Transition to Palestinian Self-Government: Practical Steps Toward Israeli-Palestinan Peace

Edited by
Ann Mosley Lesch, Principal Author
(Cambridge: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1992)
Table of Contents
Order from the American Academy

The initiation of direct negotiations between Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs has raised hopes that one of this century's most persistent international problems could finally be settled.This report is intended to build on this hope with substantive suggestions, and also to present some contingency ideas just in case, as so often before, the new hope for progress gives way to despair.

There are two premises in this report. The first is the assumption that the negotiators are limited in their ability to generate substantive ideas by their political constraints and by their strongly-held national and moral claims. If progress is to be made, the negotiations must be pushed away from general principles toward substantive and practical issues; a group of academic experts like this one (made up of Israeli, American, Palestinian, and other Arab scholars) is less constrained in generating such ideas. The second premise is humanitarian: for those who believe that the Israeli-Palestinian status quo, with continued Palestinian and Israeli suffering, is morally unacceptable, there is a need for creative ideas to alleviate the immediate suffering. Even if the current negotiations succeed, most analysts assume that the process will take more time than many suffering local people can afford. These suggestions are therefore made not only to state-actors, but also to individuals and non-governmental organizations who are morally concerned, and who can make some immediate difference even if they cannot affect the direction of the negotiations.

The Practical Considerations

Our starting point is pragmatic. Moral considerations aside, it is clear that the recent momentum in the negotiations is largely due to the fact that all parties have something to gain; the end of the Cold War between the superpowers, and the war in the Persian Gulf have made this process unavoidable for the key actors in the negotiations.

It is obvious, for example, that, without the active role of the United States, the process could not have began and is not likely to succeed. While this American role has been made easier by the absence of competition with the Soviet Union, the recent crisis in the Persian Gulf War has made it impossible for the US to ignore the complications that the Arab-Israeli conflict brings to American policy in the Middle East. So long as conflict continues between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the US economic and strategic inter-ests in the Arab world will be difficult to reconcile with the US commitment to the well-being of the state of Israel; only a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict can relieve this inherent tension in US interests. Moreover, despite the end of the Cold War, the US cannot disengage itself from the Middle East. Even aside from the obvious interest in oil, the American commitment to Israel, which entails economic, military and economic support, means that the US is de facto involved.

While the Gulf crisis, at its core, was unrelated to the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is clear that Iraq attempted to exploit this conflict in a way that complicated US policy strategy. And, in October 1990, while the US sought to maintain an international consensus on the Gulf Crisis, Palestinian-Israeli confrontations in Jerusalem nearly derailed the US strategy. As in other Middle East crises of the past, the threat posed by the Arab-Israeli conflict to US interests in the region became impossible to ignore. The American effort to push for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the aftermath of the Gulf War is largely driven both by traditional American interests as well as by a new self-image of the United States providing global leadership in the post-Cold War world.

The European states, particularly through their new European Community agencies and through the United Nations, have broad-ened their interest and active role in Middle East affairs. Enlarging economic ties, coupled with extended political interest, have raised the European stake in the shape of Middle East peacemaking and resulted in their insistence in being included in the current negotiating processes. But it remains clear that, although external parties such as the US and Europe have significant roles to play as supporters and facilitators of the negotiations, it win remain for the negotiating parties of the Middle East to reach agreements and to implement them.

The Palestinian interest in moving forward is obvious: the status quo is wholly unacceptable, and, if the past is any indication, time has only made the Palestinian predicament more difficult. The Gulf War created new Palestinian refugees from Kuwait, decreased funds available to Palestinian Communities, and weakened the leverage of Palestinian allies. Any Promise of reversing Palestinian fortunes is welcome.

Most Arab states also have interest in making immediate progress on the, Arab-Israeli conflict. Those Arab states who joined the US-led alliance against Iraq have to show something for this support. Most, especially Egypt and Syria, had promised their confused populations that their behavior would lead to settling the Arab-Israeli conflict after the Gulf war. The immediate quiet in the region following the war is due in part to the rising hope about the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace.

The need for Arab states to see a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is deeply rooted in the nature of Middle East politics. While most Arab governments continue to face transnational challenges to their legitimacy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained as one of the key issues fueling transnationalism in the region. Settling this conflict could substantially erode the appeal of Arab transnational movements.

Israel, too, has much to gain. Quite clearly, Israel emerged in a superior strategic position with the destruction of Iraq's military potential, and the absence of the Soviet Union as a patron of Arab enemies further eroded the threat of an Arab military coalition confronting Israel. Yet, the Iraqi Scud attacks brought home the need for an end to the state of war with Arab states. Moreover, the economic costs of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jewish immigrants showed the need to cut high Israeli military expenditure; and the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza had negative implications economically, diplomatically and militarily. With the election in June 1992 of a Labor government led by Yitzhak Rabin, Israel is poised to take advantage of a very favorable regional and international configuration with which to make peace.

In short, all sides have immediate interests in making progress, but substantial disagreements remain on the nature of a settlement, and domestic political considerations within each polity make progress especially difficult.

Human Considerations

Aside from the obvious motivations of coinciding interests (which led our group of Arabs, Israelis and Americans to agree on some broad outlines of a settlement), there are also compelling humanitarian reasons to actively seek a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On the Palestinian side, conditions of occupation are hard to bear. Under occupation, Palestinians have no civil rights, can be arrested without charges, have substantial economic and political constraints, and live in perpetual uncertainty about the future. While it is easy to rationalize measures of occupation as necessary for security and maintenance of law and order, these measures were always understood to be temporary. Yet, for the Palestinians, occupation is not a temporary exception to the rule but a lasting way of life; a significant majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been born or raised under occupation and do not know another way of life.

For the Israelis, occupation has not brought a sense of security. Attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians continue; the economic costs of occupation increasingly divert needed funds from pressing domestic needs; the presence of large numbers of Palestinians under Israeli control poses a challenge to Israel's Jewish identity on the one hand and to its democratic character on the other. And the absence of Palestinian-Israeli agreement has been a barrier to concluding peace treaties with Arab states that could accommodate Israel's security needs.

The compelling needs of the Palestinian and the Israeli people are immediate and should be addressed even independently from the peace negotiations. In this regard, international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and concerned individuals have a role to play. Our report makes some specific recommendations on this issue.

Symmetries and Asymmetries

No progress can be made without concessions by all sides. And neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have a monopoly on human suffering. Still, it is very important to note that there are serious asymmetries between the parties that require parallel asymmetries in the initial concessions to be made. For example, while all sides have legitimate security requirements, Israeli security requirements seem more dramatic for reasons of its small size and its history of continued conflict with the Arab states. This entails that a realistic settlement may require some asymmetrical concessions favoring Israel: the degree of demilitarization, the inclusion of buffer zones, and the types of arms-control agreements that emerge, especially in relation to weapons of mass destruction, must all take this asymmetry into account.

Similarly, the suffering of the Palestinians, and the basic disadvantages inherent in occupation entail that many of the early concessions pertaining to economic assistance, territorial compromise, human rights and the building of autonomous institutions will favor the Palestinians. It is therefore important to keep in mind while reading this report that our focus is primarily on economic and political issues, over which Palestinians and Israelis have many commonalities of interests, even if those are asymmetrical. It is also important to note that the examination of security issues in this report is preliminary and is intended to address only those broad requirements that pertain to the political and economic questions; in the end, it is impossible to separate these issues. However, the American Academy believes that security issues are so important to ending the conflict and securing a just and stable peace that a separate study group is preparing another report that focusses on security in much greater detail. The advantages to Israel should become even more obvious in that report.

The Context of the Proposals

The organization of this report is straightforward. Suggestions of immediate action to alleviate local suffering come first; these suggestions apply whether or not the negotiations move successfully ahead. Next come suggestions about the nature of the transitional period which cannot be made without reference to a targeted final settlement. Since these suggestions are central to this report, it is important to note the context in which they are made. First, both Palestinians and Israelis have agreed that there must be a transitional period preceding a final settlement which will be the focus of the first stage of negotiations. Second, the suggestions in this report do not constitute "blueprints" for a settlement. The ideas presented are made in order to help start a substantive debate of the issues. Third, since any transitional arrangements must make a final settlement more realizable, it is important to discuss the principles and potential shape of a final settlement. Even if this study group did not have a preference for one form of final settlement, the transitional proposals would have been largely the same: since the negotiations are based on United Nations Security Council resolution 242, which calls for the exchange of territory for peace, and since one of the possible outcomes to be negotiated is a Palestinian state, any transitional period must leave this option open in future negotiations. Yet, if Israel and the Palestinians agree on this option as a final settlement, it can only be implemented if the transitional arrangements create more autonomous Palestinian economic and political institutions than now exist under Israeli occupation.

Our recommendations pertaining to the transitional stage are thus somewhat independent from the final settlement; they are intended not to rule out any option, including the possibility of a Palestinian state. But we do have preferences for a final settlement; we cannot foresee an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict if Israel continues to control the West Bank and Gaza. And we believe that the most stable end-result is Palestinian self-determination.

Our reasoning is not primarily moral preference but, ultimately, pragmatic, At its core, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves both territory and the problem of nationalism in a world of nation-states. The tragedy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that, because each has suffered from the national aspirations of the other, both have overlooked the striking similarities in the rise of their legitimate national movements.

Neither Jews nor Palestinians sought nationalism as an ideal end. Many of the Zionists in nineteenth-century Europe were egalitarian universalists who sought full and equal citizenship in a Europe that advocated these same ideals. But the rise of geographic and ethnic nationalism, and the prevalence of anti-semitism, made their dream impossible, their ideal unattainable. These Jewish intellectuals, persecuted and excluded because of their Jewish ethnicity, awoke to an uncompromising reality: in a world of nationalism, one can attain relative normality only by having one's own nationalism manifesting itself in one's own homeland. Nationalism was thus, not an ideal, but the necessary compromise with a nonegalitarian, world of nationalism.

Many Palestinians, having suffered the consequences of Zionism, have found it difficult to accept the reality and the legitimacy of Jewish national aspirations - the fact that Jewish identity, for the Jews, is not merely religious and ethnic. But so too have many Israelis failed to recognize the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, despite the many similarities in the rise of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism.

Palestinians made homeless by the conflict with Israel in 1948 initially fought, not only for their distinct national identity but also for justice, for the right to return to their homes, and for broader Arab ideals. But several decades of continued conflict and suffering have taught the Palestinians a lesson that Jews learned a century ago. Despite an international rhetoric of justice, and a regional rhetoric of Arab solidarity, the world in which they live is a world of nation-states. Whereas states like Syria and Egypt professed Arab and Islamic objectives, the interests of their nation-states always came first. Palestinians on the other hand, like their Jewish counterparts, learned that, ideals aside, relative normality in a world of nation-states can only be attained by having one's own nationality reflecting itself in one's own national homeland.

The rise of Palestinian nationalism has, ironically, opened the way for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. While implementing the literal return of Palestinians to their homes within Israel is incompatible with Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinian nationalism, if actuated in a national homeland in part of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza), can coexist with the Jewish state of Israel.

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taught us anything it is this: one cannot solve the national problem of one people by creating a national problem for another. Jordan cannot become the national homeland of the Palestinians, even if half of the Jordanian population may be ethnically Palestinian; what will become of the national aspirations of the Jordanian half? Whether or not Jordanian nationalism (or, for that matter, Palestinian, Kuwaiti, Lebanese, or Israeli nationalism) existed before the twentieth century is strictly irrelevant, as nation-states in the region have become an inescapable reality today. Both Palestinian and Jordanian nationalism must be recognized. Similarly, the reality of Zionism as a Jewish national movement makes it impossible to contemplate an option which does not leave Israel as a state with a Jewish majority.

For those who ultimately seek more egalitarian solutions, our more limited recommendations offer some hope. Recognition, legitimacy, and acceptance may appear merely symbolic, but they are much more. Only after Palestinians and Israelis accept the national legitimacy of each other can both sides hope to transcend their national dilemmas. It is with the pragmatic recognition of these historical dilemmas that our suggestions about the shape of a final settlement are made.

Introduction

Civic and Political Institution

The Status Quo

Military Government in the OT * Changes from the Pre-War Situation * Quasi-Independent Institutions * Restrictions on Institutional Development * Palestinian Political And Civic Activities

Negotiating Phase

Differing Positions * Political Measures * Israeli-Palestinian Interaction * The Role of the PLO * External Actors

The Interim Period

Principles Underlying Self-Rule * Elections * Deevelopment of Administrative Structures * Interface with Existing Institutions * Educational System * Health Services * Contact with Israelis * The Roles of External Actors

The Long Term Status

Scope of Palestinian Authority * Return of Palestinians * Jerusalem * Settlements

External and Internal Security

The Status Quo

Israeli External Security * Israeli Internal Security * Palestinian Insecurity in the OT * Palestinian Insecurity in the Diaspora

Negotiating Phase

Alleviating Israeli External Security Concerns * Israeli Measures to Promote Security in the OT * Application of the Fourth Geneva Convention * Palestinian Confidence-Building Measures

The Interim Period

Israeli Accords with Arab States * Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian Security Relations * Internal Security in the OT

The Long-Term Status The Regional Arab-Israeli Security Regime * Israel-Palestine-Jordan Security Regime * Israeli-Palestinian Security System

Economic and Resource Issues

The Status Quo

Israeli Constraints on the OT Economy * Palestinian Efforts to Develop Their Economy * Job Creating Efforts * Technical Research * Credit Institutions * Community Groups and Coordinating Bodies * Arab and International Funds

Negotiating Phase

Confidence-Building Measures * Policy Changes * Palestinian Efforts * International Agencies * Israeli Interest in Economic Improvements and Potential Trade

The Interim Period

Removal of Barriers * Labor Mobility * Financial and Monetary Authority * Economic Planning * Agriculture * Key Industries to Expand * Utilization of Land resources * Electricity * Local Water Development * Regional Water Projects * The Practical Considerations * Human Considerations * Symmetries and Asymmetries * The Context of the Proposals * Israeli Trade with the Arab Worlds * External Agencies' Roles

The Long-Term Status

Resources and Infrastructure * Long-Term Development for the Role of the PLO * External Aid * Trade Arrangements for Palestinians and Israelis