negotiations. In this episode, Prime Minister Rabin did not demonstrate enough concern over
the evident effect of his decision to confiscate Jerusalemite Arabs’ land on eroding both the
political and negotiating status of Chairman Arafat. The resolution of the crisis was facilitated
by Rabin’s decision to freeze the confiscation decision, thus arresting the government’s policy
of consolidating the Jewish character of Jerusalem. Yet Rabin’s decision, to be sure, was
made involuntarily. Had it not been for the two motions of no-confidence presented by the
two Arab parties which supported the government from outside the governing coalition, and

the Likud’s threats to support the motions of no-confidence with the expressive objective of

165

t0ppling the government, chances are Prime Minister Rabin would not have been forced to
freeze the confiscation decision and, hence, save the peace process.

And finally, in the case of the Republicans’ proposal to transfer the American embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Congress’ move threatened the negotiating table by preempting
the future of the disputed city in Israel’s favor. In addition to weakening Chairman Arafat’s
status in relation to his constituents, the proposal threatened to damage the role of the United
States as an honest broker in the views of the Arab masses in general and the Palestinians in
particular. The analysis showed that Prime Minister Rabin correctly understood the negative
effects of the proposal, and therefore publicly resisted it. By strategically discouraging the
transfer of the American embassy to J erusalerrr, the Israeli government seemed to have
restructured its national priorities by moving away from securing the United States’
recognition of Jerusalem as the united city of the State of Israel, and more toward saving the

peace talks with the Palestinians.

Chapter 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The virtues of this dissertation were both substantive and theoretical. By analyzing
the dynamics of the peace negotiations along the Israeli-Palestinian track, the study was
configured to substantively examine the politics of a crucial stage in the history of the
outstanding conflict in the Middle East--namely, the crisis of cooperation. Also, by utilizing
the substantive understanding of the Israeli-PLO peace diplomacy as an opportunity to
evaluate the status of COG proposition and the restructuring of domestic politics proposition,
the study attempted to test the two-level games theory within the context of the protracted
and structural variant of social-conflicts.

In the Introduction and Problem chapter a general background of the research
problem and the theory employed was discussed. The global, regional, and domestic
dimensions of the Israeli-PLO peace process were highlighted, and a case was made to
support the argument that linkages between certain aspects of the domestic politics and the
international negotiating table should be expected to materialize. Accordingly, the importance
of the study and the objectives it attempted to accomplish were specified. In addition, the
theoretical framework of the analysis was outlined and the relevance of the two-level games
theory was discussed in some detail. Here, the absence of a military crisis between the
Palestinians and Israel, as well as the domestic and structural underpinnings of the conflict

between the two parties, were utilized to formulate the expectation that the Israeli Prime

166

167

Minister and the Chairman of the PLO would have ample opportunity to establish linkages
between their respective domestic politics and the international negotiating table.

In the Literature Review chapter, three different bodies of literature were reviewed
in large sweeping strokes, and a number of themes were pulled together in order to emphasize
the substantive, conceptual, and theoretical dimensions of the present study. The literature
on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the peace process was reviewed first. Here, the
historical origins of the territorial dispute were discussed and the major events starting with
the creation of the State of Israel until the beginning of the peace process in 1991 were
presented. Because of the religious underpinnings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the
ideological beliefs and political preferences of Islamic and Jewish fundamentalist groups were
discussed to establish the significance of these groups with respect to the territorial conflict.
In addition, scholarly works on the Israeli occupation of the territories and its policies there
were reviewed, along with the opportunities and challenges which attend the peace
negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government.

In order to place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within its proper theoretical and
conceptual context, the literature on the structural and protracted variant of conflicts was
reviewed next. The distinctive nature of structural conflicts was discussed, and the
differences between them and exogenous conflicts were highlighted. AlSo, a distinction was
made between three types of conflictive interactions: fights, games, and debates. The
objective in fights is to eliminate the enemy, in games it is to outwit the opponent, and in
debates is to convince him. Structural conflicts were shown to be internalized and, hence,

institutionalized in the domestic politics.

168

The discussion then dealt with the basic characteristics of protracted conflicts
reminiscent of those in the Third World. Protracted conflicts were shown to share certain
characteristics with structural conflicts. .By discussing the concept of ‘Normal Relations
Range,’ the review highlighted the crisis of cooperation that is bound to attend attempts to
break the cycle of conflict. Here, scholarly works were shown to have emphasized that
whereas certain domestic forces actively encourage movements toward peacefirl interactions,
other forces engage in actively maintaining a certain level of conflictive relations with the
enemy.

Because the subject of this study deals primarily with the formulation of foreign
policies within the diplomatic interactions between the Israeli government and the PLO, the
literature on explaining foreign policy decisions was reviewed next. The three levels of
analysis commonly used to account for the international behavior of nation states were
identified, and the various Strands of domestic explanations of security-related foreign policy
decisions were discussed. The review showed that societal forces, State structural
considerations, and society-state relations had been the main academic approaches used to
incorporate domestic imperatives in explaining foreign policy decisions. Putnam’s two-level
games theory was then depicted as an approach to studying the simultaneous entanglements
between domestic politics and the international negotiating table. The value of the theory as
a tool for analyzing the dynamics leading to the conclusion of international agreements within
different substantive contexts was demonstrated by the contributors to the Double-Edged
Diplomacy volume. The review showed, however, that the application of the theory in
contexts characterized by unyielding disputes reminiscent of structural and protracted

conflicts was lacking. The importance of the present study is derived fiom its attempt to fill

169

that void.

In the Methodology chapter the substantive and conceptual considerations utilized in
configuring the study as well as the method of the data collection and procession were
explicated. The discussion demonstrated that important considerations related to the
structural nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and intrinsic characteristics of the Israeli
and Palestinian politics were incorporated in the study in order to ensure an unprejudiced
evaluation of the two-level games theory. In addition, the general causal relationships
proposed by the two-level games theory were presented in greater details. Next, the
proposition of restructuring of domestic politics and the proposition of status of Chief of
Government were chosen to constitute the theoretical underpinnings upon which the two
research questions of the study were based. In addition, the method of “structured, focused
comparison” chosen for collecting and processing the data necessary for the analysis was
explicated, and its methodological and theoretical merits were highlighted.

In the Data Presentation and Analysis chapter the two theoretically-derived research
questions were asked of the six cases which comprised crucial breakthroughs during the
course of the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic peace negotiations. In each of these cases the
essence of the crisis which either stood in the way of concluding peace agreements or
threatened the preservation of the momentum of the peace process was explicated. The
performance of the two theoretical propositions was then evaluated in view of their role in
handling the crisis of cooperation inherent in each of the six cases.

The resulting analysis warrants a number of concluding remarks:

1. This study has served as an opportunity to communicate structural and protracted

conflicts within the context of peace diplomacy. The analysis has verified the basic

 

170

characteristics of this variant of social conflicts. First, Azar and Cohen’s overall
characterization of protracted conflicts and the crisis of cooperation attending endeavors to
resolve them is, to a large extent, accurate. By conceptualizing efforts to depart from the
conflictive status quo in terms of a crisis that needs to be handled effectively, and by
theorizing that opposition forces will challenge cooperative interactions between the disputant
parties, the literature on protracted conflict seems to have correctly captured the essence of
the difficulties inherent in attempts to resolve this unyielding type of conflicts. As the Israeli-
Palestinian peace diplomacy demonstrated, the crisis of cooperation, both as a concept and
practical challenge, had been a real one. The crisis continued to be a pressing concern for the
Israeli and Palestinian leadership throughout the peace process, and tended to manifest itself
in different disguises. On some occasions addressing the crisis of cooperation required
effecting certain restructuring measures in the domestic politics; on others, strengthening, or
at least refi'aining from weakening, the negotiating status of the opposing Chief of
Government was of primary concern.

Second, the analysis showed, as predicted by the concept of “Normal Relations
Range,” that movements away fi'om the conflictive status quo aroused active domestic
oppositions from certain forces in both the Israeli and Palestinian domestic politics. The bases
of the opposition were both nationalistic and religious. Israeli opposition forces, both formal
and informal, detested the prospect of disengaging from the Occupied Territories because
they believed that doing so would compromise the security of the State of Israel and violate
the maximalist drive toward the creation of Eretz Yisrael. On the other hand, whereas
nationalistic Palestinian opposition forces were mobilized by their belief that Chairman

Arafat’s conciliatory program would cripple their aspirations after political freedom within

171

the boundaries of a Palestinian nation state, Islamic firndamentalist groups’ refirsal to
compromise on any part of what used to comprise Mandatory Palestine lead them to violently
challenge the peace negotiations with the Israeli government. Both Israeli and Palestinian
opposition forces preferred the continuation of the conflictive status quo because, while it did
not guarantee them that their religious and nationalistic programs would materialize, it at least
did not so openly threaten to foreclose the firture of the dispute in a way that jeopardized their
objectives and, consequently, identities the way peace diplomacy did. Therefore, it can be
concluded that Walter Hill’s (1990) identification of the forces which drive the dynamics of
the protracted social conflict as the government and the opposition is accurate.

Third, as conceptualized by the literature on structural and protracted conflicts, the
analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy showed that because the conflict is
endogenous and not constrained to difl'erences over material issues, both the history and
psychology of the dispute played a Significant role in maintaining the distinction between “Us”
and “Them” throughout much of the turbulent course of the negotiations. Mutual distrust
between the two peoples triggered bitter memories whenever violent attacks were perpetrated
against civilians, thus giving militant anti-peace forces added opportunity to capitalize on the
heightened sense of mutual hatred to destroy the peace process. Mutual distrust also caused
the Palestinians to question the Israeli government’s actions in policy areas which the latter
perceived to be legitimately within its domain of jurisdiction. Against the general background
of internalized hostility, both fatally violent actions (e. g. the Hebron massacre) and vital
political decisions (e. g. the deportees issue, the Jerusalemite Arabs’ land confiscation plan,
the transfer of the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem proposal) seemed to have equally endangered

the peace process.

172

The finding that the psychological and historical divide between the Israelis and the
Palestinians tended to persist as a problematic concern which augmented to shaping the crisis
of cooperation throughout much of the peace process makes it necessary to comment on the
implications this study has had on the search for peace breakthroughs. Drawing from the
arguments explicated in the Literature Review chapter, It seems that Azar and Cohen’s
postulation that efl’ective communication between the two belligerents is a prerequisite for
cooperation is, by and large, relevant. More specifically, this study has demonstrated that
ridding the cooperative engagement between the Israeli government and the PLO fi'om the
discrediting connotations of the psychological rejection of the “enemy” and the painfirl
memories of the long historical “fight” that has long characterized the interactions between
the two national identities has been an important part of the effort to address the crisis of
cooperation.

Throughout much of the peace process in general and during each of the six cases in
particular, the Palestinians and the Israelis, both at the level of political leadership and the
level of masses, considered each of the episodes analyzed in this study as an occasion to
update their long-held beliefs about each others’ intentions and attitudes. In other words,
violent actions in some of the episodes and heightened sense of distrust caused by specific
policy decisions in others engendered concerns among both the Israelis and the Palestinians
over the advisability of shifting the characterization of the other party from an “enemy” to an
“opponent,” or transforming the nature of the relationship from a “fight” to a “debate”.
Armed with their strategic decision to give peace a chance, and invested with the political
dexterity which found expression in attempting to enhance each other’s political standing as

well as restructuring certain aspects of their respective domestic politics, both Prime Minister

 

173

Rabin and Chairman Arafat were able to bolster their cooperative partnership and, thus,
propel the peace diplomacy forward.

Nonetheless, the cooperative partnership between Rabin and Arafat should be
understood as a relationship which evolved over the course of the peace process, rather than
born with the inauguration of the first rounds of diplomatic talks. In fact, much in accordance
with the assumption made by this study that negotiators develop more accurate information
about their own and each other’s constituents’ preferences (see the Introduction and Problem
chapter), it seems that both COGs actually needed plenty of time to understand and appreciate
the structure of constraints and opportunities within which the other party was operating. But
the learning process which the Israeli premiership and Palestinian leadership went through can
also be said to have involved learning about the importance of tactically using the technique
of restructuring of domestic politics and the technique of enhancing the political status of the
other COG as tactics that can be used in sustaining the peace process and effecting peace
agreements. This is of course not to suggest that either Arafat or Rabin were lacking in
political skills when they first became involved in the Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy; rather the
point made here is that because of the highly multifaceted and conflictive nature of the
outstanding structural conflict between the two parties, the applicability of the these two
techniques was not readily feasible or obvious to them at the early stages of the peace
process. It seems that both leaders needed that much time in order to appreciate the
importance of these two techniques as strategic actions conducive to sustaining the
negotiating table and facilitating peace agreements.

This observation can provide a preliminary explanation of why Prime Minister Rabin

failed to appreciate the negative effects of his decision to deport 415 militant Palestinians to

 

174

Southern Lebanon on Chairman Arafat’s political status among his constituents. The
explanation posits that, because of Rabin’s long experience with the history of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, and because of his short experience with the dynamics and politics of the
peace process (only six months separated between Rabin’s ascendance to power after the
1992 General Elections and the deportation decisions in December of the same year),
assessing the efl’ects of the expulsion of hundreds of Palestinians form the Occupied
Territories on the negotiating table can be said to have been left out of the calculations leading
to the deportations decision. Driven primarily by his concerns over security issues, and
lacking any precedence of such profound decision within his short experience with the peace
diplomacy, Rabin seemed to have failed to correctly assess how the decision would be
received by the Palestinian masses and what efieas it would have on Arafat’s political status.

2. This study has shown that the general logic of the two-level games theory is
applicable to the context of Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy which had been conducted
with the challenging characteristics of structural and protracted conflict operating in the
background. Much in line with the argument presented in the Introduction and Problem
chapter, the fact that the outstanding conflict is both socially internalized and politically
institutionalized in the Palestinian and Israeli domestic politics contributed to the active
engagement of domestic institutions, forces, and preferences on both sides in influencing the
dynamics of the peace diplomacy. Furthermore, these domestic considerations provided the
Israeli Prime Minister and the Chairman of the PLO with structures of opportunities and
constraints with which they had to deal while going about making peace. More specifically,
Israeli and Palestinian domestic politics considerations presented the two leaders with a

mixture of imperatives which echoed at the negotiating table and, consequently, shaped the

 

175

dynamics of the peace talks. Also, domestic politics provided the two leaders with an arena
in which they pursued specific strategic actions designed to influence the domestic landscape
with the purpose of either facilitating peace agreements or preserving the momentum of peace
diplomacy.

With that finding in mind, the empirical inquiry demonstrated that the two theoretical
propositions which guided the formulation of the two research questions and the subsequent
analysis seemed to have performed successfully within the context of the cases analyzed.
Both the proposition of strengthening the status of Chiefs of Governments and the
proposition of restructuring domestic politics contributed to the resolution of the crisis of
cooperation with which Prime Nfinister Rabin and Chairman Arafat continually had to
grapple. In general terms, the analysis demonstrated that applying Putnam’s two-level games
theory within negotiating contexts inflicted with the profound underpinnings of structural and
protracted conflicts was both theoretically relevant and substantively fiuitfirl.

3. The “creativity” which Azar and Cohen envisioned as a prerequisite for successfirl
handling of the crisis of cooperation had been evident in, first, the strategic decision which
both Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat made in favor of pursuing peaceful relations
between the two peoples, and, second, in the tactical policies which they implemented in
order to overcome the many obstacles which emerged at different junctures on the road to
concluding peace agreements. To be sure, the analysis Showed that by restructuring certain
aspects of their domestic politics and by strengthening each another’s political status, both
the Israeli premier and the Palestinian leader consolidated their strategic decision to make
peace by tactically establishing linkages between their respective domestic politics and the

international negotiating table.

 

176

The research reinforced the expectation that factors emanating from the Israeli and
Palestinian domestic politics would play a significant role in shaping both achievements and
drawbacks in the peace process. However, foremost among the factors which shaped the
self-rule phase of the negotiations and are bound to Shape the final-status negotiations
between the two parties is the Chief of Govemment’s strategic decision to give peace a
chance. Peace is a strategic decision, and as such it does not allow for the continuation of the
kind of hostile perceptions and mutual mistrust typical of structural conflicts. Drawing from
the analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and for the benefit of the final-status phase
of the peace process, the engagement between the Israelis and the Palestinians must be
transformed from a “fight” in which the objective is to eliminate the enemy to a “debate” in
which the objective is to convince the opponent. The diplomatic successes of both Prime
Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat can be attributed to the sense of partnership which
characterized their relationship as the peace process progressed.

The importance of Rabin and Arafat’s clear strategic decisions to pursue peacefirl
relations in both effecting the two peace agreements and salvaging the peace process had been
indicative of the centrality of the role played by Chiefs of Governments in determining and
conducting foreign policy decisions. Despite the profound origins, as well as persistent
opposition, of domestic Israeli and Palestinian hawkish forces’ stances with respect to the
peace diplomacy, the two leaders, by and large, had been capable to pursue their own political
preferences at the international negotiating table. The fact that Chairman Arafat and Prime
Minister Rabin had continued to handle domestic and international imperatives simultaneously
during the lengthy duration of the peace talks should attest to the ability of Chiefs of

Governments to successfully sustain the centrality of their roles in shaping foreign policy

177

behavior.

Much in agreement with the two-level games theory’s characterization of the role
played by Chiefs of Governments in formulating foreign policy decisions, both the Israeli and
Palestinian leaders seemed motivated by a clear overall concern with pursuing their own
political preferences. First, Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat were equally
concerned with bolstering their standing in the domestic game by either augmenting to their
political resources or minimizing the resources they stood to lose. Second, in order to pursue
policies that they privately prefer but could not implement at home, both leaders had engaged
in influencing the balance of power in favor of those policies. And third, both Chiefs of
Government seemed to have assumed a leading position in defining their own visions of the
national interest of their respective politics and in pursuing their national objectives at the
international scene.

4. As regards the method of “structured, focused comparison” employed in the
present study, the method has been evidently usefirl in enabling the researcher to process a
substantial amount of information collected about specific aspects of the analysis without
losing sight of either the theoretical or substantive objectives of the study. Because
qualitative research almost always requires researchers to collect their own data, the value of
the “focused” caliber of the method in sparing researchers who conduct qualitative theory-
driven analyses from either unpleasantly becoming overwhelmed by an avalanche of
substantive information or distracted by unnecessary details cannot be exaggerated. Because
the method requires that focus be placed only on those aspects of the research for which there
is theoretical justification to examine in each of the six cases, much of the noise that

otherwise would have blurred the theoretically-driven analysis was effectively purged. Also,

 

178

the value of the “structured” caliber of the method in streamlining the data in order to
evaluate the causality relationships has become evident. By asking the same theory-driven
questions of the Six cases, and by comparing the answers obtained with the predictions made
by the theoretical propositions through the “congruity procedure,” the analysis has been
designed to ensure that the hypothesized causality relationships are not Spurious. In short,
this study has demonstrated that the method of “structured, focused comparison” is capable
of transforming the firnction of qualitative research from production of clinical, thick
description to evaluation of causality relationships.

5. In line with the heuristic value of this study, evaluating the two-level games theory
within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had a number of impacts on the
theory. First, the complications of the episode involving Prime Minister Rabin’s decision to
deport Palestinian militants to Southern Lebanon, along with the explanation provided for
Rabin’s failure to appreciate its problematic effects on Arafat’s status, raises the need to
revisit a research concern which the contributors to the Double-Edged Diplomacy volume
expressed in the concluding chapter. More specifically, the volume encouraged researchers
to evaluate the two-level games theory within historical cases of international bargaining in
order to ascertain whether the logic of the theory had been applicable in the past, and to find
out how far back in history the COGs’ tendency to simultaneously reconcile domestic and
international imperatives can be dated. The authors emphasized the need to know whether
the logic of the two-level games theory is a modern international phenomenon or earlier
examples of it can be found in history.

The importance of this research agenda notwithstanding, I believe that it is even more

important for the development of the theory to systematically pursue the question of whether

179

Chiefs of Governments actually learn to appreciate the value of simultaneously reconciling
the imperatives of domestic politics and the international negotiating table as they progress
in both their terms of oflice and the bargaining process. Doing so is especially relevant in
processes of interstate negotiations that are inherently difficult and, therefore, lengthy. Prime
Minister Rabin’s failure to refrain from embarrassingly damaging Chairman Arafat’s
negotiating status during the Palestinian deportees episode, to be sure, is indicative of the
importance of inquiring into the possibility that COGS undergo a process of political
socialization asthey firrther progress into the negotiation process. Here, it can be argued that
only six months after his becoming a Prime Minister, it was still too early for the Israeli leader
to firlly appreciate the negative ramifications of his decision. The fact that Rabin
demonstrated more willingness to appreciate the importance of strengthening, as well as
refraining from hurting, Arafat’s political status in the case of the Oslo Two Agreement, the
case of Hebron massacre, and the case of the Republicans’ proposal to transfer the US.
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem supports the observation that Chiefs of Governments
tend to improve their ability to understand the significance of reconciling domestic and
international politics as they become more socialized into the dynamics of the negotiating
context.

The second impact this study has had on the two-level games theory is that it has
demonstrated that the entanglements between domestic and international imperatives, as well
as Chiefs of Governments’ central role in simultaneously reconciling these imperatives, is also
applicable in cases of international bargaining involving non-state actors. The fact that the
PLO is not a nation-state in the common sense of the term has neither degraded the relevance

of Putnam’s theory nor negatively affected the explanatory efficacy of the two theoretical

l

 

 

 

 

180

propositions which guided the analysis. The theory’s emphasis on identifying domestic
forces, political and ideological preferences, and political institutions, both formal and
informal, as the main clusters of variables in determining the dynamics of interstate bargaining,
to be sure, has contributed to making the fact the PLO is not a nation-state irrelevant to the
receptivity of this case study to the logic of the two-level games theory. As a result, it seems
that this study has given some credence to Putnam’s (1988) original contention that the logic
of his theory is applicable to all negotiating contexts, regardless of the nature of the
negotiating entities.

The third impact this study has had on the two-level games theory is that it has
demonstrated that the application of the logic of the entanglements between domestic and
international imperatives should not be confined to examining the dynamics leading to the
conclusion of formal agreements per se; rather, it is equally important to apply the theory to
the efforts expended at ensuring the sustainability of the negotiation process. As this study
has demonstrated, the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy was conducted with the challenging
characteristics of protracted conflict operative in the background, thus making the need to
protect the peace process from dangerously degenerating into lengthy stalemates or totally
collapsing a pressing concern for the two leaders. In fact, the study has shown that in four
of the six cases examined, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was threatened, thus
contributing to the expansion of the problematic crisis of cooperation which the two COGS
had to handle beyond the original objective of making formal agreements.

The finding that the logic and propositions of the two-level games theory are also
applicable to the dynamics pertaining to the preservation of the negotiation process should

be utilized by researchers in order to expand the space of cases within which the theory can

181

be tested, just as the expansion of the crisis of cooperation in this study was utilized to
increase the number of cases within which the theory was evaluated. However, it is more
powerful to construe the realization of the objective of increasing the number of cases in a
way that serves the inquiry into the substantive problem of the research problem. By breaking
down the general crisis of cooperation into six specific and well-defined cases, the research
design employed in this study has attempted to marry the objective of increasing the number
of cases analyzed with the objective of substantively exploring the underlying research
problem. The result of this combination, I contend, has produced a research design that
better approximated the requirements of the method of “structured, focused, comparison,”
and a greater intrinsic understanding of how the crisis of cooperation was handled.

The finding that the two theoretical propositions which informed both the formulation
of the two questions asked of the six cases and the subsequent analysis can be meaningfully
asked of the dynamics which influence the sustainability of the negotiation process, it must
be noted, makes it necessary to revisit the very definition of the concept of “win-set”
presented and employed by the two-level games theory. In the Methodology chapter,
domestic “win-set” was defined as the set of all possible agreements reached at the
international bargaining table that would win the necessary majority among the constituents
when presented for ratification by vote at the domestic level. By arguing that this study has
demonstrated that throughout much of the Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy the effort
expended at achieving the objective of sustaining the negotiation process was, to say the least,
as important and relentless as the effort expended at achieving the objective of concluding
formal agreements, I propose that the concept of “win-set” be broadened to encompass such

breakthroughs as the resolution of the cooperation crises which threaten to topple the

 

 

 

 

182

negotiating table itself. Put succinctly, the fact that the unique nature of the structural and
protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused the crisis of cooperation to expand beyond
the need to merely accomplish formal peace agreements underlies the need to broaden the
definition of “win-set” to incorporate Chiefs of Govemment’s endeavors to salvage the
negotiation process at critically dangerous junctures.

6. Finally, by emphasizing the centrality of the role played by Chiefs of Governments
in strategically planning and pursuing foreign policy objectives during the self-rule phase of
the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, this Study has facilitated a policy-relevant implication for
the final-status phase of the negotiations. After the ouster of the Labour Government in the
aftermath of the 1996 Israeli General Elections, the policy of negotiating peace with the
Palestinians has been bequeathed to the present Likud Government under the leadership of
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s performance with regard to the peace
diplomacy with the Palestinians can be said to be influenced by at least three considerations.
The first of these is his personal attitudes and vision with regard to the proper borders of the
State of Israel and the future relations with the Palestinians. On this fi'ont, Prime Minister
Netanyahu’ formula of peace with maximum security doesn’t seem to either trust Arafat’s
Palestinian Authority or make room for the realization of the Palestinian people’s aspiration
after the creation of a nation state all their own.

The second consideration is the political and ideological preferences of the governing
coalition he is leading. Here, the fact that Netanyahu is heavily dependent on maximalist
religious and nationalist political parties to secure the continuation of his government makes
any conciliatory movement toward the Palestinian Authority quite difficult. Also, the fact that

the Prime Minister’s personal ideological and political preferences overlap with those of the

 

 

 

183

member parties in his governing coalition, to be sure, places the peace diplomacy with the
Palestinians in a double-jeopardy position.

The third consideration has to do with the leadership skills which Prime Minister
Netanyahu must display should he decide to reinvigorate peace talks with the Palestinians
during the final-status phase of the negotiations. Making the strategic decision to pursue
peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in a serious and engaging manner, and
overcoming the expected difliculties presented by the maximalist stances of the religious and
nationalist parties when doing so, it must be emphasized, would require the Prime Minister
to draw upon his political skills to make and implement strategic decisions. This is a
significant consideration for the future of the peace process, especially in view of the fact that
Netanyahu’s political experience throughout his political career has been mostly in the
Opposition bench, not as a Prime Minister. Throughout his experience in the Opposition,
Netanyahu is more likely to have developed skills in making tactical maneuvers and, therefore,
is yet to develop the ability to make and pursue crucial strategic decisions such as pursuing
a peacefirl discourse with the Palestinian Authority in a sustained manner. The importance
of the Prime Minister’s role as a strategist, and not merely a tactician, becomes more relevant
to the firture of the peace talks in view of the staunch opposition which the governing
coalition in Israel has expressed against making concessions to the Palestinians. Unless he
has already strategically taken the politically easier decision of not seriously pursuing the final-
status negotiations, Prime Minister Netanyahu, as a strategist politician, will need to confront
the political uncertainty which is most likely to attend that difficult phase with greater vigor
and control over the domestic factors which both hamper the conclusion of formal agreements

and threaten the sustainability of the negotiation process.

 

 

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