The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

Palestinians and diverting attention from the justice of their cause. Two Divided Societies Another reason for the stalemate is the fact that radical minorities on both sides wield disproportionate power that blocks effective majorities and cripples peacemaking. In Israel, the influence of extremist and religious factions is inflated by a parliamentary system that allows the election of members from many small parties, including ultra-orthodox Jews and messianic Religious Zionists who support settlements. The results are un- stable coalitions or “national unity” governments like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s current Kadima-led coali- tion. Held hostage by minorities, governments have been unable to act decisively on issues of territory and peace, and the few that have attempted it have collapsed. Most of Israel’s impressive intellectual and cultural elite understand the corrosive effects of occupation. They support a wide variety of human rights and peace groups, and produce the most trenchant and authoritative criti- cism of Israeli policy. Moreover, repeated polls suggest that a majority of Israelis, on the conceptual level, want peace, oppose settlements and support a negotiated two- state solution in return for real peace. Paradoxically, however, at election time Israelis’ sup- port for peace is often trumped by security fears. For the majority, the lesson of the failed Oslo process, the 2000- 2004 intifada and the recent Lebanon war, constantly reinforced by politicians and generals, is that Israel can only rely on force, since “there is no Palestinian partner.” Thus far, the peace camp has been unable to persuade electoral majorities that negotiations and peace are a real- istic alternative. Palestinian politics are also deeply divided and dys- functional. The main fault line lies between Fatah and Hamas, but there are many smaller secular and Islamist factions. As in other subject societies and emerging poli- ties, Palestinian institutions are weak, for lack of experi- ence and opportunity. Except for a few years during the Oslo era, Israeli policy has worked against Palestinian self- government and democracy. Arafat’s authoritarian style and lack of coherent strategy also took a toll. Israel’s policy today of maintaining its occupation of the West Bank and opposing the newly elected Hamas government, bodes ill for Palestinian institutional develop- ment. The IDF has taken charge, de facto, of security in the West Bank, and Palestinian civil government hardly functions. Onerous controls over internal movement and the sep- aration barrier block trade. And the cutoff of Western aid and Israel’s withholding of tax revenues owed to Palestinians in order to undermine Hamas have accelerated poverty and institutional breakdown. In this environment, armed factions have filled the vac- uum. Fractious and disorderly, the Palestinian political system is ill-equipped to make major decisions about peace with Israel and to win public support for hard choic- es. President Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have called for a national unity government of technocrats with a nonpartisan prime minister, hoping to restore aid and restart negotiations. But as of this writing, this has not been implemented, Hamas/Fatah violence continues, and Israel and the U.S. have offered little encouragement. “Peace Process” Versus Peace Since 1991, the American concept of peacemaking has been a process of dialogue, negotiations and “confidence building.” Washington has served as a go-between, but has seldom offered clear American policy views on the big issues of settlements, borders, Jerusalem and refugees. The exception was the “Clinton parameters” offered in December 2000 to rescue the dying Oslo process after the collapse of the Camp David Summit in July. Both sides accepted these, although with reservations, and Israeli and Palestinian negotiators fleshed them out at Taba in January 2001. But this tentative agreement was soon mooted by the election of Ariel Sharon, a proponent of force, and the inauguration of George W. Bush. The 1993 Oslo Declaration was little more than pro- mises for mutual recognition, an end to violence, and negotiations over six years. Its failure confirmed that a process without strong third-party mediation and an agreed definition of peace cannot work. The Oslo process contained no such agreement and the two sides had very different expectations. Israel assumed it could keep most F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 Radical minorities on both sides wield disproportionate power that blocks effective majorities and cripples peacemaking.