Democracy and Conflict Resolution : The Dilemmas of Israel's Peacemaking 9780815652519, 9780815633372

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Democracy and Conflict Resolution

Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution Robert A. Rubinstein, Series Editor

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Re-Centering Culture and Knowledge in Conflict Resolution Practice Mary Adams Trujillo, S. Y. Bowland, Linda James Myers, Phillip M. Richards, and Beth Roy, eds.

The Dilemmas of Israel’s Peacemaking

Edited by Miriam Fendius Elman, Oded Haklai, and Hendrik Spruyt

S Y R A C U S E

U N I V E R S I T Y

P R E S S

Copyright © 2014 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5290 All Rights Reserved First Edition 2014 14 15 16 17 18 19

6 5 4 3 2 1

Chapter 4 was originally published in Asian Security 4 (1): 1–22 as “Democracy, Security, and Religious Political Parties: A Framework for Analysis.” © 2008. Reprinted with permission. ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our website at www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. ISBN: 978-0-8156-3337-2 (cloth)

978-0-8156-3338-9 (paper)

978-0-8156-5251-9 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Democracy and conflict resolution : the dilemmas of Israel’s peacemaking / edited by Miriam Fendius Elman, Oded Haklai, and Hendrik Spruyt. — First edition. p. cm. — (Syracuse studies on peace and conflict resolution) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8156-3337-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-3338-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-5251-9 (e-book) 1. Arab-Israeli conflict—1993–—Peace. in international disputes. Public opinion.

3. Conflict management—Middle East.

5. Jews—Israel—Attitudes.

6. Palestinian Arabs—Attitudes.

government. 8. Palestinian Arabs—Politics and government. II. Haklai, Oded, 1972– editor.

2. Diplomatic negotiations

4. Peace-building—Middle East— 7. Israel—Politics and

I. Elman, Miriam Fendius, editor.

III. Spruyt, Hendrik, 1956– editor.

DS119.76.D46 2014 956.9405'4—dc23 Manufactured in the United States of America

2013042904

▲ For Colin, Ben, Rachel, and Sam (Miriam Fendius Elman) For Na’ama, Maya, and Tom (Oded Haklai) For Lucy Lyons (Hendrik Spruyt)

Contents List of Tables

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Acknowledgments

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1. Introduction: Democracy and Peacemaking in Protracted Conflicts: The Israeli Case Miriam Fendius Elman, Oded Haklai, and Hendrik Spruyt P

A

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The Consequences of Institutional Configurations

2. Territorial Concessions, Domestic Politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Hendrik Spruyt

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3. Spoiling the Peace: State Structure and the Capacity of Hard-Liners to Foil Peacemaking Efforts Oded Haklai 67 ▲

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W

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Religion and Identity

4. Does Democracy Tame the Radicals? Lessons from the Case of Israel’s Shas Miriam Fendius Elman 101 ▲

5. Identity Matters The Oslo Peace Process and Israeli National Identity Dov Waxman 133 ▲

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Contents

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6. The Israeli Right and Israel’s Territorial Dilemma Ideological Purity and Political Readjustment in the Fourth Republic Ilan Peleg 157 ▲

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Agency and Leadership

7. Predicting Peace: The Contingent Nature of Leadership and Domestic Politics in Israel Yael S. Aronoff 179 ▲

8. State Elite Perceptions and the Launch of the Israeli Settlement Project in the West Bank: The International-Domestic Nexus Ehud Eiran

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9. Conclusion: The Fourth Stage of the Arab-Israel Conflict Alan Dowty

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Bibliography

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Contributors

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Index

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Tables 2.1. Sharon Government, February 2003 2.2. Olmert Government, March 2006 2.3. Netanyahu Government, March 2009

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Acknowledgments

originated in March 2008 when several of the chapters were initially presented at the annual convention of the International Studies Association (ISA). We are grateful to Emmanuel Adler of the University of Toronto for extending an invitation to us the following November to present revised versions of our conference papers at the Munk Centre. The useful feedback and positive encouragement we received in Toronto motivated us to forge ahead with the project. A subsequent panel at the annual ISA convention in New York in February 2009 included new participants as chapter authors. These scholars then joined us, and a new set of collaborators, at a conference, “Democracy, Religion, and Conflict: the Dilemmas of Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking” in March 2009. Hosted by the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, this conference provided us with the opportunity to share our work with a broader audience and turn our earlier conference papers into book chapters. We thank Margaret Hermann, Director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, for generously funding the conference. We also are appreciative of the conference co-sponsorships provided by Syracuse University’s Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC), the Executive Education Program, and the Judaic Studies Program. We thank Louis Kriesberg, Ken Frieden, and Zachary Braiterman for chairing the conference panels, and Jeremy Pressman for serving as discussant and, in that capacity, providing us with extraordinarily helpful suggestions for revision. Sevgi Saran, then a master’s student in the International Relations Program, went beyond the call of duty to provide logistical support before, during, and after the conference.

THE IDEA FOR THIS BOOK

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Acknowledgments

Since March 2009, the Maxwell School’s PARCC and Moynihan Institute, Northwestern University’s Buffett Center, Science Po, Queen’s University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, and George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School provided each of us with a hospitable environment to further rework our own chapters and the book project as a whole. The many presentations that we made at various seminars, public talks, and speaker series at these institutions provided us with not only helpful constructive criticism, but also the encouragement that all book editors regularly need. We thank the many scholars at these institutions, who are also acknowledged individually in each chapter, for reading and commenting on earlier chapter drafts. At Syracuse University Press, Robert Rubinstein, editor of the Series on Peace and Conflict Resolution, has our admiration for not only offering incredibly helpful substantive recommendations on earlier versions of the manuscript, but also for his willingness to step in to assist whenever needed on the technical end. A firm believer in this project from the moment he learned about it at the March 2009 conference, Robert buoyed our spirits on more than one occasion, and we are grateful to his careful and attentive interventions from the get go. We also thank Mary Selden Evans and Annelise Finnegan, both of whom encouraged us to submit our book to SUP but who left the Press while the manuscript was still in the review process. Mary and Annelise gave us helpful suggestions early on and helped with the transition to new editors, Jennika Baines and Suzanne Guiod. We thank Jennika, Suzanne, and Alice Randel Pfeiffer for helping us throughout the publishing process. We are also grateful to SUP office coordinator Erica Sheftic who fielded multiple emails in a timely and helpful manner. Anonymous reviewers offered helpful midcourse corrections and helped to make this book a better one. At Northwestern University, we thank graduate student Jesse Dillon Savage for his tremendous help with formatting and copyediting and Thomas O’Connell at the university library for his input on the cover picture. We are also grateful to David Prout for creating one of the most user-friendly indexes of all time.

Acknowledgments

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Lastly, we thank our chapter authors who willingly wrote and re-wrote their chapters, and responded quickly to our many requests for revisions. Since 2008, when we first began to conceptualize the contours of this book, our authors have been the key to the project’s success. It has been our great pleasure to have had the opportunity to work with each and every one of them and we look forward to many future collaborations. October 11, 2013 Miriam Fendius Elman, Syracuse, New York Oded Haklai, Kingston, Canada Hendrik Spruyt, Evanston, Illinois

Democracy and Conflict Resolution

1 Introduction Democracy and Peacemaking 1 in Protracted Conflicts: The Israeli Case Miriam Fendius Elman, Oded Haklai, and Hendrik Spruyt

with the Palestinians has long been the focus of significant attention in international politics. Numerous United Nations Security Council debates and resolutions, several peace plans and initiatives, and seemingly infinite negotiations have yet to yield a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The optimism that accompanied the signing of the Declarations of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (known as the Oslo Accords) by Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the lawn of the White House in 1993 has long expired in the face of a gloomy reality. The seeming permanence of the conflict has led some experts to question whether any peaceful solution to the conflict is at all attainable (Lustick 2008a, 2008b; Inbar 2009).2 I S R A E L’ S

PROTRACTED

CONFLICT

1. The authors thank Bashir Bashir, Daniel Bar-Tal, Arie Kacowicz, and Piki IshShalom for their helpful suggestions for revision of earlier drafts. 2. Ian Lustick has recently cautioned that following the failure of the Camp David Summit in 2000, the outbreak of the Second Intifada, and the rise of radical Islam, we have recently entered an era in which “Muslims in the Middle East hate Israel more than they love the Palestinians” (Lustick 2008b, 8). He argues that, as a result, if a Palestinian state is not established on the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War soon, time will run out on a peaceful resolution that will leave Israel intact.

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Democracy and Conflict Resolution

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the elusiveness of peace have been analyzed from numerous angles. Some observers have analyzed the gaps between Israeli and Palestinian narratives (Dowty 2005; Rotberg 2006; Scham 2006). Others have focused on the impact of international and regional actors, such as the United States, Iran, and Hezbollah (Kriesberg 2001; Adler 2002; Pressman 2006). Yet others have examined strategic issues, such as security concerns and socioeconomic aspects (Inbar 2002, 2006; Maoz 2006; Roy 2007). Finally, some scholars have analyzed the conflict using a social psychology lens (Bar-Tal and Teichman 2005; BarTal, Halperin, and Oren 2010). One very important feature of the conflict that has largely escaped the attention of scholars of international relations and experts in conflict resolution relates to the questions that Israel’s role in this intractable conflict raise for what is widely known as democratic peace theory (DPT).3 Speaking in broad strokes, democracy, according to the theory is conducive to peace. Israeli democracy, despite its flaws, is well-institutionalized according to many key indicators, yet, as we will argue in this volume, there are certain features of Israel’s democracy that might impede a possible territorial compromise with the Palestinians. In suggesting that democracies might be less inclined to peaceful settlement of disputes than commonly assumed, we shed light on the specific institutional and social barriers that might prevent conflict settlement. In the process, we also illuminate the domestic causes (primarily on the Israeli side, but also with regard to the Palestinians) of why this particular conflict has proven so intractable. Democracy and Peace For many decades, scholars and policymakers alike viewed democracy and peace as mutually reinforcing. This widely-held belief was based on

3. By contrast, there has been some attention to how Hamas participation in Palestinian politics supports or challenges democratic peace theory (See, for example, Turner 2006).

Introduction

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abundant statistical evidence that revealed that well-established democracies have never fought a war against each other, (Lake 1992; Russett 1993; Ray 1995; Chernoff 2004; Kinsella 2005, 453–57; Rousseau 2005; Mansfield and Snyder 2005, 1–3), as well as normative assumptions about the nonviolent mechanisms that democracy provides for collective decisionmaking and resolving social disputes (Doyle 1986; Lake 1992; Weart 1998). While some variants of this “democratic peace” proposition focus on institutional features of democratic governance (e.g., suffrage, checks and balances on the executive branch, government accountability), others emphasize that the empirical finding is a result of shared culture or democratic norms. These internal attributes are said to be externalized, yielding a preference for nonviolent international conflict resolution. This holistic perception that the spread of democracy is linked to inter-state peace has prompted policymakers to make democratization the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, the idea that democracies do not go to war with each other has enjoyed a bipartisan following in US politics and has been reflected in, for example, both former presidents Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s foreign policy platforms. Clinton relied on the idea of democratic peace to justify aid to Russia and intervention in Bosnia and Haiti. He frequently suggested that building a community of democratic states would serve US strategic purposes because “democracies rarely wage war on one another” (Clinton 1994). Similarly, in his 2005 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush stated that “because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace” (Bush 2005). In short, within the academic and policymaking worlds, the positive relationship between peace and democracy has become all but axiomatic such that democracy promotion, including in the Palestinian Authority, has long been a main foreign policy objective for successive US governments as well as other democratic countries (Wittes 2008).4 In this book, we challenge

4. It should be acknowledged that on some occasions, politicians misinterpret or misuse democratic peace theory to advance other political agendas (Ish-Shalom 2006, 2008a, 2008b).

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Democracy and Conflict Resolution

the underlying premise of the democratic peace proposition, namely that democracy is invariably a surefire path to peace.5 First, if one views DPT as a monadic argument, which holds that democracies are always more prone to peace irrespective of the regime type of the states that they are in conflict with, then the following chapters show impediments to peacemaking in Israel, thereby challenging DPT quite directly. Without arguing that Israel is primarily responsible for the ongoing conflict—indeed as the ensuing essays show, the internal problems facing the Palestinian side are at least as significant if not larger—we submit that Israel’s domestic politics hampers attempts at compromise. In this sense, our arguments challenge the monadic view that all democracies are equally adept at making peace. Second, we also challenge the dyadic version of DPT. At face value the dyadic variant would appear to be inapplicable to the ongoing IsraeliPalestinian conflict since the dispute is between a democratic state and a nondemocratic “state in the making.” Indeed, one could argue that the dilemmas of peacemaking within the protracted nature of this conflict in itself presents no challenge to DPT, which theorizes about the warlike behavior of states in a dyad. However, while Democratic Peace Theory initially aimed to explain why elected leaders in two democratic states would be restrained from engaging in war against each other, subsequent democratic peace studies have expanded the scope of the theory to account for a range of outcomes beyond war initiation, including the observation that democracies win a disproportionate share of the wars they fight, are more inclined to resolve disputes through negotiation or mediation than are autocracies, are less likely to initiate crises, offer more concessions in negotiations than do autocracies, and tend to suffer fewer casualties and fight shorter wars than non-democracies (Bueno de Mesquita 1999). Embedded in the “spirit” of the democratic peace claim is the notion that not

5. Some have debated the argument that a future democratic Palestinian state would contribute to Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution (Kaufman and Abed 1993). DPT has been subjected to various other critical assessments (Layne 1994; Elman 1997; Rosato 2003).

Introduction

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5

only do democracies refrain from fighting each other, but democracies also choose force only as an option of last resort—that is, democratic institutions and culture make democracies better at “negotiating out” conflicts short of force. Furthermore, even proponents of the dyadic view suggest that democracies are more adept at signaling intent, establishing credible commitment and engaging in binding agreements—regardless of the adversary’s regime type. Protracted conflicts are thus due to autocratic leaders facing credibility problems (they can easily change their minds, after all, and are not bound by popular mandates), or by autocratic leaders fighting on to maintain their privileged political position (Fearon 1994; Schultz 1999). The essays in this volume, however, indicate that some democratic systems also face obstacles to the peaceful settlement of disputes, obstacles that are not presented by the opposing party, but which are endemic to the particular institutional and social configurations of the democratic polity itself. Thus, contrary to the democratic peace proposition, certain democratic institutional configurations, cultures and identities, and leadership views and decision-making styles may in fact impede conflict resolution. Recent scholarship has pointed to problems associated with DPT. Much of the criticism, however, has focused not so much on democracy per se as much as on the processes of democratization and the instability inherent in regime transitions away from authoritarian rule (Snyder 2000; Rothchild 2004; Mansfield and Snyder 2005; Young 2006; Ottaway 2007). The early stages of democratic transition include significant institutional change; democratizing countries by definition lack a wellestablished institutional infrastructure required to handle competition between political elites and new societal demands previously repressed by the autocratic regime. Transitions often yield nationalist and ethnocentric leaders who appeal to parochial interests to increase their political power (Gagnon 1994–95). All in all, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the messy process of democratic transition is conducive to violent domestic and cross-border conflict (Snyder 2000; Ottaway 2007). Partly for this reason, some have criticized the (mis)use of DPT as a basis for external intervention (Ish-Shalom 2007–8). Coercive democracy promotion by an external force, they argue, is simply not a recipe for peace (Russett 2005; Ottaway 2007).

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Democracy and Conflict Resolution

When it comes to established democracies, however, the assumption that democratic states are more pacific is still widely accepted. To be sure, DPT has usually been couched in probabilistic terms (Slantchev, Alexandrova, and Gartzke 2005, 459–62) and the need to continuously revise and refine the theory has been flagged by other proponents of the theory (Owen 1997; Kinsella 2005; Russett 2005; Mousseau 2009). After all, although unlikely to fight each other, the use of military force by democracies against autocracies is common, and democracies often work to undermine the nascent, fledgling democratic governments of other states (Forsythe 1992, 385–95; Kegley and Hermann 1995; Rosato 2003, 590– 91). Since the end of the Second World War, democracies have engaged in wars that are unrelated to democracy promotion: the United Kingdom went to war against Argentina over the Falklands Islands; France has long been using military force on the African continent in places like the Central African Republic, the Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the United States has a long history of military intervention in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia. Explanations for why democracies do not go to war are ample. Yet, explanations for the conditions under which democracies in particular do not resolve conflict peacefully are rare. Accounts for pacific behavior tend to emphasize domestic variables associated with the attributes of democracy (Doyle 1986; Lake 1992; Maoz and Russett 1986; Mousseau 2009). But, curiously, studies that deal with warring democracies rely almost solely on the international environment in identifying the conditions for war (Russett 1993; Weart 1998). Thus, in a seminal work, to name one conspicuous example, Bruce Russett and John O’Neal (2001) note that as a rule, major power democracies are most likely to engage in international military conflict because of their widespread international interests and military capabilities (see also Russett 2009). The advancements made by Russett, Russett and O’Neal, and others are valuable and need to be acknowledged. Their focus on major world powers and their interests overseas, however, is limiting in two ways. First, it leaves out smaller warring democracies, such as Israel, which cannot be defined as a great world power despite its capacity to use force in the Middle East region and its nuclear capabilities. More

Introduction

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7

significantly, an over-reliance on international constraints and opportunities as causal mechanisms in foreign security policymaking greatly underestimates the considerable influence that the domestic configuration of a democracy exerts on the trajectory of conflict and unsuccessful peacemaking. This is likely to be the case even for small states, which, unlike great powers, are more likely to suffer the negative consequences of foreign policy mistakes and the failure to respond appropriately to international pressures. (For an extended discussion of small states and the impact of domestic and international factors on small-state foreign policy, see Elman 1995.) Our intent in this book is to add to the literature on democratic peace and conflict resolution by using Israel as an illustrative case. In studies of democratic peace, Israel is often considered to be an outlier case because of the high level of security threats it faces (Schweller 1992). Ultimately, though, if the theory of democratic peace is to be further refined, it is not enough to examine only cases of peaceful democracies or to compare democracies with autocracies. We also need to examine what methodologists refer to as a deviant case (Lijphart 1971, 686), or an anomalous case that resides outside the statistical norm, in which the value of our dependent variable defies the expectations of the theory; we need to study a case of a democracy that is engaged in an intractable conflict and where ongoing peacemaking efforts have been unsuccessful. And, we ought to learn more about the way in which domestic features associated with democracy come into play in this context. To be sure, we do not argue that democracies are more war-prone; such a claim would, in any case, be beyond the inferences that can be made on the basis of a single-country case study. The study of an atypical case, however, can unmask consequential relationships between features associated with a democratic country’s domestic social and institutional characteristics, on the one hand, and conflict and peacemaking, on the other hand. In this context, the case of Israel is useful for generating theoretical insight by shedding light on how non-great power democracies engage in protracted conflict in general, and the domestic variables that foster or hinder conflict resolution in particular. The case provides us with an opportunity to gain a more nuanced understanding of the internal

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workings of a democracy to explain the circumstances under which it will (or will not) succeed in resolving its conflict. Our analysis of Israel also satisfies the criterion of choosing a tough case to test the validity of our argument (Eckstein 1975; George and Bennett 2005, 120–23). Facing powerful regional enemies, bereft of wider international support, and often facing significant pressure from its great power patron, the United States, one might expect external factors to be decisive. We do not gainsay the importance of international-level variables but highlight how such international pressures have been mediated by internal variables on the side of Israel, as well as on the Palestinian side. In sum, we view the democratic peace proposition as an important and under-studied “angle” for the study of Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution—it provides a useful interface for considering the influence of domestic constraints on Israel’s foreign security policymaking in general, and its approach to peacemaking in particular. Applied to peacemaking, the democratic peace argument would anticipate that the rational choice for democratically elected executives is to strive for peace when the electoral costs of engaging in unpopular conflicts become too high. Indeed, the logic of the democratic peace theory would predict that once a majority of a democratic state’s citizenry believes that a conflict no longer “pays,” an executive that cares about his or her political survival would do well to adopt a strategy of conflict termination. Intransigence and stonewalling is a risky strategy in such circumstances—just as leaders who lose unpopular wars may find themselves in early retirement, so too may leaders who defy the majority’s preference for conflict resolution.6 Yet, as the following

6. In their seminal study of the institutional features that account for the democratic peace phenomenon, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and his co-authors argue that an executive’s war proneness is linked to the fear for political survival. Democratically elected leaders are unlikely to choose a war option in the absence of strong public support (especially if losing the war is a possibility) because of the fear of electoral reprisal. Since foreign policy failure means electoral punishment in the next election, executives have disincentives to go to war except in those instances where a decisive win is expected (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).

Introduction

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chapters suggest, there are significant barriers to majority opinion simply translating into such desirable outcomes. The collection of essays in this volume looks at several important analytical issues that are related to domestic politics, peacemaking, and conflict resolution. These include the opportunities provided by domestic institutions for veto players and spoilers, the role of organized religious forces in politics, identity questions, state elite perceptions, and the interaction between international and domestic conditions. Taken together, they encompass the main paradigmatic approaches in political science: structures, agents, and ideational factors (Lichbach and Zuckerman 1997, 2009). The Consequences of Institutional Configurations Veto players are those individuals and collective actors “whose agreement is necessary for a change of the status quo” (Tsebelis 1999, 591) and for the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to an ongoing conflict. Although the term “spoiler” is fuzzy (Nilsson and Kovacs 2011), it traditionally refers to actors whose preferences and interests are threatened by compromises involved in peacemaking, and who act to foil peace processes or prevent the implementation of peace accords (Stedman 1997). By the very nature of requiring compromises, peace accords inevitably yield dissatisfied constituents. There have been numerous cases where the failure of peacemaking has been attributed to powerful domestic actors who decide to spoil or veto a process in order to advance their preferences (Stedman 1997; Zahar 2008; Spruyt 2005; Newman and Richmond 2006; Menkhaus 2006–7; Greenhill and Major 2006–7; Nilsson and Kovacs 2011). The relationship between democracy, on the one hand, and veto players and spoilers, on the other hand, derives from the significant influence that domestic institutional structures exert over the opportunities available to actors as well as their choice of tactics and capacity to influence outcomes. Thus, while in many contexts spoilers resort to violent tactics to such a degree that many scholars have come to equate spoiling with violence (Stedman 1997; Maney 2006), democratic institutions may provide

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incentives and opportunities for spoilers and veto players to employ nonviolent methods and work within the existing political framework to realize their objectives. For example, institutional arrangements that provide multiple actors with access into the political decision-making process create veto points that can allow political groups to forestall negotiations, prevent progress, or even force the central government to withdraw from existing agreements. Furthermore, while domestic institutions can function as conduits for preferences, they can also provide incentives for hardening preferences. Institutional rules and structures can allow spoilers to pursue their hard-line preferences often without political costs, and thus these actors have little incentive to change their positions. As a result, it can often be particularly difficult for domestic actors who favor peace to advance necessary compromises. Given that the institutional structure provides the opportunity for spoilers to obtain their desired outcome, there are few reasons for them to alter their uncompromising stance. In fact, institutions have fixed the preferences of spoiler groups. Thus, contrary to Stephen Stedman’s (1997) argument that international pressure is critical to subverting spoilers, we argue that such external intervention may be necessary, but not sufficient: Israel’s internal politics will allow spoilers to remain unresponsive to either Palestinian concessions or external pressure by the United States. Indeed, Israeli peacemaking provides a useful set of case studies for investigating the domestic political context of spoiler behavior.7 In recent years, multiple public opinion surveys have demonstrated that a majority of the Israeli public is in favor of the evacuation of settlements to the east

7. Our focus here is on the occupied territory of the West Bank, and not East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was incorporated into the municipal boundaries of the city and Israeli law was extended to it such that many view this part of the city as de-facto annexed (Dowty 2005, 116). Moreover, with regard to East Jerusalem and certainly the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif, there is majority support among Israeli Jews against relinquishing it in any final status agreement. It is therefore difficult to consider the role of distinct spoilers in East Jerusalem in the same manner as we would the rest of the Occupied Territories. In these instances, there would be many more spoilers than non-spoilers, including the state itself.

Introduction

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of the separation barrier. As Dov Waxman (2008) argues, most Israelis have now come to accept that, due to demographic realities, withdrawal from the majority of the West Bank is the only option for ensuring both the continued democratic and Jewish nature of the state.8 This new recognition of the necessity and inevitability of territorial concessions is also reflected in the acceptance of the two-state solution by political actors long considered proponents of Israel’s settlement project, including prominent right-of-center figures such as Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. As early as 2003, for example, Ariel Sharon—viewed as a stalwart proponent of expanding Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories—famously said: “I think the idea that it is possible to continue keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation—yes, it is occupation, you might not like the word, but what is happening is occupation—is bad for Israel, and bad for the Palestinians. . . . Controlling 3.5 million Palestinians cannot go on forever[.]” Sharon’s changed perspective on the Occupied Territories paved the way for Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Similarly, Ehud Olmert, who as mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003 oversaw the construction of the highly controversial settlement Har Homa, ran on a platform advocating the “Convergence Plan” in the 2006 elections. The plan would have seen Israel withdraw from a considerable part of the West Bank. And even Benjamin Netanyahu—who, as prime minister from 1996 through 1999 was reluctant to surrender any territory in the West Bank, and only did so in the face of US pressure (e.g., the Israeli withdrawal from Hebron’s old city in 1997 and the Wye River Memorandum the following year)—declared his support for a two-state solution in his 2009 policy speech at Bar Ilan University. Once rejecting the very notion of Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu now embraces the “possibility of a two-state solution” (May 23, 2011 speech to the American

8. Furthermore, a poll by the Truman Research Institute found that 60 percent of Israelis support dismantling most of the West Bank settlements as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians (Richman 2010). Similarly, a Peace Index poll in August 2013 found that 54 percent of the Jewish Israeli public disagreed with Minister Naftali Bennett’s recent statement that the idea of a Palestinian state within the Land of Israel is dead (Yaar and Hermann, The Peace Index).

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Israel Public Affairs Committee) and acknowledges that “in a genuine peace, [Israel] will be required to give up parts of the Jewish homeland” (May 24, 2011 speech to a joint session of the US Congress).9 While few would describe Prime Minister Netanyahu as a dove, even his modest moves to appease the United States and his critics on the Left have sparked vehement denunciations from his right wing coalition partners. Whether or not Netanyahu is sincere about moving toward a two-state solution is thus a moot issue. Any policy in that direction would be stymied by his coalition partners as well as dissenters from within his own Likud Party. Consider, for example, how the composition of the Likud-led government in 2010 and the nature of the opposition it faced in the Knesset benefited those opposed to territorial withdrawal and concessions on settlements. With the support of 74 out of 120 Knesset members, Netanyahu’s broad coalition appeared impressive.10 But the size of the government’s parliamentary majority meant it was also a divided coalition with numerous policy differences and ideological tensions. While the centerleft Labor Party was a coalition partner at the time, the other five members were on the center-right, making it difficult for Netanyahu to move ahead with territorial concessions, even if he wanted to.11 For example, on the eve of Netanyahu’s meeting with President Obama in mid-2010, during which the American president was to ask Netanyahu to extend the settlement freeze by two to three months, leaders of the five center-right coalition partners issued a joined statement: “We heads of Likud, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas, United Torah Judaism and HaBayit HaYehudi, as well as members

9. Critics, however, would claim that these positions of the Israeli right-of-center are insincere. That is, Sharon and Netanyahu only “pretend” that they are seeking a two-state solution—they pay lip service to the notion of a Palestinian state while implementing policies whose overriding goal is to foil it (Doumani 2007; Eldar 2011; Siegman 2011). 10. Netanyahu’s coalition government, which took office in April 2009, included Likud (27 seats), Yisrael Beiteinu (15 seats), Labor (13 seats), Shas (11 seats), United Torah Judaism (5 seats), and HaBayit HaYehudi—New National Religious Party (3 seats). 11. In 2011, Labor left the government after its head, Ehud Barak, seceded with four other Knesset members (MKs) to form a new faction called Atzmaut, and Kadima joined, increasing the size of the coalition to 94 MKs.

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of the Knesset’s Land of Israel Lobby vehemently oppose extending the [construction] freeze beyond September 28” (Somfalvi 2010). And when Netanyahu later requested the support of his inner cabinet for an American proposal for a sixty-day settlement freeze in return for an American “incentive package,” his request was denied, leading him to turn down the American proposal (Sofer 2010). At the time, survival of the coalition government was of utmost importance to Netanyahu (as it has typically been for most Israeli prime ministers). Israeli prime ministers tend to spend “considerable time and energy trying to maintain a semblance of unity within an increasingly fractious coalition and government” (Korn 2010, 14).12 In the case of Netanyahu, even with a sizable parliamentary majority, the large number of coalition partners with diverse policy positions limited Netanyahu’s room to maneuver and his capacity to formulate and implement a policy of territorial withdrawal—Netanyahu’s Likud was the governing party, but other coalition partners had substantial input on the policy agenda and could thus block such a policy initiative.13 Having opposed Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Netanyahu surely remembered the price Sharon had to pay for moving ahead with the Gaza withdrawal despite opposition from within the Likud.14

12. In 1999 Netanyahu’s first government dissolved due to disagreements among the coalition partners over the controversial Hebron and Wye agreements both of which transferred land to Palestinian Authority control. Since 2009, Netanyahu’s reluctance to adopt a policy stance that would threaten the stability of his governing coalition is no doubt a reflection of the lessons learned from this previous experience. 13. While Netanyahu has expressed support for a two-state solution, his own Likud Party is openly opposed to Palestinian statehood and advocates that Israel should permanently retain the West Bank. Indeed, senior Likud members are also members of the largest Knesset caucus (the Land of Israel caucus) whose goal is to strengthen Israel’s hold on the territories Israel captured in the 1967 war. 14. Prime Minister Sharon was forced to secede from the Likud with one third of the faction and form a new political party, Kadima (Haklai 2007, 733–34). In the January 2013 elections, Kadima scraped by with a mere 2 seats. The center-right government sworn into office in March 2013 included Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu (31 seats), the secularcentrist Yesh Atid (19 seats), HaBayit HaYehudi-Jewish Home Party (11 seats), and Hatnua

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We argue that veto players are likely to continue to stymie Israeli peacemaking. For example, even though Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed in July 2013 and despite the fact that the pro-peace, center-left Hatnua party founded by Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel’s negotiating team, joined the government, those opposed to territorial concessions can still drive policy outcomes. In Israel’s 2013 government, nationalists of the Likud, such as Moshe Feiglin, who leads the Jewish Leadership movement and rejects territorial compromise, sit in the Knesset. And Netanyahu’s rival in his own camp, the political newcomer Naftali Bennett, whose right-wing national religious Jewish Home party picked up 11 seats in the January 2013 elections, calls for annexing much of the West Bank. In sum, despite the widespread support for territorial concessions, Israel’s domestic political institutions provide numerous opportunities for spoilers to defy majority will. To be sure, in explaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the prospects for peacemaking, other variables are also significant: international constraints, the regional environment, and security considerations, among other things, are undoubtedly influential. Our focus on domestic institutions, however, sheds light on one significant aspect of a complex reality that has thus far received scant attention in the scholarship on spoilers. The chapters by Hendrik Spruyt and Oded Haklai further examine how veto players and spoilers undermine the chance for significant Israeli policy change. The chapter by Hendrik Spruyt argues that Israel’s highly proportional electoral system fragments the political spectrum and provides incentives for numerous political parties to cater to niche clienteles. Given the need to create government coalitions with multiple parties, even small parties are able to hold the coalition hostage by threatening to withdraw their support. Consequently, political parties that represent constituencies with strong preferences, such as those with regards to the Occupied Territories, not only need not compromise their positions, but also need to stand firm lest they be outbid by a competitor. Thus, the

(6 seats). In the Knesset opposition were Kadima, the ultra-Orthodox parties (18 seats), the Arab parties (12 seats), the Labor party (15 seats), and the left-wing Meretz (6 seats).

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opportunity to veto territorial concessions usually allows hardliners to pursue their preferences without significant political cost. The theoretical lesson from the case is that the institutional arrangements of a given democracy create the structural opportunity for veto players to exert influence. Some formal institutional arrangements provide minority parties with incentives to act as veto players and enable them to block peaceoriented policies even if those are supported by a majority of the electorate. This form of political activity normally falls within the boundaries of legal parliamentary activity. The chapter by Oded Haklai focuses on the mutually constitutive relations between state institutions and spoilers. DPT has not paid sufficient attention to opportunities provided to opponents of peace processes to spoil peacemaking efforts by relying on certain institutional arrangements related to the democratic setting. Some institutional configurations that limit the central government’s capacity to impose its preferences on citizens—an important attribute of most democracies—are more conducive to the nonviolent organized mobilization of actors with a hard-line agenda. More specifically, the chapter advances the theoretical position that the impact of spoilers on peacemaking efforts is influenced by the state’s cohesiveness (the ability to act as a unified and integrated entity), and the state’s extensiveness (the range and presence of state institutions in a territory and society, which influence regime capacity to affect social group preferences and range of action). Strategic spoilers’ activism, in turn, targets these two institutional attributes. The chapter reveals how ideological opponents of the peace process in Israel undermined peacemaking efforts from within the state through what he terms state penetration and by competing with the state for social control. Creating alliances with political parties as well as elements in the security forces and other arms of the state, opponents to the peace process have managed to undermine the cohesiveness of the state of Israel and limit its social control. The ability of hard-line settler activists to create allies in the armed forces and legal system which then turn a blind eye to illegal activity provides one example. The expansion of a parallel and autonomous education system to disseminate the ideology of the opponents provides a second example. Political parties then use their veto power, as discussed in the chapter by

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Spruyt, to limit the central government’s capacity to crack down on the spoilers’ allies and autonomous organizations. In sum, these essays build on the growing interest in the durability of peace processes in general (Werner and Yuen 2005; Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild 2001; Hartzell and Hoddie 2003) and the impact of spoilers in undermining such efforts in particular (Stedman 1997; Zahar 2008; Kydd and Walter 2002). As noted above, Stedman’s seminal study on the topic views spoilers as actors who see their interests, power, and worldview threatened, and act to undermine an existing peace process (Stedman 1997, 5–7). Haklai and Spruyt also suggest that the failure of peacemaking may be due to powerful domestic actors who decide to spoil a process that they find threatening.15 However, contrary to Stedman and others, who equate spoiling with violence, spoilers can sometimes pursue their objectives within the existing political framework. Indeed, spoiling may not be violent because actors can work within domestic political institutions to realize their interests. Institutional arrangements that provide multiple veto points can allow political groups opposed to peace processes to forestall negotiations, block progress, or even compel the state to retreat from previous agreements. Spoilers can also seek to curtail the capacity of the state to fulfill its commitments as negotiated under the peace accord. While much of the literature on domestic institutions sees them as conduits for preferences, we find that institutional configurations can also harden preferences. Institutional rules and structures can allow spoilers to pursue their hard-line preferences often without political costs, and thus these actors have little incentive to change their positions. As a result, it will be particularly difficult for other domestic actors who favor peace, or for external mediators, to prevent spoiling.16

15. The focus in the chapters is on “outside spoilers”—those groups excluded from the existing peace process who then seek to undermine it. By contrast, much of the existing literature on spoiler behavior and the durability of peacemaking focuses on “internal spoilers”; that is, actors who sign a peace agreement and then fail to live up to the agreement. 16. This is not to say that violence, and in particular the threat of violence, cannot be a useful spoiling tactic. In fact, settlement supporters have been successful in recent years by threatening violent resistance to settlement dismantlement and by resorting to

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Religion and Identity Focused on secularism, science, and rationalism, the social sciences in general, and the subfield of international relations in particular, has largely ignored religion as a basis for understanding either state behavior or the motivations of sub-state domestic actors (Fox 2001; Philpott 2002; Hatzopoulos and Petito 2003; Fox and Sandler 2004; Hurd 2004). In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, however, international relations theorists have sought to bring the role of religion “back into” the study of foreign policy and war and peace outcomes, and have increasingly questioned the value of dominant paradigms in a field that has “long assumed the absence of religion among factors that influence states” (Philpott 2002; Haynes 2003; Hallward 2008; Warner and Walker 2011; Desch and Philpott 2013). To be sure, while some political scientists continue to insist that state and sub-state actor behavior is driven largely by political interests and strategic calculations about costs and benefits (Pape 2003; Shaffer 2006), most international relations scholars now acknowledge that rational choice frameworks, which focus solely on material interests and the strategic choices of states and groups, provide only partial explanations for international relations phenomena, including terrorism and conflict resolution (Leheny 2002). Unlike the field of international relations, which has marginalized the nexus between religion and politics until quite recently, the field of Israel

vigilante tactics to prevent further disengagement (e.g., the “price tag campaign” whereby attempts to evacuate illegal settlements have been met with the destruction of Palestinian property and the targeting of Palestinian civilians). Insofar as successive Israeli governments have continually backed down in the face of violent threats, and have been reluctant to bring activist settlers to justice, such spoiling tactics are highly effective— they foster a Palestinian mistrust of Israel’s willingness and ability to both agree to and implement the territorial concessions that would be required of a final peace agreement. (For an extended discussion of this argument, see Nash 2010. For a discussion of how Prime Minister’s Yitzchak Rabin’s reluctance to evacuate the Jewish enclave in Hebron following the 1994 Hebron mosque massacre contributed to Palestinian mistrust of Oslo, see Sprinzak 1999, 244–85).

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studies and scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long viewed religion as central. Overviews of the conflict, for example, typically note that it has both religious and ethno-political/national dimensions (Kimmerling 2001; Fox and Sandler 2004). Scholars have considered how religious attachments to sacred space have undermined peace processes (Klein 2007, 81–114; Reiter 2008); the ways in which religiously motivated domestic actors use (and abuse) theological texts to justify and condone violence (Hanauer 1995; Peleg 1997; Sprinzak 1999, 244–85; Juergensmeyer 2001, 45–84); and how the Islamization of the Palestinian national movement coupled with the hegemony of orthodox Judaism in the Israeli state have made resolving the conflict increasingly difficult (Litvak 1998; Kimmerling 2001). While there has been some focus on how religion (and the religious) might be a force for peace (Gopin 2002; Smock 2002; Landau 2003; Abu-Nimer 2004), much of the literature views both religion and religious actors as a large part of the problem. Religiously motivated domestic political groups and organizations are seen as spoilers of peace processes set into motion by secular peacemakers. Since they are viewed as forming the hard core of opposition to peacemaking, a central conclusion of the literature is that such groups should be contained and marginalized. In contrast to much of the literature on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Miriam Fendius Elman’s essay in this volume suggests that religious political actors need not be invariably feared and suppressed. On the contrary, by allowing these actors access into the political process, strong incentives are created for the subsequent moderation of their ideological platforms and strategies over time. In making this argument, Elman draws on a burgeoning literature in the fields of comparative politics and security studies which attempts to analyze the extent to which democracy “tames” radical political actors. Considering the case of Shas, the Jewish Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party, Elman argues that while the ideology of religious political parties is important for understanding whether inclusion in politics will make these groups more amenable to peacemaking, so too are the particular features of democratic governance and potential changes in constituency. In fact, Elman shows that Shas—once a pragmatic moderate on the issue of Israeli territorial withdrawal from the West Bank—is now firmly situated in the rejectionist camp precisely because of

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these domestic political factors. In terms of the democratic peace theory, Elman’s chapter highlights that proponents have overstated two central claims, namely that democratically elected leaders are restrained because of pacific public opinion, and that democracies can more easily negotiate peaceful solutions to conflict because of the tremendous audience costs they face from peace-minded citizens. Both claims are in fact generalizations conditioned on the public’s views regarding the utility of negotiation and the value of peace, and the public’s capacity to constrain executives through the use of veto power. The other essays in this section show how a democratic regime, by its very nature, provides room for debate and negotiation over policy issues, including peacemaking. When peacemaking challenges fundamental conceptions of national identity, the process of public debate can become particularly emotional and intense. If peacemaking is seen by opponents as endangering the very essence of their national identity, they may not only object to the peace process but also start to question the legitimacy of the decision-making process and the right of the central government to impose (as they view it) an identity change on them. This dynamic can result in testing the boundaries of legitimate protest and, in extreme cases, a turn to violence. Thus, ironically, addressing the internal debate over peacemaking and national identity nonviolently may render resolving the external conflict more difficult if not improbable. This logic stands in contrast with the expectation of democratic peace proponents that norms of peaceful resolution of internal disputes are externalized by democratic states. Examining the Oslo peace process, Dov Waxman’s chapter clarifies that the domestic debate in Israel about the peace process has been divisive and bitter precisely because it did not only entail painful territorial compromises but more significantly challenged various dimensions of Israeli identity: “The Oslo peace process involved more than a historical accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians and the final setting of Israel’s territorial borders, it also involved the reshaping of Israeli national identity.” Waxman adopts a constructivist lens when he argues that conflicting identities have been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Resolving the dispute requires major identity changes on

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both sides. Yet, changes in national identities are not readily available upon request. It is the latter point in Waxman’s analysis that highlights the particular circumstances that pertain to a democratic context. Successful national and ethnic identity manipulation has been attributed to closed autocratic and totalitarian regimes where power has been highly centralized in a narrow core. In places like the former Soviet Union, national identities are said to have been created by the Soviet regime through the redrawing of political and administrative boundaries while casting these administrative units as expressions of particularistic identities (Brubaker 1996). Likewise, the Pahlavi regime in Iran forced assimilation on the Bakhtiyaris as the minority lacked capacity to politically organize and contest regime policies (Byman 2002, 108–13). Leaders in a democratic setting, on the other hand, are far more constrained as they have to deal with legally organized opposition groups; their efforts to renegotiate the national identity are precisely that, renegotiation with social forces who might vehemently oppose them. In Israel, according to Waxman, attempts by the Rabin government during the early years of the Oslo peace process to reformulate Israeli identity in congruence with the government’s peacemaking policy generated a fierce domestic backlash that ultimately hindered conflict resolution. In sum, Waxman’s chapter shows that, in contrast to DPT assumptions, popular norms and beliefs held by publics within democracies are not always conducive to peacemaking. Ideational variables can sometimes promote or sustain conflict. In fact, democracies may face greater difficulties in peacemaking than do their nondemocratic counterparts precisely because leaders have a limited capacity to repress discourses that reject peacemaking efforts by advancing competing notions of national identity. The focus of Ilan Peleg’s chapter is on the ideological rigidity of the Israeli Right in the face of external pressures, particularly from the United States. Peleg identifies the “Territorial Imperative” as an inherent component of the Israeli Right’s ideology that has endured from the pre-state period. When in power, Likud-led governments typically needed to negotiate between their ideological commitments, on the one hand, and pressure from United States administrations, on the other hand. Unlike Labor

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leaders, who were not bound to the ideology of the “Whole Land of Israel” (that is, an Israel that includes the territories that Palestinians desire for their own state) and who since 1992 have either implemented withdrawals or expressed willingness to withdraw from the bulk of the territory Israel conquered in the 1967 war, right-of-center prime ministers made at most tactical concessions when it came to maintaining the integrity of the whole Land of Israel. Sometimes, what appeared to be ideological deviation had significant domestic political cost: as noted above, Prime Minister Netanyahu lost currency with his right-wing supporters after he signed the Wye Agreement in 1998, a development that, according to Peleg, led to the collapse of his government shortly thereafter. Usually, however, the tactical manoeuvres of prime ministers from the Likud Party did not lead to substantive changes in Israel’s hold on the contested territory. Prime Minister Begin agreed to vaguely worded autonomy in the West Bank, which he never implemented, and Prime Minister Shamir participated in the Madrid Peace Conference but without agreeing to any Israeli withdrawals. Only leaders who made an ideological transition, or were not ideologically driven in the first place, like Sharon and Olmert, were willing to make more far-reaching territorial compromises. Thus, Peleg concludes, in order for external pressure on Israeli right-wing governments to be consequential, it needs to be complemented with ideological malleability. In terms of the democratic peace, Peleg’s chapter questions a central claim of the theory, namely that democratic norms condition preferences. According to the normative variant of the democratic peace proposition, democratic ideologies become ingrained for democratically elected leaders, and living in a democracy conditions all decision-makers to endorse nonviolent methods of conflict resolution—both at home and abroad. Yet, Peleg suggests that ideology cannot simply be “read off” of regime type. Democratic states are not invariably predisposed to peace; peacemaking will be rejected by hard-line parties and governments that do not want to pursue compromise. Thus, for Peleg, ideology is a much more important causal variable than is the dichotomy between democracy and non-democracy, which really does not explain much at all.

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Agency and Leadership The importance of taking a closer look at leaders’ perceptions in order to improve our understanding of the relationship between democracy and conflict has been acknowledged by both proponents and critics of democratic peace theory (Hagan 1994; Hermann and Kegley 1995; Elman 1997b; Farmah 2003; Kinsella 2005, 456). While democratic peace theorists tend to distinguish democratically elected leaders from autocratic ones, the reality is that foreign policy decision-makers in democracies are not equally constrained by domestic institutions and structures, nor do they have similar views on the value of using force. Hard-liners and moderates lead democratic regimes that are characterized by more or less permissive institutional environments (Elman 2000). How leaders balance domestic and international constraints and opportunities, evaluate costs and benefits, and weigh their options is consequential for the choices they make. Indeed, much of the scholarship dealing with democratization and conflict has attributed explanatory power to elite persuasion (Kohli 1997; Lemarchand 1994; Snyder 2000; Rothchild 2004; Mansfield and Snyder 2005). To put it succinctly, playing the ethnic or nationalist card has proved to be a useful instrument in the hands of instrumentalist elites who seek to mobilize mass support at a time when the checks and balances provided by established democratic institutions are weak. Where democratic institutions are more firmly established, leaders are more constrained. Nevertheless, their perceptions and how they evaluate political costs and benefits will undoubtedly influence their choice of policy. Thus, for example, it has been argued that “democrats tend to avoid wars they do not expect to win with modest cost” (Ray 1995; see also Kinsella 2005). How leaders balance rival considerations and trade-off values against each other is analyzed in the chapter by Yael Aronoff. Among other things, how Israeli leaders perceive and balance internal concerns like the value of the territories in relation to Jewish national identity and their standing in domestic politics, on the one hand, with international issues like the Iranian threat and the best way to address it and the preferences and interests of the US administration, on the other hand, will all feature in

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the calculus of Israeli leaders. But the value attributed to each element is dependent on the people in power. Like several of the other chapters in this volume, Aronoff shows that democratically elected hard-line leaders can impede peacemaking—an outcome that is contrary to what democratic peace theory would lead us to expect. Evaluating the contributions of realist, liberal, constructivist, and political—psychological perspectives, the chapter clarifies how a political-psychology framework “is better able to explain how perceptions lead leaders to favor certain balancing strategies over others.” The advantage of the political-psychological approach derives from moving beyond international and domestic-level variables to encompass agency. When structural variables remain constant over time, reaching an agreement is contingent upon the identity of leaders, their personality traits, and the ideological transformation they undergo, all captured by the political-psychological approach. Thus, this approach is in a better position to explain why there is no peace despite seemingly favorable international and regional features that other theories would stress. That said, Aronoff does not discount the importance of domestic regime type, but unlike democratic peace proponents, who do not typically distinguish between different types of democracies, Aronoff suggests that Israel’s type of parliamentary democracy can be especially harmful to peacemaking efforts. Also focusing on leaders, the chapter by Ehud Eiran discusses how the behavior of decision-makers is influenced by the interplay between the domestic and international spheres. In a democratic context, in particular, leaders need to be attentive to, and are constrained by, domestic constituents. Yet, this does not render the international milieu utterly inconsequential: domestic politics and international constraints interact and influence state leaders’ perceptions and actions. Eiran’s chapter on the launch of Israeli settlements in the West Bank following the 1967 war illustrates this interplay between the domestic and the international. On the one hand, priorities about the desired future of the conquered territories were developed domestically by state leaders. On the other hand, the strategy by which to attain this endogenously defined objective was influenced by state elites’ evaluation of international pressures. Thus, according to Eiran, state leaders prioritized permanently

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extending Israel’s sovereignty to the contested territories. At the same time, they sought international recognition of Israel’s expanded sovereignty and came to believe that the best means to attain such recognition was by populating the territories with a Jewish population. Thus, while the Israeli public certainly exercised a voice in setting the state’s territorial policy, Eiran’s chapter critiques the democratic peace argument by showing that leaders’ decisions were more beholden to the decisions made by their predecessors than they were to the preferences of the voting public. Moreover, regime type in itself had little influence on the outcome of territorial demarcation—it is not democracy or democratic politics that explains Israel’s settlement policy so much as decision-makers’ reactions to international constraints and opportunities. Eiran argues that believing that formal annexation alone would not gain international recognition, the settlement enterprise was seen by state elites as an instrument for influencing both subsequent peace negotiations and the international community’s position on the future of the conquered territories. According to Eiran, this belief was based on historical experiences of success and failure, including Israel’s state formation process—where international recognition and borders were believed to have been facilitated by Jewish immigration and settlement patterns—as well as the 1957 forced withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, where a Jewish population was not present. For Eiran then, the democratic peace argument may be less applicable to Israel because, as a small and embattled state, its leaders have invariably been more reactive to the international arena than to domestic politics and ideology. Conclusion: Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking: Bringing Domestic Politics “Back In” The field of conflict resolution and the new, burgeoning literature on conflict transformation have contributed immeasurably to our understanding of how destructive and seemingly intractable inter- and intra-state conflicts can end, and the ways in which such fragile peace processes can be sustained. (For helpful recent overviews of the conflict resolution and conflict

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transformation literature see Kriesberg 2007, 2008, 2009a, 2009b; Darby and MacGinty 2003; Bar-Siman-Tov 2003; Wallensteen 2002; Roeder and Rothchild 2005; Ramsbotham 2005; Fleishman 2008.) The purpose of this book is neither to reject this extant work, nor to suggest that the factors that conflict resolution scholars have brought to bear are irrelevant. Rather, we aim to consider one important facet of conflict resolution: the impact of domestic political and ideological features and how these can undermine successful peacemaking even in the presence of factors that conflict resolution scholars often emphasize (e.g., committed third party mediators, public majorities in favor of peace, the lack of capabilities—for one or both sides—that can sustain a resumption of violence). To be sure, researchers of conflict resolution and transformation have not ignored domestic politics or ideology. For example, scholars often point to the importance of a shared understanding of the past, and the need for both societal and state actors to “re-humanize” their enemy. A significant body of scholarship also points to leaders’ mismanagement of negotiations and poor negotiation strategies employed at critical junctures in the conflict resolution process. Other scholars have considered how the resumption of violence can be mitigated by the settlement arrangement itself, such as domestic power-sharing institutions that enhance the security of former opponents (Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild 2001; Hartzell and Hoddie 2003; Hoddie and Hartzell 2005; Mattes and Savun 2009). Indeed, all of these factors have been emphasized with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in particular (Pundak 2001; Kriesberg 2002; Barak 2005; Kacowicz 2003; Maney 2006; Hermann 2009; Jamal 2005; Jarbawi and Pearlman 2007; Lavie 2007). However, domestic variables are typically included among other variables such that it is difficult to determine how much they matter relative to other causal factors (see, for example, Eisenberg and Caplan 2010). There has also been relatively little attempt to systemically consider the ways in which state and societal factors impinge upon the peacemaking strategies of democratic states, or how domestic and international factors interact to inhibit effective conflict resolution. In attempting to address these issues in the context of contemporary Israeli peacemaking, we hope

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to contribute a useful framework for conflict resolution scholars and practitioners. We also hope that, by teasing out a set of problems that have stymied Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives and suggesting how they might be ameliorated, we can increase the likelihood that negotiations will have a better chance of success.

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The Consequences of Institutional Configurations

2 Territorial Concessions, Domestic Politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

1

Hendrik Spruyt

Introduction With the end of the Cold War, the coalition defeat of Iraq in 1991, and treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), Israel’s existential security position has improved considerably since the early years of its independence. One challenge, however, has continuously befuddled Israel’s leaders: how to arrive at a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians? With the waning of the Second Intifada, a new window of opportunity seemed to present itself. Thus, in the fall of 2007 Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met in Annapolis and solemnly discussed how to proceed with the Road Map peace initiative. The plan envisioned an end to Jewish settlements and the creation of a Palestinian state in return for peace. With negotiations

1. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto; the 2009 ISA convention in New York; the Maxwell Center at Syracuse University; and the Center for Research on International and Global Studies, University of California, Irvine. I am particularly grateful for the comments of Deborah Avant, Kathleen Cunningham, Matt Evans, Bernard Grofman, Jacob Michael, Ilan Peleg, Jeremy Pressman, Etel Solingen, and Albert Wolf. My thanks also goes to Chris Swarat and Jesse Dillon Savage, who provided comments and detailed research assistance.

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stalling several months later, the Bush administration introduced a new and somewhat odd strategy: the Shelf Agreement. Olmert and Abbas would negotiate a deal no later than the end of 2008, and then present this to their followers by referenda or elections. If approved, the agreement would be shelved until the conditions were ripe to carry out the accord (Hussein and Malley 2008). Whether or not these leaders were truly committed to reaching a final settlement might be debated. But regardless of intentions, their structural constraints made any progress illusory. Abbas was confronted with multiple opponents. He faced pressure from the factions within the Palestinian Authority, and even more so from Hamas, which also contained (and still contains) considerable diversity within its ranks. Conversely, Olmert could not count on a stable Knesset majority and, making matters worse, his administration was beset by scandals. Thus, both leaders declared their lofty intentions for peace and performed as needed to gain international recognition and support. Olmert wanted to reassure the United States and Europeans that he was committed to the Road Map. Abbas benefited from presenting himself as the “reasonable” Palestinian side, unlike the radical Hamas, to garner American recognition and external aid. But in reality both recognized that they faced significant domestic constraints on their latitude for action. As I will show in this chapter, the internal conditions facing these leaders were hardly new. And indeed, sadly, these conditions continue to constrain both sides’ latitude to make concessions, as well as their ability to keep their own rank and files in check. Simply put, domestic politics critically affects the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the Occupied Territories. More specifically, I argue that the large number of veto opportunities in Israel’s fragmented political system allows opponents of territorial compromise to constrain the executive’s latitude for action. Even if a majority favors concessions (and a majority of Israelis in fact favors a two-state solution, although the contours of the two states remains a matter of contention), and even if such concessions might be in the state’s broader interest according to the executive, a minority hard-line position can block territorial compromise. Let me be clear, my intent is not to provide a comprehensive account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor is it an attempt to affix responsibility

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to one side. Instead the chapter seeks to demonstrate the impact of institutional configurations on foreign policy. I am also not so naïve as to expect that institutional change alone will provide the road to peace. This institutional account sheds light on only one aspect of a complex reality. It largely neglects the different levels of engagement of the United States and the role of the Arab states. No doubt these factors are important, as well. Nevertheless, I do contend that even if international conditions for a settlement might be propitious, internal politics on both sides will impede the likelihood of a two-state solution. Domestic politics mediate—and in this case, blunt—external influences. Institutional changes are thus a necessary, but hardly a sufficient condition for a possible settlement. Israel’s unstable coalition governments have had to balance the possibilities of reaching an accord with the Palestinian side against the risks of destabilizing the incumbent regime. This has particularly been the case since the Labor and Likud parties diminished in strength. Thus, the decade of negotiations following the Madrid negotiations in 1991, coincided with a highly unstable domestic political landscape with hardline parties imposing heavy costs on Labor and Likud led coalitions that engaged in territorial concessions (see Slater 2001; Spruyt 2005). Despite the political reforms since 2001, this instability continues to manifest itself in contemporary politics. Israel’s fragile coalitions provide opportunities for opponents of territorial compromise to impose heavy costs on the government. The withdrawal from Gaza (2005) does not falsify this general theoretical proposition, but indeed corroborates the thesis. The Gaza pullout does not bode well for any withdrawal from most of the West Bank. Quite the contrary, the pullout from Gaza and all the problems that this entailed for Sharon and the Likud Party, bodes ill for any executive who might wish to pursue a two-state solution with significant territorial concessions. Moreover, Gaza and the West Bank pose two entirely different sets of problems. The number of settlers differs dramatically, as does the ideological connotation of the West Bank. But the problem is not Israel’s alone. The far less institutionalized Palestinian regime faces even greater problems and hence cannot initiate dramatic new proposals, let alone implement an agreement. The Palestinian Authority (PA) does not control the various armed factions, which can

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thus act without the constraints of institutional rules. Moreover, the government has been criticized by Palestinians themselves as authoritarian and corrupt. Furthermore, the violent rift between Hamas and the PA has significantly eroded the PA’s position in the West Bank, and has removed it from Gaza entirely. Hamas, as well, is hardly a unified organization. The key point is that if the political institutions of a central government provide opportunities for small groups of hard-liners to block territorial concessions, policy change and territorial divestment will be less likely—even if a majority might favor certain territorial concessions. Multiple veto points will diminish the bargaining space for any government and thus they prevent policy change. In this sense, this argument shares Oded Haklai’s focus on the role of spoilers in the peace process. While this chapter draws attention to the formal institutional arrangements that impede a change in territorial policy, Haklai’s contribution notes how informal and even extra-legal means can exacerbate this problem. One might wonder at this juncture whether the ability of hard-liners to engage in extra-legal action goes so far as to potentially jeopardize the very stability of the political system in Israel. As Ian Lustick notes, territorial retrenchment tends to occur in various stages (Lustick 1993). If a hegemonic discourse exists regarding the inherent unity of the territory in question, then withdrawal is inconceivable. For example, few Americans could conceive of the Northern states granting any of the Southern states independence today. Below this level of ideological hegemony, withdrawal can be highly contested. At that stage, territorial withdrawal will jeopardize the very integrity and existence of the state. Arguably, challenges by the military and the terrorist activities of hard-liners who opposed French withdrawal from Algeria in the French fourth and fifth republics provide examples of such a condition. The threat of a military coup d’état and potential civil war was not illusory. In the final and least disruptive phase of territorial retrenchment, the incumbency level, the withdrawal from a contested territory might lead to a change in political fortunes for some political elites, but the fabric of the state will not be challenged. Although extra-legal resistance is problematic and although some segments of the military have at times resisted removing settler populations,

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Israel has not reached the stage where the very fabric of the state is in question. Challenges to the government’s territorial policy—either in favor of, or in opposition to retaining the territories—remain at the incumbency level. Governments will be voted in or out of office depending on whether the population supports such policy, but Israel has not erupted in the kinds of problems that befell France when confronting the Algerian question. Israel remains a robust democracy, civilian control over the military still holds, and we are a far cry from potential civil war.2 This chapter also raises the broader, theoretical question regarding the ability of democracies in general to strategically calibrate the pros and cons of holding a given territory. I suggest that democratic systems with multiple veto points may be constrained in their latitude for a territorial settlement, contrary to Jack Snyder’s argument that democracies are more adept at evaluating the overall costs and benefits to the state of holding a territory (Snyder 1991, 49–52). Niche constituencies might block territorial settlements even if realist calculations suggest that such a settlement would benefit the state as a whole. The paper first lays out the general logic of the institutional veto points perspective. The veto points literature clarifies how policy change in general is difficult in systems with multiple veto points. I extrapolate this view to the question of territorial policy, but also amend this perspective and suggest that there are various types of veto point structures that might be more harmful than others. It is critically important to recognize that a veto points explanation explicitly takes preferences into account. If preferences converge, the issue

2. Note, moreover, that even if one believes that a withdrawal from much of the Occupied Territories would not lead to challenges to the state itself, ultimately a territorial retreat would in the end phase still require institutional changes to give the government the latitude to deal with the territorial question. To compare again with France: after the government had withstood extra-legal challenges by the military and the secret paramilitary organizations, ultimately the government still needed to amend the constitution to give the executive the latitude to effectuate the policy it favored. The new constitution of the Fifth Republic provided de Gaulle exactly those means.

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of veto points remains moot.3 Should the executive and the parties of the coalition in power all conclude that territorial withdrawal is called for, then a uniform policy in favor of retreat will result. Conversely, if all concur on the opposite policy, then retreat will not take place. Veto points only matter when preferences diverge. How much latitude does an executive have if key components of the Knesset coalition fail to support the Prime Minister’s preferred policy? The chapter continues with a brief discussion of developments in Israel till the Second Intifada (2000). I will argue that the splintering of the political spectrum in the 1990s affected the latitude for executives to reach an agreement. I will then extend this insight by discussing events leading up to the withdrawal from Gaza and analyze how the Sharon government was able to withdraw from that territory. The subsequent section suggests that this fragmentation continues to the present day making a possible withdrawal from large portions of the West Bank very difficult. We then turn to a brief account of internal politics on the Palestinian side, which is confronted by an even higher degree of fragmentation. I conclude by laying out the consequences of these internal dynamics, and make several policy suggestions. Territorial compromise is not impossible for Israel, as we have seen from previous agreements, but it has become particularly difficult. This last section lays out some conditions that might facilitate territorial compromise. Veto Points and Stasis in Territorial Policy The following account presents an analysis of institutionalized agency. Individuals (agents) have preferences and make political choices based on those preferences. When groups with divergent preferences clash, victory will depend on the relative strength of the different electorates (the

3. Intuitively we might understand this by reflecting on the American system, which is an example of a system with multiple veto points, particularly at the constitutional level. If one party dominates the executive, both chambers of the legislature and the Supreme Court, the likelihood of any of these institutions blocking legislation will decrease.

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respective number of voters) and the institutional architecture that diminishes or strengthens the opportunities for voice. The British Westminster system, for example, diminishes the voice opportunities of even sizeable minority groups. Famously, the Liberal Party, after its decline in the 1930s, never gained more than a few percentage points of the seats in the Commons, despite at times gaining 20 percent of the popular vote. Conversely, highly proportional systems such as the Dutch and the Israeli systems, give voice opportunities to even small groups of voters. Any changes to an existing territorial configuration inevitably involve winners and losers. Those with few material interests in the contested areas will likely resent contributing manpower or finances to maintain these areas. They will prefer concessions rather than armed conflict. By contrast, others, such as business groups with site specific investments, settlers, colonial bureaucracies, and the armed forces will have a greater stake in keeping these areas for security or economic reasons. For them the benefits will be very specific, while the costs for maintaining the contested territories will be borne by the population as a whole. Businesses with site specific investments will be unable to relocate these assets (Williamson 1985).4 Armed forces—such as the French colonial army, historically—might have corporate interests in keeping overseas territories, but the preference for maintaining territorial control is likely to be most intense for settlers. For them, house and home, jobs, and privileged position are at stake. Indeed, for second- or third-generation settlers the contested territory constitutes their homeland. Territorial issues, moreover, can become indivisible in the eyes of protagonists. In such instances, compromise appears as an all or nothing proposition, where even parts of contested territories cannot be yielded (Goddard 2006; also see Lustick 1993). This will especially be the case if the territory holds a particular ideological salience. All other things being equal, one might expect that political elites in democratic systems will take the costs and benefits of territorial adjustment into account and cater to the majority opinion. As Jack Snyder argues,

4. Site specific investments are a subset of transaction specific assets, which are not easily deployed to a second use.

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democratic political systems, such as the British, overall have done a better job in assessing the costs and benefits of empire than cartelized authoritarian systems (Snyder 1991). Given that democratic leaders depend on electoral support, particularistic gains of territorial expansion cannot be rolled over onto the general populace, as authoritarian regimes might do. However, as I will argue, in some democratic systems, policy will be less influenced by the overall costs and benefits of territorial expansion (or continued territorial control). If hard-line special interest groups are present, the question is whether they have the institutional means to block concessions. Whether or not a move from the status quo is possible—a retreat from contested territories, for example—depends on the institutions of the controlling government. More specifically it depends on opportunities for opponents of withdrawal to veto proposals. Similarly, Immergut (1992) notes that whether or not an executive can introduce a new policy depends on the capacity of unilateral action. Whether or not a legislative proposal can move forward “depends upon the number and location of opportunities for veto along this chain [of decisions]” (Immergut 1992, 63, 65).5 Likewise, for Tsebelis (1995, 293) a veto player is any “individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision.” The nature of civil military relations and the constitutional and electoral rules determine the number of veto players. Rules will be particularly relevant in a democratic system, less so in an authoritarian regime. The military will be among the most virulent opponents to territorial concessions if its organizational mission and budget are closely tied to imperial policy, as was the case for the French colonial military.6 If the armed forces dominate civilian decision-making the military’s preferences will determine policy. Consequently, given a lack of civilian control, the preferences of the armed forces will provide a sufficient explanation of territorial policy.

5. See also Katzenstein (1987), who discusses the effects of veto possibilities on government policy in Germany. 6. On civil military relations, see Huntington (1957) and Feaver (1999). Clayton (1988) discusses the French military and the Algerian war.

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But even with civilian control over the military, hard-liners might have other opportunities to block concessions depending on the country’s constitutional and electoral rules. Multiparty parliamentarian systems and presidential systems with checks and balances (such as the United States) create multiple veto opportunities. The less centralized the decision-making structure, the greater the institutional means to block a change in the existing status quo even if a majority might favor such a change. Conversely, two-party (Westminster type) parliamentary systems and strong presidential systems (such as some Latin American systems without constitutional checks and balances) provide few veto points. Tsebelis thus classifies the British system as having a single veto point. Greater centralization at the top prevents hard-liners from unduly affecting territorial concessions when the executive deems these to be in the state’s interests. Parenthetically, at the foundation of Israel, Ben Gurion favored a Westminster-type model, and with the Mapai party’s strong position at that time (Mapai was the forerunner of Labor), Israel’s political system might have unfolded quite differently. As strategic choice theory demonstrates, multiparty systems create less incentives for parties to cater to the median voter (Downs 1957; Laver 1997, 117–26). Rather than congregate on the median, they do better by occupying a distinct position across the political spectrum. Indeed, parties might tacitly collude so as not to move to the median position. Thus, assuming that voters choose for parties that are closest to their ideological position, parties will cater to and develop niche clienteles. In contrast to two-party systems, we will find a greater number of parties, all with distinct ideological positions. The extant electoral rules will critically affect the number of parties. The more proportional the system is, the greater the likelihood that a multiparty system will emerge. The size of the electoral district, that is, the number of candidates standing in that district, will be particularly important in determining the degree of proportionality. With larger numbers of parties coveting distinct constituencies, without incentives to move to the median we will see considerable policy divergence among the contestants. “The more proportional the electoral system, the greater should be the diversity of the policy packages on offer.” (Laver 1997, 125).

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Multiparty systems that require coalitional governments, consequently, provide coalition partners with divergent preferences considerable influence on overall policy. Indeed, a multiparty coalition might be held hostage by a single party. This can particularly be the case when a party focuses on a single issue and is unwilling to compromise on that issue even if this destabilizes the cabinet. Ironically, despite the drawbacks of such parties, single issue parties may nevertheless be coveted by a coalition builder. Because that party only caters to a very specific clientele, it might be willing to compromise on many other issues. Imagine for example, a party that caters uniquely to the elderly. Such a party would be willing to compromise on virtually every issue that confronts the cabinet in question, as long as social security was not curtailed. Multiparty systems further contribute to a multiplicity of veto opportunities because cabinet formation will require a division of labor on cabinet posts and logrolling among parties of the coalition. Each party will thus demand the maximum representation of ministerial and sub-ministerial posts that it can get. In some cases this might indeed lead to ministers and deputy ministers of different political orientations occupying the same department, as occurs frequently in Israeli cabinets. A lack of party discipline might further exacerbate the problem. If parties cannot control the rank and file, they will not be able to credibly commit to their coalition partners. Moreover, an executive who fears that rival factions within her own party might withdraw their support will be unwilling to initiate new proposals that deviate from the existing status quo. Divergent Preferences and a Fragmenting Policy Network: Developments in Israel till the Second Intifada Politics in Israel exemplify the problem of how to accommodate parties with distinct preferences in a system with multiple veto opportunities. For historical and demographic reasons, Israel is beset with a large variety of social and religious cleavages. The wide ranging preferences of the Israeli electorate are superimposed on, and find voice in, one of the most proportional systems in the world. Consequently, multiparty coalitions have been the norm with each government having to accommodate widely

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divergent policy preferences within sometimes fragile coalitions. This fragmentation was exacerbated by several developments in the 1990s that limited the executives’ latitude for maneuvering then, and which continues to constrain Israel’s prime ministers today. Mapping the Preferences of Key Interest Groups From the very beginning, following Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War (1967), Israel’s governments have questioned the wisdom of retaining the Occupied Territories (Shlaim 1990).7 Sinai was relinquished following the 1978 Camp David Accord, but virtually all the other areas—Gaza (till recently), the West Bank, and the Golan—were retained. Initially the Occupied Territories were seen as vital to Israel’s existential security by enhancing Israel’s defense-in-depth. The Golan Heights also gave it command of the high ground over Syria. However, the 1978 Camp David Accord and the formal peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 made the Sinai and the West Bank less critical as buffer zones separating Israel from Egypt and Jordan. The resounding defeat of Iraq in 1991 diminished the existential threat posed by Sadam Hussein’s regime, as well. Even the Golan’s value has been questioned, although here a majority of the electorate had reservations about conceding the Golan to Syria (Yorke 1990, 115–36; Shalev 1994; Hockstader 2000).8 The security threat confronting Israel is no longer an external threat by its Arab neighbors, but arises internally from the territories themselves.9

7. For a discussion of this new school of Israeli historians, see Slater (2001; 2002, 79–106). 8. For a discussion of the Golan, the willingness of several prime ministers to discuss giving up the Golan, see Pressman (2000, 350–81). 9. The Occupied Territories do not provide protection against threats posed previously by Iraq and Iran. Rather, the nuclear deterrent and Israel’s conventional ability to strike opponents serves to ameliorate those threats. As said, the more immediate threats posed by Egypt, Jordan, and even Syria are far less than those faced by Israel earlier in its existence. Israel on occasion has even entered again into peace talks with Syria (Bronner 2008).

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Economically as well the Occupied Territories seem to place considerable burdens on Israel’s budget without yielding commensurate benefits. In short, from a realist perspective the benefits of keeping the Occupied Territories are not obvious. Why then have Israel’s governments insisted on retaining many of the Occupied Territories? Part of the reason lies in the ability of particular interest groups to affect policy decisions. The military has not been the main source of the problem. Unlike some of the western colonial armies, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do not derive their sense of mission and budget from the occupation of the acquired territories, but have largely been oriented toward external defense. With Israel’s existential security assured—whatever their political platform, the Palestinians lack the material power to eradicate the state of Israel—some members of the military establishment have questioned the wisdom of retaining much of the area acquired in 1967. Instead, the tasks of repressing Palestinian resistance, and the need to protect settlements, have sparked internal and external critiques of the armed services. There has been internal dissent, with some members of the armed forces supporting radical hard-line settlers, and others opposing Israel’s control over the territories. Nor do business groups have a strong stake in these areas. If in the past the Occupied Territories have provided cheap if unskilled labor, more recently that pool has also been provided by out-of-area workers, without the commensurate security risks (Lavy 2001). Moreover, the cost of retaining a continued military deployment throughout the areas has been significant, while the territories hardly yield assets of any particular value. The overall economy has also done well when the prospects for an overall peace agreement have improved. Instead, the preferences of the settler population and those favoring continued control over the territories have been a driving force. Ehud Eiran’s contribution to this volume clearly lays out the influence of these settlers as well as the deliberate policy choices by Israel’s leaders to support, in various degrees, settlement over the past decades. The institutional environment of Israeli politics has allowed these groups to exert a disproportionate influence on foreign policy. Jewish settlements of the occupied areas started in the late 60s and early 1970s, and picked up steam with the rise of Likud. Even the

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government of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who signed the Oslo Peace Accords (1993, 1995), did not halt the process. Although he derided “the mad delusion of Greater Israel” (Marcus 1992, 697), and stopped some construction, he nevertheless permitted the fulfillment of 9,000 previously issued building contracts.10 As a consequence, by 2003, the West Bank and East Jerusalem counted almost 400,000 settlers; Gaza had approximately 7,000, and the Golan Heights area contained roughly 20,000. By late 2009, the number of settlers in the West Bank had risen to 500,000 (350,000, if excluding the areas around East Jerusalem). The settlers stand to lose the most in a potential two-state solution, although the boundary lines that Israel would favor would retain some of the largest concentrations of settlers within its borders. The Palestinian demand that Israel withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, however, would clearly impose more significant hardships on the settlers. In addition to wishing to maintain their current housing and job opportunities, some of the settlers oppose territorial withdrawal, as they see Judea and Samaria as part of the biblical homeland. The settlers have acted on their preference through institutional means, with some of them also pursuing radical, illegal tactics.11 Societal Cleavages This diversity of views regarding the wisdom of retaining the West Bank, Golan, Jerusalem, and Gaza is superimposed on a society with multiple cleavages. One schism comes from ethnic and religious tensions between the Sephardim and Ashkenazim, with the former arguing discrimination by the latter. Both groups also evince different levels of education and income.

10. See Slater’s (2001, 177–78) critique of this policy. Also see Marcus (1992, 702). Said (2000), therefore, suggested the differences between the various Labor and Likud leaders were marginal. 11. Among the most egregious acts was of course the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish rabbinical student who opposed the Oslo Accords. But more recently settlers have taken up violent tactics to maintain illegal outposts in the Occupied Territories (Kershner 2008).

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Other tensions arise between religious and secular parties. These cleavages have been exacerbated partially because of asymmetric demographic changes. The birth rate among religious groups has been considerably higher than that of secular Jews. The growth of the religious segment and the subsequent increasing strength of the religious parties have led to clashes over issues such as school subsidies and service in the army. Some religious groups even oppose the very formation of a Zionist state. Another cleavage arises from the presence of a sizeable Arab population in Israel proper. Although they are Israeli citizens, the presence of hundreds of thousands of Arabs in a self-defined Jewish state raises significant problems. The Arab population in Israel has also experienced higher than average growth rates and, thus, the Arab parties have increased in strength. For example, in just one decade they went from only three seats in 1988 to nine seats in 1996 (Ottolenghi 2001, 117). It is an informal rule in Israeli politics, however, that Arab parties do not form part of any ruling coalition. In addition, Israel witnessed a dramatic influx of Jews following the dissolution of the USSR. More than 700,000 immigrants came to Israel and organized themselves in two parties. These immigrants clashed with religious parties and earlier immigrants on issues such as housing and entitlements. Finally, religious and ethnic differences are compounded by economic cleavages and contrasting views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Indeed, the left-right dimension in Israeli politics refers to the position of “doves” and “hawks” on security matters, not the issue of economics, although economic factors add further splits among the electorate. Emerging Veto Points and the Fragmentation of the Political System in the 1990s Israel’s political system is rife with veto opportunities that allow political elites to exploit societal cleavages.12 The multiplicity of veto actors has

12. As with other parliamentary systems, this has led to oversized public expenditures (Crepaz 2002, 169–88).

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impeded a land-for-peace deal in the past and continues to do so in the present. Despite concerns about the influence of the military on civilian leadership, the question has not been military domination of the parliamentary process. Whatever degree of influence the military has exercised, it is still a far cry from cartelized authoritarian systems that give the armed forces considerable influence on overall foreign policy.13 The fragmentation of Israel’s policy network does not arise from constitutionally created “checks and balances” as in the United States. Israel does not have a formal constitution; it is a parliamentarian system, thus requiring the executive to garner legislative support, and its parliament, the Knesset, is unicameral. The problem arises instead from the large number of partisan veto points that the system provides. The multiparty coalitions that this system generates lead to government instability. These veto points derive from Israel’s highly proportional electoral system. Along with the Netherlands, it is one of the most proportional systems in the world, given that the entire country is counted as one electoral district.14 Thus, multipartyism has always characterized the system. A new threshold, which was institutionalized in 1988, decreased the number of parties from 15 down to 10 lists (14 parties) in the Knesset in 1992. But this was a momentary trend, and by 1996 the number rose again to 11 lists (15 parties). And by 1999, the number was up to 15 lists representing 21 parties, all competing for the 120 seats in the Knesset (Marcus 1992, 62).15 Strategic choice analyses of such highly proportional systems predict that parties in such systems focus on developing niche clienteles. Israel’s political parties are no different and have specialized in catering to specific

13. See Snyder (1991) on cartelized systems. On Israel’s civil-military relations, see Lissak (2001). 14. Given that district magnitude correlates strongly with the degree of proportionality this creates multiple factions (Dow 2001, 111; Sartori 1999, 15). For other discussion of the electoral system, see Hazan and Diskin (2000, 628–37) and Doron (2000, 57–64). 15. The higher threshold for the 1992 elections did not deter thirty factions for competing for the voters’ attention (Aronoff 2000, 102).

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constituencies.16 Some parties, such as Shinui, cultivated the secular vote. Others, such as United Torah, represented a specific religious group. Shas, as discussed by Miriam Elman in her chapter, specialized in catering to the Sephardim. Yet others differentiated themselves on the Left–Right dimension. Special-issue parties also arose focusing on groups such as the Russian immigrants (Beiteinu); specific territories, such as the Golan (the Third Way); or single-issue constituents (the Gil Pensioners’ party). Across these parties, over time some have aligned with the hard-line, while others have been more inclined to surrender land for peace. With few barriers to entry (the threshold was raised in the late 1980s to 1.5 percent and then to 2 percent), the landscape consequently is littered with many parties.17 Usually more than two dozen parties compete in each election with more than a dozen gaining seats in the Knesset. Since its foundation, Israel has seen the rise of more than 100 parties. Despite the plethora of parties, some sense of cohesion was provided by the dominance of Labor and Likud for four decades. Initially, shortly after Israel was formed, Labor (then still called Mapai) dominated the political spectrum. Indeed, it almost managed at one point to gain a majority outright. By the 1970s, however, Likud started to increase in strength. And Labor-Likud unity governments, supplemented with some smaller parties, became the norm in the 1980s (Harris and Doron 1999, 23). These unity coalitions were oversized. Labor gained 47 seats in 1981, 44 in 1984, and 39 in 1988. Likud won 48 seats in 1981, 41 in 1984, and 40 in 1988 (Ottolenghi 2001, 117). Consequently, together they easily could control a large majority in the Knesset. And by over-sizing the coalition, they diminished the leverage of the other partner(s) and the chance that the coalition could be held hostage by any one party. These unity coalitions, however, fell apart in the 1990s. Throughout the 1990s, both Labor and Likud ruled in coalitions that excluded the other.

16. See also the discussion by Lijphart (1993, 153–70). 17. A Knesset committee proposal in 2007 to raise this to 2.5 percent did not go through.

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The fragmentation of Israeli society corresponded with a precipitous decline in strength for both Labor and Likud. Making matters worse, an ill-conceived plan to reduce their decline backfired. In 1992 a reform was adopted to create a two-ballot system, which went into effect in 1996. (Due to its negative effects, it was repealed in 2001.) Voters first chose for the prime minister (PM) and, secondly, for a party in the Knesset elections. In this dual election system, the PM still needed to gain majority approval in the Knesset (that is, acquire 61 votes) (Elazar and Mollov 2001, 8; Aronoff 2000, 97; Hazan and Diskin 2000, 630). The reformers hoped for a coattail effect, which would give the PM greater latitude to rule by providing the executive with a clearer mandate (Doron and Harris 2000, chap. 5). However, the reforms led to the very opposite outcome: voters split the ticket. After having voted for the PM on grounds of national interest, citizens subsequently felt free to choose a specialized party that catered to their narrower needs. In 1996, the first time it was applied, 45 percent of the voters split their votes. In 1999 almost two thirds of the electorate voted for the PM candidate of one party and then voted for another party with their second vote (Aronoff 2000, 97–101). The catch-all parties, Labor and Likud, representing the center-left and center-right, were decimated. Labor only got 34 seats in 1996 and a mere 26 in 1999 (on a joint list). Likud still won 32 seats in 1992, but only 22 in 1996 and a mere 19 in 1999 elections, barely edging out Shas.18 Labor and Likud PMs won, based on the first votes, but subsequently, had a tough time garnering a stable majority in the Knesset. Likud member Netanyahu won the 1996 elections with 50.5 percent of the vote, beating Shimon Peres.19 But, as noted, the Likud party itself had lost 10 seats. In 1999, Labor member Barak won with 56 percent of the votes but the Labor party itself was supported by less than 20 percent of the voters.

18. For discussions of the electoral reforms and their consequences, see Harris and Doron (1999); Aronoff (2000); Ottolenghi (2001); Hazan and Diskin (2000); and Goldberg (2001, 21–36). 19. If a candidate did not win in the first round, a second round run-off between the two candidates followed, similar to the French system.

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Even a (hypothetical) unity alliance of Labor and Likud would not have garnered a majority. After the Second Intifada started in the fall of 2000 and Barak resigned following the Camp David negotiations of that summer, Likud member Sharon won the elections of February 2001. He received a rousing endorsement with 62.4 percent of the vote. But since Barak had resigned no new parliamentary elections had been called. Thus, Sharon’s landslide popular vote for the prime minister coincided with his own Likud party base amounting to no more than 19 members of the Knesset (MKs) out of the total 120 (Hazan and Diskin 2000, 631; Harris and Doron 1999, 31–32).20 Given these weak bases, both Likud and Labor PMs have had to create large multiparty coalitions. Netanyahu’s 1996 coalition included six parties (actually more, since some of these were actually alliance lists); Barak’s 1999 coalition had seven; and Sharon’s 2001 coalition had seven parties, as well (Ottolenghi 2001, 117).21 Moreover, to pull these coalitions together, the cabinets had to be expanded with many ministers, deputyministers, and others so that all parties could claim desired portfolios and seats. It mattered little that ministerial positions sometimes brought rivals for the same resources together in the same agency. Representatives of the Russian immigrants and representatives of Shas thus both received high administrative posts in the Ministry of Housing, even though both had diametrically different views on where its funds should go. But this was a high price to pay. Inevitably, these coalitions contained many parties with highly diverse constituencies. These coalitions were, therefore, inherently fragile where even the threatened defection of one or two parties could bring down the government, allowing them to wield undue influence on the cabinet. Worse even, given weak party discipline, rebellious backbenchers could threaten their departure, undermining even their own party leadership. In one example, between January and March of 1999, twenty-eight members switched their party affiliation (Hazan and Diskin 2000, 630).

20. For these results, see www.electionworld.org/election/israel.htm. 21. Also see www.electionworld.org/election/israel.htm

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Given the low electoral threshold, one could easily go on to form another party, or alternatively join a different already existing one. In Israel’s system, defection need not end one’s career. Single-issue parties could also easily switch sides, and have been happy to do so in exchange for private goods, such as specialized school subsidies and housing allocations. For example, Shas and the National Religious Party (NRP) were both part of the 1996 Netanyahu Likud coalition of 1996. Both then switched to the Barak Labor coalition in 1999. They subsequently helped bring down the Barak government, and then joined the Likud coalition of Ariel Sharon in 2001. In short, given the multiple veto points in the system, hard-liners could easily derail proposals for territorial compromise and shifts from the existing status quo, that is, a withdrawal from the areas occupied with settlers since 1967 (Harris and Doron 1999, 22). “Minor parties exerted pressure on the major parties: in essence, holding the major parties hostage to their particularized demands and rendering the government incapable of responding to many of the pressing problems demanding attention” (Harris and Doron 1999, 17). Israel’s cabinets thus lacked the ability to initiate proposals that would change the current territorial configuration.22 And when such proposals threatened to become part of the agenda for negotiations, the executive soon found itself confronted with an evaporating parliamentary base. Many parties have made the most of these opportunities. The Third Way has favored retention of the Golan. Moledet and the National Unity party have wanted to hold on to the West Bank. The NRP and United Torah have similarly wished to keep the Occupied Territories and recreate the Biblical homeland. Shas has not traditionally taken a strong position on the Occupied Territories (save Jerusalem) and has been more interested in garnering resources such as housing and schools for its religious constituency. More recently, though, it has become more vocal on territorial issues, as Miriam Elman shows in her chapter. Consequently, when the United States in 1991 put heavy pressure on the Shamir government to negotiate at Madrid by withholding a

22. On institutions and credible commitments, see Cowhey (1993a).

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substantial aid package,23 the hard-line coalition partners withdrew their support. Given that Labor had earlier withdrawn from the unity government, the Shamir government collapsed. By contrast, with a much smaller coalition, Rabin’s 1992 Labor-led government was able to make more concessions. Having done well in the election, Labor itself controlled 44 seats. With support from Meretz (12 seats) and Shas (6), it formed a coalition that commanded 62 seats and included only three parties. Even if Shas defected, the Arab and Communist parties would likely support peace overtures and their five seats would allow the government to proceed. This is indeed what occurred when Shas left the coalition after one year. With the support of the Arab and Communist parties, the Oslo I accord passed with the narrowest of margins, with only sixty-one votes (Shlaim 1994, 34).24 The assassination of Rabin ended his cabinet. The Oslo Accords suggest that certain conditions facilitated compromise. First, the coalition incorporated a relatively small number of parties. Second, the mix of parties in the coalition seemed amenable to a settlement and excluded parties with an explicitly hawkish territorial policy. However, it is important to realize that even under these conditions, the coalition was unstable. True, the accords passed with external support from non-coalition parties, but the government itself had lost a majority because Shas withdrew its support. A similar conclusion can be drawn from the limited concessions made by the center-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The coalition that emerged in 1996 had a majority of sixty-six seats. However, it contained several parties that opposed the Oslo I and II accords,

23. The George H. W. Bush administration openly disapproved of the settlement policy. It linked billions of dollars in US aid to changes in the development of such settlements. Rabin used Shamir’s jeopardizing of such aid as an issue in the 1992 election campaign (Marcus 1992, 702). 24. On the Oslo II agreement, again sixty-one voted in favor. Bar-Siman-Tov (1997, 175) argues this indicates a failure of legitimacy. Perhaps, but one may wonder whether a broader and more diverse coalition would even have condoned entering into the negotiations.

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such as the NRP, and United Torah, and the Third Way (Lochery 2000, 222, 223). Due to the obligations of Oslo, Netanyahu nevertheless had to implement certain provisions from the Oslo Accords regarding Hebron. But only twenty-nine members of Netanyahu’s own coalition voted in favor. While the cabinet passed this particular issue with Labor’s support, the government could not survive due to the defection of its coalition partners. His government fell a month later.25 Similar dynamics befell the Labor coalition of Ehud Barak even though the seven-party coalition controlled 75 MKs. To form this majority he had to include three religious parties—Shas (17 seats), United Torah (5) and NRP (with 5). The secular leftist Shinui and the Arab parties were not part of the coalition, but as with Rabin’s government they were expected to support territorial compromise.26 Despite this seemingly strong position, this coalition soon started to unravel. The United Torah left the coalition after a mere four months. By the time Barak started the Camp David negotiations in the summer, only three parties still supported his position (Ottolenghi 2001, 119). Shinui and other secular parties helped Barak avoid a no-confidence vote, but his position was very fragile and the government fell several months after the negotiations. The failure of Camp David and the eruption of the Second Intifada in the fall of 2000 ended any hope of Oslo succeeding. Developments since the Second Intifada: The Withdrawal from Gaza Does the withdrawal from Gaza forebode a shape of things to come? Is the withdrawal from Gaza a refutation of the argument that Israel’s multiple veto points prevent a withdrawal from the Occupied Territories?

25. For discussions of this episode, see Elazar and Mollov (2001, 2–4); Aronoff (2000, 103); Hazan and Diskin (2000); and Lochery (2000, 232). 26. For optimistic perspectives on what Barak might accomplish when he took office, see Lochery (2000, 236) and Hazan and Diskin (2000, 636). Paradoxically by the time these articles were published—a year after Barak had assumed office—his cabinet was already in dire straits.

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Both questions must be answered in the negative. The political system remains as fragile as ever, despite attempts to forge greater stability in the system. Moreover, the demand to retain the Gaza Strip was far less intense than the demands to keep Jerusalem and the West Bank. The latter territories contain almost 500,000 settlers compared to the 8,000–9,000 in Gaza. Moreover, the West Bank territories are claimed by some groups as part of the biblical homeland. Thus, both in terms of intensity of demand and in terms of the number of settlers involved, the West Bank presents a much larger problem for any PM contemplating a withdrawal. The consequences of the divided policy network have not gone unnoticed. Efforts have been made to reduce the high fragmentation of the parliament. Given the dire consequences of the 1996 electoral reforms, the Knesset elected to return to the old 1992 system with voters only casting one vote. The Knesset also introduced the requirement of a constructive no-confidence vote requiring the opposition to demonstrate the existence of an alternative coalition (Ottolenghi 2001, 114, 120). Nevertheless, prime ministers remained befuddled by a lack of consistent parliamentary support. With Barak’s departure new elections were held for PM in 2001 but not for the Knesset. While Sharon won by a landslide, getting 63 percent of the vote, he still had only 19 Likud seats to fall back on. Consequently, he had to build a coalition of 7 parties and incorporate a record number of 26 ministers. Despite his own level of support, this coalition still proved unstable (Benn 2002). By the fall of 2002, One Israel (a Labor alliance) withdrew its support and Sharon had to call new elections in 2003. Even with the return of the old electoral system, multipartyism continued to rule with a vengeance.27 Likud did, however, grow from 19 seats to 38. But other parties declined and fragmented. Labor-Meimad only garnered 19 seats; Shinui 15; Shas declined to 11; and 9 other parties split the rest of the seats.28 The resulting hodgepodge coalition in 2003, under Sharon’s Likud, included centrist Shinui with 15 seats, the right-orthodox NRP with 6

27. Dow 2001; Harris and Doron 1999, 20, 26. 28. Analysts suggested that the return to the electoral system of 1992 had not remedied factionalism in the Knesset. See Ilan (2003) and Benziman (2003).

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members, and the ultra-nationalist National Union with 7. All in all it had 66 seats (Associated Press 2003). As a consequence, the NRP and National Union—the parties most set against territorial concessions—held a veto. This would prove to be an obstacle to Sharon’s plan for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Ariel Sharon increasingly had come to the conclusion that control over Gaza was more trouble than it was worth. With less than 10,000 Table 2.1 Sharon Government, February 2003 Government coalition Likud*

38 (+2)

Shinui (secular)

15 (exits coalition 12/4/2004)

National Unity (right-secular)

7 (exits coalition 6/6/2004)

NRP (right-orthodox)

6 (exits coalition 11/11/2004) —

Total:

66

Opposition Labor

19 (joins coalition 1/10/2005; exits coalition 11/23/2005)

Shas

11

Meretz

6

Torah

5

Balad (Arab alliance)

3

Hadash (Arab nationalist)

3

Am Ekad

3

Yisrael B’Aliyah

2

United Arab List

2 —

Total:

54

*Gaza pull-out in September 2005. Sharon breaks away from Likud and forms Kadima in November 2005.

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settlers amidst 1.3 million Palestinians, the costs of providing security and control over the area seemed prohibitive. Combined with his unilateral plans for building a security barrier in the West Bank, he thus envisioned a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza by the summer of 2005, with financial compensation to the settler families. The withdrawal from Gaza, however, did not mean surrendering the West Bank, even if it did entail a pull-out of some smaller settlements with a few hundred citizens in exposed positions in the West Bank. Instead, Sharon’s plan envisioned consolidation and even authorization of several thousand construction permits in Ariel and around Jerusalem that would fall in the security zone and behind the barrier. An aide to Sharon, Dov Weisglass was quoted by Haaretz as stating that “the significance of our disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process” (Myre 2004a). Nevertheless, the plan immediately ran into opposition from the settlers, represented by, among others, the Yesha Council (Myre 2004b).29 Obviously the Israeli residents of Gaza objected, but settlers on the West Bank mobilized as well, fearing that concessions in Gaza were a prelude to concessions in the West Bank. The general public, by contrast, was more supportive, with perhaps as many as two-thirds of Israelis favoring unilateral withdrawal (Myre 2004c). Given its pro-settler opposition, the National Unity party was the first to defect in June 2004, leaving the coalition one short of a majority. Even if Sharon could garner a majority in parliament for the specific withdrawal from Gaza by counting on support from the Arab parties (who have never been part of any governing coalition), and the Left (which was not part of the coalition in 2004), this would leave the cabinet vulnerable to a no-confidence vote. Consequently, Sharon started to court Shimon Peres, the leader of Labor (Berger 2004). But Peres wanted to link the withdrawal with a general discussion of the peace process and wanted the Gaza withdrawal to occur in consultation with the Palestinians, something Sharon had refused to do. Thus, courting Peres risked alienating

29. Some religious groups and Rabbis urged soldiers “to refuse to take part in uprooting settlements and settlement outposts in the Land of Israel” (quoted in Erlanger 2004).

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Sharon’s remaining right-wing coalition partner, the National Religious Party (NRP). And indeed by November of 2004, the NRP too left the coalition. This left the government seven seats short of Knesset majority. In order to bolster his disintegrating coalition, Sharon sought not only the possible support of Labor, but also support from some of the religious parties, such as United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas. To court their support the government’s budget proposal included subsidies for UTJ. However, by doing so, Sharon started to lose the support of the Shinui, the secular centrists. Shinui opposed the budget and withdrew from the coalition, leaving Sharon only with forty seats on which he could count. Thus, with the Gaza withdrawal only several months away, the Sharon government was in a very precarious position (Myre 2004c). But to make matters even worse, even members of Sharon’s own Likud started to break ranks. At least eighteen members of the Likud did not support him. Foremost among the opposition was Netanyahu, although he initially had voiced support for Sharon. With his own party in revolt and with few coalition parties left, Sharon managed to bring Labor into the coalition, together with United Torah, giving the coalition a narrow majority of sixty-four. But the cost to both political leaders was significant. Doves in Labor opposed Peres’s signing on to the Likud-led coalition, and hawks in Likud objected to Sharon’s shift to the left of the spectrum. Nevertheless, with support from much of the Labor Party and other parties, such as the Arab groups, the Gaza withdrawal could be carried out in the summer of 2005. The difficulties surrounding the withdrawal from Gaza underscore the severe obstacles facing any executive contemplating a surrender of large parts of the West Bank, let alone Jerusalem. First, Gaza contained less than 10,000 settlers amidst more than a million Palestinians, creating a highly exposed position that required military deployments and infrastructural investments far beyond the benefits that control over Gaza provided. Even then, withdrawal from Gaza was far from easy. Settler movements actively resisted the withdrawal and some had to be forcefully evicted despite financial compensation by the government. The West Bank, with close to half a million settlers is an entirely different matter.

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Second, while the numbers of settlers is of course dramatically different, so is the intensity of preferences. For decades, the various governments of Israel have actively supported the creation of settlements and have issued housing permits, thus establishing long term expectations. Indeed, for many of the younger generation of settlers this was where they were born and raised. Combine that with the biblical view that Judea and Samaria are part of the homeland, and the desire to retain these lands is obvious. What holds true for the West Bank a fortiori holds for Jerusalem and surrounding areas. Third, the many veto points that continue to fragment the political system allow hard-liners who oppose territorial concessions to resist any withdrawal. Some of the parties, such as NRP and National Unity see the areas as inherently part of Israel proper. Shas was more accepting of possible territorial compromise on the West Bank in the past, but has become more adamant about retaining the parts of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas that were acquired in 1967. Simply put, both the difference in preferences regarding continued control over the West Bank compared to Gaza, and the continued presence of multiple veto points, creates an entirely different political landscape. Withdrawal back to the Green Line, as the Palestinian side demands, has become virtually unthinkable. Even Sharon, largely perceived to be hawkish on any peace-for-land deal, faced rebellion within his coalition and indeed within his own ranks. The same fate would probably befall any center-right executive, let alone a left-center government that wished to make concessions on the West Bank. Developments since the Withdrawal from Gaza In the wake of the Gaza withdrawal, the central committee of the Likud party, sparked by Netanyahu, who had left the cabinet, mounted a challenge to Sharon’s leadership of the party. In November of 2005, Sharon turned his back on the Likud and formed with loyalists the Kadima party, and called for new elections for March 2006. Netanyahu in turn assumed the leadership position of Likud.

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Unforeseen events intervened before the election. Two strokes debilitated Ariel Sharon and his career came to a sudden end. Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert then took over the leadership of Kadima and propelled it into the largest party, winning twenty-nine Knesset seats in the March election. The 2006 election also brought some further electoral reforms. To diminish the presence of small splinter parties, the electoral threshold was raised to 2 percent from the previous 1.5 percent. Nevertheless, 14 parties (or 12 alliances of parties) still managed to gain seats. Once again, a Table 2.2 Olmert Government, March 2006 Government coalition Kadima

29

Labor-Meimad

19

Shas

12

Yisrael Beiteinu

11 (exits coalition Jan. 2008)

Gil Pensioners

7 —

Total:

78

Opposition Likud

12

National Unity-NRP

9

United Torah

6

Meretz

5

Ra’am

4

Hadash

3

Balad

3 —

Total

42

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multiparty coalition had to be formed. Together with the Labor-Meimad alliance (19 seats); Shas (12); Yisrael Beiteinu (11) and the Gil Pensioners’ party (7), Olmert managed to form a new coalition with 78 seats in parliament. Likud fell to a mere 12 seats. Despite seemingly having wide parliamentary support the Olmert coalition proved fragile. And once again the territories acquired in the Six Day war proved to be one of the hot button issues. Lieberman, the leader of Beiteinu had joined the coalition but had “red-lined” several items that were not open for discussion. Any discussion of possible withdrawal from parts of Jerusalem would provoke the departure of Beiteinu. When this topic nevertheless emerged, Beiteinu left the governing coalition. Shortly after his resignation in September 2008, Olmert declared that ultimately Israel will have to surrender the Arab part of Jerusalem if it wishes to gain peace (Olmert 2008, 6–8). Although technically the coalition still controlled 67 MKs, in practice Olmert was left with a minority government because several rebel members in Kadima, Labor, and the Gil Pensioners’ party also opposed the government (Verter 2008). For some time the coalition survived, not because of positive support by coalition members but because of fears for calling a new election. The coalition parties feared that Likud would likely gain in such an event. Shas remained in the coalition in order to gain financial support for its favored projects. However, Shas eventually withdrew its support, partially to oppose any possible partition of Jerusalem (Mualem 2008). Even with Olmert seeking the support of United Torah to shore up the coalition, the government lacked the basis for a land-for-peace deal, such as the one that was sketched out at Taba at the end of Barak’s term in late 2000. The Shelf Agreement, already a source of contention from the start, was doomed to remain a figment of imagination. In the fall of 2008, the scandals surrounding Olmert led to his replacement as leader of Kadima by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. She narrowly beat out Transportation Minister Mofaz, a former general, who, unlike Livni, opposed peace talks with the Palestinians (Bronner 2008). Shas, however, demanding that Livni would pledge not to divide Jerusalem, could not be persuaded to support the Livni coalition and thus new elections had to be called (Khalil 2008).

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Table 2.3 Netanyahu Government, March 2009 Government coalition Likud

27

Yisrael Beiteinu

15

Labor

13 (5 after January 2011 split in Labor)

Shas

11

Habayit Hayehudi

3 (Jewish Home, formed out of NRP and National Union)

United Torah

5 —

Total

74 (66 after Labor split)

Opposition Kadima

28 (joins coalition May 2012)

United Arab List (Ta’al)

4

National Union

4

Hadash

4

New Movement-Meretz

3

Balad

3 —

Total

46 (54 after Labor split)

The February 2009 elections produced a center-right coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud party winning 27 seats. They linked up with hard-line Yisrael Beiteinu, which gained 15. The orthodox Shas party, which initially was less concerned with the territorial question but shifted to the right, brought 11 seats to the coalition. Jewish Home, a new party formed from elements of the right-wing National Religious Party and National Unity, added another 3 seats. And, in a rather dramatic about-face, Ehud Barak brought Labor into this alliance. Labor, once the only party to almost gain a majority single handedly, was reduced to a mere 13 seats. Barak indicated he joined the coalition to put the brakes on a center-right government, but

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the Labor party split in a highly contested party-vote with many favoring to remain in the opposition. United Torah joined the government shortly thereafter bringing the coalition up to 74 supporting MKs. From the outset it would be difficult for such a coalition to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian side. Netanyahu himself suggested he was unwilling to concede key areas, although he indicated in his Bar-Ilan speech in June 2009 that he could accept a Palestinian state, albeit under strict conditions. Moreover, one must keep in mind that the veto points argument pertains to the abilities of minority groups to block majority opinion. If the majority opposes a settlement, then the veto points argument remains moot. But, even if Netanyahu did want to pursue an agreement with the Palestinians, perhaps in the face of American pressure, or perhaps driven by changes in his calculation of Israel’s self interest and concerns about demographic shifts (similar to changes that Sharon also underwent), that coalition would be hard pressed to remain unified. Either Beiteinu, or Shas combined with hard-liners within Likud could bring down the government. Indeed, following the split in the Labor Party ranks, in early 2011, Netanyahu’s six-seat majority gave hard-liners even more leverage. Plus ça change. Further indicative of the unpredictable nature of Israeli politics, the centrist Kadima party joined the Netanyahu government in May 2012, despite Shaul Mofaz, the Kadima leader, shortly before arguing that he aimed to replace Netanyahu (Rudoren 2012). With the Kadima support, Netanyahu controlled 96 of the 120 Knesset seats. However, the size of this supermajority was short lived with Kadima exiting only two months later. The 2013 elections changed the landscape somewhat with the new Netanyahu government excluding the orthodox parties from the governing coalition. Newcomer Yair Lapid (a former TV anchorman) formed a new party Yesh Atid that unexpectedly captured 19 seats. With Lapid’s party joining the coalition, together with Livni’s “Movement party” and the Jewish Home party, Netanyahu formed a government with a 68 seat majority, but it immediately faced questions regarding its future stability. Israel’s fragile coalitions thus continue on.

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Fragmentation and Vetoes on the Palestinian Side While I have drawn attention to the veto points faced by Israel’s democratic government, the Palestinian side is plagued by an even greater inability to initiate peace initiatives and a lack of credibility. Even when Arafat was still alive, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was rife with divisions.30 Arafat himself clashed with his own prime ministers. And prominent Palestinians themselves accused the PA of corruption and misuse of funds. To make matters worse, unlike in Israel where the problem of multiple veto points arises in the civilian sphere, civilian oversight over the armed forces cannot be taken for granted in the Palestinian case. Moreover, in part to divide potential opposition against Arafat, and in part to dole out private goods to various factions, the security services of the PA were divided among almost a dozen armed groups. Although the PA, following the Oslo Accords, was to be given control of security and civilian affairs in the Palestinian towns, and divided responsibility in other areas, the PA could not claim to hold a monopoly of violence—the quintessential feature of modern states. The elections of January 2006 eroded any hopes that a coherent government might emerge that could initiate proposals and credibly commit in negotiations with the Israeli side. The presidential election of 2005 (following Arafat’s death in November 2004) had shown a large majority support for Mahmoud Abbas, who had come up from the Fatah ranks. But the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council showed a completely different result. The big winner of the elections proved to be the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. While the popular vote split relatively evenly between Hamas and Fatah, Hamas picked up far more district seats. Thus, of the 132 seats, 76 went to Hamas and 43 to Fatah, with the remainder going to smaller parties. Subsequent violent struggles in Gaza virtually ousted Fatah from Gaza altogether. Even in the West Bank, Abbas’ ability to control the 30. The Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994 following the Oslo negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO itself was a coalition of multiple groups, of which Fatah was the strongest.

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diverse Palestinian factions remains questionable. Fatah itself consists of the founding older generation, an intermediate group of leaders who arose during the First Intifada, and a younger cohort affiliated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The situation in Gaza is somewhat clearer in that Hamas appears the dominant force after it violently clashed with PA forces. But Hamas, too, is divided by an “inner group” of leaders and an “external group” that largely relies on its contacts with states that support the movement, such as Iran and Syria (Mishal and Sela 2006, xviii–xix). What the long-term consequences will be of the fighting in Gaza at the end of 2008 remains to be seen. In short, the Palestinian side lacks civilian control over the military. Making matters worse, the armed forces are divided by multiple factions, each possessing their own means of violence. Moreover, at best, it is a nascent democracy with weakly established formal and informal rules, leading to further fragmentation and lack of control. This does not automatically preclude Palestinian attempts to forge a more unified front. In the wake of the Arab spring of 2011 that brought down several authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, most importantly that of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak, Hamas and the PA tried to do just that. Facing popular demands for unity, and instability in Egypt and Syria, Hamas and the PA vowed to reconcile and pursue a common goal of Palestinian statehood with Jerusalem as its capital (Bronner 2011). One might suggest that at face value, this initiative gave the Palestinian side bargaining leverage in that it could now respond to the Israeli government that there was indeed a negotiating partner. But years of discord and distrust, and differences in ideology and objectives will be difficult to overcome. Indeed, scarcely a month of the accord passed before the first cracks in unity appeared (Kershner and Akram 2011). Conclusion: Theoretical and Policy Implications The veto points literature has demonstrated how fragmented systems give special interests disproportionate power to block policy changes. The same holds true with regards to territorial policy, as the foregoing analysis shows.

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This raises questions regarding the ability of some democracies to pursue territorial policy based on realist calculations. One might expect that political elites in democratic regimes would have to cater to the public’s perception of what constitutes the national interest (Snyder 1991). Given that the costs and benefits of a territorial policy would fall on the public as a whole, narrower interests, such as those that dominate cartelized systems, would be defeated in a democracy. However, with highly proportional parliamentarian systems that give rise to large multiparty coalitions, narrower interests might subvert political outcomes that are desired by a majority of the population. This study of the institutional impediments to an Israeli-Palestinian compromise also sheds additional light on the issue of credible commitment. The standard view holds that political systems with multiple veto points can more credibly commit to fulfilling the terms of agreements, given that these veto points make it difficult to retreat from a mutually agreed upon solution, the winset (Cowhey 1993; Martin 2000; Tsebelis 2002). However, that literature recognizes as well that this does not hold for the initiation of proposals. Heavily fragmented systems cannot get to the point of initiating new proposals because they cannot establish an acceptable winset for the multiple groups that hold diverse preferences. Moreover, territorial withdrawals are rarely either-or situations, but in fact create multiple iterative steps in the peace negotiation process. Thus, each step in effect creates the need for actors to establish another new status quo. For example, Oslo broke the peace process down into distinct stages, but each stage in effect created the opportunity for opponents to halt the process at any new juncture.31 Consequently, the multiple vetoes problem arises both in initiating new proposals for an agreement as well as for credibly committing to implementing an agreement once it has been reached. The Israeli case also raises another more general question for the veto points literature.32 The general literature merely distinguishes the number of veto points in different systems. The British system is considered to have

31. There are, in other words, various decision nodes in the withdrawal process. 32. I am indebted to Kathleen Cunningham Gallagher for this insight.

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very few, while the American system is considered to present many veto opportunities in the policy process. It does not differentiate whether such vetoes are exercised by relatively large groups or small. For example, the US Constitution provides both chambers in the legislature the ability to block significant legislation passed by the other chamber. Arguably, such a veto would be at the behest of a significant part of the electorate (assuming that the members of the legislature were catering to their constituents’ input). This would be qualitatively different than vetoes exercised by small parties in a large coalition. Thus the number of veto points provided by a system would still be indicative of policy stability—the larger the number of vetoes, the less likely would be a move away from the status quo. However, the nature of a small minority veto would seem to have different implications for the quality of democracy than a veto by a party with large constituent support. The essay does not claim that Israel is incapable of engaging in landfor-peace deals. Clearly, in the past it has done so, particularly in the Sinai following Camp David (1978), and again in Gaza in 2005. However, it is important to understand the circumstances under which such agreements can occur, as well as the costs that territorial concessions might impose on the governing coalition. Withdrawal from the Sinai was possible because the executive was not faced with entrenched interest groups that had strong interests in, or identified with, the Occupied Territories. Although possession of the Sinai provided defense in depth, the accord with Egypt provided existential security for Israel on its western flank making control of the Sinai less important. Moreover, the Sinai was not considered part of the biblical homeland, and thus did not spark the intensity of preferences as have the West Bank and Jerusalem. Without a demand for continued control by single-issue constituencies, the presence of veto opportunities remained moot. Finally, the Knesset by the late 1970s was still dominated by the two large parties of Labor and Likud, which, as a result, were less subject to hold-up by smaller coalition partners. Furthermore, if coalitions contain relatively few member parties with roughly similar preferences, as with the Rabin coalition and the Oslo

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Accords, then the opportunity for an agreement increases. Such a coalition, supported by Arab parties could pass some territorial concessions, albeit with very narrow margins. Consequently, the point is that previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians have hinged on the support of parties that were not part of the governing coalition. Such agreements were approved by the Knesset with support from leftist and Arab parties (with the Arab parties systematically excluded from coalitions). But such concessions brought down the government because hard-line coalition partners opposed them. Yet, every Likud and Labor prime minister of the last decade and a half has had to include hard-line parties in order to get a working majority when forming a new cabinet. Of course, a lack of territorial concessions does not in itself prove that opponents have acted as spoilers and have vetoed a land-for-peace deal. If a majority of the Israeli population opposes territorial concessions, then the veto points argument remains moot. Instead, the question is whether a majority position in favor of a change from the status quo can be blocked by a minority. This arguably is the case for the Occupied Territories on the West Bank. The fragmented nature of Israel’s domestic political system provides multiple veto opportunities for opponents to territorial concessions, even if the two-state solution is now widely accepted among much of Israel’s population, and with even Netanyahu in his Bar Ilan speech indicating that this would be a possible outcome if very specific conditions were met by the Palestinians. The problems besetting hard-liners such as Netanyahu and Sharon lend further support to the argument developed in this chapter. One would expect them to be in the best position to withdraw from some parts of the Occupied Territories without being accused of appeasement, and yet they saw their coalitions fall in 1999 and 2005. I emphasize that institutional reforms alone would not lead to territorial concessions. The veto points argument relies on examining preferences and institutions. As said, if a majority of Israelis opposed concessions or a two-state solution, then no amount of institutional change would lead to territorial withdrawal and a viable Palestinian state. My

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focus is instead on what I believe is the current situation: a majority sees some form of territorial compromise as inevitable—whether it be to settle the conflict with the Palestinians, or to retain the Zionist character of the Israeli state. No doubt there is considerable discussion of what the contours of such a Palestinian state should be. However, some surrender of parts of the West Bank—short of Jerusalem and some of the areas with the largest settler density—appears not unrealistic. But given that hardline parties have been key elements in past and present coalitions, and given that these parties oppose even a minimalist surrender of territory, I argue that the institutional configuration allows them to impede such a compromise. The political costs for altering the territorial status quo thus remain high for Likud or Labor prime ministers alike, which bodes poorly for any government seeking to implement elements of the now largely defunct Road Map. Of course, a dramatic shift of electoral preferences toward the larger parties would reduce fragmentation, and perhaps recast politics in the political mold of the early decades of Israel’s existence. But given the social cleavages and carefully created constituencies of the various parties, it is difficult to see such a change in the future. Moreover, electoral behavior is partially shaped by the extant institutions. Merely having a multi-party system allows voters to scatter across the various dimensions of the political spectrum without seeing their votes wasted. Israel’s institutional quandary has not gone unnoticed. Prominent institutionalist scholars have suggested several possible remedies (Lijphart 1993; Sartori 1999; Ottolenghi 2001, 121; Doron and Harris 2000, 64–66). Various reforms have already been carried out. The electoral threshold has gradually been raised from 1 percent, to 1.5 percent, and then 2 percent, although attempts to raise it further have been unsuccessful. This was a first step toward reducing the very small, even one-person factions that previously populated the Knesset. One recent Knesset committee suggested that Israel might adopt a mixed system, with some members elected by proportional representation and others by a district system (Ilan 2007). Previously the committee headed by Hebrew University President Menachem Magidor had recommended that half of the MKs be elected by district election, whereas the more recent proposal suggested a quarter.

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Given that Israel is currently counted as one district, introducing district elections would greatly reduce the degree of proportionality.33 One might also wonder whether a referendum would be one means to break the stalemate. (The Shelf Agreement envisioned a plan where Olmert and Abbas would broker a deal, then put it forward for a referendum, after which it would be shelved.) This is indeed what the French Republic under de Gaulle carried out. However, it is not obvious that a majority vote in favor of territorial compromise would yield a political coalition that would implement such an accord without accompanying institutional reforms. One could imagine a situation where a majority of Israeli voters favored some sort of deal, but where the government could not establish a stable coalition to carry it out. Recall that the French solution to the Algerian problem involved two referenda. The first in 1958 created the institutions of the Fifth Republic and special provisions that gave the executive considerable autonomy to deal with the territorial question. The second referendum asked the public for approval of the Évian Accords. To repeat, this essay of course does not suggest that simply establishing a more centralized Israeli polity, combined with Palestinian civilian oversight over the armed forces, and reduced factionalism on the Palestinian side, would automatically lead to peace. We have merely discussed the institutional preconditions for a possible agreement. The matter of existential preferences is a different one altogether. It is difficult to see how an agreement could be reached as long as certain factions within Hamas continue to deny the right of existence of the state of Israel. (It is thus labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, and others, while the European Union labels it as engaging in terrorist activities.) However, I have argued that the lack of ability to initiate comprehensive proposals and to credibly commit to carrying out an agreement—on both sides—needs to be resolved in order for progress towards something resembling the Road Map. Institutions not only give voice to preferences,

33. For the close correspondence between district magnitude and proportionality, see Cox (1997) and Taagepera and Shugart (1989).

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they also shape them. Domestic arrangements, moreover, are the conduits through which external influences are channeled. Thus, while civilian oversight over the military and fewer veto points are hardly sufficient conditions for peace, they are necessary conditions. Indeed, institutional reform presents a sine qua non if Israelis and Palestinians ever wish to move toward a territorial settlement.

3 Spoiling the Peace State Structure and the Capacity 1 of Hard-Liners to Foil Peacemaking Efforts Oded Haklai

Introduction The focus of this chapter is on domestic institutional structures that have enabled mobilized domestic opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to disrupt peacemaking efforts since the early 1990s. The chapter pays particular attention to organized ideological settlers and religious groups who have opposed territorial compromise and have undertaken steps that undermine the credibility of government commitments, particularly on the issue of settlements construction and expansion. Since the

1. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the conference, “Democracy, Religion and Conflict: The Dilemmas of Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking,” Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, March 26, 2009; the ISA annual conferences in San Francisco, March 26–29, 2008 and New York, February 15–18, 2009; the Munk Centre, University of Toronto, November 14, 2008, and a number of other seminars. I am grateful to Austin Carson, Alex Downes, Miriam F. Elman, Charlie Glaser, Ian S. Lustick, Ilan Peleg, Jeremy Pressman, George Quester, Joanna Spears, Hendrik Spruyt, and Paul Williams, as well as to audience members for their useful comments. I am also grateful to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University for funding that facilitated work on this project.

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first half of the 1990s, more than 100 new Israeli settlements have been built in the West Bank by settlers without the formal government authorization stipulated in Israeli law (Sasson 2005; Haklai 2007). Commonly referred to as “the illegal outposts,” these settlements have been a particularly thorny issue in the eyes of Palestinian negotiators, US mediators, and the international community at large, who have identified these settlements, or outposts, as a significant obstacle to building trust and advancing Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. Facing external pressures, consecutive Israeli governments have made commitments to the US administration to remove these contentious settlements/outposts, but in the face of domestic obstacles, these commitments have not been fulfilled. In recent years, a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature has acknowledged the impact of domestic factors—structures and actors—on peace processes (Lust-Okar and Organski 2002; Menkhaus 2006; Schweller 1992; Spruyt 2005). Within this body of literature, the role that hard-liners and militants play in foiling peacemaking efforts has not gone unnoticed (Kydd and Walter 2002; Lust-Okar and Organski 2002). Some have recognized that the internal opposition to the peace process that Israeli governments and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been facing is preventing them from proceeding with necessary compromises (Erlich 2001; Lust-Okar and Organski 2002). A regional perspective, however, reveals that vociferous opposition to peacemaking is not unique to Israel and the PA. Egypt is home to a potent Islamic movement and many other organized forces (such as trade and labor unions) that for many decades opposed normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Likewise, a large segment of Jordan’s population is Palestinian, arguably the most aggrieved national group in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And yet, both Jordan and Egypt made peace—if cold—with Israel despite widespread domestic scepticism. Why should Israeli and Palestinian opponents be more successful at disrupting the peace process? It could be argued that the political leadership is uninterested in making far-reaching compromises. As the chapters by Aronoff and Peleg discuss, choices made by leaders are consequential. It is possible that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes it is in Israel’s best interest to maintain its settlements in the West Bank. Unsuccessful peacemaking

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efforts, however, predate Netanyahu’s government. Prime ministers who have viewed Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as an Israeli best interest and have offered evacuation of many settlers, like Ehud Olmert, have also faced tremendous difficulties preventing settler-led settlement construction and expansion. Ultimately, the conundrum relates to opponents who manage to disrupt peacemaking efforts led by heads of executives who do view territorial compromises as being in the best interest of their people.2 This chapter argues that the answer to the puzzle lies in state attributes, specifically, state cohesion and extensiveness. The degree of state cohesion and extensiveness determines the capacity of the regime to advance its preferences and the opportunities available for hard-liners to operate and succeed. Favorable institutional conditions, however, are not enough to engender activism. Comparative research on social mobilization reveals that there needs to be a well-organized mobilizing agent that is capable of taking advantage of opportunities created by the institutional openings, and capable of generating new ones (Epp 1998; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilley 1997; Wickham 2002). Strategic mobilization is essential for actors to be able to spoil government practices. In particular, successful mobilization will generate new opportunities by influencing those state attributes that determine the central government’s capacity to pursue the peace process, namely state cohesion and extensiveness. To a large extent, the argument advanced here complements the one in the preceding chapter by Spruyt. Both chapters look at Israel’s domestic institutional features to discern obstacles to peacemaking (and neither aim to provide an exhaustive explanation of the conflict’s persistence or to apportion blame on either one of the parties). However, whereas Spruyt looks at veto points at the core of Israel’s fragmented political system, this chapter examines institutional configurations at the state level that

2. In an interview with Israel’s highest-circulating newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, shortly after resigning his post as prime minister, Olmert stated that it was in Israel’s best interest to withdraw from almost all the land it has occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, to achieve peace with the Palestinians (Barnea and Shiffer 2008; Benn 2009).

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provide opportunities for opponents of the peace process to advance their objectives and spoil peacemaking efforts. The implications of this argument extend beyond the particular conflict examined in this chapter. Spoilers are not unique to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the analytical framework used to explain this case advances new theoretical insights that can be useful for others seeking to examine spoilers in different contexts. First, thus far the literature on spoilers has been divided between those who look at agents (Stedman 1997; Kydd and Walter 2002; Pape 2003), on the one hand, and those who focus on structural factors, on the other hand (Greenhill and Major 2006–7). Those who focus on agents tend to stress the significance of strategizing decision makers, whereas structuralists point to opportunity structures as primary determinants of outcome once a peace process has been launched. The argument advanced in this chapter, conversely, suggests that we need to focus on the dynamic interaction between spoiler-agents and structures for a comprehensive account. Structures and spoiler-agents act on each other and mutually influence each other through their ongoing interaction. In a democratic setting, their interaction will shape and be shaped by constraints distinctive of the democracy context. Second, the theoretical literature on spoilers has widely assumed, explicitly and implicitly, that the act of spoiling is carried out mainly through violence (Stedman 1997; Kydd and Walter 2002; Pape 2003; Greenhill and Major 2006–7; Maney et al. 2006; Nilsson and Kovacs 2011).3 In the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, some observers have suggested that the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for example, delivered a fatal blow to the peace process. And yet, the assassination of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt by Islamist extremists did not foil the Egyptian-Israeli peace process. These different outcomes indicate that although violence may be very important, its impact is conditioned by other factors. Furthermore, as Zahar (2006 and 2008) has argued, there is no reason to presume that the consequential actions of spoilers are limited to violence

3. One noteworthy exception is Newman and Richmond (2006).

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only. In a relatively open political setting of an established democracy, there may be a wide array of less violent options available for spoilers. This chapter uncovers a wide range of tactics dissenters from peacemaking pursue, and the conditions that facilitate their ability to realize their objectives and impede the capacity of a democratically elected government to make credible commitments. In particular, this chapter reveals that the ability of opponents of peace processes to fragment the state by penetrating into its apparatus, identifying influential allies, and limiting state outreach, have proven useful for spoiling Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. These are useful tactics because they affect the two institutional attributes that influence the central government’s capacity to impose its will on opponents: cohesion and extensiveness. The factors stressed in this analysis have generally been overlooked in the democratic peace theory (DPT) literature. Indeed, as stressed in the introduction to this book, several proponents of DPT identify domestic institutions and norms as constraining democracies from engaging in militarized conflict (Maoz and Russett 1993; Fearon 1994; Morgan and Campbell 1991, 191–92), while making them more amenable to compromises necessary for conflict resolution (Dixon 1994; Mousseau 1998) and to making credible commitments. Democracies are said to be likelier to honor commitments they have made because of (1) democratic institutions and public opinion that penalize leaders who violate a commitment, and (2) a political culture that respects the rule of law (Lai and Reiter 2000, 206–7). However, when it comes to the inability of a democracy to resolve protracted conflicts or make credible commitments deemed helpful for reconciliation, scholars seldom discuss how a democracy’s particular domestic attributes and internal opponents may constitute an impediment. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. The ensuing section clarifies key concepts and develops the theoretical framework for understanding the mobilization of spoilers and explaining the state attributes conducive to their success. The theoretical discussion is followed by analysis of the empirical material from Israel. Because the dynamic of the Israeli case is not isolated from developments on the Palestinian side, the attributes of the PA are also discussed briefly. Because the focus of this

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book is Israel, however, the PA is discussed as a shadow case and is not examined in the same thoroughness. I end with a brief summary of the argument and its implications for peacemaking, noting that completing a successful peace deal is more difficult when both sides to a conflict exhibit sufficient lack of state cohesion and extensiveness, such that hard-liners have greater opportunities. Spoilers and the State The term “spoilers” is undoubtedly fuzzy and has been used by scholars in different ways (Nilsson and Kovacs 2011). My understanding of the term largely follows Stephen Stedman’s usage of the concept in his pathbreaking work on the subject. Stedman (1997) applies the term to groups and leaders who seek to undermine peace processes or prevent the implementation of peace accords in civil wars. I extend my understanding of the concept to include situations of inter-nation and cross-border conflict as well. Peace processes typically yield spoilers. Peace agreements necessitate compromises from the warring sides, entailing that no side to a conflict can obtain all its demands. Because it is rare for either side of any conflict to constitute a monolithic entity with a uniform vision of the acceptable terms of peace, peace agreements usually yield dissatisfied constituents. Spoilers translate dissatisfaction into dissenting action that aims to undermine the terms of the peace agreement and curtail the capacity of the sides involved to fulfil their commitments under the agreement. Spoilers, therefore, are those actors and groups who refuse to accept a peace agreement and actively seek to foil advancing its implementation. Furthermore, because governments are usually the agents that sign peace treaties on behalf of their citizens, spoilers are normally dissenters from government-led peace processes. They sometimes even contest the right of the government to represent the polity and its population in the conflict. Researching Palestinian organizations over several decades, Wendy Pearlman (2008–9) has argued that the process of spoiling is inherently about internal contestation over who has the authority to decide the terms of peacemaking.

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It should be noted that the actions taken by spoilers, at least in the Israeli context, are not necessarily immediate tactical moves but can have longer term implications. They aim to do more than simply undermine peace negotiations or prevent the implementation of a peace accord. They also change the reality on the ground in a profound way, such that the terms of any future arrangement will need to factor in the changes created by the spoilers. Thus, when new settlements are built in violation of the government’s formal policy, such actions not only discredit the central government’s commitment to refraining from settlement expansion, but also aim to make future partition of the territory more difficult. This abstract generalization should not obscure the reality that in some cases, central governments that are formally involved in a peace process are only paying lip service to peacemaking and look for pretexts to avoid compromises. In some instances, they empower opponents who can hinder progress. Although in these situations, governments themselves can be seen as spoilers of sorts, the question of intellectual and analytical interest here is what happens when the central government is sincere in pursuing compromise in a peace process but faces “external” spoilers. In this context, it is important to stress key distinctions between my conceptualization of spoilers and Stedman’s. Stedman (1997, 8–9) differentiates between inside and outside, or internal and external, spoilers. Outside spoilers are those who are external to the peace process, meaning that they are not a party to the peace agreement. Inside spoilers, conversely, are a party to the peace agreement for tactical purposes only and they intentionally fail to meet their obligations under the agreement. Thus, according to Stedman’s concept, the main indicator of a spoiler is their position regarding the peace process. Conversely, in this chapter, the key indicator for spoiling is the hard-liners’ position vis-à-vis the central government’s official peace policy. Spoilers are dissenters from a government-led peace process who sometimes contest the right of the central government to represent the polity and its population in the conflict. Accordingly, when the central government is not formally involved in a peace process, opponents of compromises do not constitute spoilers. It could be argued, therefore—and in contrast to Stedman’s position—that those who rejected the Israeli government’s

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authority to engage in the Oslo process in the 1990s (Haklai 2003) were no longer spoilers once Benjamin Netanyahu’s government came into power between 1996 and 1999 (or following his re-election in 2009 and 2013) if one endorses the view that Netanyahu was insincere in his endorsement of the peace process (Lustick 1997). The real intellectual and policy-relevant puzzle, however, emerges from situations where central governments do see a comprehensive peace agreement, partial unilateral concessions, or even smaller scale concessions as being in the best interest of the state but face spoiling opposition, for example, Labor-led governments (1992–96 and 1999–2001), Olmert’s government (2006–9) that endorsed the “convergence plan,” and even Sharon’s governments (2001–3 and 2003–6) on issues such as the illegal outposts, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, settlement freeze, and the American Road Map initiative. The ability of the central government to overcome the challenges presented by spoilers and pursue its peace policy hinges on the institutional infrastructure of the polity. The more extensive and cohesive the range of state institutions, the greater the capacity of the central government to advance its policy choices. Conversely, low degrees of state cohesion and extensiveness provide spoilers with opportunities to undermine peacemaking efforts. State extensiveness refers to the variable range of social and territorial space occupied by the institutional infrastructure that constitutes the state or polity. The range of institutions associated with a comprehensive state includes, among other things, armed law enforcement agencies, a centralized bureaucracy, a comprehensive and universal legal system, a standardized education system, and a national communication system. The more expansive the range of institutions, the more present they are throughout the territory and in society, and the more they monopolize activity in their sphere of authority, the more extensive the state is said to be. The more extensive the state, in turn, the further into society it can reach and the easier it will be for the central government to move forward with its preferences. State cohesion refers to the extent to which the polity in question behaves as an integrated and unified entity, and the extent to which the various agencies are coordinated and operate in sync with the central

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government. Probing why state leaders have met with varying degrees of success in their attempts to control challengers to their authority, Joel Migdal (1988 and 2001) has long demonstrated that not all states possess the same degree of institutional cohesion. When the integrated parts of the polity operate with a relatively high degree of harmony and according to a Weberian logic of a rational bureaucracy, the polity is said to be cohesive, and the policy preferences of the central government can be more readily advanced. Conversely, when state institutions are uncoordinated, meeting government commitments and overcoming challenges to the authority of the central government will be more difficult even if the degree of state extensiveness is high. The difficulties faced by the central government will be exacerbated when there are enclaves in the civil administration and the armed forces whose priorities are not in sync with the central government. Scholars have observed that spoiler behavior is usually rational and strategic (Kydd and Walter 2002; Pape 2003; Stedman 1997). Goal-oriented spoilers will try to influence those state attributes that affect their capacity to shape outcomes. The extent to which they are able to limit state outreach and to fragment the state through the creation of enclaves in the bureaucracy that do not operate in sync with the central government will influence their capacity to undermine the central government’s capacity to pursue its peace policies. Creating sympathetic islands in the bureaucracy can be achieved through penetration into the state apparatus and by teaming with influential allies. The concept of state penetration has been developed and elaborated upon elsewhere (Haklai 2007). To briefly reiterate and clarify, state penetration refers to the ability of spoilers to influence state practices from within the bureaucratic apparatus. Penetration is typically achieved by getting spoilers or sympathizers appointed to influential positions in the civil administration and security apparatus, and by building alliances with already-serving sympathetic officials. The scope of penetration can range from an alliance with a few sympathizers in a single office, to larger sympathetic enclaves in the bureaucracy, to a more thorough takeover of many agencies in the polity. The outcome of state penetration is the blurring of boundaries between state and society as the social forces transform

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the state from the inside. Strategic spoilers would aim to penetrate agencies that are entrusted by the central government to execute policies pertaining to the peace process. Influential allies provide access to policy implementation and can “act as friends in court, as guarantors against repression, or as acceptable negotiators” (Tarrow 1998, 79). Allies can use the means at their disposal to advance the agenda of the hard-liners. If positioned inside the state’s apparatus, allies can remain passive when required to enforce policies that contradict the spoilers’ objectives, they can find legal means to hinder the central government’s ability to advance its peace policies, and they can use their access to public resources to assist the spoilers to breach government commitments. Three particularly significant allies in this context are political parties, members of the security apparatus, and friends in law enforcement agencies and the judiciary. Political parties are an important ally because in parliamentary democracies, the central government relies on the confidence of the legislature, and ultimately it is political parties that assemble legislative majorities necessary for the formation and sustainability of governments. Hence, political parties are powerful actors that can influence central government response to spoiler-sympathetic enclaves, facilitate penetration into the state by influencing civil service appointments, and exert influence from within the legislature and executive on policy-formulation and execution. Dutch settlers in Indonesia, for example, had political allies, including in the Catholic Party, who prevented the Dutch government from fulfilling its commitments under the Linggadjati (1946) and Renville (1948) accords and led to Dutch reinvasion of some of the islands (Spruyt 2005, 148–51). Allies in law enforcement agencies and the security apparatus are important because they play an essential role in the execution of government peace policies, and they are the bodies legally entrusted with the authority to penalize spoilers who violate state laws. French settlers in Algeria, for example, had allies in the security forces that aimed to stall successful reconciliation with the native Algerian population. French military units in Algeria were almost an independent enclave that acted against central government decisions (Lustick 1993, 239–301). Likewise,

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Portuguese spoilers had key allies in the armed forces and among the business elites that were tied to the Salazar-Caetano regime such that they could delay peaceful withdrawal from Africa following indigenousnationalist uprisings (Spruyt 2005, 176–78). It was only after the alliance between settlers and the armed forces came to an end in Portugal and the institutional framework in France was transformed with the introduction of the Fifth Republic that the European powers could withdraw from their colonies. Strategic spoilers might also aim to limit the polity’s extensiveness. Where the state ends is where hard-liners and militants can establish a public domain in which the central government’s influence is minimal. Hence, the more spoilers can restrict the state’s outreach, the greater their potential for influence over outcomes. Limiting state outreach is done through the creation of autonomous organizations that compete for societal control against those of the polity. In order to legitimize the creation of rival organizations, spoilers will often contest the very legitimacy of the central government to formulate and pursue peace policies on their behalf, and will claim the right to represent the community. The most significant rival organizations are armed forces. When the state possesses exclusive control of arms in the territory under its jurisdiction, it can exercise what Weber viewed as the most fundamental characteristic of the state: the monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force in a given territory. If spoilers challenge state monopoly over coercion, they can also prevent it from imposing its will on societal challengers. Rival education and communication systems are also significant because they increase public space for promoting the spoilers’ vision and ideology and increasing popular support. An education system controlled by the spoilers can endow youth with values and norms that legitimize the spoilers’ objectives and actions. Israel Attempts to reach a negotiated agreement in the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict have long been a contentious issue in Israeli politics. When the Oslo Accord was signed in 1993, it was greeted with joy by

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some and scepticism by others. The guiding principles of the accord were mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and prospective implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 that would require Israel to withdraw from territories conquered in the 1967 war. Israel made international commitments in the agreement known as “Oslo 2,” signed in 1995, and to the United States to refrain from taking unilateral steps that could prejudice the status of the West Bank before the end of the final status negotiations with the Palestinians. The American-backed Road Map, which was endorsed in the early 2000s, obliges Israel to stop settlement construction and remove the illegal outposts.4 Jewish settlements have existed in the West Bank since shortly after the 1967 war. As Eiran notes in his chapter in this volume, settlements were viewed from the onset as a tool for expanding Israel’s borders. Different governments had different visions about the scope and geographical location of Jewish settlements. Until 1977, Labor-led governments preferred to limit Jewish settlements to the East Jerusalem vicinity and the Jordan Rift Valley, while viewing the rest of the West Bank as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations. Because the costs of confronting settler ideologues were high, the government also gave retroactive authorization to isolated Jewish settlements that were constructed by the settler ideologues against its will (Aronoff 1985; Lustick 1988, 42–46; Newman 1985, 1; Peleg 1995b, 23–25; Shafir and Peled 2002, 162–63; Sprinzak 1985, 27 and 1989, 173). By the time the Likud party first rose to power (1977), a total of 4,500 settlers resided in the West Bank (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 1978, 35, Table II/4). Endorsing the ideology of the “Whole Land of Israel” and rejecting the principle of partitioning the territory in dispute, subsequent Likudled governments embarked on an expansive settlement-construction endeavor throughout the West Bank and provided financial incentives for

4. The illegal outposts were built without the formal approval of the Israeli government, which is required by domestic law, and without going through the bureaucratic procedure required for establishing new communities (Haklai 2007).

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Israeli Jews to move to settlements (Benvenisti 1984, 52–57 and 1986). On the whole, Likud-led governments openly engaged in collaboration with settler ideologues and, thus, the latter ought not be categorized as spoilers during this period. By the early 1990s, the settler population size in the West Bank had increased to slightly over 100,000. Over the years, the settlers have become a powerful political force such that even Labor’s reelection in 1992 and the Oslo peace process did not stop settlement growth despite Israel’s commitments, and despite the fact that the settlements have been regarded as one of the most contentious issues in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (Lustick 1988, 4 and 1997, 61–66; Massoud 2000; Zunes 2001). By 2010, approximately 295,000 settlers lived in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). The settler movement, whose vision of the “whole Land of Israel” has been threatened by the Oslo Accords, has been conducting an intense campaign against the peace process from its very inception and has been at the forefront of some of the settlement growth since Oslo. Making a biblical claim to the territory conquered by Israel in the 1967 war, land to which it refers by the historical names Judea and Samaria, many settler activists believe that settling this land is a religious mission of the highest order (Lustick 1988, 7; Sprinzak 1985). Some within this movement view evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza and division of sovereignty over the West Bank as sacrilegious. Several settler leaders have argued that no government has the right to concede territory handed down to the Jewish people by divine authority. On the foundations of this belief, thousands of people participated in the civil disobedience campaign led by the Zu Artzenu! movement in the mid-1990s to prevent the implementation of the peace process and contest the legitimacy of the government; several prominent religious and settler leaders decreed that soldiers ought to disobey orders that facilitate the evacuation of settlements (Haklai 2003, 796–805); and settler youth arrested in anti-peace process protests are reported to occasionally reject the courts’ authority to try them because the courts do not operate according to halakhic (religious) laws (Shragai 2008a and 2008b). Two areas in which settler priorities have been particularly influential are the route of the separation or security barrier, the construction of

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which the Israeli government decided in June 2002, and ongoing settlement expansion (including the unauthorized outposts) despite government commitments. The route of the separation/security barrier—frequently referred to as a “wall” by Israel’s critics and as a “fence” by sympathizers— takes into consideration the location of Jewish settlements, their access to Israel in its pre-1967 borders, and their access to natural resources, such as water. Approximately 70 percent of the settlers find themselves on the Israeli side of the barrier. The route, however, has been criticized for its incursion into the territories conquered in the 1967 war, for the expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land, and for the hardship it causes some Palestinians who find themselves separated from their farms and neighboring villages.5 It is also seen as potentially prejudicing the status of the territory before a final status agreement. More significantly, settler activists have managed to impede the central government’s ability to halt settlement growth as the number of settler outposts has risen dramatically. Many of these outposts are located on the eastern side of the security/separation barrier, and are considered illegal according to domestic law because they were constructed without official government authorization (Sasson 2005; Haklai 2007, 724–26). Moreover, many outposts were built in areas that were slated to be evacuated under the “convergence plan” proposed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the aftermath of the Gaza withdrawal. Much of the influence exerted by settler opponents to the peace process can be attributed to state attributes discussed in the theoretical section, and to the ability of spoilers to utilize and enhance fragmentation by identifying and creating enclaves of sympathy within the state apparatus and by collaboration with influential allies. Significant settler partners and allies consist of, among other things, right-of-center political parties whose

5. The International Court of Justice (2004) ruled that the construction of the wall on territories captured in the 1967 war contravened international law. The Israeli Supreme Court of Justice has also been critical of sections of the route and ordered changes (see Yoaz 2004).

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ranks usually include a significant number of settler parliamentarians and party members.6 As elaborated upon in Spruyt’s chapter in this book, Israel’s fragmented electoral and political party system has provided disproportionate power to the numerous smaller political parties, which represent particularistic interests and without which forming coalition governments is difficult. Other analysts agree (Harris and Doron 1999). In many cases, settler sympathizers in the Knesset demanded the Ministry of Construction and Housing in return for their participation in coalition governments. A hold on this ministry, in turn, has often translated into appointments of settler allies to senior administrative levels, thus creating pockets in the bureaucracy exhibiting strong loyalty to hard-liners. Because construction is under the authority of this ministry, spoilers were provided with opportunities to prevent the central government from fulfilling its commitments to refrain from construction of settlements in the West Bank. According to Sasson (2005), between 2000 and 2004, the Ministry of Construction and Housing unlawfully spent about 72 million Israeli new shekels (NIS) (roughly US$20 million) on the construction of new settlements without the formal authorization of the government mandated by Israeli law. Another important enclave, to which spoilers are frequently more loyal than to the central government, is composed of the local councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Like all local governments, these local councils derive their authority from state laws and receive a considerable component of their budget from the state, yet they have frequently used the resources at their disposal to organize protests against the central government, to fund dissenting political activism, and to limit access of the central government to their communities. The councils have been

6. Political parties that typically present themselves as protectors of settlements include the National Religious Party (NRP) and Haichud Haleumi (National Union). Before the 2013 elections, a new political party, HaBayit HaYehudi (the Jewish Home) brought the NRP and National Union into a single framework. Many Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parliamentarians also claim to be ideologues of settlements in the “Whole Land of Israel.”

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accused of facilitating the construction of illegal outposts and unauthorized expansion by contracting construction companies, contributing equipment and materials, connecting unauthorized buildings to the electricity and water infrastructure, and misleading the central administration by not providing full and accurate information (Sasson 2005; Haklai 2007, 725–26). Furthermore, the councils formed and fund an umbrella organization called the Yesha Council. Until 2010, the Yesha Council published and distributed the monthly journal Nekuda, which was delivered free to every home in the settlements and was thus a vehicle for disseminating the vision and ideology of opponents of the peace process. Besides lobbying, the council conducts tours aimed at influencing public opinion, funds political activism in opposition to Israeli withdrawals, and is typically at the forefront of settler mobilization. The state-funded religious Zionist education system has also provided opportunities for the settlers and their sympathizers to limit state outreach to a large portion of religious Zionist youth, on the one hand, and promote the settlers’ competing ideological vision and recruit activists and supporters, on the other hand. The roots of the separate system can be traced back to the early days of the state when the mostly secular state elite tried to accommodate the national religious stream in order to consolidate the Jewish national movement, in practices Dowty (1998) views as consociational. One of the spheres in which the national religious Jews had a large degree of autonomy was in state-subsidized religious education. Of particular significance is Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav (the Rabbi’s Center Yeshiva) in Jerusalem, which was established by the first spiritual and political leader of the national religious movement, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. This educational institution, subsequently led by Kook’s son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, is widely regarded as the cradle of the settlement enterprise and has provided an organizational framework for dissemination of settler ideology and recruitment of activists (Lustick 1988). Many national religious leaders who take a hard line on the question of territorial compromise and settlements taught or lectured in this institution. Prominent examples include, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, Rabbi Haim Drukman, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, and Rabbi Dov Lior. Founders of the Gush

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Emmunim (Bloc of the Faithful) settler movement—which has been at the forefront of settlement creation—such as Hanan Porat, are graduates of this institution. One of the spheres where a low degree of cohesion has provided the settlers with opportunities is the legal arena. Over the years, law experts have not taken a unified stand over the legal standards that should be applied in the West Bank. Because of lack of clarity about the legal status of the West Bank, there is vagueness about which laws apply to which parts of the West Bank and which state agency is responsible for law enforcement. This is not a new problem by any means: it was already noted in a formal government inquiry into settler violence in the early 1980s (Karp 1984). On the one hand, Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank. The official Israeli position is that the status of the West Bank is to be determined in peace negotiations. At the same time, the state has bestowed large chunks of land outside its territorial boundaries the oxymoronic status of “state lands,” which is where settlements are typically constructed. Further complicating the legal situation is the differentiated status of the settlers, who are Israeli citizens, whereas the Palestinians are not. Formally, a military administration, subordinate to the Israeli government, governs the West Bank. At the same time, citizens of the state expect to deal with civilian authorities, namely the police on law enforcement issues. However, the military is responsible for the security of the settlers, and the Civil Administration, which is subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, is responsible for administering state land and supervising construction and development, the sphere where much of the unauthorized spoiling activism takes place. The combination of military authority and civiliancitizen population (along with inherited Jordanian law from the pre-Israeli rule period) has resulted in incoherence. Thus, the laws that govern are not always clear. In one case, when settlers purchased a house from a Palestinian in the Hebron wholesale marketplace, the legal status of the purchase was initially confusing for government ministers because according to some legal practices, such a transaction might be legal, but according to a government decision from 1979, real estate purchases from Palestinian owners in the military-governed

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areas require the approval of the defense minister (Sasson 2007).7 The question of who was responsible for removing the settlers from the occupied house—the military or the police—also proved contentious. Consequential problems arise from lack of coordination between the various agencies when it comes to enforcement vis-à-vis the settlers, unauthorized settlements, and at points of friction between Palestinians and settlers. Civil administration and military officials sometimes impede the ability to enforce the law, as many times they prefer to look the other way when settlers engage in construction of illegal outposts. The army and Civil Administration have in many cases facilitated unauthorized construction (Sasson 2005). According to one report issued by the Civil Administration, about “one third of West Bank settlements were built on private Palestinian land that was temporarily seized by military orders for ‘security purposes’” (Rapoport 2008). Although it could be argued that it is not the responsibility of the military to enforce the law on the settler citizens of the state, its areas of responsibility do sometimes lead it to act in ways that advance settler objectives and impede the ability to enforce the law. When asked in an interview about why the police do not act to remove the unauthorized outposts, a police regional commander expressed his frustration with the other branches of the security apparatus by saying, “I am not the one who connected these outposts to electricity and water and I am not the one who paved the road for them” (quoted in Eldar and Zertal 2004, 435). Yet again, influential allies play an important role in exploiting the lack of cohesion to advance settler interests. Thus, a local military commander in Hebron admitted to closing police investigations because he was sympathetic to the settlers, a task made easier by the fact that the city of Hebron is under military administration (Eldar and Zertal 2004, 435–36).8 Likewise, there have been cases in which officials in the Ministry of Justice

7. Eventually, it was decided to evacuate the house from its Jewish residence, but not before twelve soldiers from an elite unit faced a court-martial for refusing to participate in the evacuation. 8. Humanitarian organizations have documented many incidents where the military is idle when faced with settler law violators’ vigilante behavior against the local Palestinian population (B’Tselem Jerusalem 1994, 2002a, and 2002b).

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and in the courts have taken a lenient, if not sympathetic stand on settler law violations, and have taken positions that enhanced the settlers’ ability to realize their objectives (Eldar and Zertal, 444–523). According to an estimate by Yesh Din, a human rights nongovernmental organization, only 8 percent of Palestinian complaints of settler violence end in indictment in large part because law enforcement agencies are not conducting thorough investigations of cases (Yevne 2008, 8). Significantly, conspicuous pockets sympathetic to the settlers and their enterprise are to be found in the military. Religious settler role in the military has increased since the early 1990s, most notably through the institutions of orthodox mekhinot (pre-army educational programs that combine study with pre-military preparations) and yeshivot hesder. The latter have expanded in number from fourteen in the late 1980s to forty-nine by 2010.9 The institution of yeshivot hesder allows religious youth to combine military service with religious studies in the yeshiva. The students first spend a year and a half studying in the yeshiva, and then serve in the army for another year and a half. The program ends with a return to the yeshiva for two additional years of study, thus enabling the Rabbis heading such a yeshiva to remain authoritative figures throughout the military service of the religious soldiers. Many of these rabbis and many of the soldiers in the yeshivot hesder are either West Bank settlers or ideological supporters of the settlements. The students of the yeshivot hesder usually form the core of the units in which they serve, and many serve in combat units in the West Bank.10 In 2008, half of the six battalion commanders of the Kfir Brigade that were deployed in the West Bank were religious orthodox; about half of the graduates of officers’ school were religious orthodox (graduates of mekhinot and yeshivot hesder); and about 10 percent of the army’s combat force were yeshivot hesder students, 5 percent were settlers (Levi 2008).

9. The annual enrollment in yeshivot hesder in the mid 2000s was approximately 1,200 students. The total number of yeshivot hesder students serving regular service (excluding reserve duty) was roughly 4,000. 10. The rate of settler soldier casualties in combat missions in the West Bank and Gaza since the outbreak of the Second Intifada has been disproportionately high relative to their size in the population (Levi 2007, 127).

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The changing social composition of the security forces has been consequential on policies and practices in a number of ways. First, the combination of shared social background and ideological persuasions, coupled with the organizational structure of the yeshivot hesder, has laid the foundations for unlawful activism in the army whereby some units take initiative to assist unauthorized settlement activity (Haklai 2007, 728–29). One of the most conspicuous examples is that of Yeshivat Siach (whose name was later changed to Yeshivat Siach Yitzhak), which moved to the unauthorized outpost of Givat Hadagan in 1999. According to the yeshiva’s website (Yeshivat Siach Yitzhak 2009), the yeshiva campus consists of a caravan site that includes “dorms for the unmarried yeshiva students, and housing for 25 families of married yeshiva students and graduates.” Furthermore, concerns have been raised about willingness to refuse to carry out central government decisions. Already in 1975, when Prime Minister Rabin sought to evacuate settlers who unlawfully established the settlement of Sebastia and who were perceived by the prime minister to be challenging his government’s authority, the chief of staff dissuaded him from doing so on the grounds that “this would require the use of force and likely lead to bloodshed, or would result in soldiers refusing to follow their orders” (Peri 2006, 168–69). Similar considerations prevailed when Prime Minister Rabin considered evacuating the Jewish settlement from Hebron in the wake of the Goldstein massacre in 1994. Senior military officers “who were supposed to command the evacuation, flatly refused to cooperate and eventually convinced Rabin to disassociate from the plan” (Peri 2006, 68). Although it is most likely that the military would have carried out the government’s orders had Rabin decided to evacuate these small and isolated settlements, settler willingness to refuse is nevertheless bound to have an intimidating effect. Apprehension pertaining to ideologically motivated, coordinated refusal has been enhanced by the refusal of almost an entire platoon to participate in an assignment that facilitated Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. In this particular mission, the army minimized the role of those enclaves that appeared more loyal to the spoilers’ objectives than to government policy. In another incident, twelve soldiers from one company refused orders that would have had their company participate

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in a peripheral role in the eviction of Jewish families from houses they occupied in the wholesale market in Hebron in 2007. And at a later point, a memorandum issued by the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brigade General Noam Tibon, reportedly cautioned that potentially one third of soldiers serving in the West Bank might refuse orders to evacuate outposts (Oren 2009). Ultimately, the costs associated with confronting the dissenters are perceived as high because of the growing role of settlers and allies in the military ranks. Even a small scale refusal by several dozen soldiers would damage the government’s image as a dominant body in control of all its subordinate agencies. It is an image that all governments hope to sustain so as not to further jeopardize control (Migdal 2001, 15–23). In addition, the political costs associated with confronting the settlers entail considerable political risks. As Spruyt accurately observes in the previous chapter, the Israeli political system exhibits numerous degrees of veto points that provide smaller niche parties with disproportionate power to influence the government. The proportional representation electoral system in Israel provides incentives for certain political parties to cater to settlers’ interests in order to gain some of their political support. On top of the domestic political risks, there are no guarantees that the reward of peace will be attained. Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government lost several settler-friendly coalition partners because of its participation in the Camp David summit, yet the summit did not bring about the peace agreement that was sought. Shortly afterwards, the government collapsed and Barak lost the ensuing election. In a similar way, following the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the senior echelon of his government, along with one third of the Likud parliamentary faction, split from Likud and formed a new political party, Kadima (meaning “forward” or “ahead”). The split was driven by growing and well-organized settler penetration into the Likud rank-and-file and the recognition by Sharon and his followers that their prospects of success in internal party primaries have been considerably undermined. Of particular significance is an organized settler force by the name of Manhigut Yehudit, which set out to enlist religious opponents to the peace process into the Likud party in order to form a large bloc of settler supporters

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that could influence policy outcomes in a direction favorable to settlers (Manhigut Yehudit 2003). The group signed up several thousand settlers as Likud members and built a strong power base such that by 2005, Manhigut Yehudit constituted a powerful bloc of voters within the Likud. Its supporters were estimated to constitute close to 10 percent of the party’s members; about 130 members of the party’s central committee were said to have been associated with it. In the 2012 internal Likud elections for party leadership, Moshe Feiglin, the founder of Manhigut Yehudit, won almost one quarter of party members’ votes. Thus, direct confrontation with this organized force entails a political risk in nomination races in the party. Senior Likud figures have been trying to appeal to these voters.11 Hence, governments have preferred to eschew confrontation with settlers when possible. For example, following the decision to erect the separation, or security, barrier in 2002, the Likud-led government took settlers’ interests into consideration. After being lobbied by the Alfei Menashe settlement council to include the settlement on the west side of the barrier, Prime Minister Sharon, announced that the original route of the barrier would be changed to accommodate the settlement. The appointment of Colonel Dani Tirza, an officer in the Ministry of Defense, as the director of the project and responsible for mapping the path of the barrier was also seen as a settler-placating appointment. Because of the domestic political risks, on the one hand, and the uncertainty that confronting the settlers will bring about a successful peace outcome, on the other hand, successive governments have hesitated to deal with spoiler enclaves. Attempts to halt state support of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, change the structure of the education system, close down yeshivot hesder, or clamp down on enclaves in the state would likely encounter the fierce resistance of settler allies in the Knesset, who, as has been elaborated upon, enjoy disproportionate influence because of the fragmented

11. In August 2009, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, spoke before Mahigut Yehudit members, expressing strong opposition to withdrawal from the West Bank and peace initiatives and reportedly labeling Israeli peace activists “cancer” (Haaretz 2009).

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party structure. Because the political risks involved in confrontation are very high and there are no assurances that the reward of peace will be attained (partly because of a large degree of skepticism about the aptitude of the Palestinian side to deal with its own spoilers), the degree of state cohesion and extensiveness continue to be such that spoilers can continue checking the government’s capacity to meet its obligations and make further credible commitments. Because part of this uncertainty derives from the attributes of the PA, it is therefore important to briefly examine the Palestinian polity as well. The Palestinian Authority Despite the reconciliation treaty between Fatah and Hamas, signed in May 2011, and the institution-building endeavor of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, lack of institutional cohesion and a low degree of expansiveness are far more acute in the PA than in Israel. The PA was established in the West Bank as a product of the Oslo peace process. In the first stage, authority was transferred in Gaza and the West Bank city of Jericho. At later stages, civil authority and security responsibilities were transferred to the PA in other urban areas in the West Bank, as well. In other regions, civil authority was transferred to the PA, while security responsibility and control of borders remained in the hands of the Israeli military. Thus, from the outset, the PA shared sovereignty with an outside force. It could be argued that limitations on the PA’s sovereignty make a comparison with a sovereign state like Israel irrelevant. On the other hand, considering that the PA was thought of as a state-in-the-making during its inception, it is useful to examine the PA’s lack of institutional cohesion and extensiveness as at least partly related to its inability to deliver credible commitments. Indeed, when the Oslo Accord was signed, there was no reason to presume a priori that the PA would not be able to consolidate its civil authority in areas over which it was granted responsibility or would not function well despite its limited sovereignty. The problem of lack of institutional consolidation has been exacerbated by the mobilization of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which takes the role of spoiler on the Palestinian side and engaged in a civil

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war with the Fatah-dominated PA in 2007 (Gunning 2009, 2). The Hamas movement has objected to the peace process from the onset, arguing (then and now) that it shortchanges the Palestinians and that formal recognition of the Israeli state is blasphemous. The movement is not a faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization but a Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (Gunning 2009, 26–40). It advocates establishing an Islamic polity in the whole of historic Palestine with trans-state ties to other Islamic polities (Robinson 2004, 119–23; Mishal and Sela 2006, 50). On these foundations, the movement claims that it cannot have a peace agreement with the Jewish state, but at best a hudna—a generation-long ceasefire agreement—if Israel agrees to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and allows the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Over the years, Hamas has acted to foil peacemaking efforts by purposefully targeting Israeli civilians in violent attacks as well as by undermining the authority of the PA. Formally the PA is constituted of departments and agencies that are supposed to function as quasi-state ministries and bureaucracy. There have been areas where the PA has been functioning with relative efficiency, for example, in providing postal service. However, there have also been contentious areas, primarily (but not exclusively) areas that pertain to the peace process, where PA agencies have typically suffered from lack of institutional coherence and insufficient extensiveness. Such agencies have been easily challenged by Hamas in a way that has hindered the ability of the PA to fulfil its commitments under the peace process, although there have also been episodes when Hamas has tried to negotiate between its ideological position on the peace process and pragmatic considerations relating to its overall role in Palestinian society (Mishal and Sela 2006, 113–46; Gunning 2009). Conspicuous areas of PA institutional weakness include armed forces and law enforcement, the judicial system, education and communication, and social services, although international observers have identified significant improvement in the functions of institutions after Salam Fayyad took over as prime minister in 2007 (Khoury 2011). Significantly, PA institutions lacked accountability from the onset and in practice, authority was highly personalized and centralized in the hands of the first PA president, Yasser Arafat (Brown 2010, 45–55). When the Palestinian Legislative Council was first elected in 1996, its authority

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was unclear. It saw itself as a legislature, but Arafat declined to sign most of its laws and allowed it only restricted knowledge of the PA’s real operating budget. Nathan Brown notes that the new “institutions being designed were not to the liking of the president, so he simply ignored them” (Brown 2010, 48). Furthermore, Arafat established fourteen security agencies. Their areas of responsibility were not always clearly demarcated and, as a result, overlap was not uncommon. The agencies lacked a central coordinating apparatus and reported directly to the president, who had unhindered capacity to determine resource allocation to them because the setting of formal budget criteria was not the norm (Rubinstein 2001, 186–91). Subsequently, internal rivalries over the patronage of the president were very common. Following pressure from the United States and other donor countries, the institutional arrangement of the security forces was reformed and authority over three important agencies, namely Preventive Security, Civil Police, and Civil Defense, was transferred to the Minister of Interior. However, old practices were retained. Although lack of institutional consolidation could ensure that the security apparatus would not unite to overthrow the regime, it also made it difficult to deal with armed challenges to the regime, a problem that was highlighted during clashes with Hamas in Gaza in 2007. In addition, relations of patronage have long existed between local security agencies and Fatah-affiliated militias. Many in the officer and rank-and-file apparatus of the PA’s security agencies are Fatah members, and many have found ways to generate income for their organization locally by providing private security services or taxing truck drivers at crossing points (Rubinstein 2001, 187–88). In the 1990s and early 2000s, these actions were typically unregulated by the central government; the generated income was used locally to recruit people, purchase arms, and provide patronage to local militias. When the Second Intifada broke out, security agencies were accused by Israel of collaborating with Fatah-affiliated militias, the most widely-known case being that of Marwan Barghouti’s Tanzim forces and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Significantly, bringing armed Fatah cells into compliance with the central government’s cease-fire decisions proved a formidable challenge

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as the Brigades continued to operate despite the PA’s ceasefire commitments under the Road Map. It is plausible that Arafat was not committed to exclusively peaceful negotiations. Palestinian public opinion during the first months of the Second Intifada favored combining negotiations with violence, and central government personnel openly expressed a similar position (Dowty 2005, 158). Such a position would have undoubtedly contributed to reluctance to confront the militias. Nevertheless, the lack of militia compliance preceded the Second Intifada: between 1998 and 1999, at least three violent confrontations between the Tanzim and other PA security agencies were recorded (Rubinstein 2001, 190). Thus, widespread support for violence during the second intifada only exacerbated a pre-existing problem. Understanding the problems associated with fragmentation, Fatah did eventually try to bring all the militias under the single roof of the “special forces,” estimated to encompass 3,000 people, in the hope that this would facilitate centralized control. The most trying challenges for the central government of the PA have come from the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. The movement’s armed wing, Izz Adin al-Qassam Brigades, has conducted violent activity against Israel, including the purposeful targeting of civilians by suicide bombers inside Israel and the firing of Qassam rockets from the evacuated Gaza strip to residential areas inside Israel. These violent operations were driven by ideological objections to the Oslo agreement, as well as the desire to weaken Fatah by provoking Israel to counteract in a way that would rally Palestinians against the Fatah-led peace process (Gunning 2009, 46). Like Fatah, the Islamic organization established an overarching military body, the Executive Force (approximately 5,000 personnel), in an effort to bring its militias under one roof. Possibly owing to followers’ general sense of respect for the organization’s structures of authority, which some observers identify (Gunning 2009, 95–141), the leadership’s consolidation efforts have been relatively successful. In the violent confrontation that erupted between Hamas and PA and Fatah-affiliated armed forces in 2007, the Islamists emerged victorious with relative ease and overthrew PA rule in Gaza. The termination of PA presence in Gaza was precipitated by several political developments. First, following Arafat’s death in 2004, Mahmoud

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Abbas (Abu Mazen) was elected president. He, however, has never enjoyed the same mythical public status as Arafat and was subjected to more direct criticism. Second, the Palestinian Legislative Council decided to hold its first elections since 1996, negotiating with Hamas on rules allowing the Islamist group to participate (Brown 2010, 50). Following its victory in the 2006 elections, Hamas set several conditions for participation in a unity coalition government with Fatah. Amongst other things, it demanded that a Hamas member be appointed minister of interior, and that the ministry maintain control over its Executive Force as a special unit within the Preventive Security Service. Eventually, Abbas agreed to the first condition, not before transferring the security-related authority of the minister of interior to a newly created position, commander of internal security, who would answer to the president. The post was to be occupied by Abbas’ ally, Rashid Abu-Shebak. It was following this maneuver that Hamas’ Executive Force took control over Gaza, where it enjoyed high rates of popular support. As a result, the Palestinian unity government collapsed. With the collapse of the unity government and the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the already fragmented and weak Palestinian polity split in two. From that point onward, the PA, including its judiciary, police forces, and other services practically stopped operating in Gaza. For its part, the Hamas regime in Gaza has tried to replace the PA, seeking to balance effective governance and the delivery of social services in the strip with its armed struggle against Israel.12 Thus, the armed confrontations that took place in the Gaza Strip region between the Israeli army and Palestinian paramilitary organizations at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 and in 2011 were widely recognized as battles between Israel and Hamas, rather than the PA. Clans have been another locus of power in Gaza during the 2000s. The shift of social power both resulted from the decline of formal institutions

12. One exception is in the realm of education. According to Brown (2011), Hamas realized that it was in its best interest to sustain some of the PA curriculum to ensure that final high school exams are approved by the Education Ministry in the West Bank, lest Hamas issued diplomas would not be recognized in the Arab world.

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and further exacerbated the problem. Strong clans, such as ‘Aql, Doghmush, Samhadana, al-Istlal, al-Masri, and others, have increasingly provided the focal point of social and economic activity as a growing number of locals have turned to clans for economic resources, physical protection, and arbitration of disputes. Some clans, which established a faction named Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), were allegedly involved in the smuggling of arms from Egypt and in the kidnapping of foreign journalists, including the British Broadcasting Corporation journalist Alan Johnston, in order to extract economic resources from the PA and the Hamas regime (BBC 2007). Many clans shift political alliances between formal political parties and are mostly interested in further limiting the ability of the regime to penetrate into society. The PA’s security agencies are no longer able to reach these areas reducing the ability of Abbas’s government to prevent militants from conducting violent activities against Israel as the Road Map demands. The PA has exhibited a low degree of extensiveness in other consequential areas, as well. First, the PA’s education system was underdeveloped for many years. According to data from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), government-run elementary schools enrolled less than 17 percent of the refugee school age children in the West Bank and Gaza at the end of the 1990s (UNRWA 2008). Outside the refugee camps, there were more government operated schools, but they still amounted to less than half of all schools in the West Bank and Gaza in the early years of the twenty-first century. Some claim that due to significant investment, the situation improved significantly by 2011 (Alyan 2011).13 The implications are twofold. First, there is a large domain in which the PA does not control the curriculum and the ideological vision that is being disseminated.14 Second, for many Palestinians, the central government has

13. According to Alayan (2011), around three quarters of the schools in the West Bank were public in 2010 and only one quarter were either private or operated by UNRWA. 14. The regime faces similar challenges from the independent television network operated by Hamas and from the high increase in the number of Mosques to be found in the West Bank and Gaza (Robinson 2004, 126–27).

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not been the main provider of a basic service and, as a result, its status is undermined. Indeed, many scholars of Islamic movements in the Middle East have observed how extensive networks of social services operated by Islamic movements in other parts of the region compete with those of the state and enable Islamists to garner political support (Clark 2004; Wickham 2002). In this context, it is important to stress that recent scholarship has found that the extent and significance of Hamas’s welfare services sector is sometimes overstated (Roy 2011). Nevertheless, Hamas social networks, which beyond schools also include medical care, have been providing services that the central government has been unable to provide (Hroub 2000). These organizations put the PA in a quandary. On the one hand, the PA is unable to extend such services to a large segment of the population; on the other hand, having such services provided by the main challenger to its authority enhances the challenger’s legitimacy and undermines the status of the central government. The PA’s capacity to confront Hamas has deteriorated over the years. At the height of his popularity, Arafat’s regime still possessed considerable capacity to confront opponents. In November 1994 and following a series of suicide bombings in Israel in 1996, PA forces and Hamas militants exchanged fire, with the PA gaining the upper hand. On many occasions, activists were arrested and Hamas-affiliated institutions shut down (Rubinstein 2001, 170–75). Early attempts to suppress Hamas activity, however, carried a price since they were widely interpreted as anti-democratic and as undermining some of the regime’s popular backing (Rubinstein 2001, 192). Since the Fatah-led PA did not provide effective government and Weberian administrative practices were far from consolidating, and since the peace process had also stalled, suppressing hard-liners became more difficult. By the time the Second Intifada broke out, many Palestinians were disillusioned with the Oslo process, and many adopted the narrative that Israel had not fulfilled its commitments (Rubinstein 2001, 196). The ongoing settlement growth was interpreted as a sign of Israel’s insincerity. Hamas, which already enjoyed popular support amongst many professional

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unions and student associations throughout the 1990s (Gunning 2009, 144) became the most popular political party in Gaza in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century. If the PA were to confront militant hard-liners at a time when Israel was not confronting settlers, it would risk appearing to collaborate with the enemy. Thus, just as in the Israeli case, the PA’s willingness to confront spoilers hinged on whether the other side was doing the same, and over time the PA’s capacity to do so dwindled considerably. Occasional attempts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah are at least partly driven by an understanding of the harmful effects of intraPalestinian fragmentation. For reconciliation to be effective, the obstacles posed by substantive issues in dispute when the 2007 violence erupted need to be overcome. These include, among other things, the organizational structure of the security apparatus, the parallel education and communication systems, and the role of Hamas in governance and in decisions pertaining to negotiations. The dilemma that emerges is that with Hamas excluded, a coherent and institutionalized Palestinian polity is more difficult to establish. However, with Hamas included in governance, hard-liners and opponents could become “internal spoilers.” Conclusion and Implications for Peacemaking To briefly summarize, the capacity of spoilers to undermine peacemaking efforts that they oppose is largely influenced by two institutional attributes: the cohesion and expansiveness of the polity. Successful spoilers are able to take advantage of opportunities created by low levels of cohesion and extensiveness, and to extend these institutional traits through state penetration and the creation of sympathetic enclaves within the state (or the polity), as well as the formation of rival organizations that compete with the polity, limit its outreach, and ultimately constrain its capacity to execute its formal policy. In the case of Israel (and the PA, too), domestic politics are not conducive to confronting spoilers. The institutional configuration of Israeli democracy allows easy access to spoilers’ allies who can defend dissenters from within the establishment. Central governments are reluctant to

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confront settlers lest their coalitions become destabilized. Because the costs associated with confronting one’s own internal spoilers are high, the willingness to do so will often hinge on the capacity and will of the other side to do the same. Hence, in cases where both sides to a conflict exhibit sufficient lack of extensiveness and cohesion, as in the case of Israel and the Palestinians, there will be more opportunities for spoilers to spoil, and peace will be more difficult to achieve.

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Religion and Identity

4 Does Democracy Tame the Radicals? Lessons from the Case of Israel’s Shas1 Miriam Fendius Elman

I N OC TOB E R 2008,

the Israeli religious political party Shas (Sephardic Guardians of the Torah) succeeded in scuttling then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s attempts to form a new coalition government. Livni preferred to return the mandate to Israel’s president, and risk her party’s chances in general elections, rather than give in to Shas’s demand for joining the coalition: a public promise by Livni that she would not bring up the subject of Jerusalem during any renewed negotiations with the Palestinians. Shas’s insistence that Jerusalem should not be part of final status negotiations effectively ended the ability of a Kadima-led ruling coalition to move forward on the mandate for territorial disengagement that Israeli voters

1. The author thanks Daphne Tsimhoni for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the conference “Democracy, Religion, and Conflict: the Dilemmas of Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking” held at Syracuse University on March 26, 2009; at the 2009 annual meeting of the International Studies Association; at the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto on November 14, 2008; and at various seminars at the Maxwell School. Funding for this research was generously provided by grants from the Maxwell School’s Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs and the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC).

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had overwhelmingly supported in the 2006 elections.2 Interestingly, these actions by the Shas leadership, which placed the party squarely within Israel’s rejectionist camp, marked the dramatic transformation of a party that had for years been viewed as dovish on the peace process and pragmatic with regard to the issue of territorial disengagement from the Occupied Territories. In this chapter, I consider the reasons for this about-face, and the likelihood that Shas will continue to play the role of spoiler. I also address the larger question raised by my analysis of Shas’s ideology and political strategies, namely the extent to which inclusion in the political process is likely to moderate religious political actors. Much has been written about whether involvement in a democratic decision-making process compels religious parties to moderate over time (the so-called “inclusionmoderation” proposition). However, most studies on the issue focus on the behavior of Islamist parties in institutional settings that are not particularly democratic. A real test of the “inclusion-moderation” hypothesis requires real inclusion, something that the authoritarian and transitioning states of the Arab world do not offer. The focus here on a religious political party in Israel provides a corrective to a field of study dominated by an emphasis on Islamist groups. The chapter is divided into three parts. In the first section, I review the current debate over whether democracy will have a moderating impact on religious political parties and link this research question to the larger debate over the democratic peace phenomenon. In the second part of the chapter, I provide a framework for analyzing religious political parties. In the third section, I apply this framework to assess the role that the Shas party has played in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

2. Shas’s demand regarding Jerusalem was telling given that the party was a member of the Olmert government, which had endorsed the Annapolis declaration. At Annapolis, Israel had pledged to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations and resolve all outstanding issues, including core issues. As a veteran member of the cabinet, Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai was surely aware that the core issues on the negotiating table included the borders of Jerusalem and arrangements for the old city (Eldar 2008).

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Religious Political Parties and Extremism: The State of the Debate3 Although political scientists are increasingly writing on the origins, ideological platforms, and political strategies of religious political parties, the extant literature on this topic has been limited for several reasons. First, much of the recent scholarship has been devoted to Islamist party behavior. There has not been enough work comparing and contrasting religious political parties in different regions, and in different democratic institutional settings. The lion’s share of recent thinking on the nexus between religious political parties and security has been given over to the study of political parties in the Arab Middle East, a region noted for its “democratic deficit” and “electoral gap.”4 For example, scholars have considered the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet, because in these countries democratic rules and practices have been either absent or fledgling at best, such cases provide an imperfect set of empirical examples for determining the impact of democracy on religious political parties, and in turn, the impact of religious political parties on security. As Vickie Langohr (2001, 592) puts it: In assessing the democratic commitments of various Islamist movements, it is important to remember that the question of whether Islamist movements are prepared to participate in democratic politics is by and large an inaccurate one. This question assumes a political context in which democratic politics actually exist . . . [;] very few examples of such politics exist in most of the Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East. . . . What is actually on offer to most

3. Religious political parties can be defined as teams of political figures recognized as organizations that participate in elections to win political office and that advance religiously inspired objectives. They are distinguished from social and/or protest movements in that they try to place their candidates into public office (Elman and Warner 2008). 4. For more on the failure of democratization in the Arab Middle East, see for example, Bellin (2004); Zakaria (2004); and Stepan and Robertson (2003).

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Islamist movements, as well as to other opposition movements, is participation in electoral contests for political office within regimes that remain highly authoritarian.5

While the ongoing “Arab Spring” may offer new opportunities to address the relationship between democracy, religious political parties, and security, far more scholarly attention should be focused on religion and politics in established democracies than is currently the case.6 Second, there has been very little comparative work that considers the strategies of religious political parties observed in Muslim majority countries and those observed in Israel, a Jewish majority country (or, for that matter, in Christian European states; in Japan or Sri Lanka, where Buddhism dominates; or in the Hindu majority country of India). It is unlikely that we will get very far in our understanding of how democracy influences religious political parties if the focus is always on Islamists, all the time. Lastly, there has been insufficient attention devoted to the ways in which “moderation” and “radicalism” should be defined and operationalized. While scholars note that religious political parties range from moderate to extremist, and from pro-political system to anti-political system, work in this area has not engaged the empirical and normative implications of using these descriptive terms. In this chapter, I define moderate parties as those groups that support elections, tend to be egalitarian towards other religions, support civil rights, and oppose differential access to government services, justice, and political participation. Moderation implies the rejection of violence and discrimination against other communities in the polity; moderation means working within the system. Moderate groups support democratic principles, including peaceful transfers of power, and ideological pluralism. Moderation means supporting peace

5. Recent work however, suggests that even limited inclusion in the political process has, with few exceptions, served to moderate Islamist political actors. See, for example, Schwedler (2007, 2011); Clark (2006); and Wickham (2004). 6. For a new study that explores these issues, see Cady and Hurd (2010).

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processes and nonviolent methods of conflict resolution both at home and abroad, as well as policies that foster inclusion and the extension of rights and protections to minority communities.7 By contrast, extremist religious political parties are those that use elections to gain office in order to overthrow the system, are exclusionary towards other communities in the polity, and do not support civil rights. Extremist parties advocate limiting the rights and freedoms of others, and use violence to change the political system, or to eliminate rival parties. With regard to domestic policies, extremist parties condone violent methods of conflict resolution, foster policies that exclude other groups from the political process, and that deny the extension of rights and protections to minority communities.8 With regard to foreign policies, extremism often means pursuing strategies and tactics that “spoil” peace processes. Spoiling a peace process may involve the use of force—such as assassinating peace negotiators, or violently engaging with state agencies that are attempting to implement the terms of peace agreements. Yet, spoiling can also imply nonviolent means of undermining conflict resolution efforts, including using the electoral process to stymie political actors who advocate peacemaking. In general, spoiling a peace process involves adopting policies that scuttle conflict resolution efforts when the latter are preferred by a majority of the population. In this sense, spoilers defy not only the authority of the government, but also the national consensus. In the case of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, for example, the settler movement can currently be seen as a spoiler in that its members use both violent and nonviolent measures to thwart the will of Israel’s majority. In recent years, it is clear that

7. For a similar definition, see, for example, Wickham (2004, 206). 8. See Gunther and Diamond (2003, 171), who distinguish between “tolerant and pluralistic” versus “proto-hegemonic” parties. These distinctions between moderate and extremist parties present ideal types. Most parties present diverse positions on various issues—they may be moderate with regard to accepting political pluralism, competitive elections, and the rule of law, yet extremist with regard to gender equality, the relationship between religion and the state, or the political status of minorities. On this point, see Tezcur (2010).

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within Israel the gap between those rejecting withdrawal from the West Bank and the general public has grown dramatically. Indeed, in 2006 the new Kadima party, which campaigned on a platform of withdrawal, won more seats than any other party. The Kadima-led governing coalition also enjoyed a Knesset majority in favor of withdrawal. Recent poll data also shows that a majority of Jewish Israelis prefer a Jewish state on as large a territory as possible, and recognize that withdrawal from much of the West Bank is the only way to achieve this outcome. In opposing the majority, the settler movement is a spoiler even if its mainstream leadership advocates peaceful dissent and rejects violence against the state.9 Within the existing literature on religious political parties, two distinct camps have emerged. According to optimists, participation in the electoral process compels even the most radical religious parties to moderate their platforms in order to capture more votes. That is, religious political party leaders are essentially pragmatic—like any political party, they too can exhibit flexibility in order to secure votes and patronage. The responsibilities of governing would thus provide the incentive for even the most radical parties to change. Like any political party, religious political parties will either have to “deliver the goods” to their constituents or face electoral retribution. From this perspective, violently repressing religious political parties is counterproductive—it leads to a radicalization that political inclusion would forestall (Berman 2008, 5–6). Optimists point to the fact that Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan contest parliamentary elections. They emphasize that, as Egypt’s leading opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt renounced the use of violence, despite the fact that, by banning religious parties, the Mubarak regime did not allow its members to contest elections as independents. They suggest that the continued ostracism and marginalization of Hamas merely bolsters the

9. For more on the broad Israeli consensus for withdrawal that has emerged in the post-Oslo period, see Waxman (2008). For an extended discussion of the statist orientation of much of the mainstream leadership of the settler movement, including the Yesha Council (Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip), see the report by the International Crisis Group (2009).

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hard-liners of the organization, and undermines the moderates, who have shown a marked capacity for pragmatism and, in recent years, more flexibility both with regard to the peace process with Israel and toward nonMuslim minorities in Palestine (see, for example, Gunning 2004; Turner 2006; Hroub 2008). Optimists note the irony of Turkey’s nondemocratic military intervening to oust democratically elected governments in order to protect secularism, and they point to how, from 2002–2004, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) used its majority in parliament to amend hundreds of the country’s laws, making them more in line with Europe’s legal code on liberties and freedoms, and thus facilitating Turkey’s possible admission into the EU. Optimists also argue that preventing the 1992 Algerian elections that an Islamist political party (Front Islamique du Salut) was favored to win merely outraged the party’s supporters, who then took up arms. Moreover, they insist that religious political parties are often the very groups that agitate against authoritarianism (Masoud 2008, 20). By contrast, according to pessimists, religious parties with radical ideologies are not likely to change their stripes once they are democratically elected; on the contrary, they will use their newfound freedoms to subvert democracy. From this perspective, the fact that many religious political parties today are advocates of democracy belies the true intentions of these groups, which, in any event, espouse political positions that are inimical to liberal democracy. Skeptics insist that religious political parties are by definition anti-democratic. Religious political parties would “happily come to power through an election, but would then set up their own theocratic rule. It would be one man, one vote, one time” (Zakaria 2004, 2; see also Langohr 2001, 591). Skeptics note that religious political parties are often divided between moderates, who appear to endorse democracy, and radical factions that have another agenda. Thus, religious political parties cannot be trusted to follow through on their campaign promises once in power. Pessimists typically also focus on Islamist movements in making their case. They suggest that since Islamists wish to implement sharia, by force if necessary, the goals of Islamist political parties are contrary to the functioning of a liberal state, which rests on a pluralistic political culture where

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all groups have a voice and work to peacefully advance their interests, and where the rights of all citizens are protected—especially minorities, including women and non-Muslims (Tibi 2008). Hamas and Hezbollah are the typical examples cited by pessimists. For skeptics, Hamas’s willingness to use violence against, not only Israel, but domestic (largely secular) opponents highlights the inherent radicalism of religious political parties. Hamas’s “internal” leadership in Gaza endorses pragmatic engagement with Israel, as witnessed by its acceptance of temporary truces and a willingness to consider a long term cease fire (hudna) with Israel should it withdraw to its 1967 borders. Yet, its “external” faction continues to condone acts of terror against Israeli civilians and it has sought to sabotage Fatah by harassing (and often torturing) suspected Fatah sympathizers, and by denying access to goods and services to suspected Fatah agencies.10 Similarly, pessimists note that Hezbollah has not disarmed, maintains a state within a state, and continues to take unilateral military actions against Israel without government approval. Moreover, it has not softened its commitment to an Islamic state and has refused to abide by electoral results of the 1990s that left it in a minority position—it has essentially been unwilling to see Lebanese democracy as the only game in town.11 As discussed above, given that the “inclusion-moderation” thesis focuses on the circumstances in which political parties in democracies will be prone to violence, it is odd that this research program and the democratic peace research agenda have developed in isolation from each other.12 In fact, the “inclusion-moderation” proposition offers conditional

10. See for example, Herzog (2006). For a nuanced argument on Hamas positioned between the optimist and pessimist camps described here, see Klein (2007). Klein argues that participating in the political process has changed Hamas from a fundamentalist to a radical movement. 11. Ironically, by “playing outside the system,” Hezbollah often regains power within Lebanon’s political system. In 2006, for example, cross-border violence was meant to goad Israel into harsh counter-measures that would increase Hezbollah’s political appeal in the country’s upcoming elections. 12. One of the reasons for this is the continued bifurcation between International Relations (IR) and Comparative Politics (CP) in the American study of political science.

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support for the democratic peace thesis. On the one hand, it suggests that by facilitating the participation of radical political parties (whether religious or secular) in the decision-making process, over time, democracy diminishes the threat of violence by these actors. Participation in the electoral process compels even the most radical parties to moderate their platforms in order to capture more votes, and to act pragmatically in order to join governments and secure patronage. On the other hand, the “inclusion-moderation” thesis also suggests the reasons religious political parties may sometimes act immoderately. As I argue below—and as the case of Israel’s Shas demonstrates—much depends on whether: (a) democratic institutions incentivize political parties to appeal to the more moderate median voter, (b) the parties’ ideologies are sufficiently flexible to eschew radical platforms when political exigencies call for it, and (c) voter constituencies are supportive of moderate positions. By addressing these dimensions—institutions, ideology, and constituency—this chapter suggests that rather than merely distinguishing democracy from non-democracy, democratic peace proponents should also better address the nuances inherent to democratic politics. Rarely do scholars writing on democratic peace acknowledge the distinctions between parliamentary and presidential systems of democratic governance, for example, particularly how these systems differ in the constraints executives face from veto players, or the ways in which democratic subtypes provide differing incentives for parties to move beyond niche voter constituencies.13 Nor do democratic peace proponents recognize that in democracies, political actors may have very different views with regard to the utility of using force. Party ideology matters and cannot be simply read off of regime type. That is, contrary to the normative variant of democratic peace, norms mandating nonviolent conflict resolution and negotiation at home may not be externalized to the international arena. Lastly,

The democratic peace research program has been developed primarily by IR scholars, while the “inclusion-moderation” proposition is typically analyzed by scholars of comparative politics. 13. For an exception, see Choi (2010).

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there is a tendency in the democratic peace literature to view publics as peace-loving and leaders as war-prone. The prevailing view is that voting publics reign in executives that would otherwise choose force as an option of first resort. Yet, as the “inclusion-moderation” thesis and the case study of Shas suggests, leaders may be more moderate than voters. In the case of Shas, changes in the party’s voter base and in this constituency’s relatively hard-line views led to a shift in the party’s platform and its strategies—a party that was once moderate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became a peacemaking spoiler. Religious Political Parties in Democracies: A Framework for Analysis14 Religious political parties may propose or advance religiously inspired objectives in a variety of ways, and the objectives themselves may vary considerably. Some religious political parties may be coincident with ethnic parties; that is, the nature of the religion and ethnicity are such that the two almost always go together (e.g., Shas in Israel). Religious political parties are distinguished from social movements by the fact that while the latter may seek to influence and even participate in government, political parties try to place their candidates and leaders in public office. Political Entrepreneurship Political entrepreneurship is a necessary condition for the creation and success of religious political parties. Without that, the religiosity and religious interests within a country are merely untapped potential (e.g., Muslims in India). Religious parties emerge when political entrepreneurs exploit events or trends that may have ramifications for religious institutions and/or voters. This may include heightening a sense of being under siege or being marginalized. Savvy politicians are integral to the electoral fortunes of all political parties—religious or otherwise.

14. This section builds on Elman and Warner (2008).

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Religious political parties use strategies similar to secular parties to secure and maintain office: they make instrumental alliances, they cultivate support from civil society organizations, and they use patronage (selective distribution of government resources) to bolster support from voters and interest groups. Since many contemporary religious political parties emerged from social movements that were multifaceted service providers (typically to underprivileged constituencies), securing social services as a way to win public support is central to understanding the willingness of religious political parties to contest elections and participate in governments, even if this means compromise on other core issues.15 Indeed, if there is one element that many religious political parties have in common it is their often extensive network of social services that compete with (usually more limited) state services. Securing services for constituents can bring religious political parties to power, and it is also what compels them to compromise once they are in government coalitions and in a position to secure patronage. This is true of religious political parties that otherwise appear quite different (e.g., Turkey’s former Welfare Party and its current Justice and Development Party (AKP), Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, Palestine’s Hamas, and Israel’s Shas). Institutions As Stathis N. Kalyvas (2000, 385) has persuasively noted, “political actors’ compliance with democratic rules does not necessarily flow from their ideological preferences; it can result from the largely contingent strategic pursuit of their interests under constraints.” Thus, how democratic

15. Religious political parties, however, do not only secure support from the disenfranchised. For example, Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was popular among the urban poor, but also garnered the votes of Algeria’s middle class. The rise of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can also be attributed to its appeal to the middle class, and its adoption of an economic platform in the early 1990s that criticized state intervention in the economy. Indeed, the BJP has increasingly come to represent high-income groups and the socially privileged, comprising only some 20–30 percent of India’s population. On Algeria, see Kalyvas (2000) and Chhibber (1996). On India, see Chhibber (1997).

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institutions are set up can affect the evolution and success of religious political parties. The longer democratic institutions are at work, the less likely parties will exhibit extremist behavior. That is, the functioning of democratic institutions and democratic political culture can, over time, moderate religious political parties. Parties and their constituents are likely to avoid extremist behavior insofar as they realize their interests via participation in the political process. Consequently, in mature democracies, extremism—if it occurs—is more likely to emerge as an extra-parliamentary feature, or when a party is suddenly entirely excluded from power. When political circumstances suddenly thrust once dominant religious political parties into minority positions (e.g., the National Religious Party in Israel from the 1990s), extremism on the part of party activists and constituents may result. Electoral systems strongly affect the fate of religious political parties. A proportional representation system with low electoral thresholds for party participation in parliament often increases the political power of religious parties beyond what their popular appeal might warrant. However, because the party is not likely to win a majority in such a system, it will be forced to moderate its demands if it wants to participate in governing coalitions. Proportional representation systems with low thresholds can be an institutional force for moderation (even though they also allow very small extremist parties to win seats). Very small religious political parties can become pivotal parties of government, provided they are willing to ally with other parties. Because, as pivotal parties, they can bring the government down, their influence can increase well beyond their electoral results. Moreover, in multiparty democratic systems, political parties have incentives to appeal to select “niche” constituencies, and are often willing to concede on policies that are less important to them in return for support on the issues they care most about (Spruyt 2005, 28–31). For religious political parties, such logrolling between parties offers an opportunity to secure funds and other resources for religious constituents. As Benjamin Reilly (2007, 63–64) notes: “In systems comprising two large parties . . . [,] cultivating and maintaining support across a range of social groups is required to win elections, and parties therefore have incentives to provide

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broad public goods in order to maximize their chances of success. In fragmented multiparty systems, by contrast, parties may need only a small share of the vote to win office, and can thus focus on providing sectoral benefits to their own supporters rather than appealing to the broader electorate. At an extreme, such private goods can include the fruits of nepotism, cronyism, and corruption[.]” In short, in countries with proportional representation electoral systems (in which the number of seats won roughly corresponds to the percentage of votes), very small parties can become members of governing coalitions, increasing their influence beyond their voting numbers. This is especially the case when such parties are pivotal to the survival of the governing coalition.16 And as Tarek Masoud (2008, 22) aptly claims, if electoral rules and institutions empower small parties to win legislative seats, it is easy to imagine them “serving up a steady diet of ideological red meat to narrow sets of core constituents.” Ideology The main difference between religious political parties and secular parties is in the fact that religion is usually a dominant theme of the party’s platform and is used as a means of appealing to some voters. However, successful religious parties usually must go beyond religious terms and policies in order to win other votes and enter governing coalitions. That is, they are subject to the same pressures and constraints as other parties. Like other parties (for example, those on the far right or far left), the policy platforms of religious political parties are often in tension with the means they need to undertake in order to obtain political power, which frequently results in their sharing power with secular parties or those espousing different religious orientations.

16. For more on how multiparty parliamentary, Westminster two-party, and presidential systems influence political party incentives and strategies, and the resulting impact on foreign security policies, including war initiation, territorial disengagements and decolonization, and post-war negotiations, see, respectively, Elman (2000), Spruyt (2005), and Ripsman (2002).

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That said, however, it is important to note that the ideological platforms of religious political parties can make it more or less likely that they will form coalitions with other religious and/or secular parties. This, in turn, influences the extent to which the party will become more moderate or extremist. Emphasizing the importance of distinguishing party ideology, even within the same religion, Vali Nasr (2005) has recently argued in favor of distinguishing between Muslims who support democratic government and Islamists. In his view, the former are pragmatists who are interested in fielding parties that will win elections and are more than willing to participate in coalitional governments that serve their own constituents’ interests and those of other parties. By contrast, Islamists do not view democracy as legitimate, but merely as a tactic for gaining power in order to build a new Islamic state. Such a distinction enables us to differentiate moderates from extremists. The substance of the party’s ideology affects whether and what kind of coalitions it is willing to participate in. It is also important to note that religious political parties may be extremist along certain policy dimensions, and moderate along others. As a result, analysis of religious political parties should consider party platforms across multiple issue areas.17 Constituents The constituents who vote for religious political parties are primarily religious. However, religiously-motivated voters do not uniformly select these parties at the polls (see, for example, Cohen and Susser 2010). An analysis of religious political parties must therefore recognize that religious members of the polity may not consider religious issues as the sole or primary factor determining their vote. Religious political parties are

17. An example here is Jordan’s Islamic Action Front (IAF). The IAF has compromised with other secular groups on foreign security policy issues—such as the war in Iraq and Jordan’s policies toward Israel, but it has not been willing to discuss with other parties issues covered by sharia. According to some scholars, this suggests that we should not expect moderation from Islamist political parties across the board. For an extended discussion on Jordan’s IAF, see Clark (2006).

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typically more successful when they have an appeal that is wider than their religion. Religious political parties often rely on broad-based social movements for support, such as the PKB and PAN in Indonesia, which relied almost exclusively on societal organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah respectively. Such support is not automatic, even when the party claims to represent the same religious interests as the social movement. Organizational allies—allies that provide useful endorsements and campaign resources—must be attracted by patronage, by policy benefits, by trumped up threats, or by loyalty to religious leaders. Parties sometimes found such organizations, which later become semi-autonomous (e.g., the Gush Emunim—Bloc of the Faithful—movement and the National Religious Party in Israel). Religious political parties may often join coalitions with secular parties in order to maximize their chances of participating in government. Such partnerships may also take the form of hybrid parties comprised of both religious and secular members. Consequently, an assessment of the influence of religious political parties must take into account the fact that parties may not invariably be exclusively religious- or secular-based.18 Does Democracy Tame the Radicals: The Example of Israel’s Shas Does democracy have a moderating influence on religious political parties? In this section, I consider this question by focusing on the origins, strategies, and trajectories of Israel’s Shas party. Ironically, despite the resurgence of interest in religion, politics, and security in the Middle East, the Israeli case has not figured prominently in the burgeoning literature on religious political parties. This oversight is unfortunate—much can

18. In Israel, for example, the religious political parties that oppose territorial withdrawal from the West Bank also draw support from the nonreligious settlers. By giving their votes to the religious parties, and by those parties forming hybrid religious-nationalist parties, the settlers have often had more political power than their share of the Israeli population would warrant.

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be learned from a close examination of Israel’s political parties. Specifically, in addressing the question, does democracy tame the radicals, the Israeli case is important because, unlike other modern democracies such as the United States, France, and Turkey (which to varying degrees have endorsed secularism and the exclusion of religion in the public sphere), Israel is a Jewish democracy that grants considerable privileges to its Jewish majority population. The Israeli case is thus likely to yield interesting parallels to religious political party behavior in other emerging democracies that also establish official religions and/or grant privileged status to a majority ethnic community.19 Israel’s Ethnic Democracy and the Prominence of Religious Political Parties Approximately 15 to 25 percent of Israeli Jews categorize themselves as religious (Wald and Shye 1995, 498). However, every survey suggests that even those who do not define themselves as religious nevertheless observe many Jewish rituals and view Judaism as important to their lives. According to one poll, although a full 77 percent of Israeli Jews indicate that they do not observe Jewish religious law, 50 percent of those polled also insist that the state should “definitely” or “probably” ensure that Jewish religious traditions are maintained in public life (Mahler 2004, 74; see also Liebman and Yadgar 2004, 163; Sharkansky 2002, 49; Kimmerling 2001, 114–15). Although a minority of Jewish Israelis self-identify as religious, religious political parties have had a considerable influence on Israeli culture and foreign and domestic policy beyond what these numbers would suggest. As Asher Arian (2005, 152) notes, “if there was ever an example of a political group whose power is greater than its strength in the country, the religious parties [in Israel] provide it.” From 1949 to 1999, for instance,

19. The extent to which Israel may serve as a model for other new, communitarianminded democracies in the Middle East, Asia, and other regions—particularly those that are unlikely to be comfortable with strict secularism or Western liberalism—is beyond the scope of this essay, but certainly warrants further attention.

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the religious parties’ representation in the Israeli Knesset never dropped below 13 seats out of 120. For much of this period the parties received between 16 and 18 seats, making them attractive coalition partners. Excluding the anomalous years of the 1990s, at least one religious political party, and frequently several, has been affiliated with every coalition government since Israel’s independence. The religious Zionist National Religious Party (NRP or Mifleget HaDatit Leumit—Mafdal), for example, participated in every left-of-center Labor-led government until 1977, and subsequently in every right-of-center Likud-led government until 1992. Often serving as a pivotal party in these coalition governments, the NRP was able to secure favorable policies for its constituents in terms of the observance and maintenance of state policies toward religion. Between 1948 and 1977, the NRP typically controlled the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It was also able to use the threat of defection to press its claims with regard to the Israeli-Arab conflict and Israel’s settlement policy in the Occupied Territories. Similarly, the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Shas party has been willing to serve in both Labor- and Likud-led governments, thus increasing its capacity to service its constituents. Exhibiting flexibility regarding the peace process, Shas has been able to parlay a pragmatic approach to the Occupied Territories into increased government support for its independent religious education system, continued military draft exemptions for its yeshiva students, and the continued application of Orthodox Jewish law on matters of personal status and other social issues. Shas increased its number of Knesset seats from four in the 1984 elections, when the party was founded, to six in 1988. By the 1999 elections it garnered seventeen seats and became the third largest Knesset faction. Shas has been a member of every recent coalitional government except from 2003 to 2006, when then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refused to include it and proceeded, with the help of then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut welfare benefits for Shas constituents (e.g., yeshiva students and families with large numbers of children). Similarly, neither Shas nor the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism, which won 11 and 7 seats respectively in Israel’s January 2013 national elections, have been invited to join the current Center-right governing coalition, a move than many argue

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will make it easier for the government to curtail the material benefits they had gained for their constituents from their once powerful position in key ministries (Ettinger 2013). In Israel’s parliamentary system the support of the religious political parties has often been critical for governments to stay in power. This has meant that, over the years, both the dominant parties of the right and left have sided with the religious parties on issues related to religious life in Israel. Since the major parties have depended on the religious parties’ vote of confidence, they have demanded in return for this support the rejection of any laws that would entail a separation between religion and the state. In general, Israel’s religious political parties have been “endlessly flexible and often cooperative coalition partners, whichever larger party is in control” (Arian 2005, 23).20 During the 1980s and 1990s the religious political party bloc grew stronger, and dominated coalitional building. In 1984, 5 religious parties received about 12 percent of the vote and 13 Knesset seats. By 1999, religious political parties increased their participation by winning 27 out of 120 seats. In the 2003 elections, three religious party lists—Shas, United Torah Judaism, and the NRP—won 22 seats, representing 18 percent of Knesset seats. In the March 2006 elections, 4 out of 31 political parties campaigned on an explicitly religious platform: Hazit (the National Jewish Front); the National Union/National Religious Party; Shas; and Yehudit HaTorah (United Torah Judaism).21 All of the parties except for 20. There have only been a few occasions when the major parties have been able to disregard the other issues that divide them in order to join forces against the smaller religious political parties. In 1988, for example, both the secular Labor and Likud parties found the demands of the religious parties too objectionable and forged a Likud-Labor national unity government so as to avoid having to give in to these demands. See Mahler (2004, 69, 75). The national-unity government formed between Likud and Kadima in May 2012 represents another relatively rare attempt to bypass the economic and social demands of the smaller religious political parties (as well as the demands of the far-right nationalist parties). 21. A number of explicitly secular political parties also participated in Israel’s 2006 elections, campaigning on platforms that called for complete separation of religion and the state, the promotion of a secular lifestyle, and the limiting of Orthodox Jewish

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Hazit won at least 2 percent of the total votes tallied to be elected into the Knesset, with Shas gaining 12 seats (299,054 votes), the National Union/ NRP gaining 9 seats (224,083 votes), and United Torah Judaism gaining 6 seats (147,091 votes). In the recent January 2013 elections, three religious political parties (Shas, United Torah Judaism, and HaBayit HaYehudi or the Jewish Home Party, a successor to the NRP) won 29 seats. Shas fell to 11 seats; United Torah Judaism grew by one seat to capture 7; and the Jewish Home Party, a right-wing and non-haredi religious party, gained 11 seats. The rise of Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home Party offered Netanyahu a new opportunity: rather than rely on the haredi ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism for the governing coalition, he could forge an alliance with the centrist Yesh Atid party and Jewish Home. Shas: “Harnessed to the Peace Cart” Shas is the predominant party of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Sephardic community (Jews from Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Arab world).22 It emerged in 1984 as a result of accusations that the ultraOrthodox Agudat Israel party poorly represented the ultra-Orthodox Sephardim in its Council of Torah Sages, which ratifies all of the party’s policy decisions. Support for the party was driven by the Sephardic community’s resentment over its treatment by the state and other administrative bodies, which have been dominated by Ashkenazim (Jews of east-European descent) since the state’s independence. Prior to the formation of Shas, the majority of Sephardic Israelis—including ultra-Orthodox Sephardim— voted for the right-of-center Likud party. Thus, the origins of Shas are

influence in the public sphere. Excluding the Arab parties, these included: Brit Olam (Eternal Covenant), Hetz (Arrow), Meretz, One Future, and Shinui (Change). Of these, only Meretz secured a sufficient number of votes (118, 302) to be eligible for seats in the Knesset. 22. Approximately 40 percent of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi and 40 percent Mizrahi or Sephardic. The rest are Russian immigrants who defy easy classification. About one third of Israel’s religious population can be considered haredi (ultra-Orthodox), although this percentage is growing increasingly higher.

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connected to the systematic exclusion of Sephardic Jews from positions of leadership in Orthodox party organization (Zelniker and Kahan 1976; Leon 2011). For policy direction, Shas depends on the decisions of Sephardic rabbinic authorities, including former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel the late Ovadia Yosef. Rulings by Rabbi Yosef and the Shas council of rabbis have largely determined how Shas Knesset members vote. Shas won four Knesset seats when it first ran in 1984, six in 1988 and 1992, and ten in 1996, making it the third largest party in the fourteenth Knesset. However, Shas’s voting strength has waned in recent years. This is due to the immigration of large numbers of nonreligious immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Shas’s participation in Ehud Olmert’s governing coalition, a commitment that lost it constituents who disapproved of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.23 The party’s platform is based on “social and Jewish values” and emphasizes wealth redistribution to the underprivileged Sephardic communities. Shas’s domestic policies include the preservation of the ultraOrthodox school system, financial benefits to large families, exemption from army service for yeshiva students, changing the Law of Return to reflect Jewish law, and sustaining the status quo with regard to laws regarding Sabbath observance and kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) in public spaces. In terms of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Shas opposed the unilateral Gaza disengagement and continues to insist on a unified Jerusalem. However,

23. Shas’s exit from the government over the disengagement from Gaza, however, also gave it an advantage among right-of-center religious voters. Shas “cashed in heavily” from the fact that it had nothing to do with the withdrawal from Gaza: “Shas enjoyed the support of many right wing voters. The Sephardi haredi party reaped the benefits of having been left out of the government coalition before and during the Gaza disengagement” (Wagner 2008). By contrast, the National Religious Party, which remained in Ariel Sharon’s government until shortly before the implementation of the Gaza disengagement plan, was severely criticized and lost votes. The NRP (unlike Shas) was blamed for providing the Sharon government with the political stability necessary for pushing through the evacuation of the Jewish settlements from Gaza. Increasingly, this is becoming a problem for Shas, which has been losing the constituents it gained after disengagement.

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unlike other national-religious parties, Shas does not view Jewish settlement of Greater Israel as having any redemptive value. This ideological position has enabled it to maintain a pragmatic view of Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank. For instance, after the Oslo Declaration of Principles was signed in 1993, the Shas party formally exited the Labor-led coalition, but it did not support the subsequent Knesset vote of no-confidence. As a result, the Rabin government survived and could begin Oslo’s implementation. Unlike other ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas has not viewed Zionism as contradictory to Judaism. It has participated fully in the political process since its formation in the 1980s, and has sought out representation in all government bodies, including the Zionist Jewish Agency. Significantly, whereas Shas does not oppose Zionism, it does reject the domination of the Zionist enterprise by the Ashkenazi elite. This ideological platform has proven effective at the polls, as it has enabled Shas to reach out not only to the socio-economically marginalized religious Israelis, but also to lower class Israelis who are nonreligious, and to Sephardim in general. As Gregory Mahler (2004, 185) notes, “Shas is clearly a Sephardic religious political party, but it has been far more successful than others of its type by seeking to be integrative rather than separatist. . . . It has tried to establish itself as a vehicle for drawing the disenfranchised into the political world and has been quite successful in doing this.” Indeed, the bulk of Shas voters are not ultra-Orthodox, but religiously traditional, low-income and working-class Sephardim. Shas continues to draw much of its support not only from Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities, but from development towns in the outlying regions of the country, and from poor city neighborhoods (Peled 1998). While Shas seeks to sacralize Israel’s secular society, its initial slogan—“Le-hachzir atara le-yoshna” (to restore the crown to its ancient glory)—reflected the view that faith is an ethnic identity tied to social concerns. The slogan’s “multivocality” enabled Shas to appeal to the religion, ethnicity, or class of potential voters (Davis and Robinson 2009, 1309). Shas initially increased its appeal by adopting a moderate stance on the Occupied Territories. Its position was based on pragmatic considerations, and on a particular religious interpretation. Instead of emphasizing

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the sacredness of the land, Shas’s rabbinic authorities emphasized the protection of life (pikuach nefesh) and the integrity of the Jewish community.24 This has made it possible for Shas to join coalitions with overtly secular left-of-center parties (including the anti-religious Meretz party in the 1992 government). When the Knesset voted on the Oslo I agreement in 1993, Shas members abstained, but in doing so, enabled the agreement to pass, something that would not have happened if Shas had voted against it.25 Similarly, when Shas participated in Netanyahu’s right-wing government in the 1990s, it supported both the Hebron and Wye agreements that called for further territorial withdrawals. After the 1999 elections, the Barak government invited Shas to join the coalition, assuming it would not pose an obstacle to the planned peace negotiations. The view was that Shas would bring into the coalition the support of part of the Israeli public (the national religious) that had opposed the peace process. Shas was seen as a religious party with no ideological commitment to the idea of the “integral land of Israel,” and was thus a preferable coalition partner to the religious right-of-center National Religious Party (although it too was eventually included in the Barak government). As Yuchtman-Yaar and Hermann (2000, 38) suggest, the assumption that Shas could be “harnessed to the peace cart” was a prevailing claim on both the right and left of the Israeli political spectrum. Shas has effectively used its junior position in coalition governments to obtain government funding for its educational and social-welfare institutions. In the cases noted above, financial aid was made conditional on

24. Pikuach nefesh refers to the principle that the saving of life takes precedence over other religious commandments, with the exception of idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. According to Shas rabbinic authorities, ceding parts of the Land of Israel is acceptable in order to avoid bloodshed, especially war with the neighboring Arab countries (see Yuchtman-Yaar and Hermann 2000, 35–36 and Kopelowitz and Diamond 1998, 688–98). 25. Shas repeated this tactic during the 2009 vote to declare a settlement freeze in the West Bank. Shas parliamentary members Eli Yishai and Ariel Attas were absent from the vote, which enabled the motion to pass.

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Shas voting in favor of the peace process. Shas rewarded the governing coalition’s party leadership with general support for a peace policy in return for a hefty allocation of resources. Indeed, despite the fact that Shas was regularly criticized for supporting Ehud Olmert’s Kadima-led government, the party remained in the coalition in order to obtain services for its constituents. The party’s threats to exit the Olmert government over Israeli-Palestinian negotiations about Jerusalem’s status were linked to Olmert’s decision to approve the building of a new haredi neighborhood in the Jerusalem suburb of Givat Ze’ev. Other recent political victories include the re-creation of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the distribution of 450 million new Israeli shekels (NIS) to yeshivas, and the passage of a bill enabling municipalities to transfer funding to Shas schools (Hoffman 2008). Here, Shas was hoping that securing resources—something that can only be done by remaining in the governing coalition—would keep voters satisfied and loyal to Shas in the next election, thereby offsetting the danger that the party would be hurt by being seen as “the fig leaf for a government that is unpopular among constituents” (Keinon 2008). As a coalition member in the Likud-led government from 2009 to 2013, Shas also demonstrated a willingness to support territorial concessions in parts of the Occupied Territories in return for the benefits to be had from remaining within the government. With prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu firmly committed to a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, Shas’s stance offered considerable advantage without the need to compromise over Jerusalem’s status, a red line for both Shas leaders and voters (Leon 2011). While Shas has shown moderation with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the same has not been true of its stance on issues involving religion and the state. For example, the Shas party has been more extremist than the NRP in terms of imposing religious law (halakha) and on issues related to the Jewishness of the state. Because of its focus on the integrity and purity of the Jewish community rather than on the land of Israel, Shas has adopted a conciliatory and moderate stance toward Israeli Palestinians even as it has sought to deny the rights of Israeli immigrants with “questionable Jewish origins.” Shas has maintained a critical

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position toward the over one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have come to Israel since the early 1990s.26 It has also used its position of strength in recent coalitional governments to block the granting of clerical rights to non-Orthodox Jewish bodies, and has sought to deny state funds to more liberal Jewish movements, including the reform and conservative movements in Israel. In contrast to Shas, other nationalreligious parties lack tolerance for those who propose withdrawal from the Occupied Territories while they speak of co-existence with secular Jews and non-Jewish ethnic groups within Israel. In terms of religious life in Israel, while the hegemony of the Orthodox variant of Judaism in Israel’s personal status law does impinge upon the rights and liberties of non-Orthodox Israeli Jews, the religious parties have never sought to impose Jewish law, even if they might hope for this to eventually happen.27 Since political success has depended on their ability to participate in governing coalitions with secular parties, the parties have largely taken defensive actions to maintain the status quo, rather than expand the scope of religion in the Israeli polity. In recent years, Shas in particular has attempted to attract nonreligious voters. This has resulted in a moderation of its platform, as ethnic pride and social protest are increasingly emphasized, and the benefits of office-holding the reward. In Israel, the secular right has been far more ultranationalist than it has been anti-religious, thus enabling religious Israelis to participate in right-of-center nationalist political parties. In these cases, the religious party members have tended to take defensive positions with regard to religion in public life. As demonstrated by Shas’s opposition to repeal of the Tal Law, exempting the ultra-Orthodox from military service, their aim is to avoid a rolling back of the religious legal-judicial framework set in place at the time of Israel’s founding. Indeed, their demands have not exceeded what the secular members of these parties have been willing to concede:

26. Shas’s position regarding the FSU immigrants to Israel contributed to the growing popularity of the Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home, currently the Jewish Home) party, which captured much of the Russian immigrant vote in the February 2009 elections. 27. For more on the monopoly that the Orthodox Jewish denomination has on issues such as marriage, conversion, and adoption, see Kimmerling (2001, 173–207).

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“[Israeli] democracy not only limits the achievements of the fundamentalists; it even moderates many of their demands. . . . No religious party today is prepared to remain in the political wilderness, bereft of the benefits that ties to the government bestow upon it” (Liebman 1991, 82). Shas: A Party in Transition In the initial years following its emergence onto the Israeli political scene, the Shas party exhibited a remarkable flexibility on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even as it adopted a radical position on issues related to the role of religion in Israeli public life. Shas’s ideology—one in which cultural and economic issues were more important than Israeli settlements and borders—helps to explain this strategy. In addition, the party’s constituent base, as well as the characteristics of Israel’s multi-party parliamentary system, were important. Shas’s strategy continued to win the party a significant share of the vote in successive Israeli elections; for 24 years since its inception, Shas was part of every governing coalition except for two and was invited to join Labor, Likud, and Kadima-led governments. Today, however, as exhibited by its increasingly right-of-center positions on further territorial withdrawals, Shas is a party in transition. A growing hawkishness of the Shas voting public is leading the party leadership to reject its traditional calculation: support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace in return for funds from the government. Indeed, one can argue that due to changes in its constituency (its base is becoming more haredi and less traditionalist), the party is moving from an initially moderate and dovish position to an increasingly obstructionist stance on the peace process. Initially, the broadening of Shas’s electoral base to include low-income Sephardic voters, who are traditionalists rather than ultra-Orthodox, served to moderate the party’s position with regard to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Because of its relatively heterogeneous voting base, the Shas leadership adopted an ambiguous policy regarding territorial withdrawal so that every voter (whether a supporter or opponent of the peace process) could find an ideological home in the party (Yuchtman-Yaar and Hermann 2000, 69). Currently, however, the near total lack of secular voters among its constituency, coupled with the rise in the proportion of ultra-Orthodox

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(who are generally opposed to the two-state solution) in its voting public, has resulted in a shift in the party’s strategies for coalition-building and in its platforms. Indeed, polls now suggest that of all Israel’s communities, the ultra orthodox are currently the constituency most opposed to negotiations with the Palestinians and to further territorial withdrawals.28 As a result of this shift in its voter base, it is not surprising that Shas parliamentarians (along with Shas then Chairman and Interior Minister Eli Yishai) have recently spoken in defense of the settlers much like their nationalreligious counterparts. Shas rabbinic authorities, who before cautioned against endangering Jewish life by extending West Bank settlements, now give support to the policy claiming that “the Torah sanctions living on Israel’s land” (International Crisis Group 2009, 14–15, 35). To be sure, Shas’s shift to the right is also due to the increased radicalization of the settler movement, as witnessed by recent clashes between settlers and Israeli security forces, assassination attempts on supporters of the peace movement, and increased vigilante activity on the part of settlers against Palestinian property. The growing disenchantment of the Israeli public with the country’s settlement project and the increasing willingness of political figures—even hawkish ones such as Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu—to “take on the settlers” will only further this trend. While the 2009 and 2013 election results reflect a general rightward turn in Israeli society, it is still the case that the majority of Israelis support the establishment of a Palestinian state and withdrawal from much of the West Bank in return for international recognition of the Jewish state and normalization of relations with the Arab states and larger Muslim world. Increasingly, however, it is Shas’s constituency that rejects this “land for peace” equation.29 Shas’s move to the right suggests that, just like for secular parties, constituency may be more important than ideology in driving the strategies

28. For the argument that, in recent years, the ultra-Orthodox have developed a stronger commitment to the theological and political principles of the settler movement, see Klein (2010, 73–83). 29. For extended discussions of these shifts in Israeli public opinion, see Mnookin and Eiran (2005) and Hazan and Diskin (2009).

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of party leaders. Yet, ironically, declining electoral results at the polls may lead Shas back to its roots. That is, the upshot from Shas’s poor showing in the 2009 and 2013 elections may cause the party leadership to recalculate. The party may have reached the point when it is worried that its political shift has jeopardized access to patronage and resources, and it may very well shift back in the coming years. In the 2009 elections, Shas emerged as a much weakened party.30 Indeed, while the party had veto power as a pivotal coalition member in Olmert’s government, it lost much of that leverage in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Before Kadima’s surprising decision to join the government in May 2012, Netanyahu had a coalition comprising seventy-four Knesset seats. With eleven seats, Shas was still in a pivotal position to block policies inimical to its interests, including electoral reform (Hoffman 2012). In the governing coalition that preceded the January 2013 elections, however, Shas’s bargaining power had been significantly reduced. Kadima’s decision to join the government boosted the number of legislators that Netanyahu could count on to an unprecedented ninety-four Knesset members. While Shas remained in the government in order to continue to advance the priorities of its constituents (e.g., favorable budgets for religious institutions, housing, and the appointment of rabbinical judges), the establishment of a new, broad coalition government meant that Shas could no longer use the threat of toppling the government to prevent new legislation that would amend the electoral process and obligate yeshiva students to perform military service, or spoil efforts to advance peace negotiations with the Palestinians (Ettinger 2012). Now that Shas is no longer a member of the governing coalition, the situation is

30. In the 2009 elections, it would appear that many Shas voters wagered that it was better to vote for Likud than to “waste” their vote. By voting Likud, they could potentially mitigate against the emergence of a center-left Kadima coalition. These are the same calculations that the traditional voters of other parties made, only in reverse. Stalwart Meretz and Labor voters also switched their allegiances to the larger party (in this case Kadima) as a way of ensuring that a right-of-center Netanyahu-led coalition would not come to power. It is therefore not surprising that except for Avigdor Liberman’s party— Yisrael Beitenu—which ran an effective campaign on a platform sufficiently distinct from either Likud or Kadima—none of the other once-pivotal parties fared very well.

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even more dire from Shas’s perspective. Serving in the Knesset opposition and no longer dominating key ministries, including the Interior Ministry, the Housing and Construction Ministry, and the Health Ministry, the size of the budget allotment to various ultra-Orthodox institutions will now be in question, as will the kinds of patronage that Shas has long delivered to its constituents, such as housing assistance and discounts on property taxes (Ettinger 2013). In light of this loss in bargaining power, Shas may return to the “tried and true” strategies of its past—an appeal to the underprivileged of Israeli society, Ashkenazi and Sephardic alike, and social welfare for Israelis on both sides of the Green Line. In order to provide services for this expanded constituency, Shas would then need to reassume its pragmatic and flexible policy toward the Occupied Territories. History shows us that spoilers of peace can, over time, morph into pragmatists, and even peace enablers. For Shas, such a transformation is not beyond the realm of possibility. Ever the savvy political actor, it may once again be “harnessed to the peace cart.”31 Conclusions In this chapter I have addressed a central question for contemporary studies of the democratic peace phenomenon and democratization in general, and regime transition in the Middle East in particular: does political inclusion moderate the positions and policies of religious political parties,

31. The recent political scandal involving Shas Knesset member Rabbi Chaim Amsellem’s call for the party to return to its “Sephardic roots,” and his endorsement of a plan to raise the economic prospects of its constituents by encouraging more ultraOrthodox to enter the work force rather than commit to full-time Torah study, suggests that such a shift may already be on the horizon. Most Shas politicians have rejected Amsellem’s call, as demonstrated by the party’s strong opposition to replacing the Tal Law, which has allowed the ultra-Orthodox to defer military service indefinitely in order to pursue religious study. Yet, the debate suggests that at least some in the party leadership are beginning to question the move away from its initial platform (see Kershner 2010).

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particularly those with extremist platforms?32 According to optimists, participation in the electoral process compels even the most radical religious parties to moderate their platforms in order to capture more votes. From this perspective, violently repressing religious political parties is counterproductive as it leads to a radicalization that political inclusion would forestall. According to pessimists, religious parties with radical ideologies are not likely to change their stripes once they are democratically elected; on the contrary, they will use their newfound freedoms to subvert democracy. From this perspective, the fact that many religious political parties today are advocates of democracy belies the true intentions of these groups, which in any event, espouse political positions that are inimical to liberal democracy. Rather than side with either the optimists or the pessimists, in this chapter I tease out the conditions and circumstances under which democracy will have a moderating impact. I consider how institutions, constituencies, party ideology, and political entrepreneurship influence both the emergence of, and support for, religious political parties, and the likelihood that they will advance radical domestic and foreign policies. My analysis of the Shas party suggests that while some religious political parties—even those found in today’s mature and consolidated democracies—may well adopt platforms and goals that are quite radical with regard to internal religion-and-state issues and foreign security policies, a political system that encourages the participation of religious political parties in elections and governing coalitions over time reduces the potential threats posed to the state by even these extremist religious parties. Simply put, democracy pushes ideologues into adopting more moderate platforms and strategies. Typically, the presumption is that religious political

32. While I am most concerned with the effects of democracy on religious political parties, it is also important to address democracy as a dependent variable—that is, to consider the effect of religious political parties on democracy. The essay thus touches on larger questions related to the intersection of religion, politics, and democracy: Are religious political parties—and religions more generally—compatible with democratic practice? Are religious political parties a threat to democracy and democracy promotion? Can religious political parties serve as forces for democratization?

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parties are sources of extremism and pose threats to society, the polity, and external actors. Yet the case of Shas suggests that careful attention to institutions, party ideology, and changes in the makeup of the party’s constituents are each necessary for determining the degree to which a religious political party will be a force for moderation. In fact, the case of Shas offers a qualified challenge to the claim that religious parties cannot adhere to democratic rules and principles and are therefore best marginalized or outlawed. In this case, democratic institutions are tending to make Shas more extreme—as it responds to changes in its voter base, it has moved from a pro-peace position to a rejectionist one. This shift was not due to any changes in the party’s ideology, but has been a pragmatic move. In short, depending on the preferences of voters, political pragmatism may not lead to moderation but can push the party in the opposite direction.33 Recent work has suggested that Israel’s multi-party system is an important factor in understanding both Israel’s decisions to go to war and its landfor-peace negotiating positions (see, for example, Spruyt 2005, 234–63; Elman 2009; and Elman 1997a). While these studies largely view Israeli parliamentarism in a negative light, here I suggest that parliamentarism has its virtues. Specifically, the case of Shas shows that Israel’s religious political parties have not been forces for extremism, primarily because of their role in the parliamentary system. In order to serve in governing coalitions and increase their electoral market share, the religious parties have, over time, moderated their positions regarding legislation on religion in the public sphere. While some religious parties have sought to use their parliamentary influence to derail the peace process, others—mostly notably Shas—have used the logrolling opportunities that parliamentarism provides to advocate for constituency social services in return for exhibiting a remarkable flexibility on peacemaking. In the case of Shas, community survival has been viewed as more important than Israel’s post-1967

33. On the hardening of the ultra-Orthodox position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see poll data from the Israeli Democracy Institute’s Peace Index, especially May 2009 and May 2010 (Yaar and Hermann). In recent years, this polling confirms a close connection between degree of religiosity and degree of rigidity on issues related to Israeli foreign and defense policy.

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settlement project, a factor that has made it less of a hindrance to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Allowed entry into the political system where it has often served as a pivotal party Shas has forestalled violence from its constituencies. To be sure, religious political parties like Shas and the NRP have for years been central veto players to Israeli territorial disengagement. Israel’s proportional representation electoral system and low thresholds for participation in the Knesset have served to create numerous veto points that have certainly worked to the advantage of those parties against territorial concessions. Israel’s multiparty democracy has made it possible for parties like Shas to cater to niche, extremist constituencies, rather than to the median voter. But this has been a double-edged sword. The flip side of pivotal party status has been that ultranationalist religious voters have had their interests realized, and have thus not had to resort to extra-legal measures to get what they want. In the final account, what has helped Israel’s religious political parties to adjust to the state and integrate into the political process is both the fact that Israel is a Jewish ethnic democracy (a key component of which is cooperation between secular and religious Jewish political parties) and the fact that the long-term retention and settlement of the Occupied Territories has been the central Israeli state project for nearly five decades. Clearly, religious political parties have an advantage given the nature of Israel’s democracy and the centrality of the settlement project. Each factor has enabled the religious Jewish parties to play a key role in the formation of governing coalitions with the larger secular parties, something that has been denied to Israel’s Arab political parties (three Arab parties, Raam-Taal, Hadash, and Balad, won 12 seats in the 2013 elections; as in all previous Israeli elections, however, these parties were irrelevant to the process of forming the current government). After all, Shas is a religious political party operating in a democracy that fuses religion and the state. This is an enviable situation typically unavailable to most religious parties in the Middle East, which—at least until the recent advent of the “Arab Spring”—must operate in nationalist-secular states characterized by weak political participation mechanisms. But the Israeli case also suggests that the consistently privileged position of the religious Jewish parties in the

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Knesset can reduce extremism and violence. The behavior of these parties has been markedly different from the actions of religious political parties in both democratizing and quasi-democratic states, where the state does not enjoy a monopoly on the use of force, where religious parties must often compete against a secular state, and where violence may often be a successful means of mobilizing the vote. In this regard, future work contrasting Israel’s religious political parties with those political parties in the region that also field armed militias (e.g., the Islamist political party Hezbollah in Lebanon) is likely to be instructive.34

34. For more on how political parties may resort to violence in order to compete for the vote in emerging democracies, see for example Bloom (2004). Although Israel’s political parties and movements have not been allowed to maintain armed militias, it should be noted that the West Bank settlers do perform “frontier defense” duties and are fully armed by the IDF. The violent harassment of Palestinian civilians and their property by West Bank settlers is also condoned and at times supported by the IDF. It is thus possible to make the case that the settler movement does indeed have an armed wing, albeit one that is wholly sanctioned by the Israeli state.

5 Identity Matters The Oslo Peace Process and Israeli National Identity Dov Waxman

O N T H E E V E N I N G of Saturday, November 4, 1995, twenty-five-yearold Yigal Amir walked up to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had just finished addressing a massive rally in Tel Aviv in support of the Oslo peace process, and fired three shots into his back. Rabin died shortly afterwards. Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish religious-nationalist extremist determined to prevent Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) shocked and horrified Israelis. The act and its aftermath—in which some Israelis mourned, whilst others rejoiced—laid bare the deep division within Israel between supporters and opponents of the peace process. The assassination of Rabin was the culmination of an increasingly bitter and divisive domestic debate in Israel over the Oslo Accords and the peace process with the Palestinians. At the heart of this debate was not just the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but Israeli identity. The Oslo peace process involved more than a historical accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians and the final setting of Israel’s territorial borders, it also involved the reshaping of Israeli national identity. It heralded a new era of Israeli-Palestinian peace and reconciliation, and with it a new Israeli identity. Peace and reconciliation, however, never came. Instead, the collapse of the Oslo peace process led to violence and bitter recriminations between Israelis and Palestinians. More than eighteen years after Rabin’s

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assassination, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains stubbornly unresolved. Indeed, it is one of the most protracted violent ethno-national conflicts in the world. To understand why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so intractable we must take into account not only the issues at stake, but also the identities of the antagonists. It is their national identities as well as their national interests that Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over. Rival national identities are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a conflict over these identities, just as much as it is a conflict over land and resources. Recognizing this often overlooked dimension of the conflict is essential to its ultimate resolution. Peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians depends upon changes to both of their national identities. Without changing their national identities, any IsraeliPalestinian peace agreement will be fragile at best, if not completely unattainable. But while mutual identity change is necessary for there to be an enduring and stable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it is also a potential obstacle to be overcome. National identities cannot just be revised at will. Attempts by policymakers and political elites to redefine national identities from above are by no means always successful and risk provoking fierce domestic opposition, as Rabin’s assassination tragically demonstrates. By examining the case of Israeli identity and the Oslo peace process, this chapter contributes to a broader understanding of the extent to which national identities are resistant to change and the ways in which they can complicate peacemaking efforts. I will argue that although changes to national identities are often necessary for peacemaking efforts to succeed, attempting such changes can arouse internal resistance that may derail a peace process. Hence, with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this chapter stresses the need to address identity issues in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, while also underlining the political risks involved in doing so. To support and illustrate this argument, I examine the attempt by the Rabin government at the beginning of the Oslo peace process in the early 1990s to revise Israeli identity in accordance with its policy of peacemaking with the Palestinians, and the domestic backlash this generated. This chapter also has theoretical implications for democratic peace theory. The argument of this chapter that collective identities can be an

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obstacle to peacemaking efforts draws our attention to the fact that popular norms, beliefs, and ideas within a democracy are not always or necessarily conducive to peace and peacemaking. Some proponents of democratic peace theory (Doyle 1986; Weart 1998) have attributed democracy’s pacifist inclinations to ideational variables, particularly a collective norm that disputes should be resolved peacefully. Not all ideational variables in a democracy promote peace, however. National identities, religious beliefs, and other ideational variables can sometimes promote or sustain conflict. There is, therefore, no reason to assume, as one school of thought within democratic peace theory does, that the most powerful and consequential norms, ideas, and beliefs in a democracy incline democratic states toward peace—sometimes they might have the opposite effect. Moreover, in this respect democracies can actually face greater difficulties in making peace than nondemocratic states. Whereas authoritarian regimes may be able to repress discourse advancing a competing notion of the national identity and suppress or stifle debates over the national identity, democratic governments have no such ability. A democratic government cannot monopolize the definition of the national identity and prevent rival definitions from gaining popular support. On the contrary, different conceptions of the national identity are common in democracies where political actors and social groups actively compete over the national identity in an attempt to establish their particular interpretation of it. Consequently, identity debates are a regular feature of political and cultural life in democracies, much more so than in autocracies. These debates can become especially acute and intense when they become linked to the resolution of an external conflict. If some domestic political actors or sectors of the population view a peace process and the issues under negotiation as threatening their national identity, they are likely to oppose the peace process and mobilize against it. This is what occurred in Israel during the Oslo peace process and partly accounts for its failure, as this chapter will show. Before proceeding to discuss the case of Israel and the Oslo peace process, however, this chapter will first provide a brief theoretical summary of the role that national identities can play in violent conflicts, and the difficulty of changing them.

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Peacemaking and Identity Change A national identity is a type of collective identity, denoting a group’s selfconception or self-image as a nation. Of the many different collective identities available to us (racial, religious, gender, etc.), national identities are the most salient for most people. As Anthony Smith (1991, 170), a leading contemporary scholar of nationalism writes: “Today national identity is the main form of collective identification. Whatever the feelings of individuals, it provides the dominant criterion of culture and identity, the sole principle of government and the chief focus of social and economic activity.” Indeed, Smith goes as far as to claim that: “of all collective identities which human beings share today, national identity is the most fundamental. . . . Other types of collective identity—class, gender, race, religion— may overlap or combine with national identity but they rarely succeed in undermining its hold, though they may influence its direction” (ibid., 143). Certainly, national identities have often been able to “trump” other collective identities in their claim to political allegiance and loyalty (class being the foremost example) (Calhoun 1995, 231). However one attempts to account for it, national identities are undoubtedly immensely powerful. The salience of national identities gives them a central role in many violent conflicts, inter-state and intra-state, around the world (Northrup 1989). The ongoing conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, Indians and Pakistanis, Georgians and Abkhazians, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, and Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, to name just a few, all revolve at least in part around conflicting national identities. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War the apparent proliferation of violent conflicts around the world fueled or exacerbated by exclusive and hostile national identities has caught the attention of growing numbers of scholars, analysts, and policymakers. The concern this has raised is clearly conveyed in one observer’s statement: “The issues likely to undermine international security into the next century will be linked to identity politics centered around the nation” (Shearman 2000, 99). In the literature on conflict resolution, conflicts in which the politics of collective identities (national, ethnic, religious, etc.) are a central feature are known as “identity-based conflicts” (Northrup 1989). These

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conflicts are considered to be particularly intractable (Rothman 1997; Rothman and Olson 2001). To resolve them, scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution (Azar 1990; Burton 1990) emphasize the necessity of addressing and reconciling the identity needs of both sides in a conflict. In the words of Janice Gross Stein (1996, 107), “The challenge for peacemaking in the twenty-first century is to engage the parties earlier and at a deeper level so that the identities of some can be stretched to tolerate the identities of others.” Failure to take into account the importance of collective identities, according to this line of thinking, will doom peace negotiations. Indeed, some experts (Kelman 2001) argue that changes in collective identities are necessary in order for a protracted conflict to be fully transformed into a peaceful relationship, and others (Bar-Tal 2000, 360; Bar-Siman-Tov 2004, 75) go so far as to contend that true reconciliation between enemies requires the development of new collective identities. There is certainly good reason to believe that changes in collective identities are necessary in order for a protracted conflict to be peacefully resolved. When two groups are in a long-term conflict, over time their collective identities are shaped by the conflict, and these identities in turn influence the course of the conflict (Coy and Woehrle 2000). In the case of Israelis and Palestinians, for example, both sides’ national identities developed in opposition to each other, both claimed exclusive rights to possession of the disputed territory (the Land of Israel / Palestine), both perceived themselves as the innocent victims of the conflict (Rotberg 2006), and both denied the other’s nationhood and national rights. Thus, Israelis and Palestinians came to perceive the conflict between them as a zero-sum conflict in which their very national existence was at stake (Kelman 2001, 192). Such a perception makes it much harder to resolve the conflict, as Herbert Kelman writes: “when acceptance of the other’s national rights and recognition of the other’s national identity are seen as relinquishing the group’s own right’s and jeopardizing its own identity, distributive solutions based on compromise are hard to achieve” (Kelman 2001, 194). National identities forged in conflict foster collective norms and values that promote group cohesion, encourage sacrifice on behalf of the nation,

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and legitimize violence against the enemy (Sherif and Sherif 1953). These norms and values are embedded in the national culture, and help to sustain the conflict; so too can negative stereotypes of the enemy. “Enemy images” (Stein 1996) can form and become deeply rooted, thereby perpetuating and even intensifying a conflict. It is obviously hard to negotiate and compromise with an enemy who is widely believed to have the worst intentions and attributes. This is certainly the case with Israelis and Palestinians, who have long regarded each other with suspicion and even hatred. Negative stereotypes of the other exist on both sides, with the other frequently presented as extremely violent, immoral, ruthless, and uncompromising. Israeli and Palestinian national identities, therefore, cannot be ignored in peacemaking efforts. Although there are important material interests at stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their national identities—and the perceptions, fears, and animosities these give rise to—play a significant role in prolonging the conflict and making it so intractable. Hence, changing these national identities in some way is essential to the achievement of peace between Israelis and Palestinians (as it is in other identity-based conflicts). But this is easy to say, and much harder to actually do. In theory, making changes to a national identity is possible because national identities, like all identities, are social constructions, and hence are never fixed but always subject to being re-constructed, re-defined, and re-negotiated. Contrary to an essentialist view of national identities, it is important to recognize that they are not natural, and have no fixed attributes. National identities are not “given,” but made, most often by states. As John Breuilly writes, “the identity of the nation will be related to ‘tradition’ and to existing cultural practices, but the decisions as to what is relevant and how it should be used in establishing the national identity will rest with the state” (Breuilly 1994, 390). The state’s central control over education and the media are particularly powerful instruments at its disposal in the construction of a national identity (giving it the means, for example, to disseminate the national narrative and traditions, and shape the society’s collective memory). Thus, while a multitude of practices go into constructing national identities, states play a particularly significant role in producing and reproducing national identities.

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This does not mean, however, that national identities can easily be changed. Under the influence of postmodernist theory, it is now common to regard collective identities as being completely fluid and malleable (Sarup 1996; Hall and du Gay 1996). While history certainly testifies to the possibility that collective identities can change, we should not exaggerate the ease with which such changes can occur. Changes in collective identities generally take place slowly over a long period of time. Contrary to the view that identities are constantly in flux, identities are often deeply rooted and resistant to change. The fact that collective identities are socially constructed does not mean that they can be easily reconstructed and revised at will (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde 1998, 205). In practice, a constructed identity can nevertheless be one that is relatively stable, sedimented in people’s consciousness over time through a host of cultural and social practices. Collective identities tend to endure as they become deeply embedded in political and social contexts. This is especially true for collective identities that have been formed in the course of a long-running violent conflict. Geared toward the preservation of the group against hostile adversaries, these collective identities can become “hardened” (Kaufmann 1996) and not easily susceptible to manipulation or revision by a government. The construction of a national identity is a long-term process, often requiring systematic and extensive cultural engineering by various organs of the state. Reconstructing and revising national identities is also a prolonged and laborious process. Over time a revised national narrative can be disseminated through the media, museums, educational programs, school textbooks, etc. Gradual shifts in a nation’s collective memory— certain events, for instance, may be forgotten or lose their centrality, while others take on new meaning and significance—can also result in changes to the national identity. It generally takes many years, therefore, for national identities to change. Particular governments or political leaders cannot quickly or easily change a national identity. Of course, exceptional circumstances (such as defeat in war, economic depression, political revolution, or massive social upheaval) can sometimes provide visionary, charismatic, and powerful leaders with the ability to redefine a national identity; however, most political leaders are neither charismatic

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nor powerful enough, nor operating in the right conditions, to dramatically change a national identity. Revising or redefining a national identity is particularly difficult for political leaders in democratic states. Authoritarian regimes sometimes have the ability to exclusively define a national identity and impose it from above. As Elman, Haklai, and Spruyt note in their introduction to this volume, there have been many cases of collective identities being deliberately manipulated by autocratic and totalitarian regimes. By contrast, the power of democratic governments to define a national identity tends to be much more limited. They cannot monopolize the definition of the national identity. Instead, different political actors and social groups compete in a free and open public sphere to define the national identity, espousing alternative definitions of it.1 Hence, in democracies there are often multiple definitions or conceptions of the national identity circulating and struggling in the public sphere, and frequent political debates in which these rival conceptions of the national identity are at play. Opposition parties and movements in democracies can directly challenge a government’s definition of the national identity by espousing a different definition of the national identity, or simply by denying the government the sole right to speak on behalf of the “nation”; and when a democratic government tries to change or revise a national identity, it can encounter strong resistance from opposition forces. Political leaders in democracies, therefore, have an especially difficult challenge if they try to redefine a national identity as part of an effort to resolve an external conflict. The Rabin government’s attempt in the early 1990s to redefine Israeli identity in accordance with its policy of peacemaking with the Palestinians offers an instructive example of the difficulties and risks involved in trying to change a national identity. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the two chief policymakers of the Laborled government and the most prominent Israeli backers of the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians, both astutely recognized that a successful

1. On the necessity of an open public sphere for the contestation of identity, see Lynch (2002).

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peace process would require changes being made to Israeli national identity. On various occasions, both leaders publicly defined Israeli identity in ways supportive of peacemaking with the Palestinians and tried to revise the national narrative. But instead of legitimizing the peace process and laying the ground for future compromises with the Palestinians, these discursive efforts backfired, provoking a nationalist backlash that severely damaged the peace process and the prospects for peace. Rabin’s and Peres’s failure to change Israeli national identity demonstrates that national identities, although changeable, are not easily manipulated by political leaders, particularly not in democracies. An attempt to change a national identity may engender substantial domestic resistance and, at the very least, political leaders have to be willing and able to overcome this resistance. Their capacity to do so is far more limited in democratic states than in repressive authoritarian ones. Examining the case of Israel and the Oslo peace process, therefore, contributes to our general understanding of the extent to which national identities can complicate efforts at peacemaking since they cannot be easily or quickly changed, especially with regards to longtime enemies. The Oslo Peace Process and Israeli Identity Peacemaking is as much a domestic challenge as it is a foreign policy challenge. Both adversaries must negotiate with each other while simultaneously ensuring domestic support for the negotiations and the concessions they may lead to (Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam 1993). The Declaration of Principles (DOP) signed by the Rabin government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in September 1993 represented a historic agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, as both sides finally recognized each other and agreed to peacefully resolve their conflict through bilateral negotiations. But this was only the first step toward peace. Accords still needed to be reached on the process of Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the transfer of governing authority to the Palestinians; and eventually, the issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—Israel’s final borders, Palestinian statehood, the return of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, and the future of Jewish

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settlements—would have to be tackled. Moreover, all this would have to be done under intense public scrutiny, in contrast to the secret talks that led to the signing of the DOP. Whatever concessions the Rabin government was prepared to make for the sake of Israeli-Palestinian peace mattered little if the Israeli public did not consent. To make peace with the Palestinians, the Rabin government had to have the backing of a solid majority of Israelis. This was a formidable challenge. Not only did Israelis have to give up land that many believed rightfully belonged to them (whether by virtue of history or divine covenant), but also they were being asked to compromise with their historic enemies, the Palestinians, and trust the organization representing them, the PLO, considered by the vast majority of Israelis to be a terrorist organization responsible for the murder of many Jews. Hostility toward the PLO and suspicion of Palestinian intentions was widespread and deeply rooted in Israeli society. It was necessary to change these public attitudes if the Oslo peace process was to succeed. Such an attitudinal change could only come about if Israeli identity itself changed. From the outset, Israeli national identity had developed under conditions of conflict with the Palestinians, and over time this conflict had become a constitutive element of that identity. As their collective “Other” (Peleg 1994a, 1994b), the Palestinians had helped to provide Israelis with a collective sense of “Self” (Kelman 1999). Thus, Israeli national identity became defined partly in opposition to the Palestinian “Other” (Peres 1997). As the Israeli psychologist Dan Bar-On (1997, 97) has written, “part of the Israeli identity constructions . . . was defined negatively, through hatred of the enemy, rather than positively, through what Israelis are in their own right, irrespective of the definition of the Other.” This aspect of Israeli identity had to be changed if the Oslo peace process had any hope of success. In Bar-On’s words, “Many Israelis will have to question and let go of that part of their self-definition that has been achieved mainly through the negative use of the Other” (ibid., 99). Another aspect of Israeli national identity that needed to be changed for the peace process to succeed was the value accorded to the “Land of Israel” (Eretz Yisrael). Israeli identity is based in part on identification with the Land of Israel, understood as the historic homeland of the Jewish

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people. Especially after the 1967 war, a deep connection—physical, emotional, even metaphysical—to the Land of Israel became an important part of Israeli identity (Liebman 1997a, 90). The West Bank (Judea and Samaria) in particular, was not just land, but land that had a profound emotional and symbolic value. This was clearly conveyed by then Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to the Knesset in 1992: “Eretz Israel is not another piece of land; it is not just a place to live. Above all, Eretz Israel is a value; it is holy” (BBC 1992). As the site of the biblical Jewish kingdom and the cradle of early Jewish civilization, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) has a religious and nationalistic significance for many Israeli Jews, not merely for a devout minority. As long as this strong territorial attachment persisted it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Israeli Jews to agree to relinquish Israeli control over this territory. Voluntarily giving up part of the Land of Israel, therefore, required a revision of Israeli identity. This was eloquently articulated by the Israeli novelist David Grossman, who wrote after the signing of the Oslo Accords, “The Jews living in Israel are now being asked not only to give up on geographical territories. We must also implement a ‘redeployment’—or even a complete withdrawal—from entire regions in our soul” (quoted in Hazony 2000, 72). The Jewish component of Israeli national identity gave rise not only to a strong attachment to the Land of Israel, but also to a profound sense of insecurity, isolation, and suspicion of gentiles (Waxman 2003). Their collective memory of Jewish persecution and suffering through the ages culminating most tragically in the Holocaust meant that Israeli Jews tended to regard the world as a fundamentally inhospitable place, at best indifferent toward the welfare of the Jewish state, if not outright hostile. This view of the world was expressed by Abba Eban (1972, 180), the veteran Israeli diplomat, in his description of Israel’s predicament on the eve of the 1967 war: “When we looked out at the world we saw it divided between those who wanted to see us destroyed and those who would not raise a finger to prevent it from happening.” A corollary of this bleak world-view was a feeling of international isolation and a belief that the Jewish state was being persecuted and discriminated against, just as individual Jews had always been (Arian 1995, 161). This was most famously articulated in the popular

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Israeli song of the late 1960s and early 1970s entitled, “The Whole World Is Against Us.” The belief that Jewish survival was constantly imperiled and that antiSemitism was widespread and ever-present fueled the fears of Israeli Jews. In particular, it shaped how they perceived their conflict with the Palestinians. Rather than viewing it as a territorial conflict, for many Israeli Jews the conflict was an existential struggle against the most recent in a long line of anti-Semitic foes. Regarding themselves as the innocent victims in this conflict promoted a sense of self-righteousness among Israeli Jews, as well as an insensitivity to the suffering of Palestinians. The sense of victimhood and “siege mentality” associated with the Jewish component of Israeli national identity had to be overcome, or at least lessened, for Israeli Jews to make peace with Palestinians. Instead of demonizing Palestinians, the Israeli-Jewish public had to learn to trust their former enemies, and rely upon mutual agreements and diplomacy for their security, not just their own military power. Immediately upon taking office in July 1992, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin clearly delivered this message to the Israeli pubic when he introduced his Labor-led government to the Knesset. In his speech, Rabin emphatically declared, “We are no longer an isolated nation, and it is no longer true that the entire world is against us. We must rid ourselves of the feeling of isolation that has afflicted us for almost fifty years. We must join the campaign of peace, reconciliation, and international cooperation that is currently engulfing the entire globe, lest we miss the train and be left alone at the station” (Foreign Broadcast Information Service 1992, 24). This statement directly challenged the long-held popular Israeli belief that the “whole world is against us” and with it the Israeli identity of being an isolated, victimized nation. This was by no means the only time that Prime Minister Rabin challenged Israeli national identity. Throughout his premiership, he talked about Israeli national identity on numerous occasions in his speeches and interviews, and discursively associated it with the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace processes. Rabin believed that the peace process required a change in Israeli identity. He thought that it was necessary to revise Israeli national identity by discarding those elements of it that

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had become anachronistic or dysfunctional (Haber 2000). He wanted to update Israeli identity to suit a post-Cold War, globalizing world in which Israel was no longer a pariah state. Hence, Rabin openly criticized many of the beliefs and attitudes that had formerly shaped how Israelis viewed both themselves and the rest of the world, repeatedly telling Israelis that they should no longer see themselves as “a people apart,” and that they had to shed their traditional defensiveness and sense of international isolation. Rabin wanted to change Israeli national identity to align with the changes he believed were taking place in the world. He expressed this best in his speech at the National Security College in August 1993. In it, Rabin outlined how Israeli national identity had developed, and how it should continue to develop in the present circumstances. Rabin began by describing his image of the traditional Jew: “For me, as a native of this land, the Jew, in the collective sense, and the Diaspora were always represented by the image of the bent-over Jew possessed of meager bodily strength and immense mental powers . . . the picture of the world engraved upon the memory of members of our generation is of a Jew with fear in his eyes, a leaf being wafted about” (Rabin 1996, 396–99). This accurately captures the stereotypic and derogatory manner in which Diaspora Jews were represented in the discourse of secular Zionism, especially during the pre-state period. Rabin then went on to describe the change in this image brought about by Israel’s creation: “The establishment of the State of Israel gave birth to the image of a new Jew—the sabra, the strong person, a fighter, standing upright, rooted, one who beats back all who rise up against him, a David who overcomes Goliath. And around the new Jew developed the image of the Israeli ‘superman,’ omnipotent, resourceful, sophisticated, victorious.” Again, Rabin echoes the discourse of secular Zionism, as it depicted itself as giving birth to the “new Jew” in the form of the sabra. But then Rabin departs from this by-now familiar script. He proceeds to challenge this identity by pointing to its failure to bring peace and security to Israelis, asserting that “the stronger we were, the more we were attacked.” This brought with it negative psychological repercussions for Israelis, according to Rabin: “We lost trust in others. We were suspicious of everyone. We developed a siege mentality. We lived in a kind of political, economic, and mental ghetto. We secluded ourselves. We distanced

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ourselves. We became skeptical and harbored reservations. We developed patterns of obstinacy and of seeing the world in somber colors.” In this manner, Rabin conveys the state-of-mind prevalent among Israeli Jews from the 1960s onwards. He ends his speech by linking the new post-Cold War international environment that was emerging to the need for a new Israeli identity, declaring that “In the face of the new reality of the changing world, we must forge a new dimension to the image of the Israeli. This is the hour for making changes: for opening up, for looking around us, for engaging in dialogue, for integrating, for making friends, for making peace” (ibid.). Thus, in this keynote speech, Rabin presented a narrative of Israeli national identity. His narrative of Israeli identity emphasized the changes it had undergone, and hence represented it as something that was essentially dynamic and fluid rather than fixed and unchanging. This implied that further changes could legitimately be made, although Rabin did not specify exactly what changes he had in mind. Like Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres also related the peace process to Israeli national identity in his discourse. Peres generally addressed the Jewish dimension of Israeli national identity. He frequently claimed that the history and values of the Jewish people meant that they had to be sympathetic to all victims and must not dominate over another people. In a speech at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, for instance, Peres stated, “Jewish history would never permit domination of another people; neither in the past nor in the present, neither Palestinians nor Arabs” (Medzini 1995a, 245). Similarly, he told members of the diplomatic community stationed in Israel: “we do not want to become a dominator of another people against their wish. Nations have interests. I believe nations have also values, and for us the Jewish people, the values are occasionally our interests, and we cannot overlook it. We don’t want under any circumstances to become a dominating people or an occupying country” (ibid. 31–32). Peres therefore argued that Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza was mandated by the historic values of the Jewish people, whereas occupation of the territories was incompatible with those values. He was explicit about this in his speech at the signing ceremony of the IsraelPLO agreement in Cairo on May 4, 1994: “Our position stems from a .

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moral call: Govern yourself, don’t rule others. The agreement today is not a submission to threats of weapons. It is a return to the values of our heritage” (Medzini 1995b, 617). On another occasion, Peres even presented the peace process with the Palestinians and Arab states as a means for the Jewish people to recover their moral vocation, stating: “In this new world which is being created, the Jewish people is assuming once again its classic role—a humanistic people, a people which believes that democracy is not only the right to be equal but also the right to be different, a people which believes that, despite all the changes and the differences, every man is created in God’s image. He did not empower any one of us to say who is superior and who is inferior. He did not give us permission to put ourselves above others” (Medzini 1995a, 254). Rabin’s and Peres’s political rhetoric, therefore, was laden with references to Israeli identity. They publicly articulated an Israeli identity that was compatible with their policy of peacemaking with the Palestinians. The purpose of this discursive linkage between the Oslo peace process and Israeli identity was to legitimize the former. That is, by defining Israeli national identity in certain ways, Rabin and Peres were trying to win domestic support for the peace process. Such a strategy is common for political leaders attempting to gain public support for their policies. As Michael Barnett (1999, 16) notes, “Political elites are keenly aware that to legitimate and make plausible their policies requires demonstrating how they are consistent with the cultural terrain, and sometimes that will require revising the cultural terrain in order to legitimate their policies.” The Anti-Oslo Nationalist Backlash By rearticulating Israeli identity in ways that were compatible with the Oslo peace process, Rabin and Peres hoped to legitimize the peace process and win over a skeptical Israeli public. But their efforts in this respect backfired as they inadvertently helped to fuel a nationalist backlash that actually undermined support for the peace process. The peace process became embroiled in identity politics, and thus the object of even greater domestic opposition and controversy. To be sure, the Oslo peace process was bound to be controversial in Israel since it involved a complete

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redefinition of Israel’s policies toward its historical enemy (the Palestinians), the organization representing them (the PLO), and the territories captured in the 1967 war (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). But, it became even more controversial as it was publicly associated with a challenge and threat to Israeli national identity. Although both Oslo agreements (“Oslo I” and “Oslo II”) were supported by a majority of the general public, in both cases the margin of support was very narrow.2 Between 40–50 percent of the Israeli public consistently opposed the Oslo Accords,3 and even more expressed dissatisfaction with the Oslo peace process over time. According to a comprehensive public opinion survey conducted in March 1995, for instance, 62 percent of Israelis expressed dissatisfaction with the peace process, compared to only 11 percent who felt satisfied (Bar-Siman-Tov 1997, 180). There were many factors responsible for this Israeli opposition to the peace process, perhaps chief among them persistent security concerns that were heightened by continuing acts of Palestinian terrorism. But it was not just their security that many Israelis feared was being endangered by the peace process—it was also their national identity, especially its Jewish component. Right-wing critics of the Oslo Accords denounced them as a betrayal of Israel’s Jewish and Zionist identity. They argued that the Rabin government’s signing of the Oslo Accords was an unpatriotic act of defeatism, signaling national weakness and even spiritual bankruptcy. Withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza, they charged, was contrary to the fundamental purpose of the Zionist project—the return and resettlement of the Jewish people in its homeland. By agreeing to withdraw from the territories, these critics charged that the Rabin government was essentially

2. The Oslo I agreement was supported by 53 percent of Israelis, and opposed by 45 percent, with 2 percent having no opinion, according to a poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot (reported August 30, 1993). The Oslo II agreement was supported by 51 percent of Israelis, and opposed by 47 percent, with 2 percent having no opinion (ibid., September 28, 1995). 3. For evidence of this see the monthly results of the “Peace Index” survey conducted since June 1994 (Yaar and Hermann).

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abandoning Israel’s Jewish heritage and undermining the nation’s Jewish identity. As Yehiel Leiter (1994, 109), the spokesman for the settler’s organization YESHA (the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Council), put it, “Holding on to Yesha [Judea, Samaria and Gaza] and building it forces a particular identity on the nation, one which emphasizes the uniqueness of the Jewish people—one that many in Israel’s current left-wing government [the Rabin government] and the people they represent are trying to escape.” For those committed to maintaining Israel’s control over the “Land of Israel,” therefore, the Oslo peace process was not only seen as a threat to their physical security, but also to their cherished cultural and religious convictions. The right-wing campaign within Israel against the peace process was vitriolic and intense. In the course of this campaign, Rabin’s government was delegitimized on the grounds that it lacked a “Jewish majority” in the Knesset and had to rely on the support of Arab parliamentarians. Rabin himself quickly became the target of attack, his picture appearing in antiOslo rallies dressed as an Arab, or even as a Nazi. He was personally blamed for the deaths of Jews killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks. It was in this climate of angry vilification of Rabin that his assassination occurred in November 1995. Although Rabin’s murder was the act of one individual, it came about after months of inflammatory verbal denunciations of Rabin and his government and increasing threats against him (Peri 2000). It was not only those on the Israeli political right ideologically committed to maintaining Israel’s control over the territories who regarded the Oslo peace process as a threat to Israeli identity. In the minds of many Israeli Jews on both sides of the political divide, the Oslo peace process involved a new Israeli identity and the abandonment of many of the beliefs that Israeli Jews had held dear for so long and which had been so central in shaping their national identity (Waxman 2006, 114–28). The peace process became widely associated with the emergence of a new secular, “post-Zionist” Israeli identity (Ben-Moshe 2005; Kelman 1998). This public perception arose not simply because of Rabin’s and Peres’s discourse about changing Israeli identity. Rather, Rabin’s and Peres’s discourse about Israeli identity came at a time when profound social, economic, and cultural changes were taking place in Israel that threatened to undermine the

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national identity and culture, especially its Jewish aspects. These changes generated a cultural anxiety that was expressed, at least in part, in opposition to the Oslo peace process. Israel’s integration into the global economy (beginning in the mid1980s and accelerating with the end of the Arab economic boycott after the Oslo Accords) transformed not only the Israeli economy, but also the lifestyle of many Israelis. Globalization ushered in a consumerist culture, marked by higher private consumption and an increase in possession of luxury items such as private cars, personal computers, televisions, videos, and mobile phones (Ram 2000). Global consumer culture penetrated the daily lives of ordinary Israelis, influencing how they dressed, what they ate, where they shopped, where they vacationed, what music they listened to, and what television programs they watched. In light of this, many Israelis feared that globalization would obliterate whatever was distinctively “Israeli,” and erase Israeli national identity. The massive influx of Western—especially American—cultural products was of particular concern to the religious and traditionalist members of the Israeli-Jewish public. A politician from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party even went so far as to declare, “We are in a moral bankruptcy. . . . This Western culture has eroded everything. . . . It’s a cancer” (quoted in Perry 1996). Traditional Israeli-Jewish culture appeared to be under threat from a new secular culture in which the conglomeration of symbols, customs, and traditions associated with the Jewish religion were largely absent (Etzioni-Halevy 1998, 71). This secularism was very different from that promoted by Israel’s Labor Zionist founders. The latter involved an ideological rejection of religious forms and authority in favor of a purely national secular conception of Jewish identity. The newer secularism, by contrast, was more of a lifestyle than an ideology, and was more universalist than Jewish (whether religious or nationalist or both) in its orientation (Dowty 1998, 173). In the words of one Israeli commentator, “the Israeli street . . . is penetrated increasingly by concepts, symbols, and values of a cultural nature that are not Jewish. Popular Israeli culture is increasingly universalist and Jewishly neutral” (Liebman 1997b, 113). The Oslo peace process, therefore, became associated with the development of a secular, materialistic, Americanized culture. As such, it was

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perceived by many to seriously threaten Israeli identity, especially its Jewish component. This perception was important in deciding the outcome of the 1996 election for prime minister when Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly defeated Peres, who was then incumbent prime minister and Labor leader after Rabin’s assassination. In the run-up to the election, Netanyahu presented himself as the guardian of “the Jewish heritage” as opposed to the secular cosmopolitanism of the Left.4 This helped him to win 12 percent more of the Jewish vote than Peres (56 percent to 44 percent). According to the Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal, the nearly unanimous support of Israel’s Orthodox Jews for Netanyahu in the election was because, “for Orthodox Jews the peace process became synonymous with a loss of Jewish identity” (quoted in International Herald Tribune, September 23, 1996). Similarly, Charles Liebman and Bernard Susser (1998, 24) interpreted Netanyahu’s electoral victory “as the protest victory of a Jewish identity coalition that felt its traditional and communal values threatened by the forces of dejudaization.” Although Netanyahu’s victory in the 1996 election and the subsequent formation of a narrow right-wing governing coalition did not completely stop the Oslo peace process, it did result in considerably slowing it down (Lochery 2000). By the time Netanyahu left office in May 1999, IsraeliPalestinian relations had soured, Jewish settlements in the territories had expanded, and the prospects for peace had dimmed. Less than two years later, the Oslo peace process was dead and the second Palestinian intifada was underway. Conclusions In the years since the collapse of the Oslo peace process, there have been numerous post-mortems written attempting to explain what went wrong (Slater 2001; Pundak 2001; Quandt 2001). Some explanations lay the

4. When he later presented his government to the Knesset, Netanyahu declared that, “The new government will nurture the values of the Jewish heritage in education, culture and the media” (quoted in Ben-Moshe 1997, 69).

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blame upon the political leadership—Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat or Israeli Prime Ministers Netanyahu or Ehud Barak. Others blame domestic groups on both sides, notably Israeli-Jewish settlers or the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations. Still others attribute the failure of the peace process to its inherent flaws, such as its incremental approach, its avoidance of the core issues in the conflict, or the power asymmetry between the two negotiating parties. It is easy in retrospect to identify many factors that derailed the peace process. This essay highlights one critical factor—Israeli identity—that is ignored in accounts that focus on poor leadership, domestic “spoilers,” or mismanagement as the reasons for Oslo’s failure. Of course, the breakdown of the peace process cannot simply be attributed to Israeli national identity. There is enough blame to go around and both Israel and the Palestinians (and the United States) made many mistakes and miscalculations. Nevertheless, as far as Israel’s responsibility for Oslo’s failure goes, the peace process was undermined by the lack of broad public support for it within Israel and the intense domestic opposition it faced. Popular discontent with the peace process led to the slowing down and temporary halting of Israel’s withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, especially under Netanyahu’s leadership, while Jewish settlements were allowed to grow. Israel, then, did not fulfill its side of the deal in large part because of Israeli public opinion. I have argued in this essay that Israelis were not only concerned about their security, but also their identity because the peace process was widely seen as threatening Israeli identity. This perception emerged during the period of the Rabin government (1992–95) when Rabin and Peres discursively linked the peace process to Israeli identity. Both leaders spoke of an Israeli identity that was compatible with the Oslo peace process and both tried to publicly legitimize the peace process with reference to this identity. This discursive effort, however, was counterproductive. Rabin’s and Peres’s rhetoric was interpreted by many as a challenge to the existing Israeli identity. They were seen as expressing support for a new Israeli identity, one that was less committed to Jewish and Zionist values and beliefs. Regardless of the accuracy of this perception, it influenced popular attitudes toward the peace process and contributed to an erosion of public support for it.

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It might be argued that the Oslo peace process would have been better off if Rabin and Peres had completely avoided the sensitive subject of Israeli identity. Had they simply justified the peace process in terms of Israel’s national interests they would not have been accused of attacking Israeli-Jewish identity, and perhaps the nationalist backlash against the peace process would not have occurred. It is tempting to believe such an argument because it suggests that Israeli-Palestinian peace can be achieved without addressing divisive issues of identity. Such an argument, however, misunderstands the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its deep psychological roots. It is not only a territorial conflict, but also an identity-based conflict. It is about competing identities— for example, as natives of the land, or as victims in the conflict—as well as competing territorial claims. To make peace, therefore, Israelis and Palestinians must recast their identities in less mutually exclusive and adversarial ways. To willingly divide the land, they must accept the other’s national identity and corresponding legitimate claim to the land. To live in peace, they must no longer regard each other as the enemy. Peace, in short, requires both nations to relinquish long-held national beliefs, myths, and aspirations. An Israeli-Palestinian peace process that avoids issues of identity, therefore, is doomed to either collapse or produce a shaky agreement lacking in popular legitimacy. In this respect, it is much harder to arrive at an IsraeliPalestinian peace agreement than it was to achieve the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace agreements (signed in 1979 and 1994, respectively). Both of these earlier peace agreements dealt with issues of territory, resources, and security, rather than identity issues. Israel’s conflicts with Egypt and Jordan were not as tied to Israeli identity as its conflict with the Palestinians (the Sinai Peninsula, for instance, is not part of the Land of Israel). Hence, the fact that a “cold peace” still persists between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan should not give us false hope that Israel and the Palestinians can easily replicate this. Although a change in Israeli and Palestinian national identities is a prerequisite for a mutually acceptable and lasting peace agreement, I do not want to suggest that they are doomed to violent conflict if such a change does not take place. It is quite possible to de-escalate the conflict, significantly lowering the level and risks of violence. A state of

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non-belligerency could prevail for some time before Israeli Jews and Palestinians have changed their identities in ways that make a final settlement of their conflict possible. Indeed, a prolonged truce could well facilitate the kinds of identity changes both sides need to make for real peace. Thus, while Israeli-Palestinian peace ultimately depends upon changes to their national identities, something less than full peace—but much better than the present state of affairs—is attainable without either side having to change its identity. For the time being, this may in fact be the most that can realistically be hoped for. Embittered by the breakdown of the Oslo peace process and the violence of the Second Intifada, neither Israeli Jews nor Palestinians currently appear willing to reexamine their collective memories, revise their national narratives, or rethink their long-held beliefs about the conflict. Mutual distrust and fear has fed into a deep and widespread skepticism that peace is even possible, and there is now little, if any, desire for reconciliation. Prevailing sentiments on both sides, therefore, do not bode well for any attempt to change their national identities. Unfortunately, since national identities only change gradually, it could take years before Israeli Jews and Palestinians have made the changes to their identities that sustainable peace requires. True reconciliation between the two adversaries may take even longer, perhaps generations.5 If, as I have argued here, the identity dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be addressed in order for the conflict to be fully resolved, it is also important to stress the great domestic political challenge involved in doing so. Trying to change a national identity is a perilous undertaking, fraught with political risk for any national leader, particularly for those in democracies. This essay has illustrated this risk by describing the reaction in Israel to Rabin’s and Peres’s discourse about Israeli national identity and their effort to align this identity with the Oslo peace process.

5. Reconciliation goes far beyond peaceful coexistence, and refers to the process of building long-term peace between former enemies. It is a laborious long-term process that can take decades, as was the case for example with Franco-German reconciliation, which lasted from the 1950s to the 1990s (see Ackermann 1994).

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They were perceived by the nationalist and religious right to be attacking Israeli-Jewish identity and accused of betraying the nation and its values. Was this nationalist backlash inevitable, or could it have been avoided or at least mitigated? Some nationalist reaction to the Oslo Accords and Israel’s proposed withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza was certainly inevitable. The national and religious significance of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) to Israeli Jews guaranteed that some among them would staunchly oppose giving up this land. Moreover, the fact that the Oslo peace process took place in the midst of Israel’s integration into the “global village”—and hence the increasing consumerism, secularism, and Americanization of Israeli society—further ensured that nationalist and religious Israeli Jews would regard it with wariness, at best, if not outright hostility.6 As with all national identities, globalization profoundly challenged Israeli identity, hence the perceived connection between globalization and the peace process made the latter even more controversial. Nevertheless, while a certain amount of domestic resistance to Oslo was likely regardless of Rabin’s and Peres’s discourse about Israeli identity, had they been more careful in their rhetoric they might have at least eased some of the public anxiety about Israeli identity. If Rabin and Peres had tried to publicly reassure Israeli Jews of their commitment to Israeli identity and their desire to maintain and strengthen it, the perception that they were undermining Israeli-Jewish identity might have been avoided. In other words, greater sensitivity to nationalist fears and concerns may well have helped the Rabin government win over some opponents of the Oslo peace process and counter some of its most vocal critics. This does not mean that any future Israeli government committed to resolving the conflict with the Palestinians should not try to change Israeli identity. On the contrary, I have contended in this essay that Israeli identity can and should be changed in order to achieve lasting peace with the Palestinians. But this change should be attempted carefully, aimed

6. For a discussion of the relationship between the Oslo peace process and Israel’s integration into the global economy, see Shafir and Peled (2000, 243–64).

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at revising specific, less central components of Israeli identity that might prevent a peace agreement with the Palestinians (such as the perception of Palestinians as the “Other” of Israeli Jews). A more nuanced and less threatening approach to changing Israeli identity is much more likely to be successful. According to Herbert Kelman, changes in national identities are possible as long as they leave intact the core of the national identity and national narrative—“its sense of peoplehood, its attachment to the land, its commitment to the national language, culture, and way of life” (Kelman 2001, 210). By reassuring the society that the most important elements of the national identity are secure and will be safeguarded, it is possible to revise other, less important, aspects of the identity. The challenge for policymakers seeking to make peace in identity-based conflicts, therefore, is to carefully revise specific aspects of the existing national identities, rather than trying to completely change them or abandon them. This chapter has sought to draw attention to the challenge that national identities can pose for peacemaking. To be clear, I am not claiming that peacemaking always requires identity changes. Many conflicts can be resolved at the negotiating table without dealing with identity issues, while others may end through a unilaterally imposed solution. But some conflicts, such as the Israeli-Palestinian one, are identity-based and thus a negotiated solution cannot be reached if the identity dimension of the conflict is not addressed. Failure to take into account the role that national identities can play in such conflicts is likely to doom peacemaking efforts. When a national identity has developed under conditions of a protracted violent conflict and been deeply influenced by the conflict, it is impossible to fully resolve the conflict and transform the relations between the warring parties without changing the national identities of the antagonists. Yet, attempts to bring about such changes run the risk of provoking strong domestic resistance, especially in a democracy. National identities can be changed for the sake of peace, but it is difficult to accomplish and politically risky to attempt. It must be handled with great care.

6 The Israeli Right and Israel’s Territorial Dilemma Ideological Purity and Political Readjustment in the Fourth Republic Ilan Peleg

is the Israeli Right and its evolving political attitudes toward the possibility of partitioning Palestine (or Eretz Israel) between the State of Israel and a future Palestinian state. Territorial partition has been at the very center of the political debate within the pre1948 Zionist movement, and has been dramatically revived in post-1967 and even more so in post-Oslo Israel. The territorial debate is likely to dominate the political agenda in years to come. The eventual resolution of that debate could significantly affect not only the relationships among Jewish Israelis and diaspora Jews, but also the resolution of the 130-year conflict between Jews and Israelis, on the one hand, and Arabs and Palestinians, on the other hand.1 An important theoretical contribution of this chapter is its systematic examination of ideology as a consequential factor determining political behavior within a democratic regime, specifically Israel since 1948. The THE SUBJECT OF THIS CHAPTER

1. The Jewish-Arab conflict goes back to almost the very beginning of Zionist settlement in Palestine or Eretz Israel in the early 1880s. The first actual physical attack on a Jewish settlement occurred in Petach Tikvah in 1886. The conflict has had territorial and demographic components from the very beginning.

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power of ideational variables has long been acknowledged in many subfields in political science, including International Relations and foreign policy analysis (Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Blyth 1997). In the context of democratic peace theory (DPT), as explained in the introduction to this volume, some scholars interested in ideational variables point to democratic ideals, values, and attitudes as the source and maybe even the main determinants of the so-called democratic peace phenomenon. Yet, democratic peace theorists have tended to treat ideology in democracy as an undifferentiated and constant category with only one possible outcome (or at least one highly likely one): peace. This article will demonstrate that ideological conviction in democracy might lead to the perpetuation of conflict, not peace. Recognizing that in democracies, rival political camps are motivated by, and advance diverse ideologies can help us better understand why seemingly invariable exogenous pressure yields different results when different political parties or coalitions are in power. The overall argument of this chapter, substantiated by the empirical examination of the Israeli Right, is that ideological constraints mediate significantly the impact of external pressures and international variables. This phenomenon impacts political behavior and determines political outcomes. Within the context of the contemporary Middle East, it might be argued that US administrations and other international players will find it more difficult to sway right-wing governments to make territorial withdrawals from the territories Israel conquered in the 1967 war. The ideology of such governments will determine the outcome, not the mere existence of democracy. Above all, it is important to realize that ideology matters and that it is not a constant. In analyzing the Israeli Right and in thinking about ideology in general, it is important to adopt a dynamic view. Rather than merely describing what the “Right” stands for in terms of its ideological raison d’être, it is essential to assess this political camp in terms of changes occurring within it, as well as in terms of general developments in Israeli society and international politics. Accordingly, this chapter will distinguish not only between the pre-state (or Mandatory Palestine) and the post-state eras, a standard distinction used by many authors (Horowitz and Lissak 1978), but also between four different eras in the history of

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Israel since its establishment. The chapter will term those different eras “republics,” suggesting that they constitute significantly distinct periods, presenting the Right with different challenges and opportunities. This detailed differentiation is important for gaining insight into the behavior of the Right within Israel’s democratic system, but it might also have more general implications for the application of democratic peace theory to the Israeli case and beyond. The chapter is divided into six parts. The first part briefly surveys the different eras, or republics, and the diverse challenges and opportunities they presented for the Israeli Right. The second section offers a conceptualization of the Israeli Right, and the third explains its most important ideological tenets and attitudinal perspectives. The fourth part shifts the focus to political activity, explaining how the Right’s attitudes and ideology influenced its political conduct during the four different eras. The fifth section offers an evaluation of future prospects on the basis of the preceding analysis, suggesting that for American influence and other international pressures to work, they must take into account the ideological and attitudinal characteristics of the Israeli Right. The last part, more theoretical in nature, summarizes the data presented in terms of the validity of democratic peace theory; it argues that DPT, as it currently stands, does not explain or predict the behavior of the Israeli Right and that, in general, the theory requires significant refinement. The Four Israeli Republics: The Role of the Right Since 1948, the Israeli political system has undergone significant changes, enabling us to (and even demanding that we) distinguish between different historical eras as distinct “republics.” In terms of the analysis offered in this chapter, it is particularly important to emphasize the evolvement of the position of the Right within these differentiated eras. The First Israeli Republic might be best called the Ben-Gurionist Republic, especially since it was so clearly dominated by the personality of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion (Shapiro 1996; Peleg 1998). Although the First Republic adopted quite a nationalistic and hawkish position toward the Arabs (both in Israel and outside of Israel), the hard-core Right,

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concentrated in the Herut Movement under Menachem Begin, was entirely marginalized, both politically and symbolically, within it. BenGurion refused to see Herut as even a potential member of his coalition. This position “condemned” Herut to become Israel’s permanent opposition, but, at the same time, this enabled Herut to maintain the purity of its ideological position. As I suggest below, the emergence of democratic institutions in Israel did not make the Right more peaceful. The Second Israeli Republic was ushered in by the ascendance to power of the Likud under Menachem Begin in 1977. Although the Right began its ideological rehabilitation through the moderation of its position already in 1965 with the formation of Gahal, and with Begin joining the Eshkol government on the eve of the 1967 war, the 1973 debacle gave it an opportunity to rise to power as a fully legitimate political force. Several authors have used the “Second Republic” terminology to describe the ascendance of the Right (Peleg and Seliktar 1989; Arian 2005), indicating the importance of the shift in Israel’s political landscape. The emergence of the Second Republic was a dramatic event marking the takeover by the Right after fifty-five years in opposition within the Zionist movement. The policies of the Right while in government indicate the inherent ideological dilemma of this political camp as analyzed in the present chapter. On the one hand, the Right promoted a nationalist, territorialist policy toward the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights despite strong opposition in Israel itself, in the Occupied Territories, and in the world at large. But, at the same time, this ideological camp has shown a willingness to compromise on what it considers to be nonideological issues, such as control over the Sinai Peninsula. The electoral defeat of Yitzhak Shamir in 1992 marked the end of the Second Republic, fifteen years dominated by strong right-wing policies. The demise of the Shamir government resulted from the refusal of the prime minister to compromise on issues that appeared to him to be at the center of the Right’s ideological commitments. The Third Republic has lasted from 1992, with the return to power of the center-left under Yitzhak Rabin, until 2001, with the recapturing of the government by the Right, this time under Ariel Sharon and

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then under his successor Ehud Olmert. The return of the center-left to power caused confusion, bewilderment, and even shell shock in the Israeli Right, further exacerbated by the historic Oslo Accords of 1993 in which the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization reached an agreement on mutual recognition. The agreement implied a two-state solution based on the partition of Eretz Israel, a complete negation of the Likud ideology (Peleg 1995a, 143–67; Friedgut 1995, 71–90; Rekhess 1995, 189–204). As expected, the Oslo process was violently rejected by the Right, although following the assassination of Rabin, the Right came around to accept Oslo, at least formally. While the Right was able to recapture the government between 1996 and 1999, it was deposed yet again in 1999 when the Israeli electorate endorsed a return to the negotiation table. In the Fourth Israeli Republic, emerging in 2001, the territorial dilemma of the Right came into full focus again. The capacity for realism toward, and compromise on, nonideological issues by that camp was marked by Sharon’s Right-led government’s 2005 withdrawal from not only parts of the Occupied Territories (that is, the entire Gaza Strip) but also from several more principled positions as well, such as the rejection of a Palestinian state. Yet, along with this growing realism of the Right, there was great reluctance on its part, and in effect refusal, to pursue a genuinely aggressive peace policy. This schematic classification of the Israeli regime reflects the problematique of the democratic peace theory. While democracy might be conducive to peace, it is greatly impacted by a variety of factors that have little to do with whether a country is democratic or not. In the case of Israel, among these factors are the overall character of the regime (referred to here as a “republic”), the fundamental ideological commitment of the ruling coalition (and especially the leading party), and the identity of the person or persons in a position to make decisions. While all of Israel’s four “republics” were fundamentally democratic, they pursued peace with dramatically different levels of vigor. Several of Israel’s “republics” were clearly constrained in the pursuit of their peace programs by the nature of the political coalitions on which they depended.

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Conceptualizing the Israeli Right In analyzing the Israeli Right, it is important to adopt the dynamic position described above, distinguishing between different eras of this camp’s development. The ideological position of the Right and its concrete policies can only be understood as part of the larger Israeli political milieu and developments within it. Methodologically speaking, the conceptualization of political camps in Israel as “Right” versus “Left,” while useful, is not without its inherent problems. The tradition in the West, particularly in Western Europe, has been to use the Right-Left distinction in order to mark the difference between those who take conservative views toward social and economic issues (thus supporting a free market economy and adopting traditional positions toward religion, family matters, etc.) as against those supporting the larger involvement of the government in economic matters, the establishment of extensive social programs, and, in general, adopting a liberal position on social matters. This primarily socio-economic Right-versus-Left distinction, popular in the modern West with its origins in the French revolution, does not apply particularly well to the Israeli case. In Israel, the distinction between Right and Left is much more political, although it might have some socioeconomic connotations or derivatives. Since the notion of the “Israel Right” is heavily used in the ongoing political discourse (sometimes as a loaded concept), it requires a precise and clear definition.2 Within the context of this article, the Israeli Right (and prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist Right) will be defined politically and not socioeconomically, emphasizing its territorial dilemma and its relationship to the democratic peace theory. The Israeli Right can be defined as a highly ideological, nationalist movement that has continuously emphasized, despite numerous changes in historical circumstances, the territorial dimension in the relations between Israeli Jews

2. For alternative attempts to define the “Right,” see Doron (2005) and Ben-Porat (2005).

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and Palestinian Arabs by calling for the maximal expansion of Israel while deemphasizing other dimensions. The centrality of the territorial dimension, and by extension the military dimension as sustaining territoriality, is the essence or the core of the right-wing position. It is important to view the “Right” not as a party or an organization, but as a “movement”, an ideology, and maybe even a state of mind.3 The centrality of this ideology in Israel’s domestic politics undermines, if not completely negates, some of the assumptions of the democratic peace theory; the nature of Israel as a democracy is, in the main, irrelevant for the positions taken by the nationalist Right. In historical terms, right-wing Zionist politics was born in the early 1920s when its supporters split from the rest of the Zionist movement over two fundamental issues: (a) how expansive the future Jewish state should be (that is, what territories should it include), and (b) whether a politicalterritorial compromise with the Arab inhabitants of Palestine, most likely in the form of partitioning the land, was politically possible or desirable in terms of Zionism’s fundamental goals.4 Those two dimensions of the right-wing political attitude could be best conceptualized as the Territorial Imperative (that is, the Right’s uncompromising emphasis on maximal territorial expansion as a core value of Zionism) and the Existential/ Essentialist Imperative (that is, the position of the Right that peace with the indigenous Arab population was extremely unlikely and that it was not particularly desirable) (Barzilai and Peleg 1994).

3. This view enables the analyst to include in the analysis of the “Right” such socialist parties as Achdut Ha’avoda, and such political forces as the post-1967 Greater Israel Movement, which included many individuals and groups traditionally classified as “Leftist.” 4. The specific territorial debate in 1922 was about the inclusion or exclusion of “Transjordan” or the east bank of the Jordan River in the areas to which the Balfour Declaration applied; while the majority of Zionists agreed to exclude Transjordan, the Right under Jabotinsky demanded its inclusion. Other issues were debated as well but they were more tactical in nature. For example, disagreements emerged over whether the Zionists should push for early statehood or deemphasize such a goal until they enjoyed a more favorable demographic situation.

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Since the 1920s, there has been an interesting, multidimensional tension in regard to both of these dimensions between the Right and the Left among Zionists, and later, among Israeli Jews. The Left has tended to take a significantly more moderate position on the territorial question, often endorsing, accepting and proposing “territorial compromise” in the form of partition5. Moreover, the Left has believed that a resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict is both politically possible and, normatively, highly desirable. The argument of this chapter is that this fundamental divergence of opinion between Right and Left still exists today and that it is likely to exist in the foreseeable future. In this light, for any external pressure on Likud prime ministers to be successful, it needs to be complemented with a significant ideological shift on the part of the Right. This argument implies that the fundamental character of Israel as a functioning democracy is less important than the ideological stance of its leading coalition. From a large-scale historical perspective, it is important to note that both the territorial and the essentialist imperatives have been successfully sustained by the Right since 1922, albeit not without serious internal challenges and even substantial revisions. These imperatives have consistently distinguished the “Right” from other political camps within Israel and the Zionist movement. The so-called “Right” has evolved as a coherent ideological movement within Zionism due to the political leadership and intellectual creativity of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky (1880–1940). A fiery orator, a prolific writer and a multi-lingual intellectual, Jabotinsky developed a brand of Zionism that became known as “Revisionism” during the 1920s and 1930s. His nationalist, heavily territorialist philosophy was later radicalized by his self-described disciple Menachem Begin (1913–92). A commander of the military underground Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), Begin developed a somewhat more radical version of Revisionism, a

5. The most notable “watersheds” in this regard are the divergent reactions to the Peel proposal of 1937 and to the United Nations Partition Resolution in 1947, as well as the overall policy positions after 1967, and the divergent responses to the 1993 Oslo peace process.

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belief system that might be called Neo-Revisionism.6 Future leaders of the Israeli Right, including prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu adopted most of the elements of that radical ideology. In fact, it might be persuasively argued that the majority of ministers in the Israeli government formed in 2009, and headed by Netanyahu and including his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, were closer in their attitude to Begin than to Jabotinsky. Since the definition of the “Right” offered in this chapter is essentially ideological (rather than behavioral or sociological), I turn in the next section to the ideological dimension. Later I will discuss the political behavior of the Right and then try to link the ideological to the behavioral. The Ideology of the Right What have been the key ideological elements of the Israeli Right, the attitudinal “glue” that has held this camp together despite dramatic changes in the circumstances facing the Zionist movement and then the State of Israel? I see seven main elements that have defined the Right, none related directly to the quality of Israel’s democracy or having immediate bearing on the democratic peace theory: 1. Working toward maximal territorial control of Israel as a primary goal and in relative disregard (or at least de-emphasis) of other factors, including the establishment of peace with the Arabs. Three alternative arguments have been offered by right-wing spokesmen on behalf of Israeli territorial expansion: (A) Shlemut ha’moledet, or the historic rights of the Jewish people to all of Eretz Israel;7 (B)

6. For detailed development of this idea, see Peleg (1987). 7. “Shlemut Ha’Moledet” translates into the “motherland’s wholeness,” with the implication that any sharing or division of the land undermines its integrity. Ironically, the “historic” boundaries of Eretz Israel have been changing throughout history, and in regard to many periods there are no clearly determined boundaries. Be that as it may, the Right has always assumed that Israel will be, or is entitled to, all the territory ever controlled historically by Jews, including large areas east of the Jordan River.

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Kdushat ha’aretz, or the holiness of the land as a Jewish patrimony;8 and (C) security requirements, often expressed as a demand for “defensible borders” against Israel’s enemies. Jabotinsky, the founding father of the Zionist Right, emphasized the first argument. Religious circles in Israel have promoted the second argument, while secular nationalists today dwell on the third argument. The Israeli “settlement project,” large-scale settlement of Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza, gained momentum especially after 1977 when the Right achieved political control over a coalition government for the first time. This trend has reflected the Right’s “Territorial Imperative” (Barzilai and Peleg 1994). By contrast, the more hesitant, limited nature of the settlement project between 1967 and 1977 reflected the ideology of the center-left that tended to mix security considerations with other goals (including immediate political considerations). 2. Perceiving the outside, non-Jewish world as fundamentally and inalterably hostile to Jews and Israel, and even being involved actively in efforts to harm Israel. This position has been adopted despite the considerable support and sympathy toward Zionism and Israel, particularly in the West.9 The persistence of this element among rightists shows that Herzl failed to convince them insofar as his “normalization” program was concerned. This ideological element has become much more prominent in the post-Holocaust thought of Menachem Begin and his successors, for example Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu, than in the writings and speeches of the more cosmopolitan, pre-Holocaust Jabotinsky. 3. Viewing the power of the nation as the supreme political value, a measure of all things, to the exclusion of other values, including that of promoting peace. In this respect, the Right has been nationalist

8. The religious “principle” promoted has been that God has given the land to Abraham and to his children, as stated in the Bible. 9. Interestingly, Jabotinsky himself saw the non-Jewish world in a substantially more positive light than most of his successors, particularly Prime Ministers Begin and Shamir.

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to its very core and the nationalist idea ought to be regarded as its true “essentialist imperative.” For many in the Right, Israel should not necessarily be “Jewish and democratic,” only—or at least primarily—Jewish. A pronounced emphasis on power, especially in its military form, as the sole, or at least the primary instrument in the relations between nations.10 This is an extreme form of crude Machtpolitik, which dwells on hard power and dismisses soft power11. While the Zionist Left had always expressed reservations over the use of force (Shapira 1992), such hesitations have hardly ever been found on the Right. The Right has been at ease with its Machiavellian, Clausewitzian, Hobbesian notion of the use of force as an inevitable, necessary, and justified extension of politics. Describing Israel’s opponents as irreconcilable, relentless enemies by using powerful historical terminologies. These include references to Amalek (the Biblical tribe pursuing the Israelites in the desert) or Ishmael. Those opponents are routinely described as what I have called “the ultimate other” (Peleg 2004, 258–80; 1994, 227–48). Condemning internal opponents—mostly Israeli Jews who might describe themselves as “moderate Zionists”—as traitors to the Jewish cause. The Right rejects those Israelis who actively pursue compromise solutions with Israel’s Arab adversaries; it tends to view them as unpatriotic, naïve, disloyal, and self-hating Jews. Disrespecting international law and accepted norms of international behavior in the pursuit of what is perceived as the national interest. This attitude has resulted over the last decades in an unrestrained settlement policy in the West Bank and Gaza, and the frequent and excessive use of force.

10. In emphasizing power, and especially military power, all “brands” of the Zionist Right have followed Jabotinsky, but it is important to note that while the founding father of Revisionism lacked the capability of implementing his ideas, some of his successors had such capability. 11. For the fundamental distinction between different types of power in international relations, see Nye (2004).

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In the interest of a balanced view, it needs to be emphasized that the characteristics identified here as typical of the Israeli Right could easily be found also among many in the Arab world and among the Palestinians (and others)—territorialism, nationalism, hostility toward the outside world, militarism, and a non-compromising attitude. The notion of the “mirror image” is tailor made for the Middle East and especially ArabJewish relations (Scham and Abu-Irshaid 2009). In terms of the democratic peace theory, it is important to emphasize that the prominence of the Right’s multifaceted ideology, and its relative stability, indicates that the assumptions of DPT are unhelpful in understanding the Right, its motivations, or its behavior. The Right as a Political Actor My thesis in regard to the political behavior of the Zionist Right, and then the Israeli Right, has several components. First, armed with its nationalist ideology, the Israeli Right has shown for many years little or no appetite for political, and therefore territorial, compromise with the Arabs. Since the early 1920s it appealed to the more radical elements in the Zionist movement and has routinely, even reflexively, taken a hard line, territorialist position at every important historical juncture. This hard line was reflected in the Right’s position toward the 1937 Peel proposal (proposing for the first time the partitioning of the land between Arabs and Jews), toward the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan (Resolution 181), and toward the post-1967 debate over the future of the Occupied Territories. This consistent policy was neither affected by the integration of the Zionist Right into Israel’s democratic system, nor by the country’s policies on issues of war and peace. Secondly, this non-compromising tendency was particularly strong as long as the Right was in opposition within the Zionist movement (that is between 1922 and 1948) and in opposition within the Israeli Knesset (1949–77). Thus, the Herut movement under Menachem Begin adopted a hard line on all issues of foreign and security policy during the pre-1967 period (1948–67) and the Likud continued to adopt such a line when it was in opposition in the post-1967 era (1967–77 under Begin, 1992–95

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under Netanyahu, and again in 1999–2001). When out of power, Likud has presented a remarkably consistent ideological line. The Likud, and the Right in general, has been vocally opposed to any partition of Eretz Israel and has tended to adopt the nationalist, territorialist formulae developed by Jabotinsky in the 1920s and 1930s, often by quoting directly from the writings of the Right’s legendary founding father. After the ascendance of the Right to power under Begin (1977), the occupied West Bank became routinely known as, and officially referred to by the Israeli government as “Judea and Samaria.” Moreover, the settlement project was energized and much expanded under the Likud, becoming in effect the very center of the country’s national policy. In terms of location of settlements, security considerations became secondary; the goal has become an eventual annexation of the territories. The ideological belief system of the Right, a highly developed attitudinal paradigm, included such ideas as solving by force of arms the seminal Zionist dilemma, the opposition of the Arabs to Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel. By building an “iron wall” as a protective shield against the Arabs (Lustick 1996, 196–223), the granting of “autonomy” to the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza under the first Begin government in 1979 (a proposal that was doomed to fail) (Peleg 1987, ch. 4), and other such ideas that were uncompromising to the extreme, the Right has always taken the most radical, nationalist position available on the spectrum of options. Thirdly, while in power, the Right has demonstrated much less ideological consistency than it has while in opposition. Power tended to moderate the Right, although it never turned it into a genuinely moderate political force. The fiercely ideological Begin, for example, signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, leading not merely to Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai (to which he did not have an ideological commitment), but also to accepting the ambiguous status of the West Bank, a hugely significant ideological concession from Begin’s perspective. So, while for Begin the Sinai withdrawal was merely a tactical retreat designed to fortify and maintain Israel’s territorial control of “Judea and Samaria,” in reality Begin could not maintain the purity of his views toward those sacred regions of Eretz Israel. Many people were surprised that Begin did not annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip upon becoming Israel’s prime minister. The

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1978 Camp David Accords were essentially a befitting continuation to the “realist” position taken by Likud’s leader upon assuming power. Netanyahu behaved quite similarly while in power (although less consistently than either of his predecessors, Begin and Shamir). Netanyahu’s first prime ministership (1996–99) reveals the ideological dilemma of the Right in all of its complexity. Under enormous pressure from the international community to offer a meaningful compromise (and especially pressure from the United States under President Clinton), Netanyahu approved several tactical retreats and redeployments. These retreats reveal his inability to strictly maintain the Right’s ideological commitments intact, not his commitment to peace with the Palestinians or his responsiveness to Israel’s democracy. Following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Hebron, Netanyahu eventually signed the Wye Plantation Agreement in 1998, approving the withdrawal of Israeli forces from 13 percent of the West Bank. This “concession” led eventually to the fall of the Netanyahu government (Dowty 2008, 151–52). It is important to remember that despite his willingness to “compromise,” Netanyahu resisted a final, permanent deal that would have required Israeli withdrawal from all (or at least most of) the West Bank and Gaza. Even Netanyahu’s limited compromise position proved too much for the ideological Right; his government fell and the center-left returned to power. In reviewing the right-wing “compromises” by Begin and Netanyahu, but also Shamir’s agreement to join the Madrid conference in 1991, it is essential to realize that those compromises were steps designed to keep the “Territorial Imperative”—maximal territorial expansion in historic Eretz Israel—as pure as possible. They were not moves toward a pragmatic, negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor were they reflective of Israel’s democratic nature. It is interesting to note in this context that a group of politicians that might be identified as nonideological rightists by their background (like Ariel Sharon, prime minister between 2001 and 2005, and possibly Ehud Olmert, prime minister between 2005 and 2009), found it easier to adopt significantly more compromising positions and launch more dramatic departures from old-style policies than did their counterparts with more traditional right-wing backgrounds (for example, Menachem

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Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Benjamin Netanyahu). The hitnatkut policy under Sharon and the hitkansut policy under Olmert are good examples of the differences between the hard-core right-wing policies of Begin and Shamir and the softer positions of Sharon and Olmert (Newman 2005). Sharon, who was raised in a Mapai (Labor) family, initiated the policy of hitnatkut (often translated into English as “disengagement”) in which Israel withdrew its forces from the entire Gaza Strip unilaterally, that is, with no agreement with the Palestinians and with a substantial risk of causing a major rift among Israeli Jews and generating strong opposition from Israeli rightists. His successor, Ehud Olmert, continued by endorsing a policy of hitkansut (a concept that is best translated into English as “convergence,” “consolidation,” or “in-gathering”). While the Second Lebanon War (2006) preempted the possibility of implementing hitkansut, Olmert, just like his predecessor and political partner, Sharon, believed that the dream of Greater Israel was beyond implementation and that Israel must act decisively in order to withdraw from the vast majority of the Occupied Territories. The policies of both Sharon and Olmert reflect the victory of realism over ideological principles, not the impact of Israel’s democracy. The Future In view of the general volatility of the Middle East, including that of the Israeli political system, it is difficult to predict with any measure of confidence what the future holds for the Israeli Right. But, the hypothesis might be raised that in order to bring about a real change in the actual behavior of right-wing elements in Israel, including right-wing governments (that is, not merely declaratory changes in the long-held positions of the Right), especially in the direction of territorial compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a combination of at least three factors is required. First, decisive international, and especially American, involvement in what is often called the “peace process,” including the personal engagement of the president of the United States, is needed. This should be backed up by the willingness of the United States to give specific American security guarantees to a final settlement. Second, there must be a conviction on the part of Israel’s political elite, or at least most of its

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members, that a change in the relations with the Arabs, and particularly the Palestinians, that includes significant Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 will clearly improve Israel’s overall strategic situation. Examples from the past that have indeed improved Israel’s situation include getting Egypt out of the Arab military alliance as a result of Camp David I in 1978 and the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. Lastly, there needs to emerge a Palestinian partner that most Israelis believe they can trust in carrying out its obligations under whatever agreement is reached. The agreements between Israel and Egypt, as well as Israel and Syria after the 1973 war and the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty (1994) are all good examples of Israeli negotiations succeeding by working with perceived reliable Arab partners. In this context it is important to note that Hamas continues to be distrusted by a majority of Israelis. What does this analysis mean for the future of the Israeli Right? If history is a guide to the future (and it is, at best, an imperfect if not entirely treacherous guide), Netanyahu in his third premiership will most likely demonstrate a similar pattern to the one he exhibited during his first two terms as prime minister, although this time with greater sophistication and finesse. More specifically, he will try, as a strategic goal, to hold onto as much territory as possible. This right-wing principle, the very essence of its being, has been the Right’s raison d’être for the last ninety years. If forced to negotiate, Netanyahu would rather talk about an interim solution than about a permanent solution, get involved in “proximity talks” about peripheral issues rather than comprehensive talks about the core issues, promote preliminary rather than final talks, and so forth. Those tactical maneuvers must be understood as part of a larger, strategic plan. In order to move the Netanyahu coalition at all, the United States will need to be totally engaged, including via the guaranteeing of any deal and with the personal attention of the president. Netanyahu will need to demonstrate to the Israeli public that any deal (particularly a territorial deal that boils down to significant withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967) is demonstrably, significantly, and measurably better than a no-deal. To move toward a negotiated settlement, Netanyahu will need a reasonably reliable Palestinian partner, one that can both negotiate and implement a comprehensive settlement with Israel. However, even under the

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best of circumstances, if Netanyahu decides to seriously negotiate with the Palestinians, he can expect major political earthquakes within the Likud and within his governmental coalition, as happened when he signed the Wye Agreement in 1998. Unfortunately, the chances that all of these factors will come together soon, in order to produce real change in the direction of a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian settlement, are slim. Right-wing Israeli governments are likely to move toward such a settlement if, and only if, there is an overwhelmingly convincing constellation of forces that makes their own intransigence utterly irrational and clearly damaging to the long-term future of the state. The policies adopted by the Netanyahu government to date point out the genuine political difficulties of the Israeli premier. Despite the enormous pressures to maintain the “ideological purity” of Greater Israel, Netanyahu has been seeking political readjustments, responding to equally powerful, international, and particularly American pressures. For example, Netanyahu’s by-now famous “Bar-Ilan speech,” an address in which he publicly accepted the two-state solution, deviated significantly from the nationalist, territorialist vision of the Right while, at the same time, expressed his reluctance to come to terms with the politically inevitable. Thus, in this speech and in other more recent statements, Netanyahu conditioned the establishment of a Palestinian state by its acceptance of Israel as a “Jewish state,” the non-division of Jerusalem, and the complete demilitarization of Palestine.12 Moreover, in some of his recent speeches, Netanyahu referred to the right of the Palestinians to “govern themselves,” a formula that sounds eerily similar to Begin’s illfated plan for Palestinian autonomy in 1977–79.13 This chapter has offered a distinction between a “territorial” and an “existential” imperative in understanding the essence of the Israeli,

12. Although the Israeli side may raise those conditions in future negotiations, none of these are likely to be accepted by the Palestinians. Nor will they receive substantial support from others, including the US government. 13. It is unlikely that the Palestinians will agree to anything that could be construed as “restricted sovereignty.”

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Jewish, and Zionist Right. In terms of the future of the protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, conflict resolution will occur if, and only if, both parties can transition from “existential imperatives,” or goals, to “territorial” ones. To have a resolution of this 130-year-old conflict, the Palestinians have to give up the long-held right of return, an existential goal for many since 1948. If “Palestinianism” itself is defined as a “return,” then there is no peaceful resolution to this conflict in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, in this fundamentally “mirror-image” situation, the Israeli Right has to give up the strategic goal of establishing a Greater Israel. This goal is as existential as it is territorial and it has defined the Right for roughly ninety years. Put differently and in more general terms, while territorial conflicts are solvable, existential conflicts are not. Peace depends on both sides understanding this fundamental truth Although it is difficult to know Netanyahu’s thinking, in the current negotiations he could be expected to be considerably less generous than Labor, a party that has been committed to territorial compromise since 1937. A “tough” line will be compatible with Netanyahu’s ideology, personality, and political needs. On the other hand, it is important to remember that most right-wing Israeli prime ministers have campaigned from the Right but have governed from the center. Begin, Netanyahu in his first term, Sharon, and Olmert have followed this line; only Shamir was truly consistent in his right-wing position. As in the past, in the near future the best combination for successful Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking may be right-wing Israeli prime ministers and Democratic American Presidents, a constellation that could be called the “Begin-Carter Syndrome.” Theoretical Analysis: Israel and the Democratic Peace This chapter has examined the behavior of the Israeli Right, focusing particularly on the tension between its pronounced, highly developed ideology and the political pressures applied to it (especially once in power). While ideational factors do not determine exclusively the political behavior of

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different actors, in the case of the Israeli Right (or the Zionist Right prior to the establishment of Israel), they seem to have great, long-term significance, as demonstrated in this chapter. The democratic peace idea has some limited and specific relevance for the case of the Right and its position toward peace with the Arabs and Palestinians. While there can be no question that the actions of all Israeli governments, including right-wing governments, have been greatly impacted by the essence of Israeli society as a democracy, there is no evidence that Israel’s democratic institutions, in and of themselves, led the country toward peace with the Arab states in general, or the Palestinians in particular. Thus, for example, the desire of the majority of Israelis to reach a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians has impacted several right-wing governments (e.g., Begin’s government in 1978–79 and Netanyahu’s government in 1998). Yet, there is no evidence that the specific positions taken by those governments while engaged in negotiations were determined by the democratic character of the Israeli polity. The proposition that “democracy leads to peace” is not borne out by an examination of the behavior of right-wing Israeli governments since 1977. The analysis offered in this chapter indicates that the ideological inclinations of Israeli governments are much more important as determinants of these governments’ political behavior than the existence of a vibrant Israeli democratic culture. Ideology seems more important than democracy. This chapter demonstrates that it is particularly important to take a dynamic view toward ideology, that is, to realize that ideologies are not constant but evolving entities, both in and of themselves and in relation to the character of the regimes within which they operate. To fully capture this reality, this chapter offered an analysis of the Israeli Right from the perspective of different Israeli “republics.” It is important to note within this context that despite the political changes within Israel, the character of the Right as a fundamentally nationalist-territorialist camp has not changed. This theoretically-based conclusion has, of course, important implications for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

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Agency and Leadership

7 Predicting Peace The Contingent Nature of Leadership and Domestic Politics in Israel Yael S. Aronoff

C H A P T E R S I N T H I S B O O K persuasively show that the democratic peace theory cannot, in a deterministic fashion, show that democracies have only a positive influence on peace processes; these scholars have done so by exploring how Israeli democracy has produced an almost two-decade-long peace process with the Palestinians that has, as of yet, not succeeded in reaching a final peace agreement.1 The following chapter supports the idea of qualifying the democratic peace theory, in that, in the course of my argument, I will address several conditions that might frustrate a democracy’s tendency to promote peace. THE

1. Proponents of the democratic peace theory could argue that this theory is not meant to explain how Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) could have reached a peace agreement in the past two decades, since it focuses on maintaining an existing peace between two established democracies. Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 by military coup and proceeded to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians, and since the PA only controls parts of the West Bank and has delayed its own scheduled elections, Palestinian democratic institutions are still relatively weak, and an actual state has not yet been established. The theory also tends to focus on preventing wars from breaking out between countries that are already at peace. However, this book persuasively shows that the democratic peace theory should still be able to explain how democratic institutions and political cultures facilitate, rather than obstruct, peace agreements.

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For example, I will show that democratically elected hard-line leaders can impede the peace process. I also address some of the potential problems inherent in a parliamentary democracy—specifically, the fact that democratic coalitions can at times be based on even a single rejectionist party, which can impede progress toward peace. Relatedly, parliamentary democracies tend to change governments more rapidly, since coalition partners can bolt the coalition at any time. In Israel, recent governments have rarely lasted their entire term. This means—in the Israeli case, and perhaps in parliamentary systems more generally—that there is little consistency among governments concerning their positions on concessions, that peace negotiations are often aborted by the prospect of another election, and that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders might calculate to put off signing a peace agreement in the immediate term because they can bet on trying to get an even better deal with the next Palestinian or Israeli leader respectively, or the next elected leader of a superpower who will be mediating the peace. However, just as this chapter qualifies the optimism of the democratic peace theory, it also points out that the obstacles analyzed do not make a peace agreement impossible. Rather, it suggests that leaders often have some freedom in forming a coalition that can be more conducive toward peace, and that it is often their own individual mistakes that contribute to the stalling of a peace process—perhaps even more than coalitional constraints. Three of the leaders analyzed in this chapter were elected on the basis of urgently pursuing peace, and they have made significant progress toward narrowing the gaps toward reaching an agreement. Therefore it would be false to characterize the peace process as a failure. Thus, in this chapter I argue that the processes by which democracies make (or do not make) peace are more contingent on individual leaders, and their psychology and political culture, than either the democratic peace theory, or the other dominant international relations (IR) theories, would suggest. Instead, I argue that a political psychological approach is best suited for evaluating the probability of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Among other things, the political psychology advantage derives from moving beyond international and regional structural contingencies, and from incorporating the mediating impact of domestic variables,

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including identity questions as well as political leaders and their perceptions and ideological commitments. Scholars often use theory retrospectively to understand what has already happened; those studying international relations have focused on the question of why wars have broken out. However, they rarely use theory to predict what will happen. Moreover, if IR theory has been unwilling to predict the outbreak of wars, it has been even less concerned with predicting peace. International relations scholars failed to predict the timing and nature of the end of the Cold War. They also failed to predict the Oslo Agreement for mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993, which paved the way for a peace process. Yet, while few people predicted the Oslo Accords beforehand, in hindsight scholars claimed that it was overdetermined by structural causes such as the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War (Weber 1997). As was the case before the Oslo Accords were announced, today pundits and scholars alike, including several contributors to this volume, are extremely pessimistic about the prospects for a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But are we, like scholars just before the Oslo negotiations, missing something? As Robert Jervis (1997) persuasively shows in his book Systems Effects, and Richard Ned Lebow (2010) convincingly argues in his book Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations, theories are not determinative when it comes to predictions emanating from their assumptions. This essay reaches similar conclusions. As in 1993, international and regional structural changes favor reaching an agreement. However, as then, different leaders perceive the structure and its implications differently, so that agreement is also contingent on which leader is in power. The contingent nature of these factors do not allow for any deterministic predictions regarding the timing of an agreement. However, despite the pessimistic atmosphere in which many bemoan the death of Oslo, and even of the viability of the two-state solution itself, there are several dynamics in play that create a ray of hope amidst formidable obstacles. Over ten years ago a set of prominent IR scholars made the rare effort to determine the probability of achieving a two-state solution. According to their own account, these scholars began with a consensus about its inevitability, but as the discussion unfolded, they grew to believe the two-state

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solution was contingent on several factors: liberalizing coalitions prevailing on both sides; preferences in favor of this outcome remaining stable; the United States supporting the outcome; and the continued stability of regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan (Weber 1997). The authors of the study found that secondary drivers were external regional actors, global economic conditions, and third-party diplomacy, but concluded that “it is striking that, despite the difference in theoretical perspectives, there is a shared emphasis on the importance of domestic factors: the nature of governing coalitions, political leadership on both sides, and political stability” (Stein et al. 1998, 197, 201). Today, it is evident that there are also certain regional and structural conditions that are conducive to reaching a peace agreement, but whether, how, and when peace will be achieved still depends on contingencies addressed by the political psychological approach. To demonstrate the validity of this claim, in this chapter I will employ realist, liberal, constructivist, and political psychological frameworks, exploring what predictions each approach might offer to help us assess the probability of reaching an agreement in the next few years. Realism Optimistic Conditions Realist theory, based on the assumption that countries will balance against the most threatening power in order to ensure their own survival, suggests that the regional environment is largely conducive to Israeli-Palestinian peace. Israel, the more powerful actor in the conflict dyad, shares an interest with its main ally, the United States, to balance the rising power of Iran. It was partly this desire that caused Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to sign the Oslo Accords in the first place (Aronoff 2001 and 2009; Inbar 1999). He thought that making peace with Israel’s lesser enemy at its borders would strengthen Israel’s capacity to face its greater threats emanating from Iraq and Iran, and would prevent neighboring countries (including an eventual Palestinian state) from becoming an Iranian base.

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Realists might argue that the attendance of so many Arab League countries at the Annapolis summit in November 2007, their repeated support for the 2002 Saudi peace plan, and the support expressed by most members of the Arab League during their April 2010 meeting for starting indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, was due in part to their common concern, as that of the United States and Israel, for balancing Iran’s growing power and assertiveness. Iran poses a particular threat through its suspected intention to develop nuclear weapons, its increased relative power in the aftermath of the Iraq War, and its rhetoric concerning the destruction of Israel. Many Sunni states want to balance a growing Shi’ite power. The Israeli President Shimon Peres appealed to this concern by publicly claiming that one reason for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians was to show the Sunnis of the Middle East that they need not be dominated by Iran: “Some of the Arab intellectuals have told me: You are worried about Iran. We are worried about Iran more than you. You can stand your ground. But Iran is the greatest danger for us—not because of their bombs or their long-range missiles, but because of their ambitions” (Burston 2008). Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal told a meeting of the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on March 3, 2009 that Arabs should stand up to Iran’s ambitions in the region, including its nuclear program, and that non-Arab countries such as Iran should not interfere in Iraq, in Lebanon, or the Palestinian Territories (Associated Press 2009). Several Arab leaders condemned Hezbollah’s provocation at the outset of the 2006 war with Israel because they viewed it as a proxy of Iran. Morocco severed ties with Iran accusing it of intolerable interference and of trying to spread Shi’ite Islam in Morocco. The leaders of Egypt and Syria visited Saudi Arabia in an effort to distance Syria from Iran. Saudi Arabia again called for a unified vision in dealing with the Iranian challenge (Gazzar 2009). And in November 2009, Saudi Arabia sent warplanes to bomb Houthis positions in neighboring Yemen, accusing Iran of supporting the Houthis (who represent a branch of Shi’ite Islam) fighting against the national army of Yemen (Hiltermann 2009). US cables leaked in November 2011 show the extent of regional anxiety over Iran’s growing power. Saudi King Abdullah repeatedly called

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on the United States to attack Iran and “cut off the head of the snake” (Jerusalem Post 2010). King Hamad of Bahrain argued that the danger of letting Iran’s nuclear ambitions continue was greater than the danger of stopping it, the United Arab Emirates deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed, compared Iranian President Ahamadinejad to Adolf Hitler and argued that the United States needed to take actions against Iran. Saad Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, said that Iraq was unnecessary while Iran is necessary (Sanger, Glanz, and Becker 2010). Finally, the Saudi King sent 1,000 of his troops in March 2011 to Bahrain to strengthen its Sunni-controlled government in the face of demonstrations for democracy among Bahrain’s majority Shi’ite population for fear that a Shi’ite controlled government would come under the influence of Iran. Balancing Iran was not only a significant motive for President Bush in hosting the Annapolis conference, but President Obama has declared that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will diminish Iranian influence in the region. Scholars a decade ago in fact predicted that a two-state solution was more likely if shifts in the regional distribution of power were perceived to pose an existential threat to Israel, such as Iran having a credible weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) capability (Stein et al. 1998). It is indeed the concern that Iran will develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons that has galvanized the international community to try to engage in diplomacy, impose harsh sanctions, and for some countries, to leave military options on the table as a last resort. The United States is also interested in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of a strategy to counter international terrorism. The Iraq Study Group argued that reviving the peace process will strengthen moderates in the region, revive US influence, and stabilize Iraq (Kurtzer and Lasensky 2008). The cooperation of moderate regimes could be used to gather intelligence useful to combating terror. Under this calculus, realist theory might suggest that a peace agreement is possible, since the regimes of the countries discussed above have a mutual interest in balancing Iran and preventing threats to their own regimes in the region.

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Pessimistic Conditions Rather than predicting that states such as Israel and those of the Arab League will seek to balance against Iran, some realists argue that these countries will want to balance against a greater power: the United States. Under the same logic, Iran will try to balance the United States and Israel, in part by spoiling any peace process through its support of Hamas and Hezbollah. US National Security Adviser James Jones warned that Iran may respond to further sanctions with an attack on Israel through Hezbollah and Hamas (Harel 2010). Israel found anti-ship missiles and mortar shells originating from Iran on board the ship Victoria, which were headed to Egypt to be smuggled through tunnels to Hamas in Gaza (Katz 2011). Finally, realism could predict that the United States and Israel will try to balance Iran, but that they will do so through attacking Iran, rather than through prioritizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thinks that the Iranian threat, which he perceives as existential, must first be removed, and that this will in turn improve conditions for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, as Hamas would be weakened. If the United States and Israel try to balance Iran by attacking, the peace process will come to a halt. Hamas and Hezbollah will likely attack Israel, as might Iran itself, and many Arab League members will turn their backs on the peace process. Therefore, realism does not make specific foreign policy predictions in regard to reaching Israeli-Palestinian peace (Elman 1996).2 The tactics by which countries balance each other are not pre-determined by the theory’s assumptions. Israel and the United States could decide to balance Iran by attacking it, as opposed to pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Likewise, balance of power assumptions predict that Iran will continue to try to thwart the peace process. Although the theory is ultimately indeterminate in predicting Israeli-Palestinian peace, one could argue that in

2. Colin Elman (1996) argues that certain realist theories, if specified to a greater degree, might be able to better predict particular foreign policy decisions.

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the long run more would be accomplished to balance Iran by reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement than by attacking. Reaching an agreement would decrease the power of Hamas and Hezbollah, pave the way for an Israeli-Syrian peace, and empower states that already have peace agreements with Israel (i.e., Egypt and Jordan), or would end the state of war with Israel once an Israeli-Palestinian agreement had been forged. In contrast, attacking Iran would likely only delay Iran’s nuclear aspirations, is militarily risky, and would be politically costly. Liberalism Optimistic Conditions Like realism, liberalism also cannot determine whether and when there will be a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. However, liberal assumptions point to three areas of optimism. First, the liberal institutional argument would suggest that the greater involvement of the United Nations and the European Union, as part of the Quartet with the United States and Russia, should signal greater opportunities for cooperation, since international and regional institutions can build long term relationships in which countries are more likely to forego some immediate relative gains for future benefits, and because of the transparency provided by interactions through these institutions. There is widespread international recognition that there are mutual interests in a two-state solution. Second, aspects of the liberal economic argument would suggest that increased economic development in the West Bank and joint economic ventures with Israel may deter violence due to the costs of violence to continued economic growth. Since the Hamas coup in Gaza, international funding is being channeled primarily to the West Bank, which has legitimized Fatah. Tony Blair and the donor conference pledged over $7 billion, and the president of the World Bank and managing director of the IMF were in attendance at Annapolis. Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad is effectively building the economy and presented a budget for 2010 that included 7 percent GDP growth (Khatib 2010). Four and

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a half billion US dollars was pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead (this has been impeded primarily by Israel, but also by other countries that are concerned that Hamas will take the credit for the reconstruction). It is estimated that tens of billions of dollars would be part of a refugee compensation program in an agreement. Finally, Track II negotiations are occurring, with tacit support from the respective governments, laying the groundwork for economic relations between Israel and a future Palestinian state (Hellman 2008). Third, Israel is a democracy, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an emerging democracy. Liberal assumptions, as discussed in the introduction to this book, hold that joint democracies will be more likely to cooperate due to both institutional checks and balances, as well as shared democratic norms. However, despite the democratic obstacles presented in this book, Israeli democracy can still be a catalyst for peace as public opinion favors a peace agreement. The Israeli public has voted for several prime ministers (Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert) who made substantial progress toward reaching an agreement, and Tzipi Livni received the most votes in 2009 precisely because of her mandate to try to reach a peace agreement. Both the Israeli government and the PA government would allow a peace agreement to be put to a referendum, which would likely be approved by the majority of both populations. There is a growing recognition in Israel that demographic trends necessitate a choice between democracy and retaining control of the Occupied Territories. Polls among Israelis and Palestinians over the last seventeen years have consistently shown, even through bloody cycles of violence, that both publics want a two-state agreement. In addition, the prospect of elections or the need to improve low public approval can influence leaders to pursue negotiations. For instance, before Annapolis, former President George W. Bush, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Palestinian President Abu Mazen were all suffering declining popularity, hampering the chances for electoral success for either themselves or their parties. The need to show a foreign policy success, or at least demonstrate diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, played a role in each leader’s decision to participate in the Annapolis peace process.

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Pessimistic Conditions Despite the liberal conclusion that democracies do not fight each other, some scholars have argued that democratizing countries are indeed more likely to fight (Mansfield and Snyder 1995). Democratizing countries may lack strong institutions, a free press with a history of responsible reporting, or a monopoly on the use of force. Transitions to democracy can also increase the probability of nationalist leaders gaining power. The democratizing process in Palestine, which had already been hampered by weak institutions with incomplete separation of powers and no monopoly on the use of force, has taken a turn for the worse with Hamas’s military coup in Gaza in June 2007 and the establishment of an emergency Fatah government in the West Bank. On the one hand, Hamas’s official rejection of the two-state solution and its rejection of PA proximity talks with Israel starting in May 2010 have made the PA in the West Bank more able to compromise with Israel. On the other hand, the continued rocket attacks since Israel’s troop withdrawal and evacuation of all 8,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005, Israel’s reaction with Operation Cast Lead, and the lack of a single centralized Palestinian government, has led to greater pessimism about reaching and implementing an agreement. There have been repeated recent attempts at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, but reunification and elections have been repeatedly delayed. In addition, one might argue that Israel’s parliamentary democracy inhibits the possibility of broader concessions and allows continued settlement activity, as ruling coalitions often necessitate the inclusion of religious parties or other right-wing parties. This is persuasively argued by Hendrik Spruyt in his chapter for this volume. Construction in Israeli settlements doubled throughout the peace process that started in 1993, contributing to a spoiling of the process (Shragai 2008c). Furthermore, in the recent past, prime ministers and their governments have rarely lasted through their terms, and repeatedly, governments have collapsed and new elections are held. This has hampered any government’s ability to reach an agreement and has led to zigzagging among policies between governments. Dr. Shlomo Ben Ami, Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s chief negotiator at Camp David, argues that “The Israeli political system makes it

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impossible to take historic decisions. On the way to Camp David Shas left us, and on the way back Mafdal left us” (Ben Ami 2007). Miriam Elman elaborates, in her chapter, on how Shas has used the threat of coalition collapse to prevent dividing Jerusalem. This demand contributed to Tzipi Livni’s inability to form a coalition in 2009 since she intended to put Jerusalem on the negotiating table. Democracy can also impede peace when leaders decide to not continue negotiating and sign a peace agreement, as they gamble that they might get an even better peace agreement if the next election will bring a leader who will make more concessions, or that their partner is a lame duck who might not be able to implement the terms of a peace deal. One of the reasons Yasser Arafat did not sign onto some concessions his negotiators were willing to make at the Taba negotiations in January 2001 was that he thought he would wait until President Bush was elected; he expected the new president to exert greater pressure on Israel as his father had done. By the time former US President Bill Clinton mediated Camp David II in 2000, he had already lost much political capital, as had President Bush by the time he organized the Annapolis meeting in 2007. This also negatively impacted the negotiations. Therefore, the prospect of upcoming elections can deter parties from reaching a peace agreement, as a better deal may be found with the next democratically elected partner or mediator. Arguably, PA President Mahmoud Abbas was making progress in his negotiations with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008, as was revealed in the leaked Palestinian papers in February 2011, but gambled that he might get a better deal if he waited for the next US elections. If Barack Obama was elected, the expectation was that he would exert greater pressure on Israel to make even more concessions. Abu Mazen may have also expected the next Israeli leader to be able to make more concessions than Ehud Olmert, who was already a lame duck. Of course, the main reason Abu Mazen decided not to negotiate during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s first three years in office was that he knew that he would not get as good a deal under Netanyahu as he did under Olmert in 2008. This is why he did not negotiate for nine out of ten months, during which West Bank settlement growth was frozen.

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Finally, liberal theory might predict that Gaza’s isolation and economic devastation will hamper efforts at cooperation. The desire to isolate Gaza, and contrast a prosperous Fatah-controlled West Bank with an increasingly impoverished Hamas-controlled Gaza, can backfire. To be sure, support for Hamas has declined in recent years. In October 2009, a poll showed that 52 percent of Palestinians would support President Mahmoud Abbas in an election, while only 14 percent said they would vote for Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh. And a 2010 survey found Fatah to be 33 percent more popular than Hamas. However, this does not mean that Palestinians in Gaza are necessarily more willing to make significant compromises to reach a two-state solution, especially after the heavy costs paid by Gazans during Israeli Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009. Like realism, then, liberalism is not determinative as to whether and when there will be a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. However, here too there is room for optimism. The majority of both populations advocate a two-state solution, and, even though the already-fragile Palestinian democracy has been significantly weakened, a referendum (if allowed by Hamas in Gaza) could lead to public support for a peace agreement. A cease-fire, or tahadiyeh, between Israel and Hamas could provide a relative short-term calm that enables progress on the peace front. Furthermore, Hendrik Spruyt and Oded Haklai, in this volume, accurately portray the spoiler role that settlers play in the Israeli system. There is no doubt that the undue influence of small parties in coalition governments has contributed to the growth of settlements, which in turn has significantly eroded Palestinian trust in Israel. However, it is not the case that this will necessarily prevent an agreement from being reached or implemented. Although both chapters emphasize the ideological and religious commitment of the settlers, the majority of Israelis living in the West Bank moved there for largely economic reasons. Therefore they would agree to relocate their homes, given adequate economic compensation and relocation support. Furthermore, in an eventual agreement (as negotiated at Taba based on the Clinton Parameters), most settlers would not have to move at all, as Israel would keep between two and four percent of the

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West Bank where most Israeli settlers currently reside in exchange for an equivalent area of land adjacent to the West Bank or the Gaza strip. Constructivism Optimistic Conditions Constructivism not only provides insight into whether there will be a two-state solution, but provides more clues than do realism and liberalism as to the possible nature and timing of an agreement. However, even constructivism is not determinative, as many of the factors it relies on are contingent. Constructivism can highlight the ways in which shifting ideologies, norms, goals, and perceived interests can establish the conditions for policy changes (Wendt 1992). In this case, constructivism takes seriously the perceptual move toward the acceptance of a two-state solution by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians. This continued modification and accommodation over the past two decades paves the way for two publics that are capable of making significant concessions. Despite violence, disillusionment, and frustration, most Israelis and Palestinians say that they support a two-state solution. Sixty eight percent of Palestinians supported the Annapolis process. Multiple surveys show that Hamas’s electoral success in 2006 was not primarily due to Palestinian opposition to a two-state solution, but to dissatisfaction with Fatah’s corruption and to the fact that Fatah ran a poor campaign with voters tending to split their votes among Fatah candidates who competed against one another. The majority of both populations are willing to make concessions and there has been a change in, and diminishing role of, ideology. For example, in 2009 a new centrist party, Kadima, emerged to garner more votes than the Likud party, which had focused on the Greater Land of Israel. In the 2008 negotiations between Olmert and Abbas, the former was willing to divide Jerusalem. Even within Likud there have been substantial changes, as some factions now accept a two-state solution. Even Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly supported a two-state solution since 2009 (Rynhold and Waxman 2008). The Labor party, which was already more conciliatory

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than Likud, became more so by agreeing to divide Jerusalem when Ehud Barak was Prime Minister. On its part, Fatah abandoned its goal of establishing Palestine on all the land of Israel by accepting a two-state solution and recognizing Israel. These ideological shifts pave the way for greater accommodation. Official negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government have not only reflected these perceptual shifts, but have often taken the lead in altering public perceptions on matters previously considered taboo (Aronoff 2009). At the official negotiations at Taba in 2001, the parties disagreed only over a mere three percent of territory. Palestinian negotiators have accepted Israel’s argument that the new border will be based on the 1967 borders, but that this border will not exactly replicate the Green Line. Instead, Israel will keep some of its settlement blocs near Jerusalem and, in exchange, swap an equal size land adjacent to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Saeb Erakat, who has been one of the chief Fatah negotiators for years until his resignation in March 2011, declared in a public forum that the Palestinian Authority is ready to accept small alterations in the 1967 border for equal land swaps (Erekat 2007a). The major emotionally charged issues that are central to national narratives are those pertaining to Jerusalem and to the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Here too, possibilities for reframing these issues so that they could be traded off were creatively proposed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton (i.e., the Clinton Parameters). In order for Israel to remain a Jewish majority democracy, its most desired priority, it would concede most of East Jerusalem to a new Palestinian state. The new Palestinian state would concede the right of Palestinian return (or at least full implementation of that right) to Israel in order for it to establish its capital in East Jerusalem and have political sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif (with agreements to not dig underneath and to acknowledge the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount). The Taba talks and Clinton Parameters indicated that a limited number of refugees, agreed to by Israel, would return to Israel under the rubric of family reunification, with the number under discussion on the Israeli side rumored to have been 40,000 (see Golan 2008a, 2008b). If the deadlock over principles can be turned into a negotiation over specifics, compromise becomes possible. At Taba, too, negotiators largely accepted

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the Clinton Parameters and agreed on dividing the neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The remaining contentious issue was the Temple Mount/ Haram al-Sharif. Saeb Erakat has claimed repeatedly that the phase of negotiations is over and that the time for decision-making is necessary (Erekat 2007b; see also Erekat 2007a). Salam Fayyad, Palestinian prime minister in the West Bank, said the main reason agreement is possible is that the “broad parameters or contours of what might be regarded as a fair and lasting settlement are well known, and they have become a matter of therefore complete international consensus. . . . [T]hese issues have been extensively discussed and negotiated, even thoroughly” (Fayyad 2008). Constructivism would also point to the learning process from which today’s negotiators can profit. There is recognition that incrementalism allowed spoilers to scuttle progress and therefore that negotiating a final agreement is necessary. Likewise, there is a growing acknowledgement that confidence-building measures cannot be put off and are necessary during the negotiating process. Salam Fayyad refers to them as “the issues of the here and now” (ibid. 2008). Therefore, the Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners and the removal of check points, as well as the PA crackdown on potential terrorists, have boosted mutual confidence. Unfortunately, these efforts have been belated and minimal, which has undermined their intended effect. There has also been recognition after the Camp David negotiations that regional Arab actors must be brought into the process and that both governments failed during the Oslo process to appeal to one another’s publics (Dowty 2008; Sarsar 2005; Kurtzer and Lasensky 2008). Significantly, in 2008 the Palestinian Authority published ads reprinting the Saudi 2002 peace plan in three major Israeli newspapers. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat acknowledged that this was the first time a Palestinian government had reached out to the Israeli public in such a manner (Associated Press 2008). Likewise, in March 2011 when five members of an Israeli family in the settlement of Itamar were murdered in their sleep (including a four-month-old, four-year-old, and an elevenyear-old), Palestinian President Abbas went on Israeli radio and called the murders immoral (he had previously argued that attacking civilians harms the Palestinian cause both strategically and tactically, but had not called such acts immoral). Talking to one another’s publics can help break down

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mutual public distrust, which arguably is an even greater obstacle to peace than any democratic institutional constraints. Pessimistic Conditions While there are many ideational changes that have strengthened both Israeli and Palestinian public support for a two-state solution, there are significant minorities in both populations who have successfully spoiled the peace process. There are alternative competing norms and ideas that are still salient to strongly motivated minorities. With regard to Israel, Dov Waxman eloquently describes the competing national identities at play in his chapter for this volume. With regard to Palestinian identity, although there have been some signals that certain Hamas leaders are moderating and may be willing to eventually accept a two-state solution, the Hamas Charter still calls for the destruction of Israel and Hamas officially continues to oppose any peace negotiations with Israel. Hamas is still foregoing hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid for its refusal to accept past Palestinian Authority agreements that recognize Israel. There is also no consensus within Fatah that the right of return, or its implementation in regard to return to the new Palestinian state rather than to Israel, should be traded for East Jerusalem. Furthermore, several of the strongest Palestinian proponents of a two-state solution, such as Sari Nusseibeh, have begun to argue that a one-state solution may be a more realistic alternative if a two-state solution is not reached in the near term. On the Israeli side, there remain religiously motivated settlers who are trying to create facts on the ground to prevent the establishment of a two-state solution as articulated in the chapters by Oded Haklai and Ehud Eiran. Furthermore, in February 2010 the Land of Israel caucus was founded in the Knesset whose primary objective is the strengthening of Israel’s hold on the entire West Bank. With the exception of Benjamin Netanyahu, Dan Meridor, and Michael Eitan, all Likud Party ministers expressed support for the caucus. Therefore, the recent ideational shift in Likud toward the center is facing a backlash. While the emerging norms supporting a two-state solution are not hegemonic and are challenged by motivated Israeli and Palestinian

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constituents, the two-state solution remains the dominant paradigm accepted by majorities on both sides, and is likely to remain so, especially as it is reinforced by international acceptance of its legitimacy, specifically by the Quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia). However, in order to predict whether a final agreement will be reached in the next few years, we need to go beyond assessing these broad societal trends identified by constructivists. Rather, we must analyze how committed particular leaders are to a two-state solution, and how adaptable their ideologies and personalities are to being able to challenge old taboos in negotiations and make significant and creative compromises. While constructivists give a significant role to agency and its interpretation of structure, they often focus on social learning on the part of nongovernmental organizations, unions, and regional organizations, or the influence of human rights norms and transnational networks (Checkel 2001). Political psychology has much to contribute in assessing whether and how particular leaders’ ideologies and personalities matter. This approach provides insight into how particular leaders define the contours of a two-state solution in a manner that will enable an agreement to be signed. Leadership and Domestic Politics: A Political Psychological Approach The timing and nature of peace agreements are ultimately contingent, although not solely so, on the particular sets of leaders responsible for fostering successful negotiations. Their particular ideologies and personalities determine whether they are able to creatively seek necessary compromises and whether they are sufficiently determined to overcome the domestic challenges outlined in this book. Different leaders, given similar regional and international environments, perceive the adversary and chances for peace in varied ways that in turn significantly impact the probability of reaching an agreement. For instance, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was an ideologue of the Likud Party who would not part with one inch of the West Bank and believed that the Palestinians would never accept the existence of Israel. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

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underwent significant changes in policy that led to his withdrawing all Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but would not have been willing to make the concessions necessary to achieve a two-state solution (Aronoff 2010). Likewise, many doubted whether Yasser Arafat would have been capable of reaching an agreement. In contrast, it is possible that Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and Ehud Olmert would have been able to reach an agreement had they had more time in office. Rabin’s assassination had a very destructive impact on the peace process, Peres only had one year in office, and Barak was only in office for eighteen months. There is also reason to believe that if the Taba negotiators, who tried to negotiate an agreement at the very end of Barak’s term, had another six weeks to continue their work, they could have concluded an agreement. Ehud Olmert was getting closer to reaching an agreement before he was forced to resign due to corruption allegations. Olmert was a key influence on Sharon’s change of attitude toward withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza. At the very end of Olmert’s term he claimed that Israel would need to concede East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in order to achieve peace. He also proposed conceding 93 percent of the West Bank with a 5 percent swap of territory adjacent to Gaza and a transit corridor connecting Gaza and the West Bank (Olmert 2008). Prime Minister Olmert may have pushed harder and been willing to make more compromises had he remained in office (Benn 2008). Olmert has argued that “had I remained prime minister for another four to six months, I believe a peace agreement could have been reached . . . the gaps were very small” (Eli 2012). Although the popularity of Barak, Peres, and Olmert was eroded by continued suicide bombings by Hamas and factions of Fatah (during Barak’s and Peres’s terms) and rocket attacks by Hamas (during Olmert’s term), in each case their own performance and policy mistakes contributed to their political demise. Olmert, Barak, and Peres all underwent ideational changes that enabled them to make significant compromise, but were impeded not only by coalitional constraints, but also by individual mistakes and personality flaws. Ehud Barak suffered from emotional insensitivity, which alienated him from the Israeli public and contributed to a tense relationship with

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Yasser Arafat. His decision after Camp David to declare that Arafat could not be a partner in peace also led to his own downfall in the election. If there was no one to talk to according to Barak, then there was no need to elect a Labor leader to negotiate a peace deal. Peres’s life-long rivalry with Rabin led him to want to win the election after Rabin’s assassination on his own, and therefore he did not capitalize on the deep support for Rabin and failed to link himself to Rabin in the election campaign. The strike in Qana, Lebanon that missed its target and hit a United Nations post housing civilians was a tragedy that led Palestinian Israelis, who would have voted for Peres in large numbers, to boycott the elections. Olmert’s corruption scandals and perceived mishandling of the war with Hezbollah led to his own downfall. All three leaders were replaced by more hard-line leaders of the Likud party who were more skeptical of Palestinian intentions and were ideologically committed to the West Bank. Olmert’s resignation was particularly detrimental to the peace process, since his Kadima leader successor, Tzipi Livni—who campaigned on the platform of pursuing a two-state solution and had spearheaded negotiations as minister of foreign affairs—was unable to form a governing coalition that would commit to actively negotiating with the Palestinian Authority. In addition to internal party political constraints, other parties refused to lend her support. The Shas party, a member of the prior Netanyahu-led coalition, was opposed to a division of Jerusalem (as Miriam Elman shows in her chapter for this book), and Livni refused to accept their large budget demands as a precondition for entering the coalition. The Meretz and Labor parties would be capable of making significant concessions to reach a final agreement with the Palestinians. However, they refused to lend Livni their support because she was willing to negotiate with Yisrael Beitenu, whose leader has alienated Palestinian Israelis. Livni also did not seriously entertain inviting Palestinian Israeli parties into the coalition. It was perhaps Livni’s lack of political skills in recruiting coalition partners that contributed to the failure of achieving a peace agreement during President Obama’s first years in office. Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party, which in fact garnered the second highest votes in Israel’s 2009 elections, was invited to form a governing coalition instead of Livni, and formed a right-wing coalition.

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Several of the chapters in this volume analyze the constraints of Israeli coalitions on the state’s ability to pursue peace. However, it is also the case that individual leaders have some degree of freedom in forming the composition of their governing coalition and that their ideologies and personalities influence these decisions. That is, they have some choice as to which parties they will be constrained by. For instance, given the recent crisis in Israeli-Palestinian and US-Israeli relations over Shas’s stance on East Jerusalem, one could legitimately argue that Netanyahu’s particular coalition from 2009 to 2012 restrained him from greater compromise. However, it is also the case that Netanyahu could have formed a centrist coalition rather than a right-wing one, had he been willing to compromise with Kadima’s Tzipi Livni and meet her demands (e.g., that he publicly advocate a two-state solution and rotate the position with her). His own ideology and personality drove him to be constrained by parties on the right rather than those on the center or the left (with the exception of Ehud Barak). In May 2012, after a change of leadership in Kadima from Livni to Shaul Mofaz, and Kadima’s weakened position in projected polls, Netanyahu did include the party in a new unity coalition. Mofaz had not demanded a rotation, did not have as fraught a personal relationship with Netanyahu as Livni had, and was unlikely to make as many concessions in peace negotiations, as Livni had been. Netanyahu’s new coalition greatly expanded his freedom of movement. It included 94 of 120 Knesset members, and was the largest in Israeli history. He was not as constrained by Kadima as he would have been under Livni, and could potentially afford to lose small right-wing parties from the coalition if he decided to dismantle settlement outposts (as mandated by recent decisions by the Israeli High Court). Thus, arguments concerning the constraints placed on Netanyahu by coalitional partners were much weaker with the new unity coalition. He could afford a party or two defecting if it did not agree with a policy he intended to implement. He certainly was no longer able to make the argument that he was constrained by his coalition. Especially when the coalition does not act as a significant restraint, it is even more important to consider the influence of the prime minister’s ideology and personality on the peace process.

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As he did in the 1990s, Netanyahu will most likely continue to play a role in derailing the achievement of a final peace agreement that leads to two states. Although he is not an ideologue and is capable of compromise, as shown by his eventual public acceptance of a two-state solution and a ten-month freeze of settlements on the West Bank, he is still influenced by a right of center ideology. In particular, it is highly unlikely that Netanyahu will agree to any concessions on Jerusalem; his government will continue to expand the Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, as happened during his first three years in office. As in his first term as prime minister between 1996 and 1999, when Dennis Ross pressured Netanyahu to stop building the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, Netanyahu claimed that if it is a choice between Jerusalem and the American government, he chooses Jerusalem (Naveh 1999). He also is deeply skeptical about the chances for peace and is immersed in the past, believing that the Palestinians will ultimately not accept a Jewish majority state. In 2008 he declared that there is no chance of a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority, that he would oppose evacuating Israeli settlements, and that he advocates expanding existing settlements (Jerusalem Post 2008). Netanyahu remained true to his ideology in his first term as prime minister by trying to keep as much territory as possible. Strategically, he remained only formally committed to Oslo, while he tried to do everything that he could to undermine it by slowing it down and minimizing its effects. Since he could not be elected by continuing to formally refute Oslo, he tried to undermine the peace process by stressing the need for reciprocity (Peleg 2000). However, due to Netanyahu’s sensitivity to public opinion, he abandoned his previous ideological purity by signing the Hebron and Wye accords, which gave up small parts of the Greater Land of Israel via negotiation with the PA. Netanyahu is strongly influenced by an ideology that shapes his attitudes and policy preferences, but he also is willing to compromise in order to get elected and remain in power (Shelev 1998). Netanyahu has remained a hard-liner in his maintenance of a relatively monolithic view of the Palestinians, whom he perceives to have unlimited aims, and his belief that the probability of peace is low. His ideology and personality has played a significant role in maintaining his

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beliefs and attitudes toward the Palestinians. His cognitive rigidity, belief that Israel is surrounded by enemies, that time is on Israel’s side, that security can be attained without peace, and his focus on the past, were obstacles to his perceiving greater moderation on the part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in his last term as prime minister. Netanyahu believes that in regard to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, “time is working in our favor” (Marcus 2000). Netanyahu’s father gave his boys history lessons that would include the oft cited example of the War of Independence of the Christians in Spain that took place over 200 years before the Muslim occupiers were expelled. He would say that if you want to protect your rights, you have to be ready to be at war for hundreds of years (Vardi 1997). Netanyahu writes that the underlying problem is Arab hostility and that it is a problem “that may or may not disappear with the passing of several generations.” Even formal peace does not eliminate the possibility of future wars because “you cannot end the struggle for survival without ending life itself.” He accuses other Israelis of being naively idealistic in believing that Israel’s ills can be cured (Netanyahu 1993, 303, 376). Because Netanyahu views time as being on Israel’s side, he feels no urgency to make peace. This makes it less likely that Netanyahu will perceive his strategy as a failure, at least in the short run. Netanyahu’s focus on past conflicts with enemies in general, and with the Palestinians in particular, also make him unlikely to adopt a more moderate or nuanced image of the Palestinians. His emotional attachment to a violent and even ancient past, which he perceives as cyclical and part and parcel of the present, is an obstacle that prevents him from differentiating among Palestinian motives or recognizing that many Palestinians are willing to live alongside Israel. His cognitive rigidity, which has led him to surround himself with “yes-men” and his deep suspicion of everyone (he has had his advisors polygraphed several times) including the military, contributed to his tendency to ignore information that was contradictory to his beliefs. He did not alter his beliefs or policy preferences as a consequence of dramatic regional events such as the intifada and the Gulf War, which only served to reinforce his hostile image of the Palestinians (Aronoff 2001; Peri 2006). Likewise, the recent demonstrations across the Middle East for democracy and the regime transitions in Egypt and

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Tunisia highlight for Netanyahu the vulnerability of peace agreements and therefore their limited value in ensuring security. Netanyahu is influenced by the Likud ideology, which emphasizes that Israel faces a hostile world that works against its interests. Netanyahu writes that because the fate of Jews has been entirely determined by others for centuries, people have to learn that “you can shape the actions of others to conform to your needs” and not only bend to their will (Netanyahu 1993, 371, 392). According to Ross, “Netanyahu always emphasized that he was not afraid of a fight with us but he did realize that possibly the United States was Israel’s only friend and his behavior ultimately did conform somewhat to U.S. pressures. However, he was constantly on guard, constantly in battle, and trying to head off things we would do” (Ross 1999). James Baker wrote that as Israeli deputy foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying, “It is astonishing that a superpower like the United States, which was supposed to be the symbol of political fairness and international honesty, is building its policy on a foundation of distortion and lies. . . . His language was unacceptable for a senior diplomat from a friendly country. I promptly banned him from the State Department” (Baker 1995, 129). When Netanyahu, as prime minister, had his first meeting with former US President Clinton in July 1996, Clinton noted that Netanyahu behaved in a way that did not seem to show that he knew that Clinton was the president of a friendly superpower and that Netanyahu was the leader of a small nation who needed a superpower’s support (Remnick 1998). When the United States was presenting proposals for the Wye Agreement, Netanyahu often claimed that only Israel can determine what its security needs are and that no third parties can impose an agreement on Israel. He began an intense campaign to prevent the Clinton Administration from announcing a specific proposal (Erlanger 1998). Thus, Netanyahu believes that he can counter pressure with counter-pressure. He visited leading Republicans, Christian fundamentalists, and Jewish groups before meeting with Clinton in order to try to put political pressure on the Clinton administration. He thinks that if Begin had gone on the counter-attack, he would have had to make fewer concessions at Camp David I, especially granting autonomy to the Palestinians, and

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may have avoided the precedent for total territorial withdrawal (Vardi 1997). Netanyahu portrayed Barak as someone who would not be able to stand up to American pressure and who would return 90 percent of the Occupied Territories (Kfir 1999). During his second term, Netanyahu also defiantly attempted to resist American pressure for a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The friction between Netanyahu and the Obama Administration escalated to such an extent that Nadav Tamir, the Israeli Consul in Boston, sent a letter warning that the posture of the Israeli government was damaging Israel’s strategic interests with the United States. He related Aaron Miller’s description of the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu as a meeting “between Obama yes we can, and Netanyahu no you won’t” (Ravid 2009). Tamir argued that we should “dramatically change our conduct regarding the Obama Administration. . . . I suggest that we talk of our ambition for peace and our support of the two-state solution more convincingly, and not like we are bowing to American pressure, but like those who understand that this is first and foremost an Israeli interest” (Ravid 2009). Since this letter had been leaked, Tamir was called back for a reprimand by Avigdor Lieberman. Yet Netanyahu did not heed Tamir’s advice. The government’s authorization of plans to build an additional 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem, whose announcement coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, generated increased friction in the bilateral relationship. According to Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul in New York, “the Americans feel that the prime minister has been toying with them for a year, and their strong reaction to the Ramat Shlomo building announcement was meant to signal that enough is enough” (Susser 2010, 11). Following American demands to freeze settlements in East Jerusalem, Netanyahu equated construction in Jerusalem with construction in Tel Aviv, made a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Jerusalem was not a settlement but rather Israel’s capital, and encouraged Elie Wiesel to put an ad in the newspapers claiming that Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty (Ravid 2010a, 2010b). In May 2010, despite Netanyahu’s defiance and his resistance to making a public formal commitment against further building in East Jerusalem, he apparently agreed to halt any significant

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building in East Jerusalem and to not build in Ramat Shlomo for two years in order to start proximity negotiations. Netanyahu’s ideology, heightened suspicion of others, and focus on the past, make it unlikely that he will be able to agree to the compromises necessary for reaching a final agreement with the Palestinians. For instance, it is unlikely that he would give political sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif to the Palestinian Authority. And although all Israeli prime ministers condition Palestinian statehood on at least initial demilitarization, Netanyahu, unlike his Labor Party predecessors, has introduced the additional request for an Israeli troop presence on the Palestinian side of the border. The timing of reaching an agreement is contingent on who leads Israel’s government. There are varied perceptions as to what extent compromise can be reached, what concessions should be made, and whether an agreement could be implemented. While Israeli (and Palestinian) leaders are key to the timing and nature of an agreement, so are American presidents. Given the weaknesses of both the Israeli and Palestinian domestic political systems, Shlomo Ben Ami (2007), Prime Minister Barak’s chief negotiator at Camp David, argues that Israelis and Palestinians cannot do it by themselves. Both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush delayed getting serious about resolving the conflict until their seventh year of office. This was a glaring example of “too little, too late.” The Bush Administration was insufficiently engaged, did not adequately push the Road Map, and did not properly monitor progress. The lack of urgency on the part of the United States has led to numerous missed opportunities. For example, the United States could have linked Israel’s Gaza withdrawal to a Fatah-sponsored peace process and to improvements in the West Bank, thereby increasing Fatah’s standing. The United States should have also provided its own specific bridging proposals on the basis of the Clinton Parameters (Kurtzer and Lasensky 2008). President Obama has repeatedly declared that he will prioritize negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Israeli and Palestinian leaders were the first foreign leaders to receive a call from president Obama after his inauguration. Although President Obama is seriously committed to trying to resolve the conflict, he is preoccupied with an economic crisis,

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the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, developing individual responses to the demonstrations and transitions across the Middle East, and trying to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Conclusion There are formidable structural conditions at both the international and regional level—most importantly the desire on the part of Israel, the United States, and many Arab League nations to balance Iran—that are conducive toward reaching a peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. In 2011, Hillary Clinton warned that Iran is poised to take advantage of transitions across the Middle East by continuing to expand its own influence. The perceived danger of Iran, and the expectation that an Israeli-Palestinian peace would diminish Iran’s influence, provides a powerful motivation for the resumption of negotiations. However, these structural forces are not sufficient in and of themselves for determining if and when such an agreement will occur. Predicting when Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will be successful requires a reliance on constructivist explanations, and especially a political psychological analysis of leadership. Will Israel’s leaders seek to balance Iran primarily through deterrence and by reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians, or will Iran be balanced through an attack on its developing nuclear capabilities? Constructivism is better able to explain how perceptions lead leaders to favor certain balancing strategies over others. Will leaders who are capable of reaching an agreement emerge, or will leaders who do not perceive an agreement as likely, or even desirable, dominate Israeli politics? Reaching an agreement is contingent on the perception by the main actors—as well as the United States—that a peace accord will help to diminish Iran’s influence, and that “time is running out.” Those perceptions are, in turn, dependent upon which leaders are elected. Constructivism, like its rival theories, cannot determine with accuracy which perceptions and behaviors will predominate in the near term, but in combination with a political psychological analysis of leaders it can account for the contingent nature of such predictions. It explains the importance of varied perceptions in the way events unfold.

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For Israelis and Palestinians, time is in fact running out. It is urgent that an agreement be reached, and there is a small window of opportunity in which to do it. A cease-fire with Hamas is likely to be short-lived, as Hamas is likely to try to use the opportunity to strengthen its military capabilities; Iran can further try to use violence to stop the peace process through Hezbollah attacks. Israel may reach a point at which it will consider a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, which would certainly stop any peace process in its tracks. In the meantime, there could be a third intifada and the collapse of Fatah in the West Bank. A long delay could create such frustration that the two-state solution is taken off the table all together. Constructivist factors are crucial in determining the timing of any agreement. The sense of urgency that the United States attaches to resolving the conflict, for its own sake, and to strengthen US strategic interests in the region, will play a significant role in the timing and nature of a resolution. As Lasensky and Kurtzer (2008) argue, despite the many obstacles, the United States has been able to create opportunities when it wants to. “Ideal conditions will not present themselves in the Middle East any more than they will appear elsewhere” (ibid., 15, 35). Zeev Maoz also argues that the United States should exert more pressure on both parties, but also provide greater economic and security incentives and possibly create a defense pact with Israel, which would thereby alter the perceptions of security and insecurity among both Israeli and Palestinian publics (Maoz 2006). Jeremy Pressman also finds that the United States, in most cases, will only successfully restrain allies such as Israel when it is willing to use its power resources (Pressman 2008). What might be even more effective is a trip by President Obama to Jerusalem and to Ramallah where he shows understanding for Israeli and Palestinian concerns, but attempts to persuade both publics to back a peace plan. The possibility for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians during President Obama’s term is slipping largely due to domestic factors explained by constructivism, political systems that pose obstacles to reaching an agreement, as well as the distraction of the US administration. Nevertheless, progress is possible. Before the Oslo agreement, nobody predicted that it would happen, and afterwards everyone pointed to the

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reasons why it did. Before President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, many Israelis objected to conceding the Sinai, and after his visit the vast majority supported the land-for-peace deal. Before the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, many Israelis objected to negotiations with the PLO, and afterward, most supported its recognition. Likewise, although many Israelis are reluctant to cede the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, evidence of an agreement is likely to change minds. Indeed, Ehud Olmert claims that he was close to reaching a peace agreement in 2008, which would have led to the transfer of most of the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to a Palestinian state. He insists that a decisive majority of Israelis would have supported the agreement had he put it to a vote (Eli 2012). Success primarily depends on active mediation and dedication on the part of the United States in order to overcome the institutional obstacles in the Israeli and Palestinian political systems, Netanyahu’s reluctance to confront the settlers or concede any part of Jerusalem, and the reluctance of Hamas to recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution. President Obama has learned that both parties face domestic institutional obstacles. Obama argued that Netanyahu “is making some effort to move a little bit further than his coalition wants to go and that although Abbas genuinely wants peace, it has to deal with Hamas[,] which controls the Gaza Strip and refuses to recognize Israel” (Mozgovaya 2010). While making concessions necessary to avoid a deep rift with the United States, which would harm Israeli interests and hamper his political viability in Israel, Netanyahu is unlikely to support an Israeli-Palestinian peace process absent significant American pressure. Like Ariel Sharon, who reacted to President Bush’s Road Map and the Geneva Initiative by coming up with his own plan for unilateral limited withdrawal, Netanyahu may try to prevent Obama from “imposing” his own plan by initiating his own vision to manage the conflict, rather than ending it. This would amount to a policy of treading water; it would mean trying to reach an interim agreement, rather than a final agreement in which Jerusalem and the refugee problem would have to be negotiated. He may surprise fellow Likud members in the extent to which he is willing to withdraw from the majority of the West Bank in contemplating such an interim agreement. However, he will avoid compromises on Jerusalem

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and refugees, which will be necessary to a final agreement (and are already inherent in the Clinton Parameters that President Obama would be adapting). Netanyahu told his Likud compatriots, “We have proved time and again that we are willing to make compromises for peace, but we won’t lead ourselves astray—we are not willing to be suckers” (Azoulay 2009). It may be the case that, even if Netanyahu tries to manage the conflict through an interim agreement, President Obama will intensify the pressure on him to reach a final agreement. Even though this book points to the institutional constraints of Israeli parliamentary democracy, Elman’s chapter suggests that Shas and Yisrael Beitenu, with proper incentives, could back deep territorial withdrawal. In addition, the fact that in May 2012, Netanyahu successfully forged the largest coalition in Israel’s history, reduces greatly the constraints that coalitional partners place on him. Ehud Barak has recently expressed the need to urgently pursue peace in a most dramatic fashion. When he was prime minister he said that without a peace agreement, Israel was the “Titanic heading for an iceberg” (Ben Ami 2006, 255). This prompted him to participate in the Camp David negotiations of 2000. In the aftermath of dramatic transitions in the Middle East beginning in the spring of 2011, and the intended efforts of the PA to gain United Nations recognition for a Palestinian state in September 2011, Barak argued that Israel could face a diplomatic tsunami if Kadima did not join the coalition and Israel did not negotiate core issues with the Palestinians. Barak’s comments earned him a sharp reprimand from Netanyahu (Ravid 2011). If Netanyahu fails to take a serious initiative, however, perhaps a Palestinian Authority and an Israeli government led by different leaders, who have the ideological pragmatism and cognitive flexibility to forge creative solutions, alongside the Obama administration’s active mediation, could result in successful peacemaking in the not too distant future. In sum, strong leaders do have some freedom in forming coalitions that are conducive to peacemaking. If such leaders reach out to each other’s publics, and the United States more actively pursues negotiations, institutional obstacles can be overcome. The majority of both the Israeli and Palestinian publics favor a peace based on the premise of two states for two peoples. Yet they also need to elect leaders who are urgently searching

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for peace, so that each public is reassured of the seriousness of its partner to peace. Then, even though a democracy may have taken longer to reach an agreement than perhaps expected by some traditional proponents of the democratic peace, the peace that emerges will be long lasting. Another test for the democratic peace theory will arise if Egypt democratizes as a result of its 2011 ousting of President Mubarak. It is unclear whether the majority of the Egyptian public supports the continuation of its thirty-two-year-long peace treaty with Israel. A very basic assertion of the democratic peace theory is that democratic publics should view each other’s regimes as legitimate, and that they will reject violent methods of conflict resolution once there is an existing peace. While the democratic peace theory can correctly predict that Israel and Egypt will not go to war, it has weaker predictive power when it comes to an Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement or normalization, rather than simply the avoidance of war. The Egyptian example may reveal that although this book is correct in showing why and how democracies can be slow to reach peace, a peace based on democratic support—while it may take many years to forge—will prove stronger than a peace agreement reached in a quicker manner with an authoritarian regime.

8 State Elite Perceptions and the Launch of the Israeli Settlement Project in the West Bank The International-Domestic Nexus Ehud Eiran

Introduction On November 4, 2009, Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat stated that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should “tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option” (Assadi 2009). In the years following this salvo, Palestinian leaders stressed that ongoing Israeli settlement activity is the biggest barrier to an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a two-state solution. For example, in an April 30, 2012 speech at the Tunisian Parliament, President Abbas declared his commitment to the peace process and to working together toward that goal with Israel’s hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. However, Abbas added that Netanyahu will need to “choose between settlements and peace.” Abbas reiterated that Israel needs to halt settlement activities before he would agree to resume negotiations (Issacharoff 2012). Indeed, between the fall of 2010 and the summer of 2013, the Palestinians refused to resume negotiation as long as settlement activity continued (Greenberg 2010; Ravid 2013). They agreed to go back to the negotiation table only under heavy American pressure, and when Israel committed to restrain settlement activity and to release a large 209

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number of Palestinian prisoners (Ravid 2013). Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad explained in a speech to an Israeli audience on February 2, 2010 the logic of the Palestinian position, stating that “If settlements continue, the political question is how confident can we be that once relaunched, the political process will be able to deliver on permanent status issues” (Miller and Issacharoff 2010). Observers who agree with the Palestinian position suggest that the spatial expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank stifles the possibility for a future Palestinian state to emerge in that region. Moreover, heightened tensions on the ground between settlers, who along with their political allies are viewed as veto players and spoilers in this volume’s chapters by Spruyt and Haklai, and the indigenous Palestinian population have created new sources of conflict, further complicating an already complex situation (Mnookin and Eiran 2005; Eldar and Zertal 2005; Gorenberg 2006). Erekat’s statement summarized, then, the pivotal role of the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank in determining the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With the significance of the 350,000- to 500,000-strong settlement project1 in mind, this chapter proposes an explanation for its launch, linking domestic actors with the international milieu. As suggested in the introduction to this volume, leaders in democratic regimes navigate between domestic and international constraints and opportunities. Moving beyond the exclusive focus on internal reasons, as well as accounts that stress state-building or bi-communal factors such as social control (Lustick 1985, 1993; Weiner and Teitelbaum 2001), the following account focuses on the interplay between the domestic and international levels of analysis by highlighting the effect of the international environment on the Israeli leadership’s decision to initiate a settlement project. The chapter shows that while the decision to expand Israel’s borders was reached endogenously, the means to achieve this objective, through settlements,

1. The larger figure includes Israeli expansion in the East Jerusalem area, which Israel annexed and does not consider a “regular” settlement, but rather part of the municipality of Jerusalem.

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was influenced by international factors. Israel’s launch of the settlement project in the first decade of its control over the West Bank was intended to manipulate the outcome of future negotiations that were to determine the permanent sovereignty of the disputed territory. This chapter demonstrates this argument through an analysis of Israeli elite beliefs regarding the role of the international system in determining the final status of the West Bank, and shows how these beliefs led to the adoption of a strategy of settlements as a tool of territorial expansion. The Settlement Project and the International Arena On January 23, 2010 Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planted a tree in the settlement of Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem. On this occasion, the prime minister stated, as quoted in Haaretz, that “this place will become part of the state of Israel forever. . . . [P]lanting this tree here today carries great significance for securing this international status” (quoted in Levinson and Ravid 2010). The prime minister’s statement is a reminder that more than four decades after the settlement project was launched (in Kfar Etzion, initially), Israel’s leadership still views it as directed at the international arena, rather than only at the Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian realms. For Israel, the settlement project was a move away from the table that could affect the outcome of negotiations across the table. Moreover, the choice of a settlement project, as well as choices about its location and timing were done in the shadow of the law; they were calibrated according to what Israel believed to be the governing principle of a future territorial determination (partition of the land), as well as the specific rule that would determine the borders created by partition (ethnic lines). The Israeli government, therefore, was set to create settlements in areas that were largely empty in order to secure their ultimate incorporation into Israel. The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. First, I identify the sources and development of state elites’ beliefs that the fate of the territories would be determined through international interaction. Second, I explore why Israel’s leaders chose the settlement project as the tool for affecting a future international interaction that would determine the fate

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of the territories. I pay special attention to the specific mechanisms that Israel employed: backwards induction, moves away from the negotiating table, and negotiation in the shadow of the law. I also show how an effective deployment of a similar strategy under (somewhat) similar circumstances during the British Mandate era contributed to the decision to launch a settlement project. How Would Expansion Be Determined? An Israeli Perspective Israel’s political elite were elated with the territorial gains of the Six-Day War. Minister of Agriculture Haim Gvati (1981, 226) wrote in his personal diary on June 9, 1967 that the news about Israel’s territorial acquisitions “aroused excitement that brought me to tears, a unique experience that a person goes through rarely in his life.” At the same time, cabinet members realized that unilateral Israeli actions of control and even formal annexation would not secure long-term permanent incorporation of these territories into Israel. Rather, the international environment, most ministers believed, would play a crucial role in determining the future of the new territory. Defense Minister Dayan (1969, 93) stated, “I do not think that a formal act of annexation by the Knesset will change the situation. Even if we demark the border unilaterally, I doubt if this will alleviate [international] pressure on us. Let us not delude ourselves that annexation will end Arab and Great Power desires regarding these territories”. Israelis believed that an international determination was imminent. Foreign Minister Eban (1977, 421) reflected back a few years later, saying that “Israelis .  .  . believed that soon there would great international events .  .  . that would not leave the situation created after the war as is.” This belief was rooted in both short- and long-term Israeli experiences. The most recent was the “traumatic memory” (Eban 1977, 421) of Israel’s forced withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula under a Soviet-American dictate in March 1957 (Allon 1990). Foreign Minister Eban (1977, 406) feared even before the war was over that “we are about to lose” in the United Nations “what was won on the battle field.” Israel’s approach was further affected by a “historical bank memory” (Kleiman 2005, 205), including Zionism’s effort to secure international

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legitimacy for a Jewish state (Ben-Gurion 1967, 5). The movement’s first leader, Theodor Herzl, advanced a strategy “almost totally focused on attaining an international charter for the re-creation of Palestine as the Jewish National home,” and negotiated with Ottoman, German, and British authorities in an effort to secure a territory for the Jews (ibid.). Immediate events quickly confirmed the lessons of history. The General Assembly of the United Nations was due to meet a week after the war ended on June 17, 1967 for an emergency session regarding the situation in the Middle East. The Israeli government feared that the meeting would mark the beginning of an international process that would determine the fate of the territories, and most likely, force Israel to leave them (Eban 1977, 406; Goldstein 2003, 580). This external reality led the cabinet to engage in a set of meetings (between June 14 and 19, 1967) in order to formulate an Israeli position regarding the future of the territories. The meetings would become the most serious discussion the government would ever hold over the question. It culminated in the decision on June 19, 1967, to return the two occupied regions that were previously an internationally recognized part of a sovereign state, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, back to Syria and Egypt, respectively. The cabinet preferred to annex the two regions that had no clear sovereign, the West Bank and Gaza. But concerns over potential international opposition and the implication of incorporating the indigenous Palestinian population into the state of Israel led the government to suspend a decision (Pedhatzur 1996, 47–57). In the meeting, Prime Minister Eshkol stated, “we will not be able to ignore the American position for long[,]” and added that the “United States appears as our ally and so when we discuss our position here, we need to develop answers to questions the Americans may ask us and discuss with us” (Lammfrumm 2002, 579). Prior to and during the meetings, Defense Minister Dayan “believed that any Israeli political plan [regarding the future of the territories] will be dependent on the American position” (Gluska 2004, 402). The Israeli government duly invested great efforts in trying to affect the United States’ and United Nations’ positions on the matter. A large Israeli delegation was dispatched to the United Nations. Headed by Foreign Minister Eban, it also included prominent members of the Knesset

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representing all the major parties, including the Labor Party’s secretary general (and soon-to-be prime minister), Golda Meir.2 The effect of the international system was prevalent even on the one issue that the Israeli public and its political elite were united around: the expansion of Jewish Jerusalem. Israel’s capital, and the focal point of Jewish religious aspirations for centuries, Jerusalem had been divided since 1948. Now united under Israeli control, almost all actors wanted to make sure it would remain forever under Israeli rule. This notion was buttressed by the fact that the city’s status was highly ambiguous under international law.3 On June 20, 1967 the government discussed potential annexation, and the shadow of the international community loomed large in the debate. During the meeting, Israel’s mission to the United Nations was consulted numerous times. Indeed, in its first vote on the matter, the majority of ministers voted against expansion, following a letter from Foreign Minister Eban and his fellow delegates, which warned of a possible negative international response. Only after the prime minister stopped the meeting to talk again to Eban on the phone did the cabinet change its mind (Lammfrumm 2002, 573). Even then, Israel made all possible effort to conceal its decision and to lessen potential international censure.4 On November 22, 1967, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which set the contours of the future of the areas held by Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza: a land-for-peace arrangement that would be negotiated under an international umbrella. A United Nations special envoy, Gunar Jarring, was appointed to advance such negotiations, and his efforts were followed up by two American secretaries

2. In fact, some ministers considered an expansion of the Israeli delegation that would also include Defense Minister Dayan (Eban 1978, 422–23). 3. The 1947 partition plan designated Jerusalem as an “international city” for a ten-year period that was meant to be followed by a referendum about its future. 4. The cabinet approved minor changes in two existing laws that allowed the government to expand the state’s authority and the municipal borders. The only special law that was legislated stressed the right of people of all persuasions to visit the holy sites, which was meant to mitigate expected international pressure (Davar, June 24, 1967).

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of state, William Rogers and Henry Kissinger (Bailey 1985, 180; Quandt 2001, 55–130). Affecting International Interaction through Settlements Once Israel had a clearer picture of the future negotiations and the overarching norms that would govern them, it took steps, away from the negotiation table, in order to better position itself for the expected negotiations. Defense Minister Dayan (1969, 33) summarized this approach by stating in 1969 that “we should not simply sit and wait. . . . I think that in each territory we need to check what can be done.” Israel’s approach was drawn in a way that would conform to the international legal framework that allowed for some expansion, a strategy shaped in the “shadow of the law” (Cetinyan 2002). Specifically, as shown below, Israel assumed that the outcome would be a form of partition, with a border based on the location of Israelis and Palestinians on the ground. Driven by the considerations described above, Israel launched a settlement project in areas where it could still affect the composition of the local population, that is areas that were largely empty but might be allocated for Israel in future negotiations. Israel focused on placing settlers in these relatively unpopulated areas that Israel hoped to annex under the Allon plan, its unofficial blue-print for future territorial expansion. Yigal Allon, the Israeli minister who devised the plan carrying his name, stated in a speech at the Labor Party’s conference on August 4, 1969 that “While the government decided not to decide about Israel’s future borders, it did take a number of decisions regarding security[-]based settlement activity that had already changed our future map” (1989, 40). Minister Yisrael Galili, a close confidant of Prime Minister Golda Meir, similarly suggested that “The settlements created since 1967 were intended . . . to affect border demarcation in the time of peace” (Pedhatzur 1996, 161). The purpose of the settlement project was clear not only to policymakers, but also to the “middle management” charged with implementing the policy. Reflecting back on his role, the deputy director of the NAHAL Department (that played a major role in settlement activities between

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1968 and 1977), Yair Doar wrote in 1997 that “After the Six-Day War it was clear to the national leadership that the issue of borders was not only unresolved, but indeed that it would be at the heart of talks or future negotiations with Israel’s neighbors when the time would come. . . . [T] he security and settlement activity was therefore implemented through outposts or NAHAL settlements” (16). Israel’s belief reflected a utility-based perspective that “it is easier to move borders than people” (Kaufman 1998, 148). It also reflected lessons learned in prior Zionist experiences in three instances of border demarcation. The first was the 1920 to 1927 British-French demarcation of the border between British Palestine and the French-Lebanese state. While the final borders of Palestine were far smaller than the territory claimed by the Zionist movement in the 1918 Paris peace conference (Biger 1983, 21–40), they were affected by the location of Jewish settlements. This was most evident in the central sector of the border, where Palestine was allocated more territory than originally agreed upon in 1916, based on the existence of a number of Jewish settlements there (Ben-Artzi 1997, 155). Partition, as a general rule, and settlements marked by ethnic lines as the specific standard of border-making were set in the two international proposals for the partition of Palestine: the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission report and the 1947 United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) majority report. The logic of the 1937 report stood firm in 1967, and I would argue, continues to drive thinking on this issue to this very day. The report stated that “partition is the only method . . . for dealing with the root of the problem” (Palestine Royal Commission 1937, 380). The commission also set the standard of partition when it decided that “the natural principle for the partition of Palestine is to separate the areas in which the Jews have acquired land and settled from those which are wholly or mainly occupied by Arabs” (Palestine Royal Commission 1937, 383). The 1947 report, which served as the basis for the November 1947 partition resolution, stated that “The basic premise underlying the . . . proposal is that the claims to Palestine of the Arabs and Jews, both possessing validity, are irreconcilable, and that among all of the solutions advanced, partition will provide the most realistic and practicable settlement, and is the most likely to afford a workable basis for meeting in part

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the claims and national aspirations of both parties” (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine 1947, 111). This general standard of partition was justified later in the report by five other arguments: (1) Arab Jewish hostility renders any cooperation between the two peoples impossible; (2) partition is the only path that would allow Jewish and Arab “conflicting national aspirations” to “find substantial expression”; (3) partition offers “finality” to the conflict, whereas other options (such as a federation) will create incentives for on-going competition; (4) partition is the only solution that will create functioning states; and (5) partition will place “political and economic responsibility . . . squarely on both Arabs and Jews[,]” which would contribute to “amelioration” of tensions. The report further highlighted the specific standard of border delineation. Again, as in 1937, the location of the Jewish and Arab populations was decisive (Biger 2001, 216–17). But the effect of the two proposals was not only a result of their suggestions regarding the general rule (partition) and the specific standards to be used. By setting both a general rule and a specific standard, the recommendations created an incentive mechanism for settlement creation. In the decade between the two partition plans the Zionist movement established 147 new settlements (Orren 1978, 241–45) with the hope of affecting future border delineation (Biger 2001, 209). It was a successful strategy. While the 1937 partition resolution gave the Jews 17 percent of Palestine, by 1947 they were offered 55 percent of the territory. Settlements were considered so significant that even during the Arab-Jewish civil and inter-state war of 1947–49, settlement activity continued with over twenty new settlements created. In some cases, soldiers were relieved of service so they could create a new settlement (Tzur 1980, 56–59). In sum, the heritage of the pre-state era was that settlements make borders. Yigal Allon (1959, 248) stated that the pre-1948 settlements “determined the size of Israel’s territory once the British Mandate was over.” Indeed, Maoz (2006, 16) argues that the notion of settlements as a border maker was “a cornerstone of Israel’s security conception . . . [,] a pillar of national security”. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 changed the role of settlements even as they retained their central role in Israel’s defense posture.

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Israel faced pressure to relinquish parts of the Negev desert and indeed, David Ben-Gurion (1954, 403), Israel’s first Prime Minister, declared that “there is a danger to our [control of] the land when it is unsettled. The Arab nations hold vast areas of desert, but there is no chance that anyone will take it away from them. We cannot hold a desert unsettled for long.” This Zionist heritage had a profound effect on Israel’s post-1967 leaders, in part, because they played leading roles in it. Prime Minister Eshkol headed the 1943 settlement effort in the Negev desert that was intended to make sure that the region would be allocated to the Jewish state in a future partition. He then lead the Settlement Department in the Jewish Agency from 1948 to 1963, and orchestrated the establishment of dozens of Jewish settlements between 1949 and 1952 in areas allotted to the Palestinian state that remained under Israeli control after the 1947–49 war. The purpose of that earlier settlement project was to secure Israel’s permanent rule over this territory. Eshkol’s biographer, Yossi Goldstein (2003, 583), suggested that the prime minister’s decision to launch a settlement project after 1967 was “based on his old approach” that focused on the creation of “facts on the ground.” Indeed, Israel’s leaders continued a tradition of settlements as border makers. The post-1967 settlements replicated the pre-state goal of territorial expansion, and enjoyed the advantages that had been achieved from internal Israeli settlement activity during the previous two decades. Prime Minister Eshkol died on February 26, 1969 and was replaced by Golda Meir (Burkett 2008, 5). During Meir’s tenure, settlement development was further formalized. The cabinet created a ministerial committee for settlements that assumed the authority to approve new ones. The committee—headed at first by Allon, and from May 1970 headed by Meir’s trusted associate, minister-without-portfolio Galili—was also entrusted with identifying the resources for the creation of settlements and the institution that would supervise their development.5

5. All settlements created in Israel and the territories had to belong to a “settling institution,” an organization, usually associated with a party, that was responsible for developing the settlement. All new settlements in territorial Israel remained connected

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Under Prime Minister Meir, settlement activity continued. The prospect of potential negotiations with the Arab world, through United States mediation, led the government to hastily approve the launch of a settlement project in the Gaza Strip in September 1970. During Meir’s tenure, the Labor party tried to revise its approach towards settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza. Under pressure from Minister of Defense Dayan, the party leadership drafted the “Galili Document,” approved by the party’s central committee on September 3, 1973. The document committed the party to further expansion of settlements, mostly in the Gaza Strip and Sinai. However, the plan was never approved by the cabinet (Gorenberg 2006, 247–51; Armoni 2008, 88–91). Following the realization of the costs of intransigence after the 1973 war, Labor reversed the Galili document and, in effect, went back to the Allon formula for determining the location of new settlements (Gorenberg 2006, 263). The 1973 war also led to Meir’s political demise, and she was replaced by Yitzhak Rabin on June 3, 1974. Rabin, the former chief of staff, held dovish positions6 and reiterated Labor’s commitment to the Allon plan (Eiran 2009). To be sure, during his tenure as prime minister, the cabinet approved the creation of nine settlements in the West Bank. Yet, Rabin “limited their development to settlement blocks” in areas he saw as shaping Israel’s future map. Moreover, Rabin accepted that even the areas that had settlements would be subject to future negotiation (Goldstein 2006, 280). Like the launch of the Gaza project in 1970, Rabin’s government also advanced settlement activities when the prospect of negotiation seemed concrete. For example, in 1974 it seemed that Israel and Jordan were getting close to an interim arrangement that would include partial Israeli

to their settling institution even when they “matured.” This structure was created in prestate Israel based on the belief held by the first director of the Settlement Department in the Jewish Agency, Arthur Rupin, that Jewish settlement will succeed only if the settlers shared the same (political) world view (Weitz 2003, 56–57). 6. Rabin’s government signed two interim agreements with Egypt (1974, 1975), and continued the secret informal negotiation channel with Jordan’s King Hussein (Zak 1996, 20).

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withdrawal from the West Bank.7 It is thus not surprising that in August 1974, the cabinet authorized the creation of a big settlement east of Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim.8 Indeed, Rabin’s government further developed the use of settlement activities in the international arena. In response to the United Nations General Assembly decision that equated Zionism with racism, the cabinet approved in November 1975 the creation of more settlements (Goldstein 2006, 281). In November 1977 the Labor Party lost its position as the dominant party of a coalitional government for the first time since 1933.9 A new Likud-led government was formed that was openly committed to a massive expansion of the settlement project, reflecting the party’s long commitment to a Greater Israel (Peleg 1995b). The settlement project was loaded now with new meaning, new strategy, and new participants. Yet, thirty-two years later, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, still reflects, as his quote above shows, the resilience of the old strategic logic established not by his right-of-center Likud party, but by the Israeli Labor Party so many years ago. In fact, it was the “dovish” Labor Party that first implemented a strategy that would tie settlement activity to international recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the disputed territories of the West Bank. Conclusion Although Israel gained control over the West Bank in the 1967 war, its leaders did not believe that physical control alone would secure permanent Israeli sovereignty there. Rather, as shown in this chapter, Israel’s leaders believed that negotiation within an international framework was the venue whereby Israel’s eastern border would be determined. They

7. These efforts were lead by United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but were also discussed directly in the secret Israeli-Jordanian channel (Melman 1987, 91–97). 8. By 2009 Ma’ale Adumim was the biggest settlement in the West Bank (outside of Jerusalem) and the home for 35,000 Jewish Israelis (Goldstein 2006, 280). 9. The Labor Party led the pre-state Zionist “government” 1933–48, and then the state government between 1948 and 1977.

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therefore used “backwards induction” in order to place Israel in the most advantageous position for such negotiations. Building settlements in the West Bank was a move away from the negotiation table, aimed at affecting future negotiation across the table. Here, Israeli leaders were influenced by their past successes during the pre-state era when the creation of Jewish settlements between 1937 and 1947 lead to a larger appropriation of territory for the future Jewish state. The realization that Israel initiated the settlement project as part of a broader strategy intended to affect the outcome of international negotiations can explain the “Oslo-settlement paradox.” In the 1990s, the heyday of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the number of Israeli settlers doubled. This occurred despite the adverse effect that increased Israeli settlement activity had on the success of peacemaking in general, and the feasibility of reaching a two-state solution in particular. Yet, the importance of the international realm in Israel’s calculations for launching the settlement project does not necessarily mean that international variables remained central as the project evolved. Analyzing a later period in the evolution of the settlement project, Ehud Sprinzak showed that by the mid 1970s, it was the social movement of Gush Emunim that spearheaded the settlement project, at times against government policies and in regions that Israel had no desire to control in the future. However, even this non- (or anti-) government settlement project was a response to events in the international arena since Gush Emunim evolved as a “significant response to the crisis of the Yom Kippur War” and gained further traction in light of the “gloom of the first territorial concessions in Sinai” (Sprinzak 1991, 95). Moreover, once the new physical realities on the ground were created, new vested interests, those of the settlers and their supporters, were able to support and extend the project well beyond its original intention. Finally, it is important to stress that initially, the objective (territorial expansion) was determined internally by the government.10 It was the means to this end (settlements) that were influenced by international factors. Future

10. Though, as noted, a decade later it was a social movement that took the lead.

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work, therefore, should explore the tension between the international incentives that lead to the settlement project’s creation and the internal/ domestic feedback that contributed to the entrenchment and expansion of the project over time. Perhaps, too, these local Israeli realities could help us to refine the broader discussion about the democratic peace theory. In particular, the analysis presented above shows that while democratic publics certainly exercise a voice in setting territorial policy, the effect of that voice is constrained by the legacy of past policies. Israeli settlement policy, both before 1948 and after 1967, created facts on the ground that influenced the determination of Israel’s borders by the international system. Regime type by itself had little influence on the outcome of territorial demarcation these past fifty years. Indeed, this insight is consistent with some previous work on democratic peace theory that pointed to outliers. In cases where a conflict-ridden international environment has pressured states to be more reactive to the international arena than to domestic politics and ideology, the democratic peace proposition may be less relevant than in cases where the international environment is more permissive. Therefore, perhaps, as Schweller (1992) suggests, the democratic peace theory should not be applied to the study of Israel’s policy decisions.

9 Conclusion The Fourth Stage of the Arab-Israel Conflict Alan Dowty

by asking you to consider two statements. The first statement is this: “Recent developments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict have widened the gap between the two sides and made peaceful resolution more difficult.” Probably few here would argue with this. Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada over a decade ago, we have been hit with a succession of disasters that would shake the confidence of any optimist. But now consider the second statement: “In the course of the ArabIsrael conflict, the gap between the two sides has gradually narrowed, and in the last fifteen years it reached its narrowest point.” This claim will invite disagreement but I will try to demonstrate its truth, nonetheless. After all, the “last fifteen years” includes the period of the Camp David summit and the Taba talks in 2000–2001. Note also that these two statements do not necessarily contradict each other. It is quite possible that what we are experiencing now is an interruption in a long-term historical process. Whether this interruption is momentary or lasting is a basic question that we need to address. What this exercise demonstrates most clearly is the importance of perspective. What appears hopeless in the near term can look quite different when viewed against the long sweep of history. Any student of the ArabIsrael conflict should be grateful that we have a more positive long view available. Without it, we might vanish without trace in a sink of despair. LET ME BEGIN

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Speaking of the importance of perspective always reminds me of my friend Harry. Harry came to see me in Jerusalem, and among other things we visited the Western Wall. When Harry saw people sticking written prayers in the crevices, he decided to write one too—although he had never been particularly religious. Afterward, I asked him what he had prayed for. “I asked God for world peace within ten years,” he said. “World peace is good,” I said, “but why ten years?” “God has a strange sense of time,” Harry answered. “A thousand years are but a moment in his sight, so if you want to enjoy world peace in your own lifetime, you have to be specific.” I will begin, therefore, by arguing for a broad historical perspective on the conflict that will help us better understand the current impasse. I will then discuss this impasse in perspective and talk about the forces behind it. And finally, I will try to offer some modest estimates on whether and how this impasse might end. In introducing a long-term perspective, it helps to shed some persistent myths that one hears in popular discourse: First, this is not an “age-old” conflict. Its origins lie in Jewish settlement in historic Palestine beginning about 125 years ago. Before that, Jews generally dwelt peacefully with Arabs, if not as equals, in Arab lands. Second, this is not a conflict caused by ethnic hatreds. Clearly mutual hostility between Jews and Arabs has grown immensely over the course of the conflict, but more as a result than a cause. Again, Jewish minorities generally fared better historically among Arab or Muslim populations than in European states. Lastly, this is not a conflict rooted in religious differences. Religious issues emerged in the course of the conflict, but Judaism and Islam recognize each other as legitimate monotheistic faiths. What is the conflict about? At its core, it was and is a clash between two peoples over one land. As Israel’s founding prime minister, David BenGurion said, “We and they want the same thing. We both want Palestine.” Apart from perspective over time, we also need to consider the clashing perspectives of the parties, in all their intensity. Tragedy, it is said, is the clash of right with right. The Arab-Israel conflict certainly fits this definition. Let me illustrate this by looking at the historical claims and rights of both sides.

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Jews can claim a unique, 3,200-year historic tie to this land with a continuing (if sometimes small) physical presence throughout that time. Such a bond between a land and a people is unmatched in human history. It has been formally recognized by the League of Nations, the United Nations, by most governments—and even by the Holy Quran. There is no statute of limitations on the restoration of historical rights for an entire people; Jews were exiled from their homeland and only now have been able to return. It is a very strong case, when considered in isolation from other claims. The Palestinian case rests on the basic fact that the Palestinians were the indigenous population of Palestine 125 years ago, and did not invite European Jews to enter their homeland and transform it into an alien entity. Had they possessed self-determination at the time, Zionist settlement would never have taken place. The norms that prevail in today’s world forbid such forced demographic change. Palestine has been predominantly Muslim and Arab for over a millennium, and it is only in the framework of Western imperialism, over the last two centuries, that Zionism was able to change this reality. It is a very strong case, when considered in isolation from other claims. The conflict has been marked by three distinct stages in its evolution, with a fourth stage emerging since the turn of the 21st century. The first stage, from its origins to 1948, was a collision between two communities in Palestine over land and political control. In the beginning, neither side recognized the legitimacy of the other; in fact, they hardly acknowledged that the other existed. Arab inhabitants and Turkish rulers regarded Judaism as a religion, but did not recognize Jews as a people, and saw the Jewish settlers as European colonialist intruders. Jewish settlers, for their part, saw Arabs in Palestine as individuals who would benefit from the development of a Jewish homeland, and not as a people with a collective identity and collective rights. Neither side even saw that there was a partner with whom to negotiate; the gap could scarcely have been wider. In 1919, the Zionist proposal for a Jewish homeland included much of the East Bank of the Jordan. Only toward the end of this period, in 1937 under the British Mandate, did the Jewish leadership, over much opposition and with many reservations, accept the idea of partitioning Palestine, west of the Jordan, into Jewish and Arab states.

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The second stage, from 1948 to the early 1990s, was an inter-state conflict between Israel and the neighboring Arab states, with the Palestinians temporarily eclipsed as a major independent actor. The label “Arab-Israel conflict” actually applies mainly to this phase, though it continues to be used today. During this period four major wars were fought, but there was also a gradual disengagement as Arab states withdrew from the front line of the conflict. By 1967 Egypt and Jordan, by accepting UN Resolution 242, indicated readiness for an “end to belligerence.” Israel also accepted Resolution 242, though not the establishment of a Palestinian state (the “two-state” solution). By the end of this period, Egypt and Jordan had signed peace treaties with Israel; the gap had narrowed considerably. The third stage, with roots in the 1960s, but fully emerging after the First Intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was the re-emergence of the Palestinians as the major actor opposite Israel. In 1993, for the first time, there was mutual recognition between credible representatives of the two core parties, and an agreed framework for solving the conflict. What had been an “Arab-Israel” conflict became primarily an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It appeared that the conflict was headed for resolution on the basis of a two-state solution. At Camp David and Taba, in 2000–2001, Israel and the recognized Palestinian leadership tried, but failed, to close the remaining gap between the two sides. During this century and a quarter, nationalism, not religion, was the dominant force. Religious militants emerged occasionally—for example, Sheikh Izzadin al-Qassam (for whom today’s rockets are named) in the 1930s. But they were marginal on both sides, and (as was al-Qassam) were quickly defeated. Furthermore, in the third stage there was a trend toward reducing the conflict to its core antagonists—Israel and the Palestinians. As Arab states disengaged, it was left to Israelis and Palestinians to reach a modus vivendi. During the 1990s, many of us naively thought that this was about to happen. What happened, instead, was the thunderous collapse of the entire Oslo peace process—in other words, the tunnel at the end of the light. In retrospect, it is clear that the two sides had fundamentally different understandings of this process. Israelis saw it as a negotiation, with each side trading off its assets and each bargain the basis for the next negotiation. In

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such a view, continuing violence against Israeli targets was proof that Palestinians did not accept the basic process. Palestinians saw the peace process as implementation, following a framework of international resolutions to which the imbalance of power and bargaining leverage was irrelevant. In such a view, the doubling of the Jewish settler population during the Oslo period was proof that Israel did not accept the basic framework. The dynamics of this settlement process, for an earlier period, is analyzed in Ehud Eiran’s contribution to this volume. In other words, the gap between the two sides had not closed; it was still substantial, and wider than we wanted to believe. Having established the broad perspective, we now come to the current impasse. In the last few years, the conflict has entered a fourth stage. The central arena has been occupied by forces of ideological rejectionism that harken back to the rigid rejectionism of the first stage. In addition, the intervention of new outside parties—such as Iran and radical Islamist movements—reverses the previous trend toward reduction of the conflict to its core antagonists. The changes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not taken place in a vacuum, nor are they superficial or transient. They are rooted in global tectonic shifts, and in particular the convergence of three major phenomena of our time: 1. the decline of state authority and the rise of non-state actors; 2. changes in the nature of warfare, with the end of classic wars and the rise of what has been called “war amongst the people”; and 3. the general rise of radical religiously-based movements that redefine the goals and norms in national and international politics. These developments reinforce each other; none are new (they have precedents in antiquity), but they come together in our time to create new realities in the Middle East and elsewhere. The first shift is the decline of state authority. The World Bank has ranked about half of the 196 states in the world as weak or failing, and in more than 20, dissident groups control much of the nation’s territory (Thomas, Kiser, and Casebeer 2005, 60). These groups, labeled clinically

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as “non-state actors,” are not subject to the usual responsibilities and limitations of governments. They have little to protect and little to lose, they are often impervious to sanctions, and thus they are harder to deter. They do not recognize international law or obligations. They enjoy the advantages of a disciplined group in an undisciplined setting. The second major shift, the changed nature of warfare, is illustrated by the fact that the last major tank battles in the Arab-Israel theatre—or perhaps anywhere—were fought in 1973. War is no longer what could be termed a “massive deciding event.” Many terms have been applied to the new warfare: irregular, sub-conventional, counterinsurgent, asymmetric, guerrilla, hybrid, and low-intensity. For Rupert Smith (2005), modern warfare has become “war amongst the people.” There is neither a battlefield nor any attempt to conquer and hold territory, fighting drags out over time, the outcomes are fuzzy, and the targets on the insurgent side are very elusive as combatants melt into the population. The third major shift is the new prominence of religious radicalism. Let me be very careful in defining this change. We are not speaking here of mainstream religious practice or even of religion, as such. We are speaking of heavily politicized movements that use radical religious ideologies to challenge the legitimacy of the existing order and to justify the pursuit of uncompromising objectives by violent means. To whatever faith it is attached, religious radicalism, by invoking the divine, leaves no higher authority to be summoned, and is therefore potentially unrestrained. It provides an unmatched justification for violence and also for self-sacrifice; deterrence does not stop would-be martyrs. Let us pause here to note the tenacity, impact, and centrality of extremists in this conflict. Though a small minority on both sides, their success in subverting efforts toward resolution has been remarkable. Though often considered crazy, they are typically very rational on the tactical level and their tactics often work. Consider the impact of Yigal Amir’s assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, or the way that Palestinian terror attacks influenced Israeli elections in 1996 and 2003. The extremists on the two sides are in fact allies with the same goal: disrupting any move toward reconciliation. They need each other as validation for rejection of compromise.

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The role of militants and of “spoilers” in conflicts is discussed further in this volume by Oded Haklai and Hendrik Spruyt. Israel has faced its own challenges from religious extremists—meaning those who claim divine sanction for acts of violence against the innocent. The names of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir come to mind, as does the 2005 resistance, by all means short of firearms, to the lawful evacuation of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Fear of violence from extremists among Jewish settlers is a factor in both Israeli government decisions and in the daily lives of Palestinians. In the 2008–2009 Gaza war, for example, there is evidence that certain rabbis attached to military units promoted ideas of religious hatred and holy war among Israeli soldiers. But the major icons of the fourth stage have been Hezbollah and Hamas. The failure of state authority, changes in warfare, and religious radicalism came together in the Arab-Israel arena in the aftermath of Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon, with the formation of Hezbollah, an Arab but non-Palestinian Shi’a movement inspired and guided by Iran. Hezbollah’s 1985 program proclaimed that “we see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. . . . Our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated” (Hizballah 1985). Note the global context of this worldview, which also challenges the legitimacy of existing regimes in the Islamic world and beyond. The insertion of Iran into the picture added a new dimension to the Arab-Israel conflict. Iran had been a peripheral state in the Arab-Israel arena. Now the Islamic Republic of Iran was acting as a sponsor of the Palestinian cause, building up Hezbollah as a military force on Israel’s border. Given Iran’s military experience and expertise—gained painfully through the long and brutal Iran-Iraq war—and its considerable resources as a state, this was a significant strategic shift. Even Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon did not defuse the anti-Israel agenda of Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor. Hezbollah was an important model in the rise of Hamas in the late 1980s. The 1988 Hamas Charter defined Palestine as an Islamic trust, every inch of which must be liberated, and condemned all compromise or political solutions as violations of divine law. Jews were charged with

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responsibility for the two World Wars, for communism and capitalism, and for conspiracy to rule the world (Hamas 1988, citing the spurious Protocols of the Elders of Zion). As one Hamas leader stated, “The conflict with Israel is not a matter of land. It’s a matter of ideology” (Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, quoted in Remnick 2006, 64). In this worldview, eventual victory is assured; time is on their side. They see recent history as a series of victories: the expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the exit of the United States from Lebanon in the mid-1980s and later from Somalia, Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and the resistance to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Consequently, they see Israel’s eventual demise as inevitable. In this context, the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 was interpreted as a clear and unambiguous military victory for Hezbollah, and Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza was also claimed as a victory for “armed struggle,” of which Hamas was the leading symbol. The turning point came in 2006, when the fourth stage of the conflict emerged most clearly. In January, 2006, Hamas won a solid majority of seats in the Palestine National Council. The victory should not be overstated: Hamas received only 44 percent of the direct party vote against 41 percent for Fatah, and a large part of the support was a reaction to the corruption and mismanagement within the Palestinian Authority (PA). Still, the bottom line was that the legislative powers of the PA, and most of its executive powers, were now in the hands of a movement that in principle rejected recognition of or permanent agreements with Israel. In June 2007 Hamas seized physical control of Gaza in a quick blitz campaign, and in response, President Abbas dissolved the unity government that had been formed. With the West Bank and Gaza now effectively divided, the prospect of a Palestinian negotiating partner able and willing to implement a two-state solution with Israel was put on indefinite hold. But also in 2006 a new kind of war was triggered, revealing how the fundamental structure of the conflict had changed. Responding to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, Israel launched a campaign, primarily from the air, that proved inadequate to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah forces or to stop the rain of rockets on northern Israel. The Hezbollah model would provide inspiration for Hamas in Gaza, where already

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a steady stream of primitive rockets was being launched at nearby Israeli towns. It was clear that despite its military superiority, the Israeli army had no immediate solution to the problem of rockets or missiles fired from territory it did not control. Thus, this war was seen by nearly all parties as a Hezbollah victory, despite its heavier losses, since the organization had survived to fight another day. A poll of Palestinians indicated that 86 percent believed that Hezbollah had emerged as the winner (Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research 2006). Against this backdrop, the Gaza War of December 2008 through January 2009, though different in some respects, raised many of the same questions. Again, the very definition of victory or defeat was disputed; again, parties on both sides claimed victory or defeat according to their varying predispositions. Consider the perspective of the simple central question: Did Israel achieve the aims for which its campaign was presumably waged? For the moment, the hail of rockets on Israel’s bordering areas was reduced to sporadic attacks, but the border with Egypt was not sealed to illicit traffic in arms. Hamas was weakened militarily in Gaza, but according to a poll, its political support in Gaza increased from 23 to 28 percent, and its support on the West Bank grew from 18 to 29 percent (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center 2008 and 2009). Critics on the Israeli right claim that Israel again failed to complete the job by totally defeating Hamas or by ejecting it from power. But total defeat of a movement that defines simple survival as a victory is not in the cards. It could be achieved only by total Israeli reoccupation of Gaza, which few advocated, even among the most pedigreed hawks. In any event, 47 percent of all Palestinians believed that Hamas had won the war, against only 10 percent who believed Israel had won (and 37 percent who said neither) (ibid. 2009). The fourth stage has left both sides in great confusion. In Israel, it produced the quick emergence and even quicker demise of the shortest-lived school of thought in Israeli strategy: the move toward unilateral disengagement from Palestinian territories. During the Second Intifada, support had grown for unilaterally drawing lines between Israel, on one side, and the West Bank and Gaza, on the other. Behind this initiative was a

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growing realization that demography was working against Israel, and that there would soon be an Arab majority in Israel and the territories taken together. In order to remain both Jewish and democratic, Israel would have to get out of the West Bank and Gaza. On this basis, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, despite his reputation as a super-hawk, carried out the evacuation of Israeli settlements and forces from Gaza in late 2005. Disengagement—or “consolidation”—was the declared objective of the government formed, under the new Kadima party, after elections in early 2006. But with the intensification of attacks and threats from areas evacuated—Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005— support for further unilateral withdrawals evaporated. The Israeli elections of 2009 and 2013 confirmed that a significant shift to the right, first seen in 2003, had taken place in reaction to events of the fourth stage. In essence, these elections erased the impact of the 2006 election that followed Ariel Sharon’s establishment of the new centrist party, Kadima. The situation has turned us back to 2003, when the Second Intifada produced the most hawkish Knesset ever. This turn to the right was set in motion by the Second Intifada, the rise of Hamas as the pivotal Palestinian player, the intrusion of Iran, and what is seen by many Israelis as the failure of unilateral disengagement in Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. Ilan Peleg’s chapter on the ideology of the Israeli Right examines its future trajectory. This, then, is the current impasse. Now we come to the denouement: How can it be overcome? It is not clear how long the fourth stage will endure and what will come next. There are other forces and pressures also at work, some of them opposed to the trends described. First, Oslo is not totally dead. Clearly the Oslo process is moribund for now, and what remains of its vital organs are on critical life support. But it is premature to pronounce eulogies over its corpse. Oslo produced the first mutual recognition between established Israeli and Palestine leadership. Oslo introduced the first Palestinian self-governance on Palestinian soil. Oslo enabled the second peace treaty between Israel and an Arab neighbor, Jordan, stabilizing the longest international border in the conflict. Oslo led to Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, even if it did not completely stabilize that border. Oslo created ongoing Israel-Palestinian

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interaction on official and unofficial levels that has continued through all the ups and downs. Oslo shaped a majority on both sides for a two-state solution. And even in its ultimate failure, Oslo engendered the first serious direct negotiations over the basic issues of the conflict. None of this has been reversed, nor is likely to be. Oslo deserves better than to be treated as the worst four-letter word in Middle East diplomacy. Second, the threat of radical Islamist non-state actors has roused some Arab regimes, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Western nations that felt threatened by such movements. Opposition to Iran, a nonArab and non-Sunni state, appears to be on the rise. Third, the common historical pattern is that ideological movements tend to lose their intensity over time. This has been the experience with both religious revivals and secular movements, including Palestinian national movements and, for that matter, Zionism. Lost intensity seems to especially characterize movements that succeed in coming to power and then face the realities and pressures of actually governing. Yet, ironically, the goal of non-state actors is precisely to become a state. So, will the responsibility of governing serve to moderate Hamas over time? Miriam Elman’s study of Shas deals with a similar issue regarding an Israeli party: Does participation in democratic politics exert a moderating influence? Like all such organizations, Hamas includes different factions and tendencies: insiders (those living in the West Bank and Gaza) versus outsiders, political and military wings, pragmatists and ideologues. The decision to contest elections that were linked to the rejected Oslo framework was a pragmatic step, and the Hamas electoral platform called for “a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital” without repeating the prohibition of territorial compromise in the Hamas Charter. As with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) earlier, the “insiders” on the front line tend to be more pragmatic than the outsiders sitting safely at a distance. Perhaps, as with the PLO, power will shift over time from outsiders to insiders. Subsequent Hamas emphasis on Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967 reminds us of the PLO strategy of “stages” enunciated in 1974, when that organization was midway in its evolution from total rejection to acceptance of a two-state solution. Khalid Mishal, considered a relative hard-liner, said recently that “there is an opportunity to achieve a

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Palestinian national consensus on a political program based on the 1967 borders . . . in which most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state” (Rabbani 2008, 80). Will Hamas follow the path of other actors in the conflict and eventually seek a political, not a military, solution? It has not yet altered its Charter, or even debated doing so, but who would have imagined in 1974 that the PLO would ever do so? Fourth, despite all that has transpired in recent years, a majority of both Palestinians and Israelis continue to support negotiation and a twostate solution in principle. A poll of Israelis in January 2011 showed 67 percent in support of a two-state solution (Dahaf Institute 2011). In June 2011, 54 percent of Palestinians favored a two-state solution (23 percent supported a binational state and only 10 percent called for a unitary Islamic or Palestinian state) (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center 2011). But how can this be? We have just seen that Hamas won an election and that Israeli politics has moved to the right. Can people be both more hawkish and more dovish at the same time? The answer is “yes.” In research that I carried out on the impact of the two intifadas, it turned out that opinions on expressive issues—such as which party to support—grew more hawkish, as expected. But opinions on an overall solution grew more dovish in the First Intifada and remained stable in the Second Intifada (Dowty 2006). The reason for this has been expressed by Louis Kriesberg who has written, “De-escalation may follow from episodes of increasingly intense hostility, including war-threatening crises or escalating wars. It may also occur after the conflict is stalemated at a high, mutually hurting level of antagonism” (Kriesberg 1991, 3). In other words, when there is a mutually painful stalemate, the two sides will look for a “way out,” even while adopting more hawkish poses. In the Israeli case, greater support for rightist parties, on one level, is offset by the move of the entire political spectrum toward greater acceptance of political options that were anathema in an earlier period. There was a time when recognition of the PLO, or acceptance of a Palestinian state, were supported by a tiny minority of Israelis—just as there was a time when the PLO rejected the idea of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state.

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Israel’s turn to the right does not mean the end of the two-state solution as the dominant model for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Likud’s platform in the 2009 election neither endorsed nor ruled out a two-state solution, but simply condemned any further unilateral withdrawals on the model of Lebanon in 2000 or Gaza in 2005. Yisrael Beitenu, the other major right-wing party, actually does not oppose establishment of a Palestinian state, and is ready not only to surrender Arab population centers on the West Bank and Gaza, but even to cede Arab-inhabited areas of Israel itself. In fact, in the 2009 election only two small parties, with seven seats between them, presented platforms of uncompromising opposition to any Palestinian state. Ilan Peleg’s essay in this volume addresses how Israel’s Right has adjusted to new realities. The long-term strategy for fostering the reemergence of a credible Palestinian peace partner will probably revolve around the strengthening of the economy, civil society, and orderly government in the West Bank. This idea was featured in the Likud platform (not that other parties opposed it). The idea of a long-term truce should not be discarded. This is presumably acceptable even to religious absolutists. These absolutists believe that time is on their side. Why not give it a test? If God has favorites, let God direct the results in his own way and in his own good time. In the meantime, the guiding concept of two states for two peoples is under renewed attack. One new line of argument is that the Palestinians have failed to create the basis for a viable state, and that other options such as confederation of the West Bank with Jordan and Gaza with Egypt should be considered. But the fact is that neither Jordan nor Egypt, not to mention the Palestinians, seems interested in such a drastic reshuffling of the cards. Another model that has attracted attention is the idea of a binational state, a state that would be neither Jewish nor Arab but in which the two peoples would share power in a neutral framework. The vision of Israelis and Palestinians living together cooperatively, with neither side dominating the other, is undeniably attractive, but is such a design workable in intense ethnic conflicts? Binational states have a very poor track record, outside of the two Western liberal democracies of Canada and Belgium.

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The idea has been applied, unsuccessfully, in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Lebanon, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and a number of other African states. There are no apparent examples of successful power-sharing between parties still at war. It is difficult to imagine that parties having great difficulty in cooperating on terms of separation would suddenly be able to agree on intricate cooperation in all the minute details of public life. Most importantly, a binational state would give neither side the sense of self-determination and national identity that both have defined as the core of their aspirations over the last century. Dov Waxman’s chapter in this book reminds us of the central importance of national identity in the peace process. In the end, a difficult divorce is better than turbulent cohabitation. Let me add one final observation about the strategic failure of both sides. Strategic thinking in this conflict has been severely circumscribed; emphasis has been on the use of force to compel or deter, with little attention to ways of influencing the other side’s intentions, motivation, or level of hostility. The lack of attention to one’s own impact on the politics, society, and public attitudes of the other side seems to be a fixed attribute of Middle East conflicts. Perhaps the “winner” in the Arab-Israel conflict will be the first party to realize how much power it has to influence the internal dynamics of the other side and to use this power effectively. For example, in 1977 the percentage of Israelis believing that Egypt was ready to talk about peace jumped from less than 50 percent to 94 percent when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made his surprise visit to Jerusalem (Stone 1982, 18–19). And in early 2005, Palestinian support of suicide attacks dropped from 77 percent to 29 percent when a cease-fire was declared and hopes for peace talks revived (Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research 2005). The likely terms of a settlement are actually fairly clear to most observers. We should remember that an agreed framework between Israel and the recognized Palestinian representatives, for overall settlement of the conflict, has only existed for the last 20 years of this 130-year struggle. In addition, serious negotiations between the two parties over the basic issues of the conflict—the “final status” questions—have taken place only for a few months in 2000–2001 and in 2007–2008 (Dowty 2012, 167–72,

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225–26). Nevertheless, in the light of general trends on both sides over the last few decades, and despite the setbacks of recent history, we can see the emerging contours of what a final resolution would look like. There will be a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state, with borders based on the pre-1967 armistice lines with minor changes. The status quo on the holy sites will remain, with the Muslim mosques (al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock) under Muslim control and the Western Wall under Jewish control, with formal sovereignty left vague. A token number of Palestinian refugees might be reunified with families in Israel, but the right of return would be exercised primarily to Palestine. Palestine would have forces to maintain law and order, but not to threaten Israel. An international presence would probably be needed to guarantee the agreement. It is much easier to predict the likely content of a settlement, however, than to predict when it will be achieved. Yael Aronoff deals more extensively in her contribution to this volume with the problem of predicting a peace settlement. The general trends of the last century and a quarter give us, however, a certain degree of confidence that, sooner or later, the majorities on both sides favoring a compromise will prevail. But the events of the last few years teach us that the road to peace is rocky and has many downturns, and that we have yet a long way to travel.

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Contributors

Yael S. Aronoff holds the Serling chair in Israel studies at Michigan State University, where she is an associate professor of international relations at James Madison College and has a dual appointment with the Jewish Studies Program. She received her PhD in political science from Columbia University and her BA from Princeton University. She worked in the Pentagon as a regional assistant for humanitarian affairs and as a Jacob K. Javits fellow on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Dr. Aronoff’s book, When Israeli Hard-Liners Opt for Peace: the Political Psychology of Prime Ministers, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in spring 2014. It compares and contrasts six Israeli prime ministers and helps explain why some underwent dramatic shifts in regard to policies toward the Palestinians while others did not. Dr. Aronoff’s recent publications include “From Warfare to Withdrawal: The Legacy of Ariel Sharon,” Israel Studies (Summer 2010); and “From Hawks to Peacemakers: A Comparison of Two Israeli Prime Ministers,” Israel Studies Forum (Summer 2009). She is also the book review editor for the Israel Studies Review. Alan Dowty is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame. In 2003–6 he held the Kahanoff chair in Israeli Studies at the University of Calgary, and in 2005–7 he was president of the Association for Israel Studies. Professor Dowty is a graduate of Shimer College and the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD in 1963. In 1963–75 he was on the faculty of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, during which time he served as executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations and chairman of the Department of International Relations. Among his books are The Limits of American 273

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Isolation, New York University Press (1971); Middle East Crisis, University of California Press (1984), which won the Quincy Wright Award of the International Studies Association; Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement, Yale University Press (1987); and The Jewish State: A Century Later, University of California Press (1998, 2001). An edited volume, Critical Problems in Israeli Society, was published by Praeger in 2004. His latest book, Israel/Palestine (2005, 2008, 2012), is published by Polity Press. He has published over 140 scholarly and popular articles and reviews, and has delivered over 500 public lectures in 20 countries. Ehud Eiran is a lecturer (US assistant professor) at the Division of International Relations, School of Political Science, Haifa University, Israel; and a faculty affiliate of the Middle-East Negotiation Initiative at the Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School. Eiran was a research fellow and an associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School (2005–11), a senior visiting fellow in the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (2003–6), and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at MIT (2010–11). Prior to his academic career, Eiran served as an assistant to the Israeli prime minister’s foreign policy advisor. His best-selling book, The Essence of Longing, was published in Israel in 2007. Miriam Fendius Elman is associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. Professor Elman received her PhD in political science from Columbia University and has been a faculty member at the Maxwell School since fall 2008. From 1996 to 2008 she was a faculty member of Arizona State University. She is the editor and co-editor of three books, Paths to Peace: Is Democracy the Answer?, MIT Press (1997); Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations, MIT Press (2001); and Progress in International Relations Theory: Appraising the Field, MIT Press (2003); and has authored over thirty journal articles, book chapters, and government reports. At the Maxwell School, Elman has directed the project on Democracy in the Middle East (DIME) funded by the Moynihan Institute

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of Global Affairs and currently serves as faculty research co-director of the International and Intra-State Conflict and Collaboration project at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration. Her work has been funded by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and by the US Department of Education. Elman’s current research projects include a monograph on the relationship between war, peace, and democratic political development and a co-edited book (with anthropologist Madelaine Adelman), Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City, forthcoming with Syracuse University Press. Oded Haklai is associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2004. He is the author of Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel, University of Pennsylvania Press (2011), winner of the Shapiro Award for the Best Book in Israel Studies, co-editor of Democratization and Ethnic Minorities: Conflict or Compromise, and numerous articles in leading journals. He is also the winner of several prestigious research grants and has been a research fellow or a visiting scholar at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, and the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School, George Washington University. Ilan Peleg is Charles A. Dana professor of government and law at Lafayette College, and professor of Israel society at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Professor Peleg earned BA and MA degrees from Tel Aviv University, and MA and PhD degrees from Northwestern University. He served as president of the Association for Israel Studies (1995–97). Professor Peleg has held appointments as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and St. Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Begin’s Foreign Policy 1977–1983: Israel’s Move to the Right (1987), The Emergence of a Binational Israel:

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The Second Republic in the Making (1989), Patterns of Censorship Around the World (1993), Human Rights in the West Bank and Gaza: Politics and Legacy (1995), and The Middle East Peace Process (1998). He has also authored over sixty scholarly articles. Professor Peleg was the founder & editor-in-chief of Israel Studies Forum. Recent books include Democratizing the Hegemonic State: Political Transformatioin in the Age of Identity, Cambridge University Press (2007); The Foreign Policy of George W. Bush: Moving Beyond Neoconservatism, Westview (2009); and the co-authored (with Dov Waxman) Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Cambridge University Press (2011). Hendrik Spruyt is Norman Dwight Harris professor of international relations at Northwestern University where he has also served as director of the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies. He previously taught international relations at Columbia University (1991–99) and Arizona State University (1999–2003) before joining the faculty at Northwestern. He received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego in 1991 and a doctorandus from the Law Faculty at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) in 1983. He is the author of The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, Princeton University Press (1994), which won the J. David Greenstone Prize for best book in History and Politics 1994–96. His book Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition, Cornell University Press (2005) was runner up for the Greenstone Prize in 2006. He is also the author of Global Horizons, University of Toronto Press (2009); and co-author with Alexander Cooley of Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations, Princeton University Press (2009). Professor Spruyt has also published several dozen articles and book chapters and is currently working on two book length projects. One project focuses on integration in multi-ethnic militaries. The second is a study of different international systemic orders across history and in different regions. Dov Waxman is professor of political science, international affairs, and Israel Studies at Northeastern University. He is also co-director of the Middle East Center for Peace, Culture, and Development. Before joining

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the faculty at Northeastern, he taught at the City University of New York and at Bowdoin College. He received his PhD and MA degrees from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, and his BA degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University. He has held visiting appointments at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University; Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey; the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University; the Avraham Harman Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University; and St. John’s College and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. From 2005 to 2010, he was the associate editor of Israel Studies Forum. He is the author of The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation, Palgrave Macmillan (2006); and (with Ilan Peleg) Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Cambridge University Press (2011). He has published over fifty scholarly and popular articles and reviews.

Index

Page numbers with a t indicate tables. Argentina, 6 Arian, Asher, 116, 118 Army of Islam, 94 Aronoff, Yael S., 179, 237 Ashkenazim, 41–42, 119n22 Attas, Ariel, 122n25 Atzmaut faction, 12n11 authoritarian regimes, 140; peace process in, 5, 22, 110, 135

Abbas, Mahmoud, 59, 92–94, 230; on Israeli settlements, 209–10; and Olmert, 29–30, 65, 187, 189; popularity of, 190; on terrorism, 193–94 Abdullah, king of Saudi Arabia, 183–84 Abu Mazen. See Abbas, Mahmoud Abu-Shebak, Rashid, 93 Achdut Ha’avoda party, 163n3 Afghanistan, 204, 230 Agudat Israel party, 119 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 184 Alayan, Samira, 94n13 Alfei Menashe, 88 Algeria, 107, 111n15; war of independence of, 32, 33n2, 65, 76–77 Allon, Yigal, 215, 217–19 Amaleks, 167 Amir, Yigal, 133, 228, 229 Amsellem, Chaim, 128n31 Annapolis summit (2007), 29, 102, 183, 186–89, 191 al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, 60, 91–92 Arab League, 183–85, 204 Arab political parties, in Israel, 48, 63, 131 Arab Spring, 60, 104, 131, 200–201 Arafat, Yasser, 59, 90–93, 151, 189, 196, 197. See also Palestinian Liberation Organization

Bahrain, 184 Baker, James, 201 Balad party, 131 Balfour Declaration, 163n4 Barak, Ehud, 12n11, 196–97, 207; and Camp David agreements, 46, 87, 197; coalition of, 47, 49, 57–58, 87; and Netanyahu, 57–58, 198, 201–2, 207; and Oslo Accords, 152; resignation of, 46 Barghouti, Marwan, 91 Bar-Ilan speech (2009), 11, 58, 63, 173 Barnett, Michael, 147 Bar-On, Dan, 142 Bar-Siman-Tov, Yaacov, 48n24 Begin, Menachem, 21, 166; and Camp David Accords, 169–70;

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Begin, Menachem (cont.) Herut movement of, 159, 168; rise of Likud under, 160, 164–65, 169 Beilin, Yossi, 207 Ben Ami, Shlomo, 188–89, 203 Ben Gurion, David, 37, 159–60, 218 Bennett, Naftali, 14, 119 Bharatiya Janata Party (India), 111n15 Biden, Joseph, 202 Blair, Tony, 187 Bosnia, 3, 236 Breuilly, John, 138 Brown, Nathan, 91, 93n12 Buddhism, 104 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, 8n6 Bush, George W., 3, 187, 189, 203; Annapolis summit of, 29, 102, 183, 186–89, 191; on Iran, 184; Shelf Agreement of, 30, 56, 65. See also Road Map peace initiative

Camp David Accords (1978), 39, 62, 172; Begin’s view of, 169–70; Netanyau’s view of, 201–2 Camp David summit (2000), 49, 188–89, 203, 207, 223, 226; Barak’s view of, 46, 87, 197 Civil War (US), 32 Clausewitz, Carl von, 167 Clinton, Bill, 3, 170, 189–93, 201, 203, 207 Clinton, Hillary, 204 Communist Party, 48 comparative politics theory, 18, 108n12, 109 Construction and Housing Ministry, 81, 128 constructivist theory, 191–95, 204–5 consumerism, 150, 155

“convergence” (hitkansut) plan, 11, 80, 171, 232 Council of Torah Sages, 119 Cyprus, 236

Dayan, Moshe, 212, 213, 215, 219 Declarations of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. See Oslo Peace Accords de Gaulle, Charles, 32, 33n2, 65, 77 democracy, 139–40; and Arab Spring, 50, 104, 131, 200–201; ethnic, 116–19; and human rights, 85, 146, 195; moderating influences of, 101–4, 115–25, 129–33, 135; Muslim supporters of, 103–4, 114, 116n19, 208 democratic peace theory (DPT), 2–8, 19; and authoritarian leaders, 5, 22, 110, 135; criticisms of, 4–5, 15, 175, 179–81, 188; and ideological convictions, 158, 168, 174–75; and inclusion-moderation thesis, 102, 109–10; and national identities, 134–41; Schweller on, 222; and spoilers, 71. See also peacemaking Diamond, Larry, 105n8 Doar, Yair, 216 Dowty, Alan, 82, 223–37 DPT. See democratic peace theory Drukman, Haim, 82

Eban, Abba, 143, 212–14 education, 138; Arab, 94–96; Jewish, 82–83, 85–86, 120, 123 Egypt, 68, 70, 182, 186, 233; democratization of, 200–201, 208; Israeli agreements with, 219n6, 226, 236; Muslim

Index Brotherhood in, 103, 106. See also Sinai Peninsula Eiran, Ehud, 78, 194, 209–22 Eitan, Michael, 194 Elman, Colin, 185 Elman, Miriam Fendius, 1–26, 101–32, 189, 233 entrepreneurship, political, 110–11 Erekat, Saeb, 192, 193, 209–10 Eretz Yisrael. See Land of Israel Eshkol, Levi, 160, 213, 218 European Union (EU), 65, 107, 186, 195 “existential imperative,” 163, 173–74, 185

Falkland Islands War, 6 Fatah, 196, 203; in Gaza, 59–60, 108; and Hamas, 89, 94, 108; and Palestinian Authority, 92; on two-state solution, 192, 194; in West Bank, 186, 188, 190, 205 Fayyad, Salam, 89, 90, 187, 193, 210 Feiglin, Moshe, 14, 88 France, 116; African interventions by, 6; Algerian war of, 32, 33n2, 65, 76–77; and postwar Germany, 154n5 Front Islamique du Salut (Algeria), 107, 111n15

Gahal bloc, 160 Galili, Yisrael, 215, 218, 219 Gaza Strip, 54–58, 213; Fatah in, 59–60, 108; Hamas in, 93, 108, 186–90, 206, 230; Israeli withdrawal from, 13, 31, 51–53, 62, 120–21, 171; Jewish settlers in, 41, 219; and Oslo Accords, 148–49; population of, 51–52; rocket attacks from, 92, 179n1, 188, 196, 226, 231; schools in, 94–96

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Geneva Initiative, 206 Germany, 36n5, 154n5, 213 Gil Pensioners’ party, 44, 55t, 56 Givat Hadagan, 86 Givat Ze’ev, 123 globalization, 144–46, 150, 155 Golan Heights, 39, 41, 213 Goldstein, Baruch, 86, 229 Goldstein, Yossi, 218 Greater Israel Movement, 163n3 Greater Land of Israel. See Whole Land of Israel Green Line, of West Bank, 54, 129, 192 Grossman, David, 143 Gunther, Richard, 105n8 Gush Emmunim, 82–83, 115, 221 Gvati, Haim, 212

HaBayit HaYehudi. See Jewish Home party Hadash party, 131 Haichud Haleumi. See National Union party Haklai, Oded, 1–26, 32, 67–97, 190, 194, 210 halakhic (religious) laws, 79, 123 Halbertal, Moshe, 151 Hamas, 111, 179n1, 205; Charter of, 194, 229–30, 233–34; and democratic peace theory, 2n3, 107–8; diversity within, 30, 32, 59–60, 233; in electoral contests, 106–8; and Fatah, 89, 94, 108; in Gaza, 93, 108, 186–90, 206, 230; and Iran, 185, 186; and Oslo Accords, 152; and Palestinian Authority, 32, 89–90, 92, 95–96, 230; as terrorist organization, 65, 92, 108, 172, 196

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Index

Haniyeh, Ismael, 190 Haram al-Sharif, 192, 203 Har Homa settlement, 11, 199 Hariri, Saad, 184 Hebron, 84, 86 Hebron agreement, 11, 13n12; Netanyahu’s view of, 49; Rabin’s view of, 17n16; Shas’s view of, 122 Herut movement, 159, 168 Herzl, Theodor, 166, 213 Hezbollah, 2, 106, 108, 111, 132; formation of, 229; and Iran, 183, 185, 186, 205; and Olmert, 197; rocket attacks by, 230–31 Hinduism, 104 hitkansut (“convergence”) plan, 11, 80, 171, 232 Hobbes, Thomas, 167 Holocaust, 143, 166 Houthis, 183 hudna (“generation-long ceasefire”), 90, 108 human rights, 85, 146, 195 Hussein, Saddam, 39. See also Iraq

identity, 136–42; collective, 134–35; national, 133, 136–41, 153–56; religious, 17–22, 228; of self/other, 142, 167 Immergut, Ellen M., 36 inclusion-moderation thesis, 102, 108–10 India, 104, 111n15, 136 Indonesia, 76, 115 institutional structures, 9–16; of religious political parties, 111–13; and spoilers of peace processes, 67–70 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 186

international relations theory, 2, 17, 108n12, 158, 180–82 Intifada: First, 60, 226, 234; Second, 38–39, 85n10, 91–92, 95–96, 231–34 Iran, 2, 182–85, 204–5, 233; and Hezbollah, 229; nuclear program of, 23–24, 183, 184; Pahlavi regime in, 20 Iraq, 182, 229, 230; after First Persian Gulf War, 29, 39, 181 Iraq Study Group, 184 Irgun Zvai Leumi, 164–65 Islamic Action Front (Jordan), 11, 103, 111, 114n17 Islamic Resistance Movement. See Hamas Islamic Salvation Front (Algeria), 107, 111n15 isolationism, 143–46 Israeli Democracy Institute, 130n33 Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, 92, 226

Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 163n4, 164–66, 167n10, 169 Jaish al-Islam, 94 Japan, 104 Jarring, Gunar, 214–15 Jericho, 89 Jerusalem, 41, 78, 196, 210n1; Livni’s position on, 189; negotiations over, 10n7, 64, 191–93; Netanyahu’s position on, 199, 202–3, 206–7; Shas’s position on, 101, 102, 123. See also West Bank Jervis, Robert, 181 Jewish Home party, 12–13, 57, 81n6; Netanyahu coalition with, 57t, 58, 119 Johnston, Alan, 94 Jones, James, 185

Index Jordan, 68, 163n4, 182, 233; Islamic Action Front of, 103, 111, 114n17; Israeli diplomacy with, 219n6, 226; Israeli peace treaty with, 172, 186; Muslim Brotherhood in, 106 Judea and Samaria. See West Bank Justice and Development Party (Turkey), 107, 111

Kadima party, 54, 207, 232; coalitions of, 106, 118n20; formation of, 51t, 87, 191; and Netanyahu, 58, 127, 198; and Olmert, 55, 55t, 56; and Shas, 101–2, 123 Kalyvas, Stathis N., 111 Katzenstein, Peter, 36n5 Kelman, Herbert, 137, 156 Kfar Etzion settlement, 211 Kfir Brigade, 85 Kissinger, Henry, 215, 220n7 Klein, Menachem, 108n10 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 82 Kosovo, 136, 236 Kriesberg, Louis, 234 Kurtzer, Daniel, 205

Labor Party, 12–13, 63, 78, 79; history of, 37, 220n9; and Likud Party, 44–46, 118n20; Netanyahu coalition with, 57t; Olmert coalition with, 55–56, 55t; and Sharon, 53; spoiler opposition to, 74; on two-state solution, 191–92, 197 Land of Israel, 52n29, 122–23, 137, 142–43, 149; boundaries of, 165–66; and Fatah, 192; and Likud Party, 13, 194; negotiations over, 169, 174–75; partition of, 11n8, 157, 161; Sinai

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and, 153; as “territorial imperative,” 20–21, 161, 163, 170, 173–74. See also Whole Land of Israel Langohr, Vickie, 103–4 Lapid, Yair, 58 Lasensky, Scott, 205 Laver, Michael, 37 leadership, 22–24, 179–208; authoritarian, 5, 22, 110, 135; and domestic politics, 195–204 Lebanon, 171, 184, 197, 229, 230, 232. See also Hezbollah Lebow, Richard Ned, 181 Leiter, Yehiel, 149 Levinger, Moshe, 82 liberalism, 186–91 Liberal Party (UK), 35 Lieberman, Avigdor, 56, 127n30, 165, 202 Liebman, Charles S., 125 Likud Party, 12–14, 63, 235; Jewish settler policies of, 40–41, 78–79, 81n6, 87–88; and Labor Party, 44–46, 118n20; and Land of Israel caucus, 13, 194; Netanyahu coalition with, 57t; and Olmert, 56; rise of, 160, 164–65, 168–69; and Sharon, 51t, 54; and Shas, 127n30; “territorial imperative” of, 20–21, 161, 163, 170; on two-state solution, 191 Lior, Dov, 82 Livni, Tzipi, 14, 56, 187; coalition of, 101, 189, 197; and Netanyahu, 58, 198 Lustick, Ian, 1n2, 32

Ma’ale Adumim settlement, 220 Madrid Peace Conference (1991), 21, 31, 47–48, 170 Mafdal. See National Religious Party

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Index

Magidor, Menachem, 64 Mandatory Palestine, 158–59 Manhigut Yehudit, 87–88 Maoz, Zeev, 205, 217 Mapai party, 37, 44 Masoud, Tarek, 113 Meir, Golda, 214, 218–19 Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, 82, 88 Meretz party, 48, 119n21, 122, 197 Meridor, Dan, 194 Mifleget HaDatit Leumit—Mafdal. See National Religious Party Migdal, Joel, 75 Miller, Aaron, 202 Mishal, Khalid, 233–34 Mofaz, Shaul, 58 Moledet party, 47 Morocco, 183 Mubarak, Hosni, 60, 106, 208 Muhammadiyah (Indonesia), 115 Muslim Brotherhood, 90; in Egypt, 103, 106; in Jordan, 106

Nahdlatul Ulama (Indonesia), 115 Nasr, Vali, 114 national identities, 133, 136–41, 153–56 nationalist-religious parties, 115n18, 131–32, 166–67 National Jewish Front, 118–19 National Religious Party (NRP), 12–13, 115, 117–19, 189; extremism of, 112; on Jewish settlements, 81n6; and Netanyahu, 47; and Sharon, 51t, 53, 54, 120n23; successor to, 119; as veto player, 131 National Union party, 47, 81n6, 118–19; Sharon coalition with, 51t, 52, 54 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 165, 170; and Barak, 57–58, 198, 201–2, 207;

Bar-Ilan speech of, 11, 58, 63, 173; Clinton on, 201; coalitions of, 45–47, 57t, 58, 119, 127, 197–98, 207; future of, 172–73, 200–201; and Hebron agreement, 49; on Iran, 185; on Israel’s enemies, 166; on Jerusalem, 199, 202–3, 206–7; on Jewish settlements, 68–69, 126, 152, 206, 211, 220; and Livni, 58, 198; and Obama, 12–13, 202, 206–7; and Oslo Accords, 49, 74, 152; and Palestinian Authority, 199–200; and Peres, 151; and Sharon, 53, 54, 63; and Shas, 47, 57t, 117, 122–23, 126–27, 197; on two-state solution, 11–13, 58, 63, 191, 198–99; and Wye River Memorandum, 21, 173, 201 Netherlands, 35, 76 niche constituencies, 37, 43–44, 87, 109, 112–13 Northrup, Terry A., 136–37 NRP. See National Religious Party nuclear weapons: of Iran, 23–24, 183, 184; of Israel, 39n9 Nusseibeh, Sari, 194

Obama, Barack, 184, 189, 203–5; and Livni, 197; and Netanyahu, 12–13, 202, 206–7 Occupied Territories, 160, 169; dilemma of, 157–75; economic burdens of, 40; future policies on, 63–64; and Israel’s “historic” boundaries, 165–66; Jewish settlements in, 40–42, 68, 78–80; Peres on, 146–47, 152; political implications of, 62–63; Sharon’s views of, 11, 88, 161, 171; Shas’s views of, 54, 121–26, 128, 207; strategic importance of, 39, 166. See also West Bank

Index Olmert, Ehud, 21, 161, 196, 206; and Abbas, 29–30, 65, 187, 189; coalitions of, 55–56, 55t, 120; hitkansut (“convergence”) plan of, 11, 80, 171, 232; on Jewish settlements, 68–69; opponents of, 74; resignation of, 197; and Shas, 123, 127 O’Neal, John, 6–7 Operation Cast Lead (2008), 187, 188, 190 Oslo Peace Accords (1993 & 1995), 1, 19–20, 48, 133–35, 156, 181, 221; failure of, 77–79, 151–56, 181, 193, 226–27; and Gaza Strip, 148–49; and Hamas, 152; and Netanyahu, 49, 74, 151; and Palestinian Authority, 59, 89–90, 92; Peleg on, 160; Peres on, 140–41; and PLO, 78, 90, 141–42, 146–47, 206; popular support for, 148n2, 205–6; and Rabin, 20, 41, 62–63, 121–22, 141–49, 182; reactions to, 61, 147–51, 181, 232–33; Shas on, 121, 122; and West Bank, 78, 148–49, 155

Pakistan, 136, 236 Palestine National Council, 230 Palestine Royal Commission (1937), 216, 217, 225 Palestinians, 72; Iranian influence on, 182–83; national identity of, 137–38; right of return for, 174, 194, 206–7, 237; right-wing ideologies among, 168 Palestinian Authority (PA), 89–97; democratization of, 187, 188; diversity within, 59–60; elections of, 179n1; and Fatah, 92; and Hamas, 32, 89–90, 92, 95–96, 230; Israeli

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285

negotiations with, 183; and Netanyahu, 199–200; and Oslo Accords, 59, 89–90, 92, 141–42 Palestinian Legislative Council, 59, 90–91, 93 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 90, 233–34; formation of, 59n30; and Oslo Accords, 78, 90, 141–42, 146–47, 206. See also Arafat, Yasser peacemaking, 24–26; law enforcement’s role in, 76–77, 83–85; and reconciliation, 154n5; spoilers’ role in, 68–69, 72–74. See also democratic peace theory Pearlman, Wendy, 72 Peel proposal (1937), 164n5, 168 Peleg, Ilan, 157–75, 232, 235 Peres, Shimon, 96; on Iran, 183; and Israeli identity, 140–41, 146–47, 149–50, 152–55; and Netanyahu, 151; on Occupied Territories, 146–47, 152; and Rabin, 197; and Sharon, 52–53 Pinkas, Alon, 202 policy networks, 38–39, 43, 50, 60–66 Porat, Hanan, 83 Portugal, 76–77 Pressman, Jeremy, 205

Raam-Taal party, 131 Rabin, Yitzhak, 160, 196; assassination of, 41, 48, 70, 133, 134, 149, 228, 229; coalition of, 48; on globalization, 144–46; on Hebron agreement, 17n16; on Israeli identity, 140–41, 144–47, 149–50, 152–55; on Jewish settlers, 41, 86, 219; and Oslo Accords, 20, 41, 62–63, 121–22, 141–49, 182; and Peres, 197

286

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Index

Rajoub, Nayef, 230 realist theory, 182–86 Reilly, Benjamin, 112–13 religious political parties, 110–19, 166–67; constituents of, 37, 43–44, 87, 109, 112–15, 119n22, 130; definition of, 103n3; extremist, 105; ideologies of, 37, 113–14, 124–25, 130; institutional structures of, 111–13; moderating influences on, 115–19, 129–33; political strategies of, 110–11; prominence of, 116–19 Renville accords (1948), 76 right-wing parties, 157–75, 232, 235; conceptualization of, 162–65; future of, 171–74; ideology of, 165–68; as political actor, 168–71; role of, 159–61 Road Map peace initiative, 29–30, 64, 203, 206; ceasefire after, 92; provisions of, 78; spoiler opposition to, 74. See also Bush, George W. Rogers, William, 215 Ross, Dennis, 199, 201 Rupin, Arthur, 219n5 Russett, Bruce, 6–7 Russia, 3, 186, 195 Russian immigrants. See Yisrael Beitenu party Rwanda, 236

sabra, 145 Sadat, Anwar, 70, 206, 236 Said, Edward, 41n10 Samaria and Judea. See West Bank Sasson, Talia, 81 Saud al-Faisal, 183 Saudi Arabia, 182–84, 233 Schweller, Randall L., 222

secularization, of Israeli society, 145, 149–55 Sephardic Guardians of the Torah. See Shas party Sephardim, 41–42; and Shas party, 44, 119–21, 128n31 September 11 attacks, 17 Serbia, 136 Shamir, Yitzhak, 21, 143, 165, 174, 195; electoral defeat of, 160; on Israel’s enemies, 166; at Madrid Peace Conference, 47–48, 170 Shapira, Avraham, 82 sharia law, 107, 114n17 Sharon, Ariel, 21, 74, 195–96; coalitions of, 46, 47, 50–55, 51t; election of 2001 of, 46, 160–61; Gaza withdrawal by, 13, 31, 34, 53, 161, 232; and National Religious Party, 51t, 53, 54, 120n23; and Netanyahu, 53, 54, 63; on Occupied Territories, 11, 88, 161, 171; and Peres, 52–53; and Shas, 53, 117, 120n23 Shas party, 12–13, 18–19, 101–2, 109–11, 117–32; and Camp David summit, 189; establishment of, 119–20; future of, 125–28; moderating influences on, 115–19, 129–33; and Netanyahu, 47, 57t, 117, 122–23, 126–27, 197; on Occupied Territories, 54, 121–26, 128, 207; Olmert coalition with, 55t, 56; policies of, 120–25; and Sephardim, 44, 119–21; and Sharon, 53, 117; on Wye River Memorandum, 122 Shelf Agreement, 30, 56, 65 Shi’ite Muslims, 183, 229 Shinui party, 44, 49, 51t Sinai Peninsula, 153; Israeli withdrawal from, 24, 39, 62, 160, 169, 206, 212–13

Index Six-Day War (1967), 1n2, 39, 56, 212; national identity after, 143 Smith, Anthony, 136 Smith, Rupert, 228 Snyder, Jack, 33, 35–36 Somalia, 230 spoiler(s), 9–10, 15–16, 67–97, 193, 210; definitions of, 72; government strategies against, 74–76; Iran as, 185; militants as, 228–29; outside versus internal, 16n15, 233; Shas as, 101–2, 131; Waxman on, 152 Sprinzak, Ehud, 221 Spruyt, Hendrik, 1–26, 29–66, 81, 188, 190, 210 Sri Lanka, 104, 236 Stedman, Stephen, 10, 16, 72, 73 Stein, Janice Gross, 137, 138 strategic choice theory, 17, 37, 43, 44; and political entrepreneurship, 110–11 Sunni Muslims, 183 Syria, 186, 213; Golan Heights of, 39, 41, 213; Israeli peace talks with, 39n9

Taba talks (2001), 56, 189–93, 196, 223, 226 Tal Law, 124, 128n31 Tamir, Nadav, 202 Tanzim forces, 91, 92 “territorial imperative,” 20–21, 161, 163, 170, 173–74. See also Land of Israel Third Way, 44, 47 Tibon, Noam, 87 Tirza, Dani, 88 totalitarianism. See authoritarian regimes Transjordan, 163n4 Tsebelis, George, 36–37

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287

Tunisia, 201 Turkey, 116; and Cyprus, 136; religious parties of, 107, 111

United Arab Emirates, 184 United Kingdom, 187; Falkland Islands War of, 6; Liberal Party of, 35 United States Constitution, 62 United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, 12–13, 44, 117–19; Barak coalition with, 49, 58; Netanyahu coalition with, 57t; and Olmert, 56; Sharon coalition with, 53 UN Relief and Works Agency, 94 UN Resolution 242 (1967), 78, 214–15, 226 UN Special Commission on Palestine (1947), 168, 216–17 UN World Conference on Human Rights, 146

veto players, 9–10, 14, 36–37, 131, 210 veto points, 33–38, 61–62; and majority opinion, 58; of Palestinian groups, 59–60; and political fragmentation, 42–49; and US Constitution, 62

water: infrastructure for, 82; rights to, 80, 84 Waxman, Dov, 11, 133–56, 194, 236 Weber, Max, 75, 77 Weisglass, Dov, 52 Welfare Party (Turkey), 111 West Bank, 83–85, 143, 196, 213; economic development of, 186; elections in, 179n1, 188; Fatah in, 186, 188, 190, 205; future policies on, 63–64;

288

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Index

West Bank (cont.) Green Line of, 54, 129, 192; Hamas supporters in, 231; illegal outposts in, 68, 78–80; Israeli settlers in, 40–41, 78–79, 126, 209–13, 219–20; legal status of, 83–84, 169, 198; and Oslo Accords, 78, 148–49, 155; schools in, 94; security barrier in, 52, 80, 88, 169. See also Jerusalem; Occupied Territories Westminster system, 35, 37, 113 Whole Land of Israel, 21, 78–79, 81n6, 191, 199. See also Land of Israel Wiesel, Elie, 202 World Bank, 186, 227 Wye River Memorandum (1998), 11, 13n12, 170; Netanyahu on, 21, 173, 201; Shas on, 122

Ya’alon, Moshe, 88n11 Yehudit HaTorah. See United Torah Judaism party Yemen, 183 Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) Council, 149 Yesha Council, 52, 82, 106 Yesh Atid Party, 58, 119

Yesh Din, 85 Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, 82, 88 Yeshivat Siach, 86 yeshivot hesder, 85–86 Yishai, Eli, 102n2, 122n25, 126 Yisrael Beitenu party, 12–13, 44, 46, 197; on Jewish settlements, 81n6, 207; Netanyahu coalition with, 57t, 58; Olmert coalition with, 55–56, 55t; popularity of, 124n26, 127n30; on two-state solution, 235 Yom Kippur War (1973), 219, 221, 228 Yosef, Ovadia, 120

Zahar, Marie-Joëlle, 70 Zakaria, Fareed, 107 zero-sum conflicts, 137 Zionism, 42, 64, 212–13, 220, 225; ideological characteristics of, 165–68, 174–75; and Likud Party, 160; “moderate,” 167; and Negev desert, 218; and religious education, 82–83, 85–86; revisionist, 164–65, 167n10; and secular identity, 148–49, 152–55; Shas’s views of, 54, 121–24, 126, 128; and Transjordan, 163n4 Zu Artzenu! movement, 79