Jun 14th 2011

Defying The Rules Of Conflict Resolution

by Alon Ben-Meir

 

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

The study of conflict resolution is prefaced on the notion that two parties in conflict desire a mutually acceptable resolution to end their dispute, however intractable it may be. The behavior by Israel and the Palestinians, however, suggests a different desired outcome. Whereas both talk about their desire to make peace, their actual actions on the ground demonstrate differently. Today, Israelis and Palestinians alike are defying essential principles of conflict resolution, serving to prolong, rather than conclude their festering conflict.

Diminishing Returns

To achieve a resolution, parties in conflict must believe that continuing their dispute provides diminishing returns. That is, they must exhaust all possibilities to improve upon their positions and recognize that the situation of both sides can only be improved through compromise and cooperation. Recent developments indicate that neither Israel nor the Palestinians have come to this conclusion.

In fact, their behavior suggests the opposite. Today, each side has contributed to preservation of the status quo: Israel through settlement construction and arrogant intransigence in recognizing any merit to Palestinian positions; Palestinians through their refusal to return to the negotiating table and insistence on the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, which Israel will not accept. The status quo has become a political asset for each side, even at the risk of serving as a strategic liability for the future of both peoples. Furthermore, with short-term political considerations dominating the political discourse in Ramallah and Jerusalem, neither side has indicated any willingness to take the kind of calculated risk that will be necessary to resolve the conflicts. Without calculated risks, or efforts that begin to mitigate the conflict, it is impossible to move forward toward a resolution-and today in Israel-Palestine, there is neither. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining the conflict today is currently acceptable to both sides. The economy in Israel and the West Bank is thriving, and it is even improving in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas' relationship with Egypt is improving with the renewed open border. From each side's perspective, today's conflict is manageable in the immediate-term, even if both parties appear headed off a cliff in the not-too-distant future.

A Zero Sum Game

Successful conflict resolution also requires a non-zero sum approach based on mutual compromises and mutual gains. Today, there is no such give and take between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides believe that any compromise constitutes a "loss" and the other side's "gain." This situation is aggravated by the complete lack of trust today between the two sides. Without trust, political or real security risks are perceived to be virtually impossible to take.

Through their hard-line postures and rhetoric, each side is discrediting the notion and diminishing the prospect of mutual gains in the future. Their actions are even worse. Here, the "giving," for example, in relation to any territorial concession by either side, is seen as a sacrifice and the "taking" is considered to be deserved and overdue. Positions are not described in terms of what is possible; rather "what is ours." This diminishes the value of any give and take, makes it more difficult to conduct, and it becomes even harder for conflict resolution efforts to succeed.

Lack of Outside Pressure

If parties in conflict are under some level of outside pressure to reach a compromise, there is greater incentive to reach one. Today, the international community is weary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and their resulting approach is one that is serving to perpetuate rather than resolve it. There is no pressure on Israelis or Palestinians to act. In fact, their intransigence has been aided and even encouraged by their international benefactors. For Israel, the image of over two dozen members of Congress giving a standing ovation for Prime Minster Netanyahu's diatribe of preconditions and insults confirms the unhelpful and even harmful laissez faire attitude the American Congress has taken with regard to Israel's self-destructive policies.

Meanwhile, the American Jewish community has been similarly idle. Rather than an outcry, the Jewish community is providing support for whatever Israel's policy happens to be, however reckless. For the Palestinians, their refusal to return to the negotiating table has been encouraged by the international community's burgeoning support for a United Nations General Assembly resolution which ignores any possibility of a negotiated agreement. The Palestinians may have greater international support today than at any point in their history. Instead of interpreting this backing as support for calculated risks toward peace, the Palestinians have understood the international support as providing further incentives to refuse a return to talks, and hold out for greater gains in the future. In addition, like American Jews standing by Israel in its foolhardy approaches, the Arab world is blindly supporting the Palestinians, rather than encouraging them toward a historic peace agreement. Even worse, Iran is serving to encourage continued conflict through its support of its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Domestic Complacency

Domestic outcries for conflict resolution create greater political will to generate steps to achieve it. In Israel, economic growth and a stable security environment have blinded Israelis into believing the status quo is sustainable. Support and outcry for making necessary concessions to reach an agreement hardly exists. Prime Minister Netanyahu's approval rating soared by 13 percent after his address to the United States Congress in which he provided a blueprint for prolonging the current Israeli-Palestinians stalemate. The public has been similarly complacent on the Palestinian side. The surge of Palestinian activism has been focused on efforts to isolate Israel and to demand an end to the Fatah-Hamas split, not for efforts to reach a historic compromise with Israel.

The reasons for this complacency are three-fold. First, each side fears the unknown. The Arab Spring has the region facing a period of unprecedented change. Rather than proactively seeking to shape this period of change, each side's reluctance is based on a fear that the devil they know - continued conflict - is perhaps safer than the devil they don't - a comprehensive resolution reached through mutual compromises. Second, there is a lack of political consensus on both sides. Without a clear path developed by policymakers on both sides, each is settling for the lowest common denominator. Without consensus, Jerusalem and Ramallah have settled on internal compromises of mediocrity, and inaction. Finally, each side is locked into old political narratives against one another while each side is suffering from internal division hardly conducive to a united political action. Israel remains focused on an archaic notion of security despite the changed landscape of warfare and defense in the region. Rather than recognize that the only guarantee for security is through a comprehensive peace, Israel is locked into a narrative of an inability to compromise for peace because of the security liabilities they worry it would create. Meanwhile, Palestinians remain committed to the impossible return of refugees to Israel and Hamas' repeated existential threats against Israel. The teaching of this narrative in schools, and the espousing of the right of return by politicians to the Palestinian public is politically expedient. These hardened positions are incompatible with genuine efforts to reach a lasting two-state solution.

Prevailing Pessimism

To achieve a resolution to a conflict, both sides must believe that they can succeed. Being positive about the prospect of deal is an important mindset - if you are entering a room to negotiate without a belief that it will lead anywhere, it will then be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is what is happening today in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither side believes in the merits of negotiations at the present time. The publics are equally skeptical about the prospect for peace. This is a dangerous combination. If peace is not possible, why try? Why create alternatives that could offer mutual accommodations? Why be creative? Without hope that the conflict can be resolved, there is no motivation to work toward a historic compromise--and violence becomes the more likely outcome. In the current pessimistic atmosphere, creative ideas in the search for a solution are being stifled and readily dismissed, if not ostracized and condemned. After years of failure, the parties and the international community are equally wary of concepts which have been tried and failed in the past as they are of new and inventive ones.

The Religious Component

In conflict resolution, different political ideas are considered, argued about and negotiated ad nauseum if need be until a compromise is reached provided that the parties are committed to a resolution. Even in intractable conflicts, time highlights the inability to sustain hardened ideologies, leading to an eventual realization in the benefits of a change in tactics toward greater compromise and cooperation. The religious components of the Israeli-Palestinians conflict have obfuscated this process. Religious precepts deem that it does not matter if one side is right or wrong--God ordained it, and so it is so. The Jews' affinity, for example, to Jerusalem and the Palestinians' claim of East Jerusalem to be their future Capital are deeply rooted in religious rather than political convictions. Regardless of how much time passes, and what developments may occur, religion, particularly in its fundamentalist forms, provides a hardened foundation from which parties cannot deviate. It is very difficult, though not impossible, to reconcile these religious convictions.

Peace is still possible; however bleak the picture may appear today. The geopolitical dynamics must be changed in profound ways to overcome the current shortcomings to achieving a successful conflict resolution. Each of the aforementioned obstacles must be addressed because the alternative to the current impasse is mutually perilous. What is needed then are bold actions that can change the dynamic of the conflict in a dramatic way.

A visit by President Obama to Israel and Ramallah to speak directly to the Israeli and Palestinian people would spell out with clarity the advantages of peace and the adverse consequences of continued stalemate. Such a personal, perhaps overdue visit by the president could have a significant impact on creating incentives for the parties to act, and to adjust their internal calculations regarding the continuation of the conflict.

Similarly, a push by the leading Arab states to reinvigorate the Arab Peace Initiative (API) could begin to reverse the atmosphere of pessimism and intransigence that pervades the region. Indeed, regardless of the regional Arab turmoil, and perhaps because of it, the API remains central, if not the only viable framework; to any successful negotiations to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since the conflict has a strong religious component, sustained dialogue among the religious groupings will be required. Although today, there is virtually none occurring between Jews and Muslims religious leaders, and no incentives being created to do so, the religious leaders have a special moral responsibility to rise up in the name of their religious teaching to find a solution to the religious element of the conflict which bears heavily on the overall search for a solution.

Most importantly, any chance to improve the prospects for a conflict resolution will require one critical element that is currently in extremely short-supply: leadership. Without leadership to act in recognition of the danger the current stalemate poses, Israelis and Palestinians will continue blindly prolonging a conflict that appears manageable yet dangerously simmering. Otherwise, one day they will be awakened by the kind of horrific violent eruption that could spin the region out of control.

*A version of this article was published in the Jerusalem Post on June 10th, 2011 and is available online here: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=224322

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

9/11 did not change the world – it was already on the path to decades of conflict
by Paul Rogers
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACT: "That long path, though, has from the start had within it one fundamental flaw. If we are to make sense of wider global trends in insecurity, we have to recognise that in all the analysis around the 9/11 anniversary there lies the belief that the main security concern must be with an extreme version of Islam. It may seem a reasonable mistake, given the impact of the wars, but it still misses the point. The war on terror is better seen as one part of a global trend which goes well beyond a single religious tradition – a slow but steady move towards revolts from the margins."
Income Caps and Inequality
by Sam Ben-Meir
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACTS: "Is it not extraordinary that in a country that claims to be as enlightened and advanced as ours, the combined wealth of three individuals – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett – exceeds the total wealth of the bottom half of Americans? One has to return to the days of the pharaohs of Egypt to find a parallel to the extreme wealth inequality that we see in in America today." ...... "The top tax rate remained above 90 percent through the 1950s and did not dip below 70 percent until 1981. At no point during the decades that saw America’s greatest economic growth did the tax on the wealthy drop below 70 percent. Today it is somewhere around 37 percent. President Biden’s American Families Plan would increase the top tax rate to 39.6 percent – a fairly modest alteration, albeit in the right direction. It is true that there was a time when the top marginal tax was even lower than it is today: in the years leading up to the Great Depression it hovered around 25 percent."
The Colonial Trap 
by Ian Buruma
Sep 7th 2021
EXTRACT: "But Biden can’t be blamed for the rise of the Taliban, or the fragile state of a country that has seen far too many wars and invasions. The US should not have been there in the first place, but that is a lesson that great powers never seem to learn."
The AI Revolution and Strategic Competition with China
by Eric Schmidt
Sep 4th 2021
EXTRACT: "The world is only starting to grapple with how profound the artificial-intelligence revolution will be. AI technologies will create waves of progress in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production, and environmental sustainability. Successful adoption of AI will drive economies, reshape societies, and determine which countries set the rules for the coming century." ----- "AI will reorganize the world and change the course of human history. The democratic world must lead that process."
The Stagflation Threat Is Real 
by Nouriel Roubini
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Although the Fed is considering tapering its quantitative easing (QE), it will likely remain dovish and behind the curve overall. Like most central banks, it has been lured into a “debt trap” by the surge in private and public liabilities (as a share of GDP) in recent years. Even if inflation stays higher than targeted, exiting QE too soon could cause bond, credit, and stock markets to crash. That would subject the economy to a hard landing, potentially forcing the Fed to reverse itself and resume QE." ---- "After all, that is what happened between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, following the Fed’s previous attempt to raise rates and roll back QE."
Back to the Seventies?
by Kenneth Rogoff
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Today’s economic challenges are certainly solvable, and there is no reason why inflation should have to spike."
We Must Not Allow The Republicans To Destroy Our Basic Values
by Dr. Alon Ben-Meir and Dr. Sam Ben-Meir
Aug 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "To be sure, they have focused on their agenda, which is totally misguided—not by our own account but by the account of the majority of the American population, who view the Republican party as one that has lost its moral footing to the detriment of America’s future generations, who must now inherit the ugly consequences of a party that ran asunder."
Afghanistan Was Always About American Politics
by James K. Galbraith
Aug 21st 2021
EXTRACTS: "Now that so many sad truths about Afghanistan are being spoken aloud, even in the major media – let me add one more: The war, from start to finish, was about politics, not in Afghanistan but in the United States. Afghanistan was always a sideshow."--- "....the 2001 invasion was fast and apparently decisive. And so it rescued George W. Bush’s tainted presidency,..." --- "Bush’s approval shot up to 90% and then steadily declined,..."
Biden Was Right 
by Charles A. Kupchan
Aug 17th 2021
EXTRACT: "The Taliban’s virtually uncontested takeover over Afghanistan raises obvious questions about the wisdom of US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw US and coalition forces from the country. Paradoxically, however, the rapidity and ease of the Taliban’s advance only reaffirms that Biden made the right decision – and that he should not reverse course. ...... The ineffectiveness and collapse of Afghanistan’s military and governing institutions largely substantiates Biden’s skepticism that US-led efforts to prop up the government in Kabul would ever enable it to stand on its own feet. The international community has spent nearly 20 years, many thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars to do good by Afghanistan – taking down al-Qaeda; beating back the Taliban; supporting, advising, training, and equipping the Afghan military; bolstering governing institutions; and investing in the country’s civil society. .... Significant progress was made, but not enough." ....... "That is because the mission was fatally flawed from the outset. It was a fool’s errand to try to turn Afghanistan into a centralized, unitary state. "
Banning Opinion 
by Ian Buruma
Aug 6th 2021
EXTRACT: "But even in the US, which is more lenient than most countries, the principle cannot be absolute. Inciting imminent violence is not permitted. Donald Trump’s speech on January 6, urging the mob to storm the US Capitol, certainly came close to overstepping this boundary. It was a clear demonstration that language can be dangerous. What the internet media has done is raise the stakes; “fighting words” are spread around much faster and more widely than ever before. This will require a great deal of vigilance, to protect our freedom to express ourselves, while observing the social and legal bounds that stop words from turning into actual fighting. "
China's Animal Spirits Deficit 
by Stephen S. Roach
Jul 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "When it comes to the Chinese economy, I have been a congenital optimist for over 25 years. But now I have serious doubts. The Chinese government has taken dead aim at its dynamic technology sector, the engine of China’s New Economy. Its recent actions are symptomatic of a deeper problem: the state’s efforts to control the energy of animal spirits." ---- "... the Chinese economy, no less than others, still requires a foundation of trust – trust in the consistency of leadership priorities, in transparent governance, and in wise regulatory oversight – to flourish. --- Modern China lacks this foundation of trust ."
Put Central Bankers in Their Place
by Howard Davies
Jul 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "It seems that they are, as the last 18 months have seen a remarkable expansion of the central banks’ fields of activity, largely driven by their own ambitions. So they have moved into the climate change arena, arguing that financial stability may be put at risk by rising temperatures, and that central banks, as bond purchasers and as banking supervisors, can and should be proactive in raising the cost of credit for corporations without a credible transition plan. That is a promising new line of business, which is likely to grow. ---- Central banks are also trying to move into social engineering, specifically the policy response to rising income and wealth inequality, another hot button topic with high political salience."
Europe’s Green Unilateralism 
by Hans-Werner Sinn
Jul 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "The EU’s ambitious unilateral climate strategy will transform Europe into a trade fortress, encourage green protectionism worldwide, and give other regions the opportunity to develop using cheaper energy. And without China, India, and the United States on board, other countries will be careful not to follow the EU in its self-appointed role as the world’s green guinea pig. If Europe is not careful, it will risk finding itself in a climate club of one. "
Beefatarians Not Wanted
by Peter Singer
Jul 9th 2021
EXTRACT: ".... ruminants belch and fart methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas. As a result, rearing beef cattle brings about, on average, six times the contribution to global warming as non-ruminant animals (for example, pigs) producing the same quantity of protein. ..... if projected to 2050 [beef production], would use 87% of the total quantity of emissions that is compatible with the Paris climate agreement’s objective of staying below a 2° Celsius increase in temperature."
Joe Biden’s Nixon Strategy
by Melvyn B. Krauss
Jul 8th 2021
EXTRACT: " .... while China’s leaders never mention it, they are just as embittered over Russia’s theft of Chinese territory in the nineteenth century as they are over the West’s imperial predations. With Western imperialism having been largely rolled back, it is Russia’s continued occupation of historic Chinese territory that stands out the most to ordinary Chinese observers. For example, the city of Vladivostok, with its vast naval base, has been a part of Russia only since 1860, when the tsars built a military harbor there. Before that, the city was known by the Manchu name of Haishenwai." ---- "There is also a demographic argument for Putin to consider: the six million Russians spread along the Siberian border face 90 million Chinese on the other side. And many of these Chinese regularly cross the border into Russia to trade (and a good number to stay)."
After Afghanistan Falls
by Djoomart Otorbaev
Jul 7th 2021
EXTRACTS: "According to a new analysis by researchers at Brown University, America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan cost it nearly $2.3 trillion. Now, Afghanistan’s neighbors – Pakistan, Iran, China, India, and the Central Asian countries – are wondering just how much it will cost them to maintain security after the United States is gone." ----- "After clandestinely supporting the Taliban as a means to undermine the US war effort, Russia now fears broader destabilization in Central Asia and beyond." ---- "Similarly, after having made nice with the Taliban, China also now fears the greater regional instability that the US withdrawal may incite. In addition to disrupting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Eurasia-spanning Belt and Road Initiative, a revitalized Taliban could re-energize the Islamist extremist threat in China’s western Xinjiang province."
The Looming Stagflationary Debt Crisis 
by Nouriel Roubini
Jul 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "When former Fed Chair Paul Volcker hiked rates to tackle inflation in 1980-82, the result was a severe double-dip recession in the United States and a debt crisis and lost decade for Latin America. But now that global debt ratios are almost three times higher than in the early 1970s, any anti-inflationary policy would lead to a depression, rather than a severe recession. ---- Under these conditions, central banks will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and many governments will be semi-insolvent and thus unable to bail out banks, corporations, and households. The doom loop of sovereigns and banks in the eurozone after the global financial crisis will be repeated worldwide, sucking in households, corporations, and shadow banks as well. ---- As matters stand, this slow-motion train wreck looks unavoidable."
China and the west: competing traditions make true friendship highly unlikely – here’s why
by Astrid H. M. Nordin and Graham M Smith
Jun 19th 2021
EXTRACT: "Xi Jinping’s call for friendship gives us an opportunity to examine Chinese politics on both the domestic and international stage. On the face of it, it suggests the possibility of rapprochement between the rich liberal democracies represented by the G7 and the authoritarian Chinese state. However, despite appearances of a call for a closer relationship, there is more than one way of being friends – and Xi’s idea might be somewhat different to what many in countries attending the G7 might expect."
The Upside of Population Decline
by Adair Turner
Jun 12th 2021
EXTRACT: "China’s recently published census, showing that its population has almost stopped growing, brought warnings of severe problems for the country. “Such numbers make grim reading for the party,” reported The Economist. This “could have a disastrous impact on the country,” wrote Huang Wenzheng, a fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, in the Financial Times. But a comment posted on China’s Weibo was more insightful. “The declining fertility rate actually reflects the progress in the thinking of Chinese people – women are no longer a fertility tool.” "
Vaccines for All or Vaccine Apartheid?
by Gordon Brown
Jun 12th 2021
EXTRACT: " I remember recounting fellow leaders of the story of a Rwanda schoolboy caught up in the genocide of the 1990s and now immortalized in the Kigali Genocide Memorial museum, where, in a section devoted to children, one can find his photograph and a plaque that reads: ----- David, age 11 ...... Ambition: to be a doctor ...... Favorite sport: football ...... Favorite hobby: making people laugh ...... Death: by mutilation ...... Last words: the UN are coming to save us ----- In his idealism and innocence, David believed the international community would save him and his mother. We didn’t. "