Outside Actors, the Oslo Process, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Outside Actors and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Throughout the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, various outside actors have gotten involved in ways that influenced its ultimate course. This paper will address three external actors who impacted the conflict through their policies and actions. Specifically, Hizbollah in Lebanon with Iranian support, Egypt during the Camp David Accords, and the United States during the Oslo Process have all influenced how the Arab-Israeli conflict progressed throughout its history thus far. While these outside actors certainly do not represent all those who held sway over the conflict's history, they do represent some of the more significant influences. At its core, the Arab-Israeli conflict concerns grievances between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but the controversy has impacted the world more broadly. Further, the historical course of the conflict has largely not been of its own making, but rather, it was significantly sculpted by the influences of others.
Hizbollah impacted the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict in important ways, but it didn't do so alone. Lebanon significantly impacted the conflict because of its general weak state status and because it served as a place for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to congregate. That led Israel to make an out-of-character move and invade Lebanon with the hope that the invasion and occupation would put Israel at an advantage over the PLO. Hezbollah emerged post-Israeli invasion and occupation chaos because Israel's involvement in Lebanon exacerbated pain and tension among the Shi'ite community, who suffered a great deal from Israel's hostility toward the Palestinians along the border (Atzili 2010, 767). Additionally, Iran also impacted the course of the conflict through its significant funding of Hizbollah. Therefore, Hizbollah had the funding and power to step in and offer the Shi'ite community a host of helpful services that the state could not: programs benefiting its fighters, schools, banks, and more (Atzili 2010, 769). In doing so, Hezbollah strengthened its recruitment efforts and its anti-Israel agenda.
In the end, Israel's occupation of Lebanon left it with a more significant threat than the PLO. Hezbollah made history as the first Arab army to ever drive Israel out of Arab land unconditionally (Zisser 2006, 89). After Israel's withdrawal, Hizbollah "evolved from a militant radical organization into a mini-military empire with its own territory, Hizbollahland, in the south of the country along Israel's northern border" (Zisser 2006, 86). In this way, Hizbollah, Lebanon, and Iran collectively impacted the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Egypt is another outside actor who has influenced the conflict's outcome through its actions during the Camp David Accords. These Accords were an important event in the Arab-Israeli conflict's history because they served as a turning point between Israeli-Egyptian relations. However, they were also rightly criticized for excluding a Palestinian solution and broader "comprehensive settlement" (Quandt 1986, 357). Regardless, the accords marked a more peaceful existence between Egypt and Israel. Egypt's involvement in the Camp David Accords also impacted the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict because, through the accords, Israel solidified a "bargaining position vis-a-vis Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinians," essentially meaning that "no Arab leader can expect to gain as much from negotiations as Sadat did," which was a win for Begin and Israel (Quandt 1986, 370). In addition, the accords allowed Israel to serve its own interests and goals, including retaining questionable settlements and taking advantage of loopholes to further expand its settlements to the detriment of Palestinians (Sayegh 2006, 18). In this way, Egypt's actions helped solidify wins for Israel, but it did the opposite for the Palestinians, significantly altering the conflict's direction overall.
Lastly, the actions of the United States have significantly impacted the outcome of the Arab-Israel conflict through its involvement. While it has had a hand in many areas of the conflict throughout the conflict's history, including the Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords was one such occasion that highlights aspects of its influence. There were many high hopes for the success of the Oslo Accords; however, the United States was an essential factor in its ultimate failure, as can be seen during the Camp David summit. Because the United States adopted a strategy which in many ways mirrored or biased toward the Israeli Prime Minister, the negotiations failed (Pundak 2001, 40-41). Further, Pressman highlights the imbalance caused by the United States' biased nature toward Israel and states that they "especially together––have more power and leverage at the bargaining table than the Palestinians" (2003, 7). That is an important statement. It's because of the leveraging power gained from the general pro-Israel stance of the United States that they can be viewed as having had the most impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The U.S. is Israel's biggest ally, and how can the Palestinians hope to have fair and balanced negotiations under such circumstances?
Key Lessons from the Failure of the Oslo Process
The ultimate failure of the Oslo Process crushed the hopes of many wishing for a peaceful future and resolution between the Israelis and the Palestinians. However, any failure is not truly a failure if something positive or educational can be obtained from it––it then transforms not into a failure but a learning process. In such situations, a fixed mindset sees failure, where a growth mindset asks, 'what have we learned and how can we do better next time?' In the Oslo Process case, important lessons have emerged that might improve attempts to find harmony and a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This paper argues that three key lessons can be gleaned from the Oslo Process:
It's crucial that the person leading the process also believes in it.
The negotiation process is paramount to negotiation success.
Rhetoric deteriorates the foundation on which negotiations are conducted.
Netanyahu's heart was not in the Oslo Process. The trouble with Netanyahu was that he didn't believe in the Oslo Accords and saw Israel's part in them as a mistake. Pundak underscored that "Netanyahu sabotaged the peace process relentlessly and made every effort to de-legitimize his Palestinian partners" (2001, 33). Netanyahu became toxic to the success of the Oslo Accords. Further, as they have throughout most of the conflict's history, the Israelis continued to expand their settlements and take away land from the Palestinians (Pressman 2003, 36). These actions deepened Palestinian anger and exacerbated frustrations. In future attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, it's important to ensure that the person implementing any agreement, process, or negotiation fully understands and agrees with it, rather than it being something thrust on them by external factors. Such a person should feel like part of the process to truly invest their time, energy, and efforts in its success.
Another important point is that the actual process of negotiating is paramount to its success. The Oslo Process might have had more success if the negotiation process had been handled differently. Netanyahu's successor, Barak, hampered the Oslo Accords because he mishandled the negotiating process and ultimately lost the Palestinians' trust. According to Pundak, Barak lost Palestinian confidence through his negotiation strategies and ultimately "weakened the Israeli position" due to his considerable concessions (2001, 39-40). Barak approached negotiations from an everything or nothing mindset, which was in direct conflict with the accords' multi-tiered structure (Pundak 2001, 37). On top of that, he did nothing to inspire trust between Israel and the Palestinians. In the future, care should be taken in the actual process of negotiations to ensure they are fair, balanced, and structured in a manner accepted by both sides and conducive to constructive discussion.
Finally, rhetoric can have negative and detrimental impacts on any negotiating process. During the Oslo Process, the Palestinians deviated from their end of the bargain by blasting anti-Semite information and propaganda campaigns and not confiscating illegal weaponry (Pundak 2001, 33). Anti-Israeli propaganda lashed out against the Israelis from radio, newspapers, books, and television (Pundak 2001, 33). When sitting at the negotiating table, it's important to understand that calling the person across the table names and screaming hateful profanity at them isn't going to make them want to do business with you. It's more likely that it will make them stand up and walk out of the room. In the future, the Palestinians and the Israelis should bite their tongues when it comes to hurling insults and hate if they hope to establish a framework from which negotiations might be successfully conducted.
While the Oslo Process didn't end how its creators and the world more broadly had hoped, it did provide some valuable lessons and learning experiences. Because of this, the Oslo Process can be viewed not as a failure but as an insight into how to do better next time. Hopefully, the next time around, people lead both sides who believe in the cause, are smart about the negotiation process, and are respectful to all parties involved in any negotiations.
References:
Atzili, Boaz. 2010. "State Weakness and Vacuum of Power in Lebanon." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33.8: 757-782.
Pressman, Jeremy. 2003. “Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba?” International Security 28.2: 5-43.
Pundak, Ron. 2001. “From Oslo to Taba: What Went Wrong?” Survival 34.3:31-46.
Quandt, William B. 1986. “Camp David and Peacemaking in the Middle East.” Political Science Quarterly 101.3: 357-377.
Sayegh, Fayez. 1979. “The Camp David Agreement and the Palestine Problem.” Journal of Palestine Studies 8.2: 3-40.
Zisser, Eyal. 2006. “Hizballah and Israel: Strategic Threat on the Northern Border.” Israel Affairs 12.1:86-106.
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