3-International conflicts

International Conflict Resolution

21 January 2010

1
 Conflict analysis
Origins of the conflict
The parties in the dispute, who is involved
Injustices and grievances
What do they want? Their demands and bargaining
positions
External actors and their role in the conflict
Proposals for resolution and their responses

2
 Testing period
A time of escalation and violence
When the parties press for a decisive victory
Testing their own resolution, and the resistance of the other side, a time
of maximum exertion
The testing period gives strength to the group and a mythology of
struggle
Why the testing period cannot be avoided in most cases, in identity
conflicts above all

3
 Hurting points
 When costs of conflict are seen to outweigh the
perceived benefits of continuing
 What are the disincentives or hurting points of the
parties?
 Hurting points can be
Excessive casualties,
Excessive economic costs,
Sudden loss or collapse of morale,
Leadership splits and conflict
International pressure and loss of support
Hurting points are propitious times for mediation
4
 Mediation
The hurting point must be mutual for mediation and de-escalation
When the anger and hatred has reached breaking point on both
sides
Third party involvement, a mediator can be an international
organisation or state with connections to both sides, or a political
leader
The mediator must have influence with both sides
Influence and ability get results is more important than
impartiality or trust
Mediator formulates acceptable agreements, or may pressure one
or both of the parties,
A facilitator brings them together, here trust and impartiality are
important
Identity conflicts require external mediation

5
 Hurting points
Leadership splits
 Hurting points can trigger factional disputes and splits in the
leadership
 Moderate and hardliner factions emerge
 Moderate groups split from the group and call for
negotiations, may work with mediators to resolve conflict
 The mediator may then support and strengthen the moderate
group, may call for international economic or even military
support

6
 The spoiler
 Mediation can split the leadership and create powerful spoilers
 Spoilers are disadvantaged groups which rebel against the ceasefire,
radicals who seek control over one of the parties
 Moderates may then be attacked by the hardliners who act as
spoilers
 Should moderates work with mediators to bring about a resolution
they will be targeted
 Spoilers may then resort to further escalation to demonstrate
control over the movement
 Breakdown of mediation results, a new round of violence follows
and a new testing time
 Negotiating agreements has its costs for a leadership

7
 The spoiler
The aggrieved spoiler
One who is opposed to a specific agreement,
The terms of the ceasefire agreement may have to be re-
negotiated
The spoiler will have to be a party to negotiations
The role of the mediator is to bring unity to a split leadership, by
negotiating with ceasefire proponents and spoilers
The absolute spoiler
Utterly opposed to any agreement
Nationalists and hardliners opposed to any concessions
These spoilers can be nationalist movements or parties,
They also can be powerful political figures with much influence
Can they be isolated? The mediator and the moderates forge an
understanding to isolate the spoilers
These spoilers must be isolated for mediation to succeed
8
 External parties
 External parties may support the spoilers for their
own interests
 External actors then can destroy mediation efforts,
may prevent any kind of agreement from resulting
 The moderates may then find compensating support
from the international community
 The conflict may widen as external parties then come
into conflict
 An extended conflict is created, of international
proportions
9
 Mediation
 Conflict resolution theory, persuade the leaders to circumvent
the testing period by showing them how other conflicts have
developed.
 If a sufficient body of knowledge is developed in regard to the
conflict cycle the result of present actions could be foreseen
 This knowledge would have a dampening effect upon
escalation
 Early mediation and/or facilitation would be possible
 Mediators may then induce early hurting points based on the
recognition of the futility of escalation

10
 The agreement
The result of mediation is an agreement
The end phase of the resolution effort
A propaganda document
Vague provisions
Statements of high principle intended to mask over obvious
disagreements
A realistic document
Specific and detailed provisions
Ceasefire, disarmament, refugees and internally displaced people, UN
PKOs, transitional authority, elections, and formation of government
Post conflict peacebuilding

11
 Dyadic conflict
B C D
A

Extended conflict
Extended conflict
External actors have their own agenda,
often dismissive of events in the
dispute

The conflict pursued by external actors

can then assume greater importance
than the original dispute

When external actors prolong and

intensify the conflict

Conflict resolution requires the

involvement of external actors

Mediation is then extended to the

external actors, their interests have to
be taken into account

13
Israel and the Palestinians

An extended conflict

14
 Why resolve the issue?
 This is not the place to “give war a chance.”
 America’s concern and the link with terrorism, this issue fuels
terrorism
 The danger of conflict and interruption of the oil supply
 Japan and oil embargo 1973-74, and the creation of IUJ
 Why China is now concerned, since China became a net oil
importer in 1993
 Iran’s nuclear weapons program and possible conflict with
Israel, Iranian ambitions in the Gulf, the Middle East and in
the Islamic world

15
 Israel and the Palestinians
1. The causes of the conflict
Injustice, Jews were deprived of their own state, Zionism and
the creation of Israel
Injustice, the Palestinians were deprived of their land, the
Islamic world is in support
2. Testing period
Four inter state wars, Israel and the major Arab powers,
1948/49-1973
Civil conflict since 1988, Israel and the Palestinians
How the conflict has been transformed
The split within the Palestinians

16
 Israel and the Palestinians
3. Mediation
Why the US can be the only mediator
US as mediator in the Camp David accords 1978
Norway as facilitator and the Oslo accords 1993
The Clinton Administration and the post Oslo phase, 2000-2001
The Bush Administration and the Annapolis agreement-2007
Contributory facilitation by Saudi Arabia, the UN

4. Proposals for resolution

The two state solution
The federal state solution

17
 Contested homeland
 When two culturally and religiously different people claim the
same homeland
Cyprus-between Greeks and Turks
South Asia, India and Pakistan
Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan
Kosovo, Serbia and the Albanians
 When compromise is rejected
 Partition is the natural response, but it is unsatisfactory and is
seen as a temporary solution
 The result is a situation of competition and conflict

18
Israel in history

19
 Zionism
Origins of Judaism-the Torah
stresses that Israel is the
original homeland of the Jews
Series of kingdoms, David,
Solomon 1000-587 BC
Israel and Judah separate
Roman destruction of the temple
70-130 AD
Half of the population was carried
away as slaves,
Some stayed in Palestine, these
were Arabised Jews,

20
Israel in history

21
 Zionism
 Jewish tradition, redemption in Zion was central to Jewish religious
experience,
 Zion, the name of the hill in Jerusalem on which David built his city, the
citadel, Zion a symbol of the promised land
 Zionism a political movement seeking a homeland for the Jews
 Theodore Herzl [1860-1904] his most famous work Der Judenstaat [The
State of the Jews-1896]
 A response to persecution in East Europe and the pogroms of Czarist times
 They claimed that return to land of Israel was essential if the Jews were to
become a normal people, a nation
 The Jews must become a nation to survive and to escape persecution
 Argentina as a possibility, then later Palestine
 The holocaust and Zionism

22
 Who are the Jews?
,
A religion
Conservative, Haredi or orthodox, liberal and reform Judaism
Rabbinical tradition denies nationhood for the Jews,
Every nation disappears in history, only God’s word survives
Await the coming of the Messiah who will bring peace and justice
They are opposed to the Zionists
Neturei Karta opposition to Zionism, support the Palestinians
A race
There are many races amongst the Jews
From Northern Europeans, Moroccans, Iranians, Ethiopians [120,000
Falasha, or Beta Israel] to Indians
Race is no basis for unity
A nation
Strong basis for unity if the Jews become Israelis

23
24
 Palestinians
Palestinians feel that they have
been displaced by Western
colonialists
Zionist movement failed to
anticipate the development of
Arab nationalism
Displaced local people later
became Palestinians with their
own nationalism
Zionist displacement created a
Palestinian nation that seeks
its own state
Zionists are “outsiders” to the land

25
 Palestinian claim
Palestinians claim that they and not
the Jews, have constant
uninterrupted occupation of the
land, since 1300 BC
Amorites, Canaanites, Jebusites,
Penizzites, Havit
Descendents of Philistines, who
established Kingdom of Philistia
[hence Palestine]
They claim that the Muslim conquest
of 1099 was not colonization, local
people converted to Islam
Ottoman conquest 1517

26
 External actors
The West and Israel
Israel as an extension of the US [$2.5 billion in official aid]
Christian Zionism in America, the role of the religious right in US politics
Why Israel is so important for the US? Effective lobbying by AIPAC or
religious conviction?
How Europe differs from America
The Islamic world and Palestine
Western injustice to Muslims, displacement of Muslims
Western “crusader” movement
Islam’s sense of historical humiliation
This issue gives unity to the Islamic world, from Iran to Indonesia
Not just a bilateral issue, external actors have their own claims and
influence events

27
 Arab world
Western
Socialists
France,
Western Britain
world

Iran
Fatah
Likud Labor
Shas Hamas
Yisrael Beiteinu
Peace now
28
 The issues
Two ethnically related people with exclusivist religions claim the
same land
 How Judaism and Islam are linked
 The Arabian peninsula was strongly influenced by Judaism and less so
Christianity
 Mohammed and the revelations of the Angel Gabriel, the influence of
Judaism on Islam
 Ishmael the ancestor of the Arabs was son of Abraham and servant
Hagar.
 According to tradition Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba on old
foundations

29
 The issues
1. Borders of Israel
2. Palestinian homeland
3. Possession of the holy sites
The Al Aqsa mosque/wailing wall
The tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and
Rebekah, Jacob and Leah
4. Palestinian refugees displaced by Zionists in the first war,
1948-49

30
Al Aqsa Mosque-Wailing Wall

31
Hebron-the tomb of the patriarchs

32
 Palestine under the British
Britain pushed for partition as answer to Jewish emigration
 Jewish emigration stimulated by the formation of the Zionist movement
 Peel report of July 1937, partition on the basis of self governing
communities,
 In 1880 - 30,000 Jews in Palestine
 1930 - 150,000,
 1940 - 400,000
 The Clement Atlee government [1945-51] used force to prevent Jewish
emigration into Palestine after the war,

33
 Palestine under the British
Zionist violence and terrorism
 Britain’s White Paper of 17 May 1939 stated that Jewish national home
should not come at the expense of the Arab population
 Revisionist Zionism
The para military oganisation Irgun Z’vai Le’umi, formed by Ze’ev
Jabotinsky [1880-1940]
Lehi or the “Stern gang” formed by Avraham Stern [negotiated with
Nazi Germany in 1940]
Reliance on force to deter the Arabs, only force would create the
Jewish state
Afterwards headed by Menachem Begin
22 July 1946 bombing of King David hotel, 94 killed
Deir Yassin massacre 9 April 1948, 120 Palestinians killed

34
 UN partition plan 1947
In 1947 UN special committee
report, The majority wanted
Partition [7 members]
Economic unity of Palestine would
be maintained, a customs
union,
Jewish state to provide a subsidy
to the Palestinian state
Holy places around Jerusalem-
Bethlehem area would be
internationalized

35
 UN minority plan
Federation plan, was the minority
proposal, [3 members, India,
Iran and Yugoslavia]
Partition called for a federal
government of Arab and
Jewish cantons [Red-Arab]
Jaffa and the Negev would be
given to the Arabs,
Majority report gave them to the
Jews
Jerusalem as the capital,
Jewish immigration was to be
decided by an international
commission,

36
 UN partition plan
The UN GA approved the partition plan in November 1947,
 An economic union with joint currency, postal, telephone services,
Jewish annual subsidy to the Arab state.
 Both Zionists and Arabs rejected partition plan, Zionists did not want
a Palestinian state, a Jewish state over all of Palestine
 Conflict between Jews and Palestinians, 1947-48, 700,000 Palestinians
expelled
 Palestinians were without coordination or discipline,
Commander of Arab liberation army quarrelled with Palestinian
Mufti,
no interim government, they refused to cooperate with the British
The Jews were organised and united under Military commander
Yigael Yadin

37
 Testing period

 Why the logical solution-partition could not be accepted

 Partition was not acceptable to the Arabs
 Both sides wanted to test their strength, they pressed for a
decisive victory
 Israel established at 16.00 on 14 May 1948, recognized by the US
at 18.10 the same day

Israel then fought four wars with Arab states

The first Israel-Arab war 1948-49
The second, 1956
The six day war June 1967
The Yom Kippur war October 1973

38
 War of independence 1948

Egyptian, Jordanian forces attack

Israel controlled an area larger
than that given to it in the UN
plan.
UN truce declared 4 times
final ceasefire agreement
negotiated 24 February 1949, final
agreement followed on 3 April
1949

39
 No Palestinian state
 King Abdullah of Jordan insisted that he would not accept a
Palestinian government,
 Negotiated in secret with David Ben Gurion, wanted to annex Arab
areas under the partition plan, took the West Bank
 Wanted possession of Jerusalem and the holy sites to rival the Saudis
[Hashemite kingdom versus Saudi dynasty]
 Who wanted a Palestinian state? Syrian president Quwatly, Mufti of
Palestine, Egypt was against Jordanian annexation and strongly
supported Palestinian rights to counter Jordan, annexed the Gaza strip
In 1949 Palestine was divided between Jordan, Egypt and Israel

40
 US as mediator
Nasser and the Six Day War of
June 1967
Jimmy Carter mediates the Camp
David accords 17 September
1978,
Anwar Sadat and Menachem
Begin
The Camp David formula, Israeli
withdrawal in return for Egyptian
peace
Israel withdraws from the Sinai by
1979
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty March
1979
The disintegration of united Arab
front against Israel

41
 Camp David Accords
 Separation of territorial issue from Palestinian issue
 Egypt, Israel and Jordan and Palestinian representatives agreed to
negotiate the West Bank and Gaza in 3 stages, to provide full
autonomy for Palestinians
 Begin avoided the Palestinian issue, and aimed for a separate peace
with Egypt
 Why did Carter not press Begin over
The Palestinian issue?
The West Bank?

No resolution of the Palestinian problem

42
 The Palestinian problem
America seeks a solution, revives the international conference formula at
Madrid October 1991
Norway as facilitator, communicates with both sides
Israel's hurting point
The Intifada of 1987, Palestinian revolt on the West Bank, Israel cannot
control a hostile population
June 1992, Yitzhak Rabin’s Labour government elected, Labour versus
Likud’s visions.
Likud and Eretz Israel, Ashkenazi versus Sephardim in Israeli politics,
Sepharad,-Spain, Ashkenaz –Germany
Labour wanted safe and secure borders

43
 The Oslo accords-13 September 1993

Rabin’s government recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO]

as representative of the Palestinian people
as the authority in the Palestinian interim self governing authority in
Gaza and Jericho
A semi sovereign state for the Palestinians
Yasser Arafat, head of PLO,
Terrorist leader and founder of Fatah, PLO in 1964
In 1988 accepted the state of Israel and the two state solution
Renounced armed struggle and terrorism

Struggle with Hamas for control over the Palestinians

44
 The Oslo accords
Not a final agreement, but a process of conflict resolution
Final goals not identified
Accords did not deal with
refugees, the right of return according to Article 13 of UNDHR
holy sites,
the Palestinian State
Identification of goals and objectives would have destroyed
the spirit of mutual accommodation
Extension of mutual accommodation to its limits

45
 Spoilers linked to external
actors
Jewish settlers Gush Emunim, the
Jewish settler movement, since
1977, Ariel Sharon
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in
November 1995, just after Oslo-2
agreement in September
Israel’s demographic problem
Likud supports the settler movement on
the West Bank leader Binyamin
Netanyahu became Prime Minister
June 1996 to July 1999, now Prime
Minister
American support through AIPAC and
the neoconservatives [25 lobbys],
more hard-line than Israeli
government
Likud-Israeli lobby alliance
Israel as a bastion against Muslim
terrorism, and Iran
46
 Spoilers linked to external actors
Hamas [Islamic Resistance Movement]
 Since 1987, first intifada, Islamic state in Palestine, suicide attacks in Israel,
seeks destruction of Israel
 Iran’s proxy war on Israel, Hamas military wing trained in Iran and Syria
 Since 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza Strip, trained in Qassam
rockets and mines against tanks
 Islamic Jihad, funded by Iran
 Jund Ansar Allah, an off shoot of Al Qaida, more extreme than Hamas
Hamas is mirror image response to Likud and Israeli hardliners, a creation of
Israeli hardliners, Ariel Sharon and America’s neoconservatives
AIPAC prevents America from being tough on Israeli hardliners and the settler
movement

47
 Clinton’s mediation
Labour Prime Minister Ehud Barak, elected in May 1999 [highly decorated soldier]
Second Camp David meeting July 2000 between Barak and Arafat, Clinton pressed for
a comprehensive settlement
Barak agreed to limited sovereignty, if Arafat could stop
terrorism
Agreed to transfer 92% of West Bank, and all of Gaza strip to PA
To dismantle most settlements in West Bank
Palestinians could have East Jerusalem as their capital
Right of return was accepted to PA areas, not to Israel proper
Arafat wanted
ALL of the West Bank,
All of Jerusalem,
Right of return to Israel as well
International PKO on West Bank to stop Israeli army attacks
An opportunity was missed, Barak then broke off talks

48
49
 Bush as mediator
What is the issue, Jewish settlements or Islamic radicalism?
Saudi plan March 2002, Arab League called for two state solution, based
on recognition of Israel and Israeli withdrawal to pre 1967 borders
Bush administration’s Road Map to Peace [14 March 2003] “two state
solution”
Colin Powell acted as mediator with both Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas
[the new PM pf PA]
Called for independent Palestinian state alongside Israel,
Israel to dismantle some settlements on West Bank, withdrawal of forces
from West Bank,
PA to control Hamas and Islamic Jihad and to end the Intifada
US planned to deploy peacekeepers on West Bank

50
 Dangerous polarization
Israel and Arab states had changed
 Arafat as blocked his Prime Minister Abbas and opposed the
compromise
 Belief that terrorist attacks would push Israel out of the West Bank?
 Hezbollah harassment and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000,
and 2006, supported and armed by Iran
 Arafat died in November 2004, Mahmoud Abbas as PLO leader, Hamas-
PLO conflict fractures the PA.
 Hamas-Hezbollah attacks push Israelis to a hard-line position, the
invasion of Lebanon in 2006
Israel’s unilateral solution, fortress Israel
Fragmentation of the West Bank and prevention of Palestinian
independence, Palestinians would live in Israeli controlled enclaves
A security fence to seal off the West Bank [opposed by Likud] annexation
of 20% of West Bank
51
 Solutions?
Two state solution
 Back to UN majority partition plan 1947
 International arrangement on the West Bank,
Shared sovereignty and open economic access to Israel and Jordan, economic
arrangements
Control of Jewish settler movement
Single state solution
 Back to the UN minority plan of 1947
 A single federation with Jewish and Palestinian cantons
 A federal government over two separate and autonomous governments
 International trusteeship of the holy sites
 Compensation for Palestinians
 International quartet to act as guarantor, [US, Russia, EU and UN]

52
 Close
Israel-Palestinian joint plan presented to UN September 2009,
based on Clinton’s mediation efforts.
Palestinian state on 96% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza strip
International peacekeeping forces and monitors
The Palestinian refugees and compensation left aside
What about Hamas? Abbas has attempted to eradicate Hamas
from the West Bank, Egypt tries to seal the Gaza Strip
Can Hamas be excluded or made a legitimate partner
The Obama administration, Cairo 4 June 2009, approach to the
Muslim world
Who will press Israel to withdraw the settlements?

53