Last Wednesday, Marc Lynch blogged about the foreign policy issues that deserved increased attention in Obama’s second administration. In the lineup, as usual, is the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.He wrote, “the new administration should try to take advantage of the reorientation of Hamas toward Qatar, and work with Egypt to make a serious push to finally reconstitute a representative and legitimate Palestinian negotiating partner. It should also do what it can to encourage the renewal of a peace camp in the upcoming Israeli election. Those two steps would at least set the stage for a possible return to peace talks, though I don't think anyone's optimistic.”
This perspective echoes claims I made in my research titled “Let’s Make a Deal: Interest Based Bargaining in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (2012). In this piece, I utilized a game theoretic model developed by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita to hypothesize a bilateral interest-based approach to negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. My model measured progress on four main issues: the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the division of Jerusalem, the West Bank and settlements, and sovereignty and military presence.
In the end, my approach did not pass the test. On each issue, negotiations ended in the third iteration- or the third round of talks. This indicates that in bilateral negotiations, the Israelis and Palestinians will not be able to successfully reach an agreement. However, looking forward in the model’s results, there was complete cooperation on every issue by the seventeenth iteration and sometimes as soon as the thirteenth iteration. This suggests that if Israel and the Palestinians could move past the third round of talks, there is hope for cooperation. I made three primary suggestions for achieving this goal.
First, I believe that involving both the United States and a leading state in the Arab world is absolutely necessary. Regarding recent developments, Egypt could be a key partner in this endeavor because they too will benefit from a peaceful solution. Second, I call for more substantial preparation for negotiations. Each side should be involved in dialogue with the mediating countries so that they are primed for flexibility and pivot to a focus on interests rather than issues alone. The only way a two-state solution could become a reality is to recognize that each party has distinct interests that do not necessarily have to be zero-sum. There is potential for flexibility moving forward, but we will most likely have to engage in some dialogue with Hamas in order to assure the Palestinians that their interests matter too. If the US approaches these negotiations as a strictly pro-Israel party, the Palestinians will feel defensive and will be less likely to focus on interests and flexibility. This is why it is crucial to involve an Arab state and could provide a good building block for a US-Hamas relationship. Lastly, I recommend that negotiations not take place in a fourteen-day period. While it is not necessary to have continuous high-level talks, there need to be negotiators of all parties involved for a longer amount of time in order to space out iterations. If there are iterations every day, with no time to increase flexibility or reorient each party's focus on the interests over the issues, the negotiations will surely fail. However, if there is enough time for mediation with negotiators of each party, the plan has a fighting chance.
So my message to the Obama administration: you’ve been given four more years to do something about stability in the Middle East, so let’s turn our attention back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I for one am convinced that the protracted conflict between Israel and the Palestinians feeds tensions in the region. Taking steps towards peaceful negotiations is a good move to encourage stability in the region. While my research does not single handedly provide a “How-To Bring Peace to the Middle East”, it serves to illustrate the potential for cooperation. We must simply reorient the parties to understand that focusing on interests, rather than issues, allows both nations to prosper, increase international security and prosperity, and finally experience peace in every day living.
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