Yehuda Boltshauser

"Thirty Years of Peacemaking"

Op-Ed, Agence Global

September 22, 2008

Author: Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: The Dubai Initiative

BEIRUT -- This week is a noteworthy occasion in Arab-Israeli history, because it commemorates two historic events, the Camp David Accords of September 1978, and the Oslo Accords of September 1993. Exactly 30 and 15 years ago, these two agreements were painstakingly negotiated between various Arabs and Israelis, with assorted external assistance, and both held out the promise of breakthroughs for permanent Arab-Israeli peace and coexistence.

History has turned out to be more complex than the promises of those two Septembers past. Arab-Israeli peace turned out to be much more erratic and cold than many had hoped. Terrible conflicts characterized by mutual brutality have persisted, with new actors joining the fray every few years. Not surprisingly, Palestinians, Syrians, Israelis and others continue to probe for possible routes to permanent peace agreements, without much success.

The peace-making legacy of Camp David and Oslo remains thin, but real. It is certain that Arabs and Israelis, with assorted eternal mediators, will try again to negotiate permanent peace agreements, perhaps starting as early as next spring. If so, it seems worthwhile trying to identify the lessons of the Camp David and Oslo experiences. Here is my list of key lessons learned:

1. Frameworks do not work very well, and precise agreements are more likely to achieve lasting peace. Framework agreements often leave the most contentious issues in a gray zone that never gets defined.

2. 'Autonomy' and 'self-government' do not work very well, and real sovereignty is more likely to lead to lasting peace. The Camp David agreement included plans for an "autonomous self-governing authority" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a surefire dead duck before it was born.

3. Jerusalem matters a lot to everyone, and its status cannot be excluded from any credible agreement, or deferred to later dates.

4. The principal actors must be the ones who negotiate peace, not surrogates. Camp David did not include Palestinians so the proposed framework for the Palestinian-Israeli arrangements went nowhere. Oslo did not include all major Palestinian groups, so it was not respected by all, and the process ultimately collapsed. The same thing applies to current talks, which exclude Hamas and other Palestinians, and therefore have almost zero chance of success.

5. Interim arrangements are a lousy idea, and negotiators should do the hard work to address all issues and come up with compromise agreements that respond to the bottom lines of all concerned. The Oslo Accords comprised a "Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements," a title in which almost every word is a recipe for sure failure. "Interim arrangements" are proposed when the negotiators are unwilling or unable to tackle the tough core issues. They usually lead to slight changes in the status quo that remain vulnerable to the disruptive actions of extremists on both sides, as has happened with Palestinian military attacks against Israelis and continued Israeli colonization of Palestinian land.

6. The will to make peace must be clear on all sides. Peacemaking is a tough business that demands clarity and sincerity. Israelis and Palestinians have not provided sufficient quantities of either one in the past 30 years. Speaking on television about one's will to coexist is not a serious sign of real peacemaking. What is needed is the ability to express unambiguously a willingness to meet the core needs of the other side -- only if this is done simultaneously by both sides.

7. Peace can only happen between people who treat each other as equals. The single biggest weakness of the Camp David and Oslo approaches to Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking was that it was predicated on a sense of Israeli priority to security and statehood, which the principal external player -- the United States -- broadly shared. Peace was to happen after the Palestinians guaranteed the absolute security of Israelis, even in Zionist colonies and settlements, after which the Palestinians could look forward to improved living conditions and rights. Peace with Egypt and Jordan, on the other hand, was more easily negotiated, smoothly implemented, and maintained for all these years, because it was based on equal relationships -- on Israelis and Arabs enjoying equal and simultaneous rights to statehood, sovereignty, and security.

8. Negotiations should not proceed on the basis of what the other side will offer in an unequal power equation; they should move ahead on the basis of what is required by the legal and political reference points for the peace process, such as UN resolutions, international law and conventions, and signed agreements.

9. All sides must be prepared to make peace and coexist, but only if they can live in mutual dignity and security. Public opinion polls consistently reflect a strong willingness to negotiate peace on both sides, but mediocre and often corrupt and incompetent political leaders are unable to translate that latest peace instinct into formal agreements.

Thirty years is a long time, and time enough to learn some useful lessons in the business of negotiating peace.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

For more information about this publication please contact the Belfer Center Communications Office at 617-495-9858.

For Academic Citation:
Khouri, Rami. "Thirty Years of Peacemaking." Agence Global (September 22, 2008).