Daniel Bar-Tal :How Israeli politicians took peace with the Palestinians off the table - Opinion
A key question
that preoccupies conflict researchers, politicians and activists in
international organizations, and indeed anyone affected by protracted
and violent conflicts, is why in so many cases they are not peacefully
resolved, despite the steep price being paid by the societies involved
in the blood-drenched disputes. A case in point is the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, considered a prototypical example of an
intractable dispute that has persistently rebuffed numberless efforts to
resolve it peacefully. It continues to exist because of the goals that
each side perceives as existential; its violence; both sides consider it
irresolvable; it consumes a tremendous investment of resources from the
participant parties; and it occupies intensely the societies involved,
which view it as central in their lives.
Why,
then, despite the many victims, the destruction, the vast financial
outlays required to sustain the conflict, and in particular the tension,
the psychological costs, the suffering and the resulting inferior
quality of life – not least the severe damage to the democratic system –
have the two sides not been able to arrive at an agreed-upon solution?
And this stalemate persists even though the conflict has lost some of
its intensity and a general blueprint for its resolution was presented
by U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 2000, expanded during the
Taba talks in January 2001, appeared as part of the Geneva Initiative in
2003 and was incorporated into the Arab League’s 2002 initiative.
The
answer that will be provided here to this vexing question, which is one
of many possibilities, is based on sociopolitical psychology. This
approach necessitates an understanding of some general principles
relating to intractable conflicts:
1.
In order to cope with the major challenges posed by a conflict,
societies develop a functional supporting narratives that comes to
outline and to strengthen the justness of the society's goals, and
negate the goals of the rival group; single out the most imminent
threats and suggest conditions that will ensure society’s security; make
a differentiation between the adversary – which is perceived as
possessing traits of inferiority and cruelty – and the group to which
they belong; glorify own group by attributing to it a host of positive
traits, notably morality and humanity, and viewing it as the only victim
of the conflict.
2.
These narratives satisfy the basic needs of the society’s members at a
personal and collective level by helping to create a clear and
meaningful picture of the conflict, satisfying the need to feel secure
andforging a positive collective image and identity.
3.
Frequently, at the height of the conflict, the narratives become
hegemonic and are perceived by the majority of the society and its
leaders as the unadulterated truth. In time, these ideological
narratives become the pillars of the culture of conflict that evolves
with time.
4.
The narratives serve as a prism for perceiving the conflict’s reality
and for processing new information. They create a specific angle of
vision, characterized by a one-sided, simplistic, biased or even
distorted worldview that generates a meaningful and unequivocal
perception of the conflict.
5.
The ruling establishment makes efforts to preserve the narratives’
hegemonic status. To that end, attempts are made to prevent the
presentation of contradictory information coming from individuals,
groups, NGOs and also media sources.
6.
In the absence of light at the end of the tunnel, signaling a possible
peaceful resolution of the conflict, the narratives function as a means
of coping with the challenges created by the conflict’s harsh
conditions. However, when a possibility arises to resolve the dispute,
the same narratives act as a barrier that makes it very difficult to
enter into negotiations and end them successfully.
Liberation, not occupation
In
the Israeli case, from the moment of the state’s establishment in 1948
until the early 1970s, the conflict-supporting narratives were hegemonic
and pervasive in all the institutions and channels of communication,
whether formal or informal, expressed in leaders' speeches, literature,
textbooks, news and commentary in the press and on the radio, and in
films and plays, as well as held by the society members. A series of
events – among them the 1977 visit to Jerusalem by the Egyptian
president, the Lebanon War in 1982 and the Oslo Accords with the
Palestinians in 1993 – spawned contradictory narratives. These
emphasized the need for compromise, adduced a realistic possibility for a
peace process, and legitimized and humanized the Palestinians.
Narratives of this sort are a sine qua non for serious negotiations and
for the success of a peace process.
However,
this era began to wane with the assassination in 1995 of Yitzhak Rabin
and the rise to power of Benjamin Netanyahu. The failure of the 2000
Camp David conference and the outbreak of the second intifada later that
year heralded a new period: a re-escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict that continues to this day, with all efforts to conclude it by
means of a peaceful resolution having failed.
The
way events since 2000 have been presented by Israel’s leadership and
the majority of the media have intensified the backing for narratives
that support the conflict’s culture, which once again assumed a dominant
status among much of the public. Additionally, those in the leadership
and among the public who support these narratives are waging a bitter
struggle against contradictory and alternative information, and against
the individuals and groups that disseminate them.
Almost
all the Jews in Israel view the state’s establishment in 1948 as the
homeland of the Jewish nation as a sacrosanct goal that was achieved. At
present, though, a large part of the dispute with the Palestinians
revolves around the territories conquered in 1967. Many Israeli Jews see
the military takeover of the West Bank in the 1967 war as the
continuation of the process of liberating the homeland; 72 percent do
not recognize the situation as an occupation (according to the Israel
Democracy Institute’s Peace Index, June 2016).
In
light of the erasure of the Green Line from maps printed in Israel,
including those used in schools, and in the wake of the Jewish
settlement project in the West Bank over the years, much of the public
began to see those territories as a liberated part of the homeland.
According to a study conducted last year by University of Haifa
sociologist Prof. Sami Smooha, a significant portion of Jews in Israel
(62 percent) think that “the Palestinians are Arabs who settled in the
Land of Israel, which belongs to the Jewish people.” The same percentage
thinks that “the Palestinians have no national rights to the country,
because they are not its original inhabitants.”
In
the 2015 Knesset election, the platforms of almost all the Jewish
parties, including Zionist Union (whose major component is Labor),
referred to the historic right of the Jews to the Land of Israel, the
land of the Bible. This also embodies the spirit in which all the
parties’ leaders express themselves. According to this point of
departure, for Israel to withdraw from the territories conquered in 1967
would be to concede a region that was liberated at a bloody cost.
Withdrawal would also entail a vast human and economic price, in terms
of moving the settlers into Israel proper.
Another
bone of contention that looms as a substantive issue at the heart of
the conflict is the issue of the status of Jerusalem. No solution is
feasible without partitioning the city, because for the Palestinians the
decision to make Jerusalem their capital is a sacred goal. However, the
great majority of Jews in Israel are convinced that the city must
remain united as the capital of the Jewish state and that it is a
cornerstone of Jewish existence. Jerusalem’s importance and the notion
of its indivisibility were underscored in the 2015 election even in the
platforms of parties that are considered to be moderate.
For
example, according to Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, “Jerusalem is the
eternal capital of Israel and its unity is a cardinal national symbol.
Jerusalem is not only a place or a city, it is also the center of the
Jewish-Israeli ethos and the holy place to which Jews looked for all the
generations.” Zionist Union’s platform declares as a goal
“strengthening Jerusalem and its status as the eternal capital of the
State of Israel, and guaranteeing religious freedom and access to the
holy places of all the religions, while preserving Israeli sovereignty.”
At
the most general level, the country’s Jews believe that defense and
guaranteeing a secure existence are Israel’s major challenges and that
the Jewish population lives under constant existential threat. They
believe that the intention of the Arabs, including the Palestinians, is
to destroy Israel and annihilate its Jews (according to the responses of
67 percent of the Israeli Jews in a 2012 survey conducted by the Tel
Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies).
In
a 2015 survey by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 43 percent of
respondents said the Palestinians’ long-term ambition is to conquer the
country and eradicate its Jewish population. They believe that the
danger of another Holocaust has not passed, that only the oppressor has
changed. They perceive Israel as an island of sanity – as “a villa in
the jungle,” as Ehud Barak once described it – surrounded by hostile
states, ethnic groups and organizations. The grim situation that has
developed in the region in recent years is seen as clear proof that they
are right.
Public
opinion surveys consistently show that the majority of the Israeli
Jewish public agrees with statements such as, “All means are justified
in Israel’s fight against Palestinian terrorism” (about 70 percent,
according to a University of Haifa survey). Or, “Every military action
that Israel initiates is justified” (about 55 percent). In addition,
according to the Israel Democracy Institute, during the Israel Defense
Forces Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip two years ago, 48
percent of the Jewish population thought the use of force was proper and
an additional 45 percent thought that greater force was called for.
Similarly, most of the Jewish political leaders in Israel typically
justify the use of violent means against the Palestinians.
Taking the moral high ground
Notwithstanding
the changes in Israeli Jews’ perceived image of Arabs and Palestinians,
the basic traits attributed to them – untrustworthiness and a violent
temperament – still constitute a significant obstacle to a peace
process. Because of the use of the Palestinians to perform suicidal
terror acts and murdering Jewish civilian population in through
terrorism Arabs, and Palestinians in particular, are seen as
stereotypically insensitive to human life. Many Israeli Jews believe
that the Palestinians have no intention of reaching an agreement with
Israel, noting that they have missed many opportunities and rejected
good offers that were made to them. The belief that the Palestinians are
not partners for a peace process has taken deep root in the Jewish
consciousness since first being articulated by Ehud Barak.
These
approaches are reflected clearly and consistently in Israeli public
opinion polls. A large proportion of the country’s Jews (about 77
percent) believes that “the Palestinians have proved themselves to be
unreliable,” and 60 percent think Palestinian morality is “lower than
the standards of other human societies” (as per a survey conducted in
2014 by the Herzliya-based Interdisciplinary Center). Of particular
interest is the fact that the delegitimization of Arabs, and of
Palestinians in particular, is acceptable even among some Israeli Jews
who term themselves left-wing. As a result, and for other reasons too,
some 70 percent of the public in question think there is no possibility
of a peaceful solution with the Palestinians.
Similar
views are expressed in speeches by Israeli politicians. They stress
Palestinian hatred for Israel and what they see as the way Palestinians
cheapen of the value of human life. For example, Netanyahu commented in
2014 that, “A deep and wide moral abyss separates us from our enemies.
They sanctify death while we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty while
we sanctify compassion.”
In
2015, Moshe Kahlon, now Israel’s finance minister, stated: “We have no
partner today. Do you want to give this country to Abu Mazen
[Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas], who is inciting against us in the
Palestinian Authority and internationally? There is no one to talk to
on the other side. This whole subject of negotiations is superfluous
statements and talks that lead nowhere.”
In
contrast to their perception of the Palestinians, Israeli Jews view
themselves as cultured, modern and moral. Public opinion surveys show
that the Jewish-Israeli public believes that in general Jews are smarter
than other peoples and espouse loftier moral values (77 percent and 57
percent, respectively, in the IDC survey of 2014).
In
their speeches, the leaders frequently emphasize the country’s
democratic and religiously tolerant character, contrasting this with
other Mideast peoples. “In a region in which women are stoned,
homosexuals are stoned and Christians are persecuted, Israel stands as a
beacon,” Netanyahu said in 2011. Militarily, virtually all of Israel’s
leaders consider the IDF to be the world’s most moral army.
Israeli
Jews see themselves as the only victims of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Prof. Smooha’s 2015 survey found that about 72 percent of Jews
think the Palestinians are chiefly to blame for the protracted
conflict, and 55 percent of them do not believe that the Palestinians
underwent what they term the Nakba, or catastrophe, in 1947-49, during
which 700,000 Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes. Public
opinion polls conducted during Operation Pillar of Defense, in Gaza in
2012, showed that 80 percent of Jewish Israelis considered themselves
victims of Palestinian aggression and saw the military operation as a
response to that.
The
adherence to conflict-supporting narratives and the renewed hegemonic
status accorded them is one of the major barriers to resuming the
negotiations for ending the conflict, and contributes to Israeli Jews’
readiness to go on living by the sword. The members of that society –
who live under a persistent experience of being exposed to violence and
threats that are defined as constant and grave by Israel’s leaders, and
with the collective memory of the Holocaust, which is invoked and
highlighted time and again – receive validation for the
conflict-supporting narratives. Moreover, the state’s official
institutions, and also a large number of civil organizations, inculcate
the themes of the conflict-supporting narrative and cement them in the
consciousness of Israel’s Jews. The schools systematically convey this
narrative. News broadcasts of most media outlets transmit messages in
accordance with these narratives, and during crises mobilize in support
of the government and the army.
This
socialization process begins at a very early age. Preschools,
particularly in ceremonies marking the Jewish and Israeli holidays and
memorial occasions, transmit messages based on conflict-supporting
narratives in various ways. The result is the shaping from childhood of a
worldview in which the themes of these narratives begin to be
internalized.
Praising the victim
There
is no doubt that the processes described above characterize Palestinian
society as well. The reason for the analytical focus here on Israel’s
Jewish population is that it is in possession of almost all the concrete
assets that, from its point of view, would have to be given up for the
sake of a peace agreement, and also has incalculably greater military
and economic power than the other side in this asymmetrical conflict.
In
the present situation, breaking the cycle of terror is a very difficult
challenge, as a change in the conflict-supporting narratives also
demands a cessation of the physical and verbal violence by both sides or
at least its significant reduction. As long as the worldview of leaders
consists of conflict-supporting narratives and they continue to adhere
to the original goals of the conflict, it will be extremely difficult
for them to take meaningful measures aimed at a peace process. Instead,
they delegitimize the potential negotiating partner, play up every
possible threat and ascribe to their society (the Jewish community) the
role of the victim even as they heap praise on it.
A
change in the narratives can occur only when a visionary leadership
initiates and spearheads a peace process (a top-down process), as was
the case in France with the war in Algeria, or under the pressure of
civil society (a bottom-up process), as partially occurred in Northern
Ireland. However, in the case of matching conflict-supporting narratives
on the part of the leadership and of majority within a society, as is
the case in Israel, it is impossible to move ahead to a peace process,
which requires a breakthrough policy – necessitating public support – as
we saw in the Oslo accord period during Yitzhak Rabin’s tenure as prime
minister.
Changes
take place when leaders change their approach (this can be a rapid
process, as in the case of Charles de Gaulle’s attitude toward the
conclusion of the French-Algerian conflict), or when the public becomes
persuaded of the need for peace and pressures its leaders to embark on a
negotiating process (generally a longer, though possible, proposition
as was the case in Northern Ireland). Of course, a peace process can
begin and conclude under third-party or international pressure in
various ways (as in the case of El Salvador).
In
any event, a leader who is determined to put an end to a conflict must
begin to recast the conflict-supporting narratives and prepare his or
her society for the anticipated difficulties in the transition period,
during which violence still exists and the negotiations are in an
embryonic stage. This is a period of duality, in which signs of the
conflict and signs of peace are present simultaneously. The leader must
be ready to do battle against oppositional groups of spoiler, which will
usually resort to every available means, including violence, to
sabotage the peace process.
Only
complete faith in the way of peace, which in essence is characterized
by uncertainty and risk-taking, together with a determined resolution to
advance on this path with all the necessary strategies and tactics,
will bring about the coveted goal. Leaders and peoples must strive for
peace with the same intensity with which they brought about and
initiated a conflict. Because a conflict’s genesis lies in the human
mind, peacemaking, too, must be spawned in the minds of people as an
sought-after goal whose attainment is important for the wellbeing of the
society in which they live.
These
ideas are not foreign to Jewish society. They have already been created
and have coalesced in Israel in the past. Prime Minister Rabin
expressed them on May 4, 1994, in his remarks at the signing the Cairo
Agreement, just a year and a half before his assassination in 1995:
“We
are confident that both peoples can live on the same piece of land,
each under his own vine and fig tree, as our prophets foretold, and
grant this land – a land of stones, a land of gravestones – the taste of
milk and honey which it so deserves.
“I
appeal now to the Palestinian people and say: Our Palestinian
neighbors, one hundred years of bloodshed implanted in us hostility
toward one another. For one hundred years we lay in wait for you, and
you lay in wait for us. We killed you, and you killed us… Today, you and
we stretch out our hands in peace. Today, we are beginning a different
reckoning.
“…The
new hope which we take with us from here is boundless. There is no
limit to our goodwill, to our desire to see a historic conciliation
between two peoples who have until now lived by the sword in the
alleyways of Khan Yunis and the streets of Ramat Gan, in the houses of
Gaza and the plazas of Hadera, in Rafah and Afula.
“A
new reality is being born today. One hundred years of
Palestinian-Israeli conflict and millions of people who want to live are
watching us.”
Prof.
Daniel Bar-Tal, a political psychologist at Tel Aviv University, is the
author of “Intractable Conflicts: Socio-Psychological Foundations and
Dynamics” (Cambridge University Press).
Beyond
the violence and disputes, Israeli leaders' adherence to
conflict-supporting narratives creates psychological barriers that are
very difficult to remove.
haaretz.com
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