Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process [1 ed.] 9783842829923, 9783842879928

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Tilman Pradt

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Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s How NGOs facilitated the peace process

Diplomica Verlag

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

Tilman Pradt Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process ISBN: 978-3-8428-2992-3 Herstellung: Diplomica® Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, 2012

Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Dieses Werk ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Die dadurch begründeten Rechte, insbesondere die der Übersetzung, des Nachdrucks, des Vortrags, der Entnahme von Abbildungen und Tabellen, der Funksendung, der Mikroverfilmung oder der Vervielfältigung auf anderen Wegen und der Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen, bleiben, auch bei nur auszugsweiser Verwertung, vorbehalten. Eine Vervielfältigung dieses Werkes oder von Teilen dieses Werkes ist auch im Einzelfall nur in den Grenzen der gesetzlichen Bestimmungen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der jeweils geltenden Fassung zulässig. Sie ist grundsätzlich vergütungspflichtig. Zuwiderhandlungen unterliegen den Strafbestimmungen des Urheberrechtes. Die Wiedergabe von Gebrauchsnamen, Handelsnamen, Warenbezeichnungen usw. in diesem Werk berechtigt auch ohne besondere Kennzeichnung nicht zu der Annahme, dass solche Namen im Sinne der Warenzeichen- und Markenschutz-Gesetzgebung als frei zu betrachten wären und daher von jedermann benutzt werden dürften. Die Informationen in diesem Werk wurden mit Sorgfalt erarbeitet. Dennoch können Fehler nicht vollständig ausgeschlossen werden und der Verlag, die Autoren oder Übersetzer übernehmen keine juristische Verantwortung oder irgendeine Haftung für evtl. verbliebene fehlerhafte Angaben und deren Folgen. © Diplomica Verlag GmbH http://www.diplomica-verlag.de, Hamburg 2012

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

Contents Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Groups

Part I – Introduction Mediators in world politics History “Arguing” vs. “bargaining” Track-II NGO definition International conflict mediations Participants Character of conflict Time of mediation Kind of mediation Secrecy Funding Backing of governments Outcome-measurement

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Part II – Case studies Definition moderate/ hard-liner Case 1 – AAAS Participants Character of conflict Stage of conflict Participation Secrecy Funding Backing Outcome Case 2 – FAFO Participants Character of conflict Stage of conflict Participation Secrecy Funding Backing Outcome Case 3 – OPIC Participants Character of conflict Stage of conflict Participation Secrecy Funding Backing Outcome

1 2 3 5 8 12 13 14 15 17 19 21 23 24 26 28 31 32 33 36 37 38 38 39 40 40 42 43 44 45 45 47 48 49 50 52 54 54 55 56 56 57 57 58

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

Part III – Results Participants Character of conflict Stage of conflict Participation Secrecy Funding Backing Fig. 1 Outcome

Part IV – Conclusion NGOs as third-parties Fig. 2 Fig. 3 How did NGOs facilitate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the early 1990s?

71 71 72 74 76 79 89

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References Appendices

60 60 61 62 62 63 64 65 66 66

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Groups AAAS

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

AFSC

American Friends Service Committee

CBO

Community-based organisation

CISS

Committee on International Security Studies

DOP

Declaration of Principles

ECF

Economic Cooperation Foundation

FAFO

Forskningsstiftelsen for Studier av Arbeidsliv, Fagbevegelse og Offentlig Politikk Foundation for International Security

GONGO

Governmetal-organised non-governmental organisation

GRO

Grass-roots organisation

INGO

International non-governmental organisation

IPCRI

Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information

Jaffee

Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies

NGO

Non-governmental organisation

NSA

Non-state actor

OPIC

Olof Palme International Center

PLO

Palestine Liberation Organization

PNC

Palestine National Council

PO

People's organisation

QUANGO

Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation

SFCG

Search for Common Ground

TSG

Transitional Study Group

UN

United Nations Organisation

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FIS

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved. Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

PART I - INTRODUCTION Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become important actors in the globalised world. They run aid and relief programmes in the poorest countries, support international institutions (like the United Nations), or are watchdogs of them (for example watchdogs of the Bretton Woods institutions). 1 In doing so, NGOs naturally work permanently with state-agencies and it is probably hard to find an NGO which is totally free of any governmental support (in financial, logistical or informative matters). Thus, there are strong NGO-government connections on a daily-work basis. 2 NGOs run multiple attempts to contribute to the resolution of conflicts on all political levels. They bring together people on the grass-root level, they try to influence high officials through public pressure and they organise conferences and discussions with members and consultants of the concerned parties. The latter approach is analysed in this study.

But how do NGOs influence the level of official international relations? To which degree can NGOs improve the relations of two conflicted parties, especially when the conflict is protracted and severe? The aim of this study is to define the preconditions of successful NGO mediation, to measure the NGO influence as an “antecedent condition” 3 for successful mediation, and to exhibit its limits. The underlying assumption is that conflict resolution is more likely if an NGO mediation supports this attempt. This approach can be labelled as an “assumption of constant effect” 4 since the focus is on understanding the NGOs influence on international conflict resolution.

Three cases of NGO-led mediation attempts are analysed. The cases are selected because of their problematic official relations

are chosen under criteria of

comparatibility. Thus, they have similar conditions (framework) in common; namely, in

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matters of time, territory and main actors. The case studies analysed are seated in the Middle East because negotiations between Israel and Palestine were (and still are) highly conflicted, protracted and many mediation attempts by third-parties have taken place there. The analysis of these three

1

For the increasing role of NGOs in the international relations, see:(Fernando and Heston 1997); (Keck and Sikkink 1998); (Fitzduff and Church 2004); (Powell and Steinberg 2006) 2 For different modes of NGO-governmental relations, see also: (Smith and Gronbjerg 2006) 3 (Evera 1997) p. 9 4 (King et al. 1994) p. 116

1

Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

cases - their differences and similarities - shall lead to a better general understanding of the possibilities and limits of NGOs and the necessary preconditions. The aim of this paper is, through a comparative study of these three cases, to reach findings which stand the criteria of regularity, reliability, validity and can contribute to foreknowledge in the third-party theory. 5 The cases chosen and the variables analysed should meet the golden mean between parsimony and richness to test the congruence of the working thesis and to work out necessary conditions. 6 But in the end, more independent variables were considered to be important for the analysis than a parsimony model would suit.

Part I of this study introduces the theory of third-party mediation and defines the independent variables for this study. These variables were employed in Part II where three third-party mediations by different NGOs are analysed and the theoretical axioms of Part I are tested. The results of these examinations were compared in Part III. Finally, the conclusion of this study and the presentation of general findings comprise Part IV.

Mediators in world politics After World War II there has been an increase in international mediations. The system of international relations had changed due to the bipolarity of the Cold War and the globalisation of the economy and civil society. New kinds of international important conflicts appeared. Rice calls these “wars of the third kind”. He introduces this term to distinguish ethnic and religious conflicts, which are often fought with guerrilla tactics, from the kinds of conventional wars and nuclear wars.7 Similarly, the character of international conflicts changed to bloc-related Cold War conflicts.8 The end of the Cold War even extended the attempts of conflict mediation because

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international organisations were freed from their formerly bipolar constraints and became engaged more widely in conflicts. 9 Also, the United States reduced its willingness to mediate because not every conflict was a struggle for influence between the US and the Soviet Union anymore. Russia, on the other hand, was mainly occupied

5

See (Eckstein 1975) pp. 85-92 (Bennet 2004) pp. 19-25 7 See (Rice 1988), see also (Holsti 1996) pp. 19-36 8 For a classification of different types of international conflicts, see: (Cioffi-Revilla 1990) 9 (Crocker et al. 2001) p.5 ff. 6

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Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

with conflicts in the area of the former Soviet Union. Thus, many regional conflicts were without mediation attempts of the (former) superpowers. 10 Not only have international relations changed, but also the attempts to resolve conflicts. Traditional approaches of official diplomatic negotiations became less effective, especially due to the fact that they took more time than newer concepts of conflict resolution. 11 Galtung, for example, observes a decline in the effectiveness of official diplomacy: “Inter-state diplomacy, dedicated to representation, information and negotiation, may in its present form be a dying institution, and not only because others may represent a state better than any embassy can, and often provide much better information.” 12

History The attempt of third-party interventions in international conflicts is not a new phenomenon. Zartman dates its appearance back at least 200 years. 13 Others, like Rubin, date it back to the ancient biblical times.14 What is sure, however, is that there has been an evolution in the style of this approach. The character of conflict negotiations changed fundamentally in the 1960s, when, for the first time there was a change in behaviour to reach the resolution of international conflicts. Initiated by Burton and his colleagues, the first problem-solving workshops took place between informal members of then conflicted Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. 15 Before this shift, negotiations were merely “power bargaining” 16 , far away from the idea of mutual understanding. Negotiations in international conflicts were seen as zerosum games in which the gains of the one side are equal to the losses of the other side. 17 In the 1960s, “the method of the ‘behavioural’ view emerged (not to be confused with the ‘behavioural’ or quantitative school of the 1960s). The latter sought to determine, Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

not how to settle conflict by the application of legal norms, but rather the nature of

10

(Zartman and Touval 1996) pp. 446-448 (Kremenyuk 1991) p. 29 12 (Galtung and Webel 2007) p. 399 13 (Zartman and Touval 1996) p.445 14 (Rubin 1981a) p. 9; see also (Horowitz 2007) p. 51 15 See (Burton 1969); for a workshop in Northern Ireland adopting Burton’s technique in 1972, see: (Doob and Foltz 1973) 16 (Burton 1986a) p. 46 ff. 17 See (Young 1967) 11

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conflict and how to resolve it through an understanding of it by the parties concerned.” 18

A third party, which can also be a non-state actor, helps the conflicted parties to reach out for common interests and a resolution for the conflict. Therefore, the terms of “problem-solving” and “workshop” are used for third-party attempts at conflict resolution: “Problem solving implies exploration and not merely the simple processes of bargaining. ‘Workshop’ is similarly useful because it suggests that all the parties concerned have to get down to the analytical job of problem solving. They have to work at it.” 19 The new method of problem-solving workshops was developed further by Kelman and his colleagues who especially highlighted the interactive and the inter-personal aspects of this approach, respectively. 20 This new-styled approach of third-party mediation notably took place in attempts to resolve the Middle East conflict. Stein and Lewis provide a good survey of the official mediations by United Nations and United States diplomats. They list the special problems and lessons learned in this protracted conflict. 21 For examples of non-violent interventions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by civil society organisations, see Rigby’s article. 22

Problem-solving workshops were considered to be an especially appropriate instrument to resolve so-called “protracted social conflicts”: “The focus of these conflicts is religious, cultural or ethnic communal identity, which in turn is dependent upon the satisfaction of basic needs such as those for security, communal recognition and distributive justice. While domestic, regional and international conflicts in the world today are framed as conflicts over material interests, Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

such as commercial advantages or resource acquisition, empirical evidence suggests that they are not just that. More fundamentally, most contemporary conflicts are about

18

(Burton 1986a) p. 46 (Burton 1986b) p. 95 20 See (Kelman and Cohen 1976) 21 See (Stein and Lewis 1996) 22 See (Rigby 1995) 19

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developmental needs expressed in terms of cultural values, human rights and security.” 23

Mediators, also labelled intermediaries, are an important part of international relations when it comes to conflict resolution. The mediations analysed in this study are each led by a non-governmental third-party. 24 These mediators, typically a team of social scientists with advanced knowledge of problem solving processes, are impartial to the adversaries. 25 Groom emphasises the idea of third-party mediations: “Problem solving is to look for the superordinate [sic] goals, that is, goals which both sides individually want but can only get by cooperating together.” 26

“Arguing” vs. “bargaining” There is a general distinction between the modes of bargaining negotiations and arguing mediations which shall be emphasised here. In the classical, realist view of international relations, the only important actors were sovereign states and conflicts between them were power-related and security-related. Therefore, one can label the negotiation of these conflicts as power bargaining or power brokerage: “The goal is to maximize, optimize, or satisfy given preferences as much as possible. Bargaining involves communication that is primarily directed at exchanging information about preferences, making promises, or threatening.” 27 The only possible mediator in such a power-driven conflict is an even more powerful state, which can, if needed, coerce the adversaries to settle their conflict. The impartiality of the mediator is not a required attitude; in contrast, it can also be a handicap. Small states and non-state actors are not the appropriate mediators in these

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bargaining negotiations because they lack the power to solve the conflict. 28

The arguing approach, or problem-solving, aims at the perception of the adversaries and tries to contribute to a better mutual understanding. The underlying assumption is that 23

(Azar 1990) p. 2; see also (Azar and Cohen 1981) For third-party mediation attempts by state-actors, especially in intrastate conflicts, see for example: (Regan 1996) 25 (Fisher 1990) p. 212 ff. 26 (Groom 1986) p. 89 27 (Risse 2000) p. 8 28 See (Kleiboer 1998) pp. 40-49 24

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Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

most conflicts in international relations, notably power-related and security-related conflicts, are not zero-sum games. The adversaries will both profit from a settlement of the conflict and the outcome of conflict resolution is a win-win situation. Therefore, the mediator tries to help the adversaries to define their common interest in the given conflict. 29

Pressure is not at all a tool of the mediator in an arguing-styled mediation approach. The most important attitudes of a mediator are communication skills and psychological knowledge of group dynamics. 30 Further, successful arguing approaches require the mutual understanding of the adversaries that the problem must be resolved together with equal access to the discussion. One crucial precondition of successful arguing attempts is the participation of all interested parties to a given conflict. 31

Generally, Track-II mediators have another approach on conflict resolution than Track-I mediators because the former lack the power instruments of the latter. Therefore TrackII attempts are always driven by arguing instead of bargaining. NGOs have to convince the adversaries of the positive outcome of conflict resolution; they cannot threaten them into a settlement. The possible influence of NGOs as third parties to the adversaries shall be understood in terms of better mutual knowledge, understanding of the opposite’s position and the finding of common interests. According to Scharpf, the successful outcome of mediation attempts relies to a crucial part on effective communication and mutual trust between the adversaries.32

The arguing approach suggests that conflicts are to a certain extent unresolved due to mutual negative perceptions which are a result of lacking communication between the adversaries. The absence of communication leads to uncertainty about the other’s interests and generally hinders a mutual understanding. 33 Lack of knowledge about the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

adversary leads to a perception of the other as an enemy and is therefore a fundamental

29

See (Kelman 1996) and (Kelman 1992) See (Fisher 1990) p. 202 ff. 31 For the preconditions for arguing, see especially a shared understanding of norms and rules: (Habermas 1981); and (Müller 1994); for the need to include all parties, even those which are capable of sabotaging the process, see: (Azar 1990) p. 122 ; (Burton 1986b) p. 106; (Groom 1986) p. 87; (Mitchell and Banks 1996) pp. 30-34 32 See (Scharpf 1997) 33 See (Krauss and Morsella 2006) 30

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Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

problem. The uncertainty nurtures further conflicts, 34 and the rise in conflict correlates with a decline in communication. 35 What results is a vicious circle that exacerbates and protracts conflicts. Therefore, to resolve severe conflicts, the first task of a mediator is to contribute to a better mutual understanding and the mutual comprehension of the adversary’s interests. 36 This can happen through a “communication chain” with several intermediaries transmitting messages because the adversaries refuse to communicate directly with each other. 37 But it is not assumed that international conflicts are just about misunderstanding and misperception which can be resolved by an arguing workshop. Most conflicts are about interests, ideologies and struggles for self-determination and can only be resolved through the policy process of official negotiations. Problem-solving workshops aim to facilitate this negotiation process not to substitute it. 38

The important precondition is knowledge of a conflict, notably knowledge of the other side’s interests and aims. A neutral mediator can provide the communication between the adversaries and can facilitate an exchange of interests from an expert’s view. Mitchell and Banks highlight the positive impact an academic mediator can have on conflict: “The umbrella of a university can be valuable in conveying the sort of image that will encourage the parties to begin to think in problem-solving terms; research instead of polemics; analysis in place of rhetoric; communication rather than bargaining.” 39

According to Haas, this position - the neutral role of conveying highly skilled expertises on conflicts - constitutes a possibility of influence and power. 40 A group of experts, neutral and external to the conflict, can contribute to a solution by providing objective proposals for a solution to the conflicted issues. It is one aim of this study to understand to which degree NGOs can fulfil this role, thus contributing to an approximation of the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

adversaries. To highlight the distinction between these two approaches, the first, the

34

See (Jervis 1970); and (Hopf 1998); See (Fisher 1995); and (Pruitt 2005) 36 See (Young 1967); and (Ashley 1983) 37 See (Pruitt 1994) 38 (Kelman and Cohen 1976) pp. 79-80 39 (Mitchell and Banks 1996) p. 87 40 For the conception of epistemic communities, see: (Haas 1990a); and (Haas 1992); for the necessity of an academic input to conflict resolution, see: (Burton 1986b); and (Ricigliano 2003) 35

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Pradt, Tilman. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the 1990s: How NGOs facilitated the peace process : How NGOs facilitated the peace process, Diplomica Verlag, 2012. ProQuest

power-related, shall be labelled as negotiation while the arguing approach shall be labelled as mediation in the following.

In accordance with the importance of the mediators and their crucial contribution to the successful settlement of conflicts, the negotiations are labelled third-party negotiations. Other designations are “prenegotiations” 41 because third-party attempts can produce the needed preconditions of official negotiations or “circumnegotiations” 42 . According to Saunders, it is possible and sometimes necessary that third-party mediations not only facilitate the official negotiations. Also, during the official negotiations and after an agreed settlement, the support of third-parties might be crucial for a successful outcome of the negotiations or lasting implementations.

The mediation attempt of private individuals, which is especially rooted in the American Quaker community, is another case of third-party mediation. With the financial backing of the American Friends Service Committee, several mediation attempts of private individuals took place in the Middle East as well as in the Cyprus conflict. 43 There are some similarities with the mediation of NGOs if compared with governments, for example the lack of resources or the power to use pressure on the parties. 44 But contrary to a general NGO mediation, the Quaker attempts were highly focused on the charismatic persuasiveness of the third-party leader.

TRACK-II In scientific literature there are different designations for the approach of nongovernmental organisations to improve inter-state relations such as “quasi-mediators”45 , “private diplomacy” 46 , and Track-II diplomacy. Further, these approaches are labelled as “citizenship diplomacy”, “supplement Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

diplomacy”, “walks in the woods”, “face to face diplomacy”, and “back-channel diplomacy” which can all be summed up as Track-II diplomacy. 47 41

(Zartman 1991) p. 75 (Saunders 1996) p. 421; Kelman distinguishes three phases of negotiations: “prenegotiation”, “active negotiation” and “postnegotiation” (Kelman 1996) p. 502 43 See for the special techniques of Quaker as intermediaries: (Yarrow 1972); (Bailey 1985) (Hare 1992); (Rigby 1995) 44 For the special mediation approaches of religious NGOs, see: (Montville 1993),(Sampson 1997); (Lederach 1995); (Princen 1992b); and (Moix 2006) 45 (Kriesberg 1991) pp. 19-27 46 See (Heintzen 1989); (Hare 1992) 42

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Track-II diplomacy is characterised as unofficial and informal meetings between members of the adversary parties to search for helpful solutions to resolve the conflict. 48 It is characteristic for Track-II diplomacy that not the political leaders or high-level negotiators of the adversaries are involved, but mid-level officials, experts and aides. Track-II diplomacy meetings are often organised by NGOs or they are attended by NGO staff who provide expert knowledge to conflicted issues. Therefore, Track-II attempts can only aim to create facilitations for official Track-I negotiations; they are not a substitute for the official agreements which result in binding contracts.

Fabick introduces two additional sub-groups of informal meetings between two adversaries. In Track-III diplomacy, the experts and leaders from the business sectors of the adversaries meet to consider the economic advantages for both if the conflict can be resolved. Although these meetings deal only with economic matters, it can be assumed that the findings in these workshops have influence on the political leaders or at least on the experts meeting on the Track-II level. Finally, in Track-IV diplomacy grassroots community leaders try to reach a better mutual understanding of the conflicted groups through intergroup contacts. They try to diffuse existing stereotypes of the perceived enemy by fostering public information. Further, the grassroots activists mobilise public pressure on their governments for a resolution of the conflict. 49

In general, unofficial Track-II mediators lack the resources and authority of Track-I mediators; they might also have the problem of acquiring access to the important political figures of a conflict. On the other hand, Track-II participants are freer in their approaches to conflict resolution. They might offer concessions more easily or change their position on a given issue because they are not constrained by the binding protocol of official negotiations. Unofficial Track-II participants are more flexible in elaborating Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

new models of solution for a conflict, a flexibility which can be crucial for the finding of a complicated and protracted conflict. 50

47

(Azar 1990) pp. 19-21 See (Montville 1987) 49 See (Fabick 2006); see also for the different levels of mediation attempts: (Lederach 1997) and (Miall et al. 1999) 50 See (Botes and Mitchell 1995) 48

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Kriesberg suggests that mediation initiatives by foreign third-parties are, in principal, more open in considering unorthodox solutions to a conflict. Because they are not limited by the domestic pressure of the divergent interest groups, they are generally more open-minded in their strategic possibilities. 51 This greater freedom in choices, however, entails, on the other hand, severe problems concerning the implementation of internationally agreed settlements when important domestic groups were excluded from the negotiation process. 52 Thus, there are constraints as well as advantages in the different forms of Track-I and Track-II mediations which shall be analysed in more detail in the case studies of this paper.

Ricigliano highlights some of the advantages of Track-II diplomacy: “Generally, NGOs can do things that governments cannot, such as facilitate the development of new and creative ideas, provide a trusted but informal channel of communication, and expand networks of contacts, especially to groups or individuals that governments may be precluded from meeting because of political or legal concerns.” 53 An example of this is in conflicts about secession and sovereignty, when one group - the official government - refuses direct negotiations with the secession group, to avoid any formal recognition. In these cases, an unofficial Track-II attempt might be the only approach to reach an exchange of position between the adversary groups.54 Track-II attempts also take place in protracted identity conflicts where no official negotiations between the adversaries are possible.55 Pruitt introduces the model of “communication chains”, which means several parties acting as interlocutors between the two adversaries, thus providing a possibility of communication although the adversaries continue neglecting direct contacts. 56

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On the other hand, there are clearly things that NGOs cannot provide, like reimbursement or side payments, because NGOs possess neither the required financial funds nor the accordance of their members to spend it for the augmentation of an

51

(Kriesberg 1992) pp. 79-84 See (Putnam 1988); (Mor 1997) 53 (Ricigliano 2003) p. 459 54 See (Hare 1992) 55 (Kelman 1996) p. 502 56 See (Pruitt 2005) 52

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agreement. 57 There is a long history of highly motivated conflict resolution attempts which did not succeed because of the lack of resources, logistical support, and backing of international institutions. 58 NGOs are not able to negotiate a binding contract under the international law of nations as national governments can. NGOs can facilitate the agreements which might lead to an official contract but they cannot, contrary to governments, be an official part of treaties and provide such a law binding guarantee. 59

Generally, NGO-led mediations might allow for a better search for common interests and might facilitate changing mutual negative perceptions better than official negotiations. The informal, non-binding character of NGO-led mediation attempts produces an atmosphere that is more open to inter-personal exchange and off-the-record conversation. The absence of public attention to such meetings and the open expectations facilitate such an atmosphere since there is no imperative to sign a contract as a positive outcome. Therefore, the two adversaries might be more flexible on their standpoints without losing their face. Track-II attempts aim at the “discovery of winwin solutions” 60 . The character is constructive and creative in contrast to the character of bargaining in official Track-I negotiations.

In this study the terms “mediation attempt”, “problem-solving workshop”, and “TrackII diplomacy” are employed with the same meaning. “Mediation” is a general term for the involvement of a third-party to facilitate the resolution of a conflict. “Problemsolving workshop” is a descriptive term for “Track-II” attempts in which non-officials of two adversary groups meet in a non-binding, informal atmosphere mostly under the auspices of a scholarly third-party to develop new solutions. Mediators are the neutral force, the third-party, which is often needed in the struggle of the conflicted parties until a settlement is agreed. They might help to bring the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

conflicted parties to the negotiation table and they can contribute to a better understanding of the motives of the adversaries. 61

57

(Zartman and Touval 1996) p. 456 See (Weber 1993) 59 See (Verdross and Simma 1984); (Vitzthum 2001); (Scharf 2007); (Boyle and Chinkin 2007) 60 (Kelman 1996) p. 505 61 (Kriesberg 1992) pp. 37-39, see also (Bercovitch and Rubin 1992); (Fitzduff and Church 2004) 58

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The aim of this study is neither to show that NGOs have become an important actor in world politics nor to prove that states have lost uniqueness as international actors. The research question is: To which extent can NGOs organise mediation attempts which may lead to the facilitation of official negotiations and thus improve the possibilities for conflict resolution.

NGO definition In world politics, all actors which are not part of governmental institutions are referred to by the term non-state actors (NSAs). This definition is much too general to be useful because it includes all imaginable non-governmental organisations (NGOs), like business companies, organised crime actors, and even international terrorist groups. 62 In this study, the focus is on international groups which are part of the non-profit sector and are independent of governmental directions. In the end, most of international NGOs are in some way dependent on governments; they gain financial or logistic support or are contractors of governmental programs. As Krasner notes, only few organisations are able to work completely free of the governments of the countries they are engaged in. Most will become to a certain degree “institutionally isomorphic with the different states within which they conduct their affairs.”63 The crucial criterion is that NGOs are free in their decisions as to which area or conflict they will engage in and what instruments they want to implement. If the organisation depends too much on governmental support or is even governmentalorganised, these organisations might be labelled as governmental-organised NGOs (GONGOs) or quasi-autonomous NGOs (QUANGOs). 64

This definition is also too imprecise because it only describes what NGOs are not,

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namely non-governmental and non-profit, and this is still too wide of a scope. As Natsios points out: “NGOs are unlike one another in more ways than they are similar.” 65 The first distinction is about the regional level that an organisation is working on. In this way, NGOs engaged in regional conflicts or relief programmes in their origin country

62

(Fischer 2006) p. 4 (Krasner 1995) p. 267 64 (Fisher 1997) p. 448; (Richmond 2003) p. 3 65 (Natsios 1997) p. 337 63

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might be called locally based NGOs. 66 Local NGOs can be community-based organisations (CBOs); they might be labelled as grass-roots organisations (GRO), or people’s organisations (POs). 67 These national-based NGOs are not of interest in this study; there are differences in their impartiality and perception by the adversaries. All NGOs analysed in this study are working on the international level. 68 They are seated in a foreign country and are thus, to begin with, by their origin impartial and not a part of the conflict. This is a critical precondition. 69

The aim is to analyse how NGOs can facilitate international conflict negotiations or more precisely, how NGOs can contribute to the resolution of international conflicts. For this purpose the ideological background - whether the NGO is religious, moral, or strictly politically motivated - is hardly important. The question is not: Why is an NGO interested in facilitating international conflict negotiations? The focus is rather on the preconditions, the possibilities and limits for NGOs engaged in these negotiations.

International conflict mediations In international politics, there are several important factors which are given and not changeable for third-parties: The meaning of a given conflict to the interests of the regional superior powers and their impact; the involvement of neighbouring states and their interests in the conflict and their support of various parties to the conflict; the ruling parties and their opinion of how to resolve the conflict as well as their oppositional parties; and, illegal groups which might benefit from the state of conflict. All these actors critically influence the possibilities of third-parties, just to name the most relevant. 70

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This study takes these influences which have originated outside of the conflict as granted and analyses only the variables directly connected to the third-party attempt. The outside influences were regarded as important and were considered in the 66

For an NGO-characterisation describing the purpose of the organisations like “nongovernmental development organization“ or “new social movement organization”, see: (Fernando and Heston 1997) p. 10 67 (Fisher 1997) p. 447 68 Therefore, they are indeed international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), but in this study the more general abbreviation NGO is employed. 69 See for the needed neutrality of mediators to solve conflicts: (Chaiken et al. 1996); and (Horowitz 2007) pp. 52-54 70 See (Azar and Burton 1986); (Bercovitch et al. 1991); (Kriesberg and Thorson 1991)

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evaluation of a conflict. But since this study is focused on the possibilities of the thirdparty influence, in particular the possibilities of NGOs, the variables analysed were about the issues as follows: character of the conflict, involvement of the third-party, secrecy during the third-party mediation, their funding, the participation of the adversaries, backing of the adversaries’ governments, and the success of the mediation attempt.

There are differences in the character of conflicts or the timing and kind of mediation. Other influences include the degree of secrecy in the mediation attempts. Common to all third-party mediation attempts is the neutrality of the third-party; thus, it is not a direct party to the crisis. 71

Participants As already mentioned above in the section “arguing vs. bargaining”, most scholars emphasise the need to include all concerned groups to a conflict in a mediation attempt. Although the participation of so-called “spoilers” in a problem-solving workshop causes certain problems for a successful outcome, there is no alternative to doing so. If a workshop shall produce a solution for a conflict that is acceptable for all concerned groups, such a solution will hardly be found if not all groups participate. Furthermore, if the excluded groups do matter, because they represent an important amount of those concerned, or posses the forces (military, financial or other forms of protest) to prevent an agreement from implementation, they will probably do so, especially if they feel that their concerns have not been respected in the mediation process. 72 Therefore, not only the leading groups of the adversary parties but also opponent representatives must participate in problem-solving workshops. Only the presentation and implementation of concurring arguments, in some cases arguments diametrically Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

opposed to the aim of the workshop, guarantee that the outcome has a realistic chance to be acceptable to a majority of the people concerned.

71 72

(Young 1967) pp. 34 ff. See (Azar 1990); (Burton 1986b); (Groom 1986) and (Mitchell and Banks 1996)

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Putnam introduces the model of two-level games: “The politics of many international negotiations can usefully be conceived as a two-level game. At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favorable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among those groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments.” 73 Putnam distinguishes between the international level of negotiation and the national level of ratification where the agreement can still be refused to be implemented. Reaching a “win-set”, what is defined as all possible agreements made with the adversary (international) can also be accepted (win a majority) at the national level, is the task for finding a solution which is implementable.74

If only like-minded participants from both adversary parties construct a solution for a given conflict, the probability that such a solution, developed in isolation from diverging opinions, will not succeed in the aftermaths is high. Janis, who introduces the term of “groupthink” mentions as possible shortcomings “overoptimism, lack of vigilance, and sloganistic thinking about the weakness and immorality of out-groups.” 75

Therefore, the participants of a workshop are ideally not only the leader of the adversary groups but also divergent positions within each of the adversary groups. Often it is possible to distinguish between “moderate” and “hard-liner” positions to a conflict or the representatives of these positions can be labelled as “dovish” and “hawkish”, respectively. It must be defined for each conflict what the characteristics of such labels mean exactly, but generally, an ideal workshop consists of “dovish” as well as

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“hawkish” participants from each adversary group.

Character of conflict There are different levels of the conflicts’ intensity and different phases of a conflict’s process. A conflict can be relatively soft, simply about resources or misunderstandings.

73

(Putnam 1988) p. 434 See (Putnam 1988) pp. 436-445 75 (Janis 1983) p. 12; for the symptoms, see especially pp. 174-176 74

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To the other extreme, it can be highly emotional, about identity issues and questions of self-determination. Wright introduces a model of escalation with four stages of violence: (1) awareness of inconsistencies, (2) growing tensions which hinder normal interaction, (3) the use of non-military pressure tactics, (4) the engagement in violent confrontations. 76 According to this model and with the recognition of the models by Glasl 77 and Kriesberg 78 , Fisher and Keashly invented a model which combines the stages of conflict with the appropriate instruments of mediation. They label the four stages: (I) discussion, (II) polarization, (III) segregation, (IV) destruction. In their view the third-party’s best approaches are: in stage (I) conciliation (assist communication), in stage (II) consultation (improve relationship), in stage (III) arbitration (control hostility), and in stage (IV) peace-keeping (control violence). 79

In Part II of this study, the character of conflict in the analysed cases shall be measured in a combination of these two models. Thus, the four possible degrees of the variable “character” are: (1-I) inconsistencies/ discussion; (2-II) tensions/ polarizations; (3-III) pressure/ segregation; (4-IV) violence/ destruction. These models with different stages of a conflict are interesting to roughly characterise a conflict, although Saunders rightly criticises this approach: “Speaking of phases suggests precision and rigidity that do not exist in the real world.” 80

One aim of this study is to figure out the critical preconditions for successful third-party mediation. Kressel offers some conditions for effective mediation: low level of conflict; both parties request mediation; parties are equal in power; no conflict on “fundamental Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

principles” (ideology, religion). 81

76

See (Wright 1965) See (Glasl 1982) 78 See (Kriesberg et al. 1989) 79 See (Fisher and Keashly 1991); especially Fig. 2, p. 37 80 (Saunders 1996) p. 426 81 See (Kressel 2006) pp. 730-732 77

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It is further important to acknowledge the character of any given conflict, whether it is value or interest driven. Generally, there are conflicts about needs and conflicts about interests with the differentiation that values (needs) are not negotiable while interests can be mediated. 82 Fisher lists as basic human needs: “security, economic well-being, a sense of belonging, recognition, control over one’s life.”83

Galtung assumes that the mutual perception of the adversaries to a conflict makes a critical difference in the possibility of its resolution: “The broader the gap between Self and Other the worse the initial condition; the narrower the gap the better.” 84 He adds that this perception is changeable but it is worth noting that the perceived gap between the two adversaries is a factor that should be mentioned in the characterising of a conflict, although this factor is hard to measure.

The aim of this study is to work out quite general findings about the possibilities of NGO-led mediation attempts. It is important to acknowledge the character of a given conflict to estimate the success of a mediation approach or recommend the most promising attempt. But since the focus is on the possibilities of an NGO’s mediation attempts, the conflicts’ character is not evaluated in depth due to the limited space of this paper.

Time of mediation (stage/ phase of conflict) Each conflict passes through different phases of tension and détente. The literature is in two minds about the best moment for a third-party to mediate the conflict. Edmead and others 85 claim that the conflict should be in an early stage so that mediation might be most effective. In contrary, most scholars like Northedge and Donelan 86 , Zartman 87 and Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Kriesberg and Thorson 88 suggest that the conflict should already have passed some phases and must have reached a certain level of hopelessness, so that the adversaries are open to a mediation attempt to ease the tension and avoid even worse outcomes. 82

(Burton 1986a) p. 51 (Fisher and Ury 1981) p. 50 84 (Galtung 1989) p. 13 85 See (Edmead 1971) and also (Princen 1992a); and (Kriesberg 1991) 86 (Northedge and Donelan 1971) p. 307 ff. 87 See (Zartman 1989) 88 See (Kriesberg and Thorson 1991) 83

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The crucial point is that parties expect to gain more from a settlement than from the ongoing conflict. The cost of the perpetuation of the crisis must be higher than the possible disfavours by a mutual acceptable agreement. If the parties still believe there is a possibility to reach their aims by the use of force, they will hardly be willing to start negotiations. As defined by Haas, ripeness is associated with “the prerequisites for diplomatic progress, that is (…) particular circumstances (…) conducive for negotiated solution or even progress.” 89

After the analysis of several international conflicts, Zartman introduces the phrase “mutually hurting stalemate” 90 : “Where both sides perceived themselves to be in a stalemate that was painful to each of them and they saw a better alternative through negotiation (as in Sudan in 1972, Mozambique, South Africa, Colombia, and possibly Angola and Sri Lanka in the mid1990s), they negotiated an agreement; and where the pain of the stalemate was bearable or justified (as in Angola, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and among the Colombian extremists), no settlement was negotiated. Stalemate was absent in cases where negotiations took place and then collapsed; in such cases parties often negotiated for other reasons, as in the Philippines, the Basque country, Afghanistan in the 1990s, and Eritrea. In some conflicts where stalemate did appear, as in Angola, Lebanon and Sudan in the 1980s, it became a way of life that buried talks, not a deadlock that promoted them.” 91 But if the adversaries have already suffered too much as a consequence of the conflict, a successful mediation is also unlikely. Bercovitch and his colleagues have analysed the success of mediation related to the number of fatalities. According to their study, conflicts with over 1,000 fatalities were only in 17% successfully mediated, while conflicts with 100-500 fatalities are quantified with a rate of 42% successful mediation.

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Thus, they conclude that the more severe (in number of fatalities) the conflicts are, the less amenable they are to mediation. 92

The right moment of intervention is crucial for the success of third-party mediations. Crocker et al emphasise the importance of the timing: 89

(Haas 1990b) p. 232 (Zartman 1996) p. 18 91 (Zartman 1996) p. 334 92 (Bercovitch et al. 1991) p.13 ff. 90

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“It might well be that in some circumstances the issue of who does the mediating is less important than the matter of timing and ripeness of the conflict itself.” 93 The ripeness of a conflict is hard to measure and thus rather an outcome attribute. If the mediation attempt was successful, the conflict was probably ripe for a solution. It is more helpful to distinguish mediation as divided into three groups: early stage of conflict, grown conflict, and protracted conflict. But this is only to roughly categorise the character of a conflict in which the mediation attempt takes part. For the successful outcome, the “readiness” of the parties to resolve the conflict is the crucial variable. Pruitt introduces this term to place the focus on the psychology of the individual actors and their readiness to resolve the conflict rather than emphasising the structure of the conflict. 94

In the following, the stages of the analysed conflicts shall be: “early stage” (less than one decade duration; less than 500 fatalities; negotiations between the adversaries); “protracted conflict” (more than one decade duration; more than 500 fatalities; negotiations between the adversaries); “stalemate” (more than one decade duration; more than 500 fatalities; no negotiations between the adversaries). But similar to the variable “character of conflict”, the variable “stage of conflict” shall only be considered in the evaluation but not analysed in depth.

Kind of mediation (participation/ role of mediator) In this study, mediation attempts are seen as a kind of black box insofar as it is not important exactly what the mediators do, but to which degree they are involved in the negotiating process. The qualification of the persons involved in mediation attempts is taken as granted due to the lack of space in this study for further analyses. 95 Therefore, only how intensely the mediator participates in the mediation and how much the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

mediator becomes a part of the process is analysed. On the analytical level are the institutions and the NGOs, not the individuals working within these NGOs. Which mediation-skills are used in detail and according to which underlying psychological school of group-dynamics is of no specific interest to this study. 96 93

(Crocker et al. 2001) p. 21 (Pruitt 2005) p. 255 and (Pruitt 2006) p. 863 95 See for the possible process of mediation attempts: (Kressel 2006); and (Moore 1996) 96 For intergroup psychology studies in conflict resolution attempts, see: (Fisher 1990); see further: (Murray 1993); (Cohen 2006); (Pearson d'Estrée 2006) 94

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This study aims to find out how NGOs as third-parties can facilitate conflict resolutions and which preconditions are necessary for a successful outcome. The study does not distinguish between different schools of mediation attempts. 97 This generic approach allows studying the activities of diverse third-parties; looking at differences and similarities in their behaviour; and analysing the relationship between social contacts, the entities involved, and international mediation. 98

“The bargaining process is often assisted by a mediator. This term implies, clearly, a third party whose role it is to suggest a reasonable compromise, an allocation of wins and losses. Problem solving implies no mediation process in this sense. However, it rests no less on a third party – the instructor or tutor in the workshop. The role is quite different. The term we reserve for the third party in the problem-solving process is facilitator.” 99 Any third-party’s aim in a mediation attempt is to facilitate the official negotiations. Therefore, in contrast to Burton, the third-party is likewise labelled as mediator, however the degree of participation. The term facilitator is not used in this study for third-party description but as outcome measure (if a third-party attempt has facilitated the conflict resolution).

This study focuses on the role mediators play in international conflict negotiations, not which strategy they use on the different levels of participation. The level of participation or involvement in the process can be measured, as Zartman suggests. He differentiates the role of the mediator corresponding to the degree of participation; thus, the third party acts as a “communicator”, a “formulator”, or a “manipulator”. The role of a “communicator” is to provide a space for the negotiations, making negotiations between the adversaries possible. A “formulator” is much more involved. The “formulator” takes part in the discussions as a moderator and provides own Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

proposals for a solution, thus trying actively to reach an agreement. A “manipulator” is even more part of the process. The “manipulator” not only provides ideas but uses its power to let the parties adopt them. 100

97

For the school of “narrative mediators”, see: (Winslake and Monk 2001); and (Cobb 2003); an introduction in “transformative mediation” is given in: (Bush and Folger 2005); and (Pruitt 2006) 98 See also for this general approach: (Bercovitch 1991) 99 (Burton 1986b) p. 95 (emphasis in original) 100 (Zartman 1991) p. 72 ff.

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According to this typology, the “communicator” would be the least involved role of a mediator, the “formulator” would be more involved and the role of the “manipulator” describes the highest level of involvement possible.

Northedge and Donelan introduce another mediator-actor, the “arbitrator”. The “arbitrator” is situated between the “facilitator” and the “manipulator” because his authority is stronger than the “facilitator’s”. But in contrast to the “manipulator”, the “arbitrator” is less influential in the process of problem solving since the “arbitrator” does not try to implement his own purposes. 101 The distinction of mediator activities in these four groups in relation to their participation is in accordance with most typologies used by scholars in the third-party literature. 102

NGOs do not provide the mediator roles of “arbitrator” or “manipulator” because they lack the needed resources of power (“arbitrator” and “manipulator”) or finances (“manipulator”) to fulfil these roles. Thus, the NGO-led mediations are organised by “communicator” or “formulator” thirdparties distinguished by their degree of participation.

Secrecy The level of secrecy in third-party mediation attempts has an important impact on the outcome. Although governments are not directly involved in Track-II approaches, their consultants and deputies are. All Track-II mediation attempts aim at a change in perception and reaching improved mutual understanding of the parties’ positions. In the end, these mediation attempts try to facilitate official negotiations which may lead to a

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101

See (Northedge and Donelan 1971) pp. 297-330; see also: (Fisher and Keashly 1991) and (Fisher 1995) 102 (Bercovitch et al. 1991) defines the participation in terms of passive to active, and labels the different roles as follows: communication facilitators, conduits of information, translators of information, promoters of specific outcomes, direct agents of influence, and supervisors or guarantors of an outcome; (Botes and Mitchell 1995) introduce the following roles: explorer, convenor, unifier, facilitator. These are only slightly different from the first two roles of Zartman and Northedge/ Donelan; (Fisher and Keashly 1991) and (Phillips and Phillips 1993) use Zartman’s terminology; (Groom 1986) uses only the term “facilitator” for any degree of participation; (Kriesberg 2001) parts the mediator in terms of their power from big-power to small-power mediator; (Natsios 1997) highlights NGOs in terms of their funding, motivation, and aims but this is not contrary to the four role models of Zartman and Northedge/ Donelan; (Pruitt 2000) adopts the scale of Zartman; (Saunders 1996) additionally introduces the roles of instigator, persuader, organiser, precipitator, legitimiser, convenor, moderator, manager, funder, and teacher; but this is probably too descriptive

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settlement of the conflict. Thus, although governments are not directly involved, the participants of Track-II mediations are strongly linked with high officials. Kriesberg exemplifies some of the problems of the government groups: “First, a government consists of many individuals and groups, and not all have identical intentions; second, government officials are not always unequivocal about their intentions. Third, gaining access to relevant data for clarification is often difficult. Finally intentions change and as an adversary responds to initiatives.” 103 To reach agreements, it is often necessary to exclude too many diverging opinions and the public in general. Especially in protracted conflicts, reaching a settlement can seem impossible if all concerned groups take part in the mediation. This exclusion poses a real problem for the later implementation of the agreed settlement, 104 but at least a settlement might be possible.

Another argument for the necessary secrecy to reach an agreement is the impact of the media. Through the selection of certain events or arguments stated by the participants and the presentation of the adversaries’ positions and the kinds of agreements, the media have a profound impact on the perception of agreements. 105 To avoid public interactions during the phase of mediation, the secrecy of the meetings is absolutely necessary. The more secretly the mediation attempt can take place and the smaller the number of actors involved, the higher the probability of a successful outcome is. 106

In general, the more violent the character of a given conflict is, the more secret the mediation attempt should be, to avoid deadly reactions in the phase of considering ideas. A less violent conflict like the issue of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, for example, can be discussed more publicly. 107

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The highlighted and necessary secrecy of Track-II diplomacy causes a scientific problem for this study because if no records were taken and no outcomes published, the reliable data for scientific research is meagre. Fortunately, most scholars who have taken part in problem solving workshops have published articles about their findings 103

(Kriesberg 1992) p. 41 See for the problems of two-level games: (Putnam 1988) p. 436 ff. 105 (Rubin 1991) p. 93, see also (Bercovitch 1997) p. 230 106 See (Rubin 1981b); 107 See (Djalal and Townsend-Gault 2001) 104

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and developed theories, but they only report generally about the process and the outcome of their workshops and often do not include detailed information. Therefore, the information about third-party mediation workshops, when secrecy was maintained, could only be taken from the subjective memory of its participants, along with all of the problems such data sources imply.

In the following, the secrecy of the mediation attempts analysed in this study shall be measured as the following: “public” (no secrecy); “leakages” (to the media); “reports” (briefing of high officials and their staff); “secret” (no leakages, only briefing of the top decision-makers).

Funding This study focuses on NGOs as third-parties in conflict resolution attempts and a critical point for NGOs to decide whether to run mediation successfully or not is the question of funding the attempt. NGOs usually do not have enough resources among the donations of their supporters to run special projects like the mediation attempt in a given conflict. Therefore, they have to apply for financial support, for example, from governmental bodies, political foundations, economic enterprises or wealthy individuals. The source of their financial support can be a crucial factor for the way an NGO is perceived. It can also have an impact on the independence the NGO experiences in the implementation of its programs. Not only the lack of resources can constrain the work of a mediator, but also the financial source of funding, for example, a political foundation which refuses to support mediation attempts in which terrorist groups are also involved. 108 The source of funding can also change the whole image of a mediator, as Leonhard Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

points out: “Sometimes, the problem is the messenger. (…) Just as readers might be sceptical of an article appearing in a newspaper with an extreme ideological slant, so too might a target audience be leery of an information campaign sponsored by a Western government with a perceived political motive.” 109

108 109

See for the possible constraints of private mediators: (Botes and Mitchell 1995) (Leonhard 2002) p. 54

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In this case, he suggests hiding the fact that the government is the sponsor as much as possible to avoid a negative perception.

In contrast, Mitchell and Banks recommend remaining completely open with the adversaries of the conflict about “where the money comes from”. 110 They also see the problem of political funding because this might give the impression that other interests are involved in the mediation attempt than simply archaic or moral ones. Especially when an attempt is sponsored by a government, the parties to the conflict might by curious about the hidden interest involved in the mediation. In practice, any supportive source of a conflict mediation attempt is in a way politically motivated and further, there is hardly an NGO which is not to a certain degree supported by a government. Thus, unless there is no purely neutral institute that is free of governmental input and initiates a mediation effort, one must mind the source of funding when estimating the possible success of the approach. The more biased and manipulative the sponsors are perceived by the conflicted parties, the less probable a truthful relation to the third-party is. This entails a critical precondition for a successful outcome. A NGO-led mediation attempt can be received as partial simply by the origin of the funding, although the national government of the funder’s origin is not involved at all. 111

The variable “funding” is rather vague to measure in comparison with the more technical variables “stage”, “participation”, and “secrecy” listed above. But since the origination of the sponsoring of a mediation attempt can have a critical impact on the whole outcome, the question of funding must be considered in an analysis. Therefore, in the analysed cases in this study, the sources of funding shall be roughly divided into three groups: neutral (foreign source; sponsor perceived as neutral by both adversaries); problematic (foreign source; sponsor perceived as partial by groups to the conflict); and

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partial (sponsor belongs to one of the adversaries).

Backing of governments Third-party mediation is usually not led by high officials but their delegates or lowgovernmental staff. However, it is very important that the talks are backed by the two concerned governments to ensure that efforts potentially made will be accepted on the 110 111

(Mitchell and Banks 1996) p. 87 See for example (Mitchell and Banks 1996) pp. 87-88

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official level, too. Ricigliano points out some possible arguments why government members may refuse the backing of problem-solving mediation: “The obvious critique of the idea of multiple actors, both official and non-official, from diverse fields working together is a simple dose of realpolitik. Governments are ruled by political imperatives and national interests, and do not want other governments – let alone NGOs – getting in their way.” 112 The former member of the United States Foreign Service and appointed ambassador McDonald mentions a similar problem. The non-binding character of NGO approaches facilitates the mediation on the one hand. On the other hand, exactly this non-binding and flexible nature of their actions might cause confusion for the Track-I negotiations like an “unguided missile”. 113

Another obstacle for the backing of the governments is the often recommended inclusion of all important concerned parties of a conflict. 114 A government will hardly be willing to back Track-II negotiations in which, besides the genuine adversary, also the domestic opposition, not to say extremists, are included. The exclusion of important parties to a conflict is nonetheless a severe problem for the later implementation of a reached settlement, as already mentioned above.

But despite all these obstacles, there are good reasons for the concerned governments to support Track-II mediations. New ideas can be tested in a non-binding and, if secret, non-public rumour producing way. These meetings can act as an experimental area for political solutions, starting with less controversial and emotional topics and augmenting the importance of the issues over time with grown mutual confidence of the parties. The backing of the governments is important for proving the seriousness in which the attempts were considered by the opponents and thus motivating the participants to continue in their search for possible agreements. If there is no backing of the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

governments, the participants will hardly afford the personal engagement of time, nerves, and energy just to play some thought experiments with no political impact. In other words, a conference of scholars about international conflicts without backing of the concerned governments remains a scholarly conference and is not a Track-II diplomacy approach. 112

(Ricigliano 2003) p. 457 (McDonald 1986) p. 144 114 (Mitchell and Banks 1996) p. 30 ff. 113

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In the following, the backing of the mediation attempts analysed in this study shall be distinguished only in attempts that were backed and attempts without governmental backing. The critical measurement is if organiser and participants of NGO-led mediation attempts were instructed by governmental high officials and if they briefed these officials in return. If the information flow between participants and their government was mutual (instructions by the government, briefings about progress by participants), the Track-II attempt was backed and considered as important by the government.

Outcome-measurement It is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of mediation and its contribution to successful negotiations; sometimes it is even hard to say if the negotiations have been successful at all. According to Haas’ success index, the success in international mediation can be rated as (a) fully successful, (b) partially successful, (c) success is limited, and (d) unsuccessful. 115 This is a good first determination of different levels of success but it lacks the definition of, for example, partially successful mediation. Bercovitch, Anagnoson and Wille have analysed mediation attempts in international relations between 1945 - 1989 (in total: 284 mediations). They distinguish between (1) full settlement, (2) partial settlement, (3) ceasefire, and (4) mediation unsuccessful. 116 They also add (5) mediation only offered and (6) no mediation, to fit for all the analysed mediation attempts, but for this study only the first four outcomes are of interest. The combination of Haas’ a-d ranking and Bercovitch’s 1-4 measurement is a first orientation of how to measure the successful outcome of mediation. How to measure the mediators input is another task; especially for NGOs the measurement of their success is a problem. 117

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According to Kriesberg, there is always the possibility that the mediation is not the crucial factor for success or failure of conflict resolution attempts: “The mediation may have been excellent, but the background circumstances were not suitable and the conflict did not move toward mutual accommodation. Conversely, the

115

See (Haas 1986) (Bercovitch et al. 1991) p. 10 117 See (Fowler 1996); (Smillie 1997) 116

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mediation may have been conducted clumsily, but the conflict moved toward resolution anyway, the times being ripe for such movement.” 118

In this study, the focus is on the role of third-party mediators and its contribution to conflict resolution. There can be a very successful outcome of a problem-solving workshop but nonetheless no agreement settled on the official Track-I level. The outputmeasurement has also some handicaps in ignoring other influences. Thus, in this study the success is measured only in terms of the following: “no progress”, “progress”, and “breakthrough”. The focus is on the change of perception of the adversaries’ positions and interests reached through an NGO-led third-party mediation. If both parties consider such a workshop as a great success because they made big progress in understanding the opposite’s position and defining common interests, then the workshop was a great success, regardless of whether it is followed by an official agreement or not. Furthermore, a successful workshop should produce some proposals, new ideas or models how to resolve the conflict. If the participants joined open discussions in a nonbinding atmosphere of a scholarly exchange of ideas, the outcome should be some new suggestions for the whole discussion in general and the political leaders particularly. The subjective perception of the participants and the fabricated proposals are therefore the indicators for the measurement of the outcome of a third-party’s mediation attempt.

If the (successful) mediation attempt has at all contributed to the resolution of a given

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conflict is another question which shall be considered in a second section (Part IV).

118

(Kriesberg 1991) p. 20

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PART II – CASE STUDIES The history of the Israeli state and its neighbours is a history of conflict. It is also a history full of various attempts to solve this conflict. The conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis has been in the centre of attention and it is seen as the most important conflict for bringing peace to the Middle East region. 119 As Shlaim puts it: “Their history is one of mutual denial and mutual rejection.” 120 Many various attempts of mediation and conflict resolution have been made - by superpowers, international organisations, private individuals, and NGOs. 121 The cases analysed in this study are taken from these third-party approaches to resolving the conflict. The focus is on mediation attempts by university scholars or social scientists.

Until the mid-1980s, there were hardly any problem-solving workshops between Israeli and Palestinian scholars. 122 This was due to the Israeli ban of contacts with the PLO on the one hand, because most Palestinian scholars were related to the PLO. On the other hand, many Israeli political experts were associated with intelligence and security institutions. Thus, an exchange with the perceived enemy was seen as inconsistent.123 For the Palestinians, the fear was to be considered politically incorrect in the Arab world when discussing with the Israeli occupiers. As Mahmoud Abbas 124 expressed it: “Any Palestinian leader who wants to embark on secret negotiations with the Israelis will face violent Arab and Palestinian opposition because he would be departing from the norm in dealing with the Palestinian issue – an issue of interest to all and about which all have the right to express an opinion and to contribute to its resolution.” 125 The attempt of the Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg to organise a meeting between then Israeli opposition leader Peres and a moderate PLO official ended

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in a disaster. When Issam Sartawi, the PLO official, was attending a meeting with 119

See for a general survey of the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: (Smith 2001); (Lukacs 1984); (Tessler 1994); (Lea 2002); for the special security issues in this conflict of the “third kind”, see: (BenRafael 1987) 120 (Shlaim 1994) p. 25 121 See for example: (Rubin 1981b); (Touval 1992); for several earlier approaches of secret negotiations, see: (Rodan 1994a) and (Sella 1994) 122 See for some examples of academic conferences to side-step the embargo: (Rigby 1995) 123 (Kaufman 1993) p. 37 124 Mahmoud Abbas, like many PLO members, is also known by his “nom de guerre“, adopted once for personal security matters. His pseudonym is Abu Mazen. Two other “nom de guerre” are important for this study: Ahmed Qurei is known as Abu Ala and Yasser Arafat is known as Abu Ammar. 125 (Abbas 1995) p. 111

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Stoltenberg in Portugal in April 1983, he was assassinated by radicals opposing this mediation attempt. 126 This is a dramatic example of the opposition one could experience from one’s own people when engaged in mediation attempts (another example is the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in November 1995). But it illustrates the danger inherent in these mediation issues between Israelis and Palestinians and highlights another problem: The strongest opposition in this conflict is not always to be expected from the adversary side. There are interest groups on both sides of this conflict that are bitterly opposed to certain compromises which have hindered a sustainable solution, not the least Israeli settlers. 127

An obstacle for Track-II mediations on the Palestinian side was the struggle for power within the PLO between the different factions which can be considered as pro-Arafat and anti-Arafat parties. 128 The position of Arafat and his supporters advanced critically in November 1988, when the 19th Palestine National Council (PNC) confirmed the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 129 and 338 130 . These Resolutions proclaim the willingness to accept the right of an Israeli state to exist and were highly controversial within the PLO. Their acceptance paved the way for further negotiations between the PLO and Israel and strengthened the position of Arafat, who was an advocate of these resolutions. 131 But these UN Resolutions remained opposed by groups within the PLO as well as outside what led to the founding of the Hamas as a Palestinian outside-PLO opposition which fundamentally rejected the acceptance of any Israeli state. 132

The Israeli side was roughly divided into interest groups near political positions of the Likud party and those gathering on Labour parties’ positions. In general, the Labour

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party was more open to conflict solution proposals which implemented a higher degree

126

(Makovsky 1996) p. 15 See (Kifner 1993) 128 See for an introduction in the different sections within the PLO: (Sayigh 1989b); (Steinberg 1994); and (Sayigh 1997) 129 See Appendix I 130 See Appendix II 131 (Smith 2001) pp. 341-345; (Parsons 2005) pp. 84-85 132 See Hamas’ founding document from August 18th, 1988: www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm (21.04.2008) 127

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of Palestinian self-government, while the Likud party rigorously opposed the conception of any Palestinian self-government. 133

In the early 1990s, the situation in the Middle East was in certain aspects prone to mediation attempts by third-parties. The conflict was already protracted over decades after several mediation attempts during the past, of which probably the Camp David meetings led by US President Jimmy Carter are the best known. 134 The situation in the early 1990s can be considered as a “mutually hurting stalemate” 135 with all the problematic implications of protracted conflicts, notably thousands of fatalities in this case. 136 But beneath the obstacle of more than 1,000 fatalities due to this conflict for its resolution 137 , other conditions were favourable for mediation attempts. The international context was advantageous because after the end of the Cold War, the Middle East was no longer divided in pro-US and pro-Soviet blocs. Further, the PLO’s budget was critically shortened after its support of Iraq in the Gulf War 1991 when Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cancelled their financial support. 138 The PLO had lost its Soviet and, to an important degree, Arab support and was therefore more amenable to mediation attempts than antecedent. 139

In Israel, the Likud government of Shamir lost power in June 1992 and the new elected Labour government under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was more open to negotiating a conflict resolution with the PLO. This international and national political framework of the conflict led to a number of

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mediation attempts by third-parties in the early 1990s.

133

See (Sela and Ma'oz 1997) See for example: (Bradley 1981) and (Parker 1989) 135 (Zartman 1996) p. 18 136 For the number of fatalities due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compare the data of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Heidelberg Institute of International Conflict Research (HIIK), the Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE), and the Uppsala Conflict Database (UCDP); all available via: www.sipri.org/contents/webmaster/databases (13.03.2008) 137 See (Bercovitch et al. 1991) 138 See (Rubin 1994) 139 See (Bercovitch 1997) pp. 223-225; for another assumption why especially Arafat was interested in mediation attempts alternative to the Washington negotiations in order to fasten his position within the PLO, see: (Parsons 2005) pp. 55-80 134

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For this study, there are three important events in the recent history of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The Middle East peace conference in Madrid in October/ November 1991 was a crucial watershed in the Israeli-Palestinian relations when, for the first time, official delegates met for negotiations. The second important event is the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington, September 1993. 140 This agreement marks the mutual recognition of Israelis and Palestinians and paved the way for further negotiations. The third important event is the so-called “Oslo II Agreement”, an agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip issues, signed September 1995. 141

These three events are the milestones for this study; the cases chosen are temporally seated between the Madrid conference and the Oslo II Agreement. The political background is the Labour-led coalition which held the majority in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, between June 1992 and May 1996. These four years marked a window of opportunity for the peace process because the Labour-policy can be considered as much more moderate toward an agreement with the Palestinians than the Likud one. 142

In every analysed case in this study, a foreign NGO was involved in unofficial Track-II mediations. With the variables exemplified in Part I of this paper, how these NGOs have contributed to an improvement of the conflict shall be analysed.

Definition moderate/ hard-liner The participants of the workshops can be divided roughly into two groups: moderate and non-moderate. This is according to the necessary scope of political opinions and the recommended variety of political factions to reach agreements which are likely to be accepted afterwards by the majority of the people (see Part I – section Participation). In the cases analysed, participants were considered in relation to the main political Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

positions of the Israeli parties, Labour and Likud, during the 1992 Knesset election campaign. Their diametrical positions on questions concerning how to manage the conflict with the Palestinians allows the labelling of participants as moderate or nonmoderate. The Labour position, which shall be considered as moderate, called for territorial compromise and Palestinian self-government. The Likud position, the non140

See Appendix III See Appendix IV 142 See (Kimmerling 1997); (Rolef 1997); (Binder 1997) 141

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moderate, requested that the Intifada be suppressed through force and the Palestinians not allowed more than local self-government, while the West Bank and Gaza should remain under Israeli sovereignty. 143 Because these two parties together gained the overwhelming majority of votes, their positions can be considered as the relevant political opinions of the left and the right. In the following, participants shall be labelled as moderate or non-moderate according to the measures listed above, and as not important if they are indeed members of one of these two parties (Labour and Likud) or Israeli citizens at all.

For the Palestinian side, the distinction is made between the pro-Arafat groups within the PLO which have supported negotiations with the Israeli government (moderate) and the anti-Arafat groups within the PLO plus outside groups (for example Hamas and Islamic Jihad) which have opposed such negotiations. 144 In other words, the supporters of the 19th PNC decision to accept the UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 are considered as moderate, while its opponents are considered as hard-liners. 145

Case 1 - American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) was founded in 1780. Today it is an independent policy research centre with approximately 4000 American members and 600 Foreign Honorary Members. Its main goals are developing policy alternatives, fostering public engagement, and mentoring new scholars. 146 According to an earlier workshop organised by the American Friends Service Committee (Quaker) 147 , the Committee on International Security Studies (CISS), a political research group within the AAAS, initiated a set of conferences about the

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Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1991. Based on meetings of Israeli NGOs and Palestinians organised by the Foundation for International Security (FIS), seated in England, the AAAS initiated a problem-solving workshop In the beginning these conferences were jointly organised with the Jerusalem-based Israel Palestine Center for Research and

143

See (Tessler and Grant 1998) pp. 107-110 For the struggle for power within the Palestinian group, see: (Litvak 1997); (Mishal 1997) 145 (Parsons 2005) pp. 35-43 146 See: http://www.amacad.org/ 147 See for the report: (Mendelsohn 1989) 144

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Information (IPCRI). 148 After October 1992, AAAS was the sole organiser of the meetings. 149 Only these mediation attempts, first held in London in October 1992 and later in Cambridge and Rome, are analysed in the following.

The various conferences, which can be considered as problem-solving workshops, continued with varying participants until 1994. Members of this so called Study Group or Transitional Study Group (TSG) were American, Israeli, and Palestinian experts. The meetings were Track-II affords, although official PLO delegates took part and Naomi Chazan, a member of the Israeli group, was elected as member of the Knesset in 1992. But because she was not a high-rank member of the Israeli government, her participation did not upgrade the meetings to official Track-I negotiations.

The aim of the meetings was to develop recommendations to address to political leaders on both sides to ease the transition into Palestinian self-government. 150 The participants did not linger with the question of the possibility of Palestinian self-government and sovereignty; they took this possibility and necessity for granted. Thus, they worked on detailed problems of security, economy and institution building in the Occupied Territories and developed a potential schema for the transition period. The purpose was to exemplify the practical transition into Palestinian sovereignty through professional recommendations. As Lesch, one of the AAAS organisers, points out: “It demystifies the concept of self-government and demonstrates the numerous practical elements that need to be established on the ground.” 151

Participants The TSG included highly experienced scholars, professors mainly interested in the

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Middle East problem from various universities, and publicly influential journalists: x

Everett Mendelsohn, fellow of the AAAS and Professor of the History of Sciences at Harvard University, who chaired this study group.

x

Jeffrey Boutwell from the AAAS, Program Director of the CISS who also served in the National Security Council staff during the Carter Administration.

148

(Inbari 1996b) p. 226 (Agha et al. 2003) p. 58 150 See (Zraket et al. 1991-1992) 151 (Lesch 1993) p. 56 149

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x

Naomi Chazan, Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and member of the Knesset 1992-2003. 152

x

Mahdi Abdul Hadi, President of The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, former fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

x

Ruth Klinov, Associate Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

x

Fouad Moughrabi, Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. Moughrabi was the co-author of a study about a Palestinian state that is concerned with questions about a religious or secular statehood, the economic system, and the militarisation of this state. 153

x

Salim Tamari, Associate Professor of Sociology at Bir Zeit University, West Bank, who was also Editor of the Social Science Research Review of the university (Afaq Falastiniyya) and Co-Editor of the Middle East Report. Tamari was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Multilateral Working Group on Refugees which held its first meeting in July 1992. 154

x

Shibley Telhami, Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University, who served as a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, advising the United States Mission at the United Nations during the Gulf Crisis in the 1990s and is the author of a study about the bargaining strategies of Israel and Egypt during the Camp David negotiations. 155 He further analysed the public opinion within the Arab states during the first Gulf War 156 and the American public opinion towards Israel. 157

x

Mark Tessler, Professor of Political Science at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, with in-depth knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He published several studies on Middle East issues. 158

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These were the scholar-participants directly connected with the AAAS which also coauthored an earlier published report of the Study Group in 1992. 159 152

http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=56 (19.03.2008); for her political positions, see: (Chazan et al. 1992) 153 See (Moughrabi et al. 1991) 154 See for his appraisal: (Tamari 1996) and also some of his publications: (Tamari 1990); (Tamari 1991); (Tamari 1992); (Tamari and Stork 1994); (Tamari 1995) 155 See: (Telhami 1990); (Telhami 1992-1993) 156 See (Telhami 1993) 157 See (Krosnick and Telhami 1995) 158 See (Lesch and Tessler 1989; Tessler and Grant 1998) and especially his article about the Intifada: (Tessler 1990)

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The further participants on the Israeli side were: x

Major General Shlomo Gazit, who served 33 years for the Israeli Defence Forces and as Head of Military Intelligence. 160

x

Joseph Alpher, who was then Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and was later, 1995-2000, Director of the Israeli Middle East Office of the American Jewish Committee in Jerusalem. Alpher served twelve years in the Israeli intelligence Mossad. 161

x

Ahmad Khalidi, Editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London. 162

x

Zeev Schiff, a military analyst who edits the daily newspaper Ha’aretz. Schiff can be considered as one of the most experienced experts of Israeli security debates. Due to his profession, he has attended many unofficial background information meetings with high officials 163

On the Palestinian side those who participated were: x

Yezid Sayigh, a security specialist who published studies on the PLO and Intifada, as well as security studies discussing innovative ideas such as “soft” and “hard” borders. 164

x

Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Center for Palestine Research and Studies in Nablus.

x

Nizar Ammar, who was then Deputy Director at the Directorate of International Relations of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). 165

The sheer number of these participants along with the range of specifications causes some confusion and, indeed, this was one of the aims of the organisers. The AAAS organised their conferences with the listed participants to provide an umbrella for secret

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meetings of an inner group among the participants.

159

For a list of participants, see: (Lesch 1992) pp. 159-160 See for his standpoint about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1947: (Gazit 1998) 161 See for his positions: (Alpher 1994); (Alpher 1995) 162 Khalidi can be considered as moderate, see especially: (Khalidi 1995a); (Khalidi 1995b) 163 (Zraket et al. 1992-1993) p. 28 164 See (Sayigh 1989b); (Sayigh 1989a); (Sayigh 1995) 165 See (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 59-63 160

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All these participants were engaged in the workshop, discussed the security issues, and published reports; 166 but during the meetings of the whole group of participants, a smaller group, an inner circle, discussed the really important issues. The participants of this inner circle were Alpher, Gazit and Schiff on the Israeli side. Khalidi, Sayigh and Ammar participated for the Palestinians.167 This mini-group discussed issues and developed new solutions for the Israeli withdrawal which was later named the “Gaza first” option and the “Gaza plus” option, respectively. The other AAAS-participants neither took part in these conversations nor were they briefed afterwards. The meetings of the inner circle ended in June 1993, while the official AAAS conferences moved on until 1994. 168

The character of the group is to be considered as moderate. The simple fact that the participants discussed the problems of a transition of sovereignty for the Palestinian people and no longer the question of whether there shall be Palestinian sovereignty at all proves this estimation. The Israeli participants were Labour supporters, at least of the ideas of “land for peace” 169 , while the Palestinian participants were chosen by Mahmoud Abbas and thus part of the pro-Arafat group within the PLO. On neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian side were opponent positions included. Thus, the precondition to include all concerned groups to a conflict was not fulfilled.

Character of conflict The AAAS workshops were initiated to reach progress in the problematic security issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Generally, security issues are easier to mediate than more emotional political issues like self-determination. But in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the questions about security were directly connected to questions of sovereignty. This was particularly true when the security issues concerned Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the problems during the transition phase towards a Palestinian self-government. According to Fisher, this is to be considered as a value-driven conflict which is more complicated to mediate than interest-driven conflicts. 170

166

For the CISS reports, see: (Zraket et al. 1991-1992); (Zraket et al. 1992-1993) and (Zraket et al. 19931994) 167 (Inbari 1996b) p. 226 168 (Inbari 1996b) p. 227 169 This idea dates back to UN resolution 242, see Appendix I 170 (Fisher and Ury 1981) p. 50

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The conflict had already reached the final stage of deterioration when the AAAS attempt took place. The year 1992 was further marked by intra-Palestinian killings of suspected collaborators impeding the readiness for moderate Palestinians to participate in mediation attempts. 171

In Wright’s model, this stage is labelled as (4) “violence”, while Fisher/ Keashly named this stage (IV) “destruction”. 172 The optimal conditions for effective mediation, according to Kressel, were not given: The conflict was at high level, the two adversaries were unequal in power, and the conflict was on “fundamental principles”. 173 Furthermore, the perceived gap between the Israelis and the Palestinians can be considered as broad anyhow, this is to be exactly measured. 174 In sum, the preconditions for successful mediation were problematic, or nearly worstpossible; the only positive aspect was the joint participation of Israelis and Palestinians at this workshop.

Stage of Conflict The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was already protracted when the AAAS attempt was initiated. The conflict about Palestinian self-government and Israeli security issues lasted far longer than a decade (one can date the outbreak of the conflict back to 1948 175 , or even earlier, calling it a “modern Hundred Years’ War” 176 ). There has been many more than 500 fatalities on both sides. 177 There were no negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, even severe ones; contacts to members of the PLO were forbidden by Israeli law. Thus, the situation of the conflict

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in 1992, when the AAAS initiated its conferences, must be considered as “stalemate”. 178

171

(Kuttab 1992) p. 101; Amnesty International estimates the number of 200 “collaboration killings” in 1992; see Amnesty International Report 1993 172 See (Wright 1965); (Fisher and Keashly 1991) p. 37 173 (Kressel 2006) pp. 730-732 174 (Galtung 1989) p. 13 175 See (Smith 2001) 176 (Klieman 2000) p. 4 177 See data on: www.sipri.org/contents/webmaster/databases (13.03.2008) 178 See (Bercovitch et al. 1991); (Zartman 1996)

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Participation The AAAS staff in these workshops acted as fully involved participants; they participated in all the discussions and lanced their own suggestions for the resolution of the conflict. The suggestions concerned issues about Palestinian self-government, the status of Jerusalem, security, economy, water distribution, and regime buildings. 179

But in the really important discussions of the inner circle, no AAAS scholar was involved. Due to the Israeli ban on contacts with PLO officials, the inner circle met secretly during the intermissions of the AAAS conference. 180 The AAAS provided the location, invited the participants, and served as a framework so that the inner circle participants could meet secretly. The AAAS members did not participate in these discussions; therefore, their role is to be considered as a mere “communicator”.181 They facilitated the workshop of the two adversaries without being an active participant at the discussion table.

Secrecy The AAAS published regular reports on the progress of the discussions of the entire group. 182 In this way, there was a report every year about the new ideas that had developed and the progress made. Participants published occasional papers simultaneously. 183 In 1995, Boutwell and Mendelsohn published as editors the main findings of the workshop. 184 But these publications were only about the official AAAS conference’s outcomes which are of no interest to this study. The outcomes of the meetings of the mini-group were reported to “thirty top members of the security and political establishment” 185 on both sides. This political establishment Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

included Rabin, Arafat and Abbas. Security and political officials on both sides as well as some scholars of the Jaffee Center (University Tel-Aviv) were informed about the 179

See (Lesch 1993) (Makovsky 1996) p. 17 181 See (Zartman 1991); (Northedge and Donelan 1971) 182 See (Zraket et al. 1992-1993) and (Zraket et al. 1993-1994) 183 See for a list of published Emerging Issues Occasional Paper: www.amacad.org/publications/israeli.aspx (20.04.2008) 184 See (Boutwell and Mendelsohn 1995) 185 Interview with Joseph Alpher, March 22, 1995; see (Makovsky 1996) p. 18 180

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progress of these mediation attempts within the larger AAAS attempt. 186 The number of recipients was too high for the Israeli leadership, especially for Rabin. They were afraid that a group of so many insiders might be prone to leakages to the public. 187

There is no evident proof of any leakages to the media. Thus, the secrecy status is to be considered at the stage of “reports”, with all the problems in securing secrecy that such a great number of insiders implies. The lacking guarantee of secrecy in this Track-II attempt meant the difference to the Oslo approach, thus convincing the Israeli government to support only the latter. This shall be analysed in Part III of this study.

Funding The conferences and publications were sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation (1991-1992) and by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation (1992-1993). 188 Consequently, the origin of funding was outside the adversary groups, but nonetheless it must be considered as “problematic”. The US American government was perceived by at least some groups within the PLO as partial (favouring Israel). 189 As noted above, the origin of sponsorship can be problematic, no matter if the government (in this case the US government) is involved or not. 190 The simple fact that the AAAS conferences were organised by an American institute and funded by American foundations could have created problems for the implementation of agreements on the Palestinian side. Especially Arafat found it difficult to implement an American-brokered agreement to his people. 191 But no agreements were reached, due to other factors as the following will show.

Beneath the sole origin of the funding there was another quantitative difference between the funding of the cases analysed. Compared to the resources available for the Oslo and Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the Stockholm mediation, the AAAS funding provided by the Ford Foundation was limited. 192 This fact could have been critical for the decision of the Israeli leadership 186

See (Rodan 1994b) (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 60-69 188 See (Boutwell 1991); and (Lesch 1992) 189 For a survey of the problematic history of US-Palestinian relations, see: (Rubin 1997); and (Aruri 2003) 190 See (Mitchell and Banks 1996) 191 (Corbin 1994) p. 120 192 See (Rodan 1994b) 187

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which Track-II attempt to support, since the mere financial requirements for organising several secret meetings disqualified the AAAS attempt.

Backing The backing for the AAAS workshop was dependent on other ongoing workshops at this time. When the secret Track-II mediation approach in Oslo was initiated in January 1993, there was a mutual accordance of Israelis and Palestinians not to open any other channel of communication. 193 This was further intensified when Uri Savir joined the Oslo meetings in May 1993. The Oslo attempt was considered after the event to be the only important Track-II approach at this time. Especially Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was convinced that there should only be one Track-II attempt for it to be effective.194 This also ended the backing of the Palestinian participants of the AAAS workshop who were formerly instructed by the highest PLO leaders, according to Alpher. 195

After that shift, the AAAS participants lacked the backing of the governments to discuss security issues exclusively. They were not in charge of testing new models of solution and they did not receive information about the issues currently in discussion in the leaderships of their governments. Thus, they could neither assure the adversary group of participants that their suggestions were backed by their government, nor that their findings will be mentioned by the political leaders. The participants of the AAAS meetings could try to make progress on these security subjects, but without the guarantee of being influential on the politically important officials.

Outcome The workshops each produced a report about the suggestions agreed upon by the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

participants which was conveyed among a wider leadership on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. Although the participants of the inner circle of the AAAS meetings did not receive the backing of their governments, these security experts discussed the urgent problems at this time. The outcome of these discussions was the model of “Gaza plus” (as 193

(Abbas 1995) pp. 51, 71; (Peres and Landau 1995) pp. 327-330 See (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 62-65 195 See (Rodan 1994b) 194

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differentiated from “Gaza first”). This comprised recommendations for the shift to Palestinian sovereignty in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Further, the participants discussed the possibilities of shared intelligence for mutual benefit. 196 These new proposals became subject to the security discussions of high officials on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. 197 Thus, following the criteria developed in Part I of this paper, the outcome of the AAAS conference is to be considered as “progress”. In this way, this is exactly what the discussion on both the Palestinian and the Israeli sides had experienced through the new ideas and papers influenced by the discussions under the shield of the AAAS. 198

According to Makovsky, who interviewed Joseph Alpher on 22 March 1995, the organiser of the AAAS meetings, Everett Mendelsohn, knew that “the conference was a guise, but believed that it was the best way to bring security-minded Israelis and Palestinians together.” 199 It can be assumed that the progress on the possible solution of this issue had an impact on the discussions later held in Oslo. Thus, through the development of new recommendations, which were contemplated on both sides and possibly shifted positions of the political leaders, the AAAS meetings facilitated the Track-II talks in Norway. The new ideas for security arrangements during the phase of transition can be found in the publications of Alpher written afterwards. 200 In 1993, the deliberations of the TSG were conveyed officially to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat. 201 Looking back, and also forward, in 1998, Moughrabi (one of the participants) was quite pessimistic about the settlement reached and the possibility of further development. 202 But the fact that the transition to Palestinian self-government in Gaza and the West Bank followed some of the AAAS

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recommendations might be an indicator of the impact of this Track-II attempt. 203

196

See (Flint 1993) See (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 65-66 198 See an internal memo of the AAAS inner circle discussions: Appendix V 199 (Makovsky 1996) p. 17 200 See (Alpher 1994); (Alpher 1995) 201 See (Zraket et al. 1992-1993) p. 28 202 See (Moughrabi 1998) 203 See Appendix III 197

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Case 2 – FAFO (Oslo) In January 1992, Abu Ala, the Palestinian “finance minister” in charge of the PLO financial institution Samed, 204 met with the Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland in Oslo to discuss the possibilities of a Norwegian mediation attempt in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Later that day, they were joined by Terje Larsen, head of an Oslo seated NGO, the FAFO institute. But in the afterwards, this request was dismissed by the Israeli Ambassador to Oslo, Yoel Allon, who was the recipient of the proposal. In September 1992, a new effort was raised during a meeting between Egeland, Larsen, and the Israeli Foreign Deputy Ministers, Yossi Beilin and Yair Hirschfeld. Beilin also dismissed the proposal, which, due to the ban of contacts to PLO officials, was forbidden by the Israeli law. 205 But the idea of Norwegian mediation was born and Beilin was to become the crucial Israeli supporter of this approach. Finally, the first mediation meeting took place on 20 January 1993. During the several meetings of this workshop, the participants developed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) based on a draft presented by the Israeli side on 11 February 1993. 206 This draft became the official document of formal mutual Israeli-PLO recognition (DOP) signed on 13 September 1993 in Washington, D.C. 207

The mediation attempt was initiated by the Norwegian social scientist, Terje Rod Larsen, and his team from the Oslo seated institute FAFO (Forskningsstiftelsen for Studier av Arbeidsliv, Fagbevegelse og Offentlig Politikk). The institute was founded in 1982 by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions. The aims of this institute are to develop social studies about living and working conditions and to provide these research results to policy makers in the governments as well as in the business sector in Norway and internationally. 208 Terje Larsen, who was also the founder of FAFO, was concerned about the Israeli-

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Palestinian conflict because he had done research on the living conditions in the Occupied Territories, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Through this study he became acquainted with various politicians on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides, for example Yasser Arafat’s brother Fathi. 209 204

For an introduction of the institution Samed see: (Rubenberg 1983) (Makovsky 1996) pp. 15-16 206 See Appendix VI 207 See Appendix III 208 http://www.fafo.no/english/hist/abo-Fafo.html (28.03.2008) 209 See (Sanders 1999) p. 53 205

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These contacts proved to be important for the successful organisation of the Track-II talks. The first participants, two Israeli academics and PLO representatives, met in London and decided to continue secret mediation meetings in Norway. 210

Participants For the FAFO institute the only participant was Terje Larsen assisted by Even Aas, a young researcher at the institute. Aas was in charge of renting cars and booking flights as well as additional logistical requirements. Further, the Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland, Foreign Minister Johan Holst and Mona Juul, Holst’s assistant and Larsen’s wife, took part as hosts for the mediation attempt. At the first meeting, on 20 January 1993, Holst’s wife, Marianne Heiberg, presented the study about living conditions in the occupied territories she had co-authored with Larsen. Heiberg was a FAFO researcher but attended the meeting without knowing the real purpose of the participants coming together. Her appearance was used to reinforce the official character of the meeting as an academic seminar. 211

According to Bercovitch, the hosts’ qualifications were critical for the outcome of the meetings. Egeland and Holst had PhDs in political science, Larsen was a social scientist and lived several years together with his wife in the Middle East,. Their knowledge and experience were preconditions to create “the “Oslo spirit” of confidence, credibility and genuine commitment to peacemaking.” 212

For the Israeli side, Yair Hirschfeld, a faculty member of Haifa University and Ron Pundik, a former student of Hirschfeld who was then working as a journalist participated in the meetings. 213 For the Palestinian side, Abu Ala (Ahmed Qurai), leader of Samed, the PLO Economics Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Department, took part. He was at this time “relatively unknown in Israel even to experts, and it remained unclear how authoritative he was.” 214

210

See (Rolef 1997) (Corbin 1994) pp. 41-45 212 (Bercovitch 1997) p. 230, see also: (Hoffman 1993) 213 For Hirschfeld’s latest engagement and publication see: www.bakerinstitute.org/personnel/fellowsscholars/yhirschfeld?searchterm=hirschfeld (10.04.2008) 214 (Makovsky 1996) p. 23 211

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Maher al-Kurd was also a participant. He was attached to Abu Ala’s Economics Department and was later replaced by Muhammed Abu Kush. The third Palestinian participant was Hassan Asfour, a member of the Palestinian Communist Party and deputy director at the Directorate of International Relations of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Although the three Palestinian participants were official representatives of the PLO, their low rank inside this organisation allows it to consider the meetings as a Track-II attempt. 215 In May 1993, the Israeli delegation was extended by Uri Savir, Director General of the Foreign Ministry and Joel Singer, a former military lawyer who then became Legal Advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. It was Singer who developed the final, binding, version of the DOP. However, with the participation of Savir and Singer, the meetings were critically upgraded, thus receiving a more official character. The meetings, also still supported and attended by Hirschfeld and Pundik who continued participating, finally resulted in the signing of the DOP, on 13 September 1993.

On both sides, potential problematic groups were excluded from the mediation. On the Israeli side, no Likud-linked participant was included and on the Palestinian side there was no representative of the Hamas positions. These exclusions were made for the sake of a higher probability to reach an agreement, but meant the problems which occur when important groups to a conflict were excluded. Thus, the participants can be considered on the whole as “moderate”; the range of participating positions did not include all concerned groups to the conflict.

Character of conflict When the Oslo attempt was initiated, the situation of the conflict was exactly the same as it was during the AAAS conferences because they were nearly simultaneous. The Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

character of conflict was “violence” and “destruction”, respectively; and the conflict was value-driven. 216 The perceived gap between the adversaries was the same as during the AAAS meetings and the ideal conditions for effective mediation were not given. 217 Thus, the outlook for a mediation attempt was hindered by the same obstacles inherent in this situation as described above in Case 1. But there was one critical difference in 215

See (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 37-41; (Shlaim 1994) pp. 30-33 See (Wright 1965); (Fisher and Keashly 1991); and (Burton 1986a);(Fisher and Ury 1981) 217 See (Galtung 1989) and (Kressel 2006) 216

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the backing of the Israeli government and the PLO for this attempt as will be analysed in the following. This backing, what was missing in the AAAS attempt, proved the commonly requested mediation of both adversaries which is also one of Kressel’s preconditions.

Stage of conflict The stage of the conflict was also exactly the same as described in Case 1: It was the stage of “stalemate” including longer duration than a decade, more than 500 fatalities in all, and no negotiations were held between the adversaries due to an Israeli ban of PLO contacts. This situation implied all the problems mentioned by the advocates of mediation attempts that take part in an earlier stage of conflict 218 and is also less amenable to mediation than conflicts of less than 500 fatalities. 219 There were still ongoing attacks from both sides. 220 But according to Pruitt’s term of “readiness” to resolve a conflict, it can be assumed that such “readiness” was given to a certain degree because both parties’ leaderships recommended this mediation attempt and supported it. 221

Participation The contribution of the FAFO institute to the success of the Oslo Track-II was outside the initiation and hosting of the meetings and the continual communication between the two adversaries. Direct telephone calls were impossible due to the need for secrecy. For example, when the Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Joergen Holst met Arafat in Tunis on 16 July 1993, he wanted to brief the Israeli Foreign Minister Peres after the meeting. Holst asked Larsen and his wife Mona Juul to convey this letter to Peres personally to ascertain the highest level of secrecy possible. 222 Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Further, Larsen and his team met the participants individually to brief them between the meetings about the other side’s standpoints. In July 1993, for example, Larsen met with

218

See (Edmead 1971); (Kriesberg 1991); (Princen 1992a) See (Bercovitch et al. 1991) 220 See for example the Journal of Palestine Studies 1992-1994 221 See (Pruitt 2005) and (Pruitt 2006) 222 (Abbas 1995) p. 106 219

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Israeli Foreign Minister Peres in Jerusalem to discuss the issue of Jerusalem as a component of the Declaration of Principles. 223 The FAFO institute provided, therefore, a link in the “communication chain” between PLO leader Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. Other chain links were the Palestinian participants, the Israeli participants, the Israeli diplomats and the Israeli Foreign Minister Peres. 224 In this way, Arafat and Rabin communicated through five groups of transmitters and could avoid direct contact.

This contribution as a go-between - mediating, in the best sense of the word - went further than the role of a mere deliverer. For example, Hirschfeld and Pundik were put on the FAFO payroll to allow them to participate in the workshops since it was not possible for the Israeli Foreign Ministry to pay them due to the maintaining of secrecy. And although they did not take part in the discussions, the FAFO staff provided their “suggestions, alternatives and sometimes different scenarios. They adopted the role of a full partner in the negotiations.” 225 As defined in Part I of this study, the role of the FAFO mediators is therefore to be considered as “formulators”, although they did not take part in the discussions. They facilitated the communication between the two adversary groups, organised the meetings, provided logistical support, conveyed messages, and further: “At times, the Norwegians provided other mediating services, such as suggesting compromise formulas.” 226 Larsen understood his function in view of the Israelis and Palestinians as follows: “They need an interpreter who can explain how things look from the other side. You carry messages between the sides, but you also interpret them, so it gives you significant influence.” 227 The FAFO-staff did not participate in the discussions between the Israelis and Palestinians at the workshop, but during face-to-face conversations with single Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

participants between the discussions, especially Larsen implemented his proposals on the issues. 228

223

(Peres and Landau 1995) p. 332 See (Pruitt 2005) 225 (Abbas 1995) p. 104 226 (Kriesberg 2001) p. 382 227 (Guardia 2003) 228 (Corbin 1994) p. 88; p. 134; p. 140; 224

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Due to this fact, the third-party role of the FAFO institute is to be considered as that of a “formulator” and not merely as a “communicator”. The third-party impact on the participants and the whole outcome of the workshop was critically higher than, for example, the impact of the AAAS-staff.

Secrecy The meetings were held under absolute secrecy. Only few staff members on the Israeli and Palestinian sides were involved. The aim was to solve the problems, to reach an agreement and to pass this on to the official negotiation level, but the Track-II attempt should never become known. In the time of the first meetings in Norway, neither the Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, nor the Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was informed about this attempt. 229 Only after the second round of meetings near Oslo, the two top Israeli leaders were fully informed. Beneath Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres, only Peres’ political aide Avi Gil and Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin’s aide Shlomo Gur were involved on the Israeli side. 230 Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin and his colleagues were the initiators of the talks. Prime Minister Rabin was so anxious about any leakages that he avoided including any of his office assistants . 231

On the Palestinian side, the need for secrecy was similarly urgent. For this reason, high PLO officials like Faisal and Hannan, who were the delegates to the official talks in Washington at this time,.were not informed 232 In the beginning, only Arafat, Abbas and Abu Ala knew about the possibility of the Oslo mediation attempt through the FAFO institute. The circle of confidants was then enlarged by the two other Palestinian participants to the Oslo meetings, Hassan Asfour and Maher al-Kurd. Later, al-Kurd was replaced by Muhammad Abu Kush but the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

number of Palestinians informed about the meetings who did not participate remained limited to Arafat and Abbas. 233

229

(Beilin 1999) pp. 57-58 (Peres and Landau 1995) p. 330 231 (Beilin 1999) pp. 94 + 100 232 (Beilin 1999) p. 80 233 (Abbas 1995) pp. 114-115 230

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The secrecy maintained was necessary to minimise the risk the key players faced personally. For Abu Ala, the leader of the Palestinian participants, the clandestine meetings with Israelis would mean serious problems if the meetings became public. Negotiations with Israelis were still strongly opposed by large parts of the PLO and Abu Ala’s involvement would probably have meant the end of his career at Samed. Beilin, the Israeli mentor of the mediation attempt, was at even higher risk because contacts with Palestinians were still prohibited by Israeli law at that time. Therefore, if the meetings had become public, Beilin probably would have lost his post as Deputy Foreign Minister and could have been charged. Larsen, who decided to use the FAFO institute as a front for the secret meetings, did so without consulting the board members of FAFO. He was assured that the success of the approach depended on the secrecy and therefore he did not discuss the proposal within his organisation to keep the number of people involved as small as possible. In a strictly democratically organised NGO such authoritarian behaviour would probably have meant his exclusion, although he was the founder of FAFO. 234

Thus, for their own sake the key figures of the Oslo meetings were highly interested in keeping them secret and avoiding any leakages to the public before they reached any positive results. In the afterwards, they could claim that the end justified the means. According to the levels defined in Part I for the variable “secrecy”, the FAFO organised mediation attempts in Norway were highly secret. No reports were conveyed to high officials in the government and no information leaked through to the media. As Hirschfeld pointed out in an interview: “One of the factors for success was secrecy.” 235

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The Norwegian Foreign Ministry supported the FAFO financially, which included the logistical costs for renting the locations, booking the flights and providing security teams. All these tasks were supported and financed by the Norwegian government. 236 Especially the maintaining of secrecy and the guarantee of the participants’ security was a huge logistical and financial burden for the Norwegian hosts. 237 Although there are no 234

See (Corbin 1994) pp.33-37 See (Tatro 1993) 236 (Beilin 1999) p. 56 235

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numbers publicly available about the costs of the Norwegian meetings, it can be assumed that a small NGO like FAFO would never have been able to afford them without the sponsoring of the Norwegian government. Therefore, the financial and logistical backing (including the special treatment of the Israeli and Palestinian participants at the airports to maintain secrecy) of the Norwegian government can be considered as critical to the positive outcome of the FAFO mediation.

The source of funding can be considered as “neutral”. The origin (Norway) is not part of the conflict and the Norwegian government was not perceived as partial by the participants. 238

Backing The backing of the attempt by the governments was critical, especially for the Palestinian side. The attempt of the Norwegian NGO was backed from the beginning by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin. But because of Prime Minister Rabin’s refusal of any further PLO contacts outside the official Washington negotiations, neither Rabin nor Foreign Minister Peres was informed about the meetings in Norway in the beginning phase. 239 Naturally, they could not back them. After the second meeting, Peres and Rabin were involved in the Norwegian mediation attempt 240 , but prohibited the Israeli participants from confirming their backing of their Palestinian adversaries. 241 The time was still not ripe for official Israeli-PLO negotiations and a backing by Peres and Rabin had upgraded the unofficial mediation in Norway. During the third round of meetings, on 20 March, the Israeli participants told their Palestinian adversaries “that the officials in Israel were pleased with the message of peace that our delegation had conveyed.” 242 Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Thus, the Palestinians were assured that the results of the meetings in Norway were received at the highest political level in Israel, although they did not officially back the Track-II attempt. It remained speculative on the Palestinian side whether Rabin was

237

(Beilin 1999) p. 78 See (Abbas 1995); (Beilin 1999); (Peres and Landau 1995); 239 (Beilin 1999) pp. 57-58 240 (Peres and Landau 1995) p. 327; (Makovsky 1996) p. 23 241 (Beilin 1999) p. 75 242 (Abbas 1995) p. 133 238

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involved or only Peres but at least they knew, or believed to know, that Beilin was not running this secret channel on his own.

The Palestinians were convinced of the possibilities of the Oslo attempt and backed their participants right from the beginning. This backing was given, although, for a long time, the Palestinians were not sure about the Israeli backing of the workshop and how serious they took this attempt. Nevertheless, the Palestinians avoided opening another channel of mediation but insisted on supporting the Oslo attempt unmitigated. 243 Thus, the Oslo Track-II attempt was fully backed by the highest leaders on both sides. The participants were instructed on the discussed issues and constantly reported the progress made back to their leaders. But the Israeli scholars Hirschfeld and Pundik, although backed by their government, had no clear, legally based instructions on what to offer and so they caused concrete dilemmas for the official negotiators at the Track-I level. 244

Outcome The Norwegian mediation attempt organised by the FAFO institute provided a crucial contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian mutual recognition which resulted in the signing of the DOP. 245 In the direct aftermath of the agreement, the atmosphere on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides was dominated by enthusiasm about the breakthrough reached in the peace process. Nabil Shaath, a close advisor to Arafat and head of the coordination committee of the Palestinian delegation to the peace negotiations in Washington, stated in an interview that after Oslo “the sky is the limit”. 246 He noted that the mutual recognition between the Israeli government and the PLO was insofar especially remarkable because the PLO was created to fight the state of Israel and this agreement Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

really meant a shift in the relations. 247 Insofar, the Oslo mediation attempt succeeded in contributing to a better understanding and an improvement of the mutual perception.

243

(Abbas 1995) p. 52 (Makovsky 1996) pp. 132-133 245 (Egeland 1994) p. 350 246 (Shaath 1993) p. 12 247 See (Shaath 1993) 244

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But after a first period of enthusiasm, more critical opinions were raised and also strict opposition to the Oslo accord. On the Israeli side, members of the Likud party and other parties of the right spectrum accused Rabin of negotiating with the PLO. They reproached especially that Rabin forgot about the Israeli settlers in the occupied territories when he agreed with the PLO about the transition of sovereignty. 248 And there were legal problems regarding the formulation of the mutual recognition, for example, which form of Israel the PLO recognised, notably in which borders. 249

Opposition from the Palestinian side emerged from similar sources. The Palestinian side was only represented through delegates of the PLO which assured PLO President Arafat an affirmation of his position. There are critiques that exactly this one-sided representation of the Palestinians, excluding important political wings and the Hamas, undermined a lasting success of the Oslo agreements. 250 These critiques augmented and received more public support when in the aftermath of the signing of the Oslo the economic situation in the occupied territories did not improve. 251

But in this study, the focus is on the success of the mediation attempt in Norway, not on the aftermath success of the official negotiated agreement. Palestinian and Israeli participants as well as officials were fully in accord with the assessment that the Oslo meetings meant a watershed in the mutual perceptions and thus their relations. 252 The workshop organised by the FAFO institute paved the way for further negotiations which seemed impossible only months before. As the Israeli Foreign Minister Peres points out: “Absolute secrecy was a necessity, and the Norwegians were a gift from heaven.” 253 Therefore, the mediation attempt of FAFO can be considered as a huge success in facilitating the conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians.

But aside from the successful outcome of the workshop there were failures made in the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

organisation which caused the problems which occurred afterwards. The selection of participants was not well balanced. Therefore, the agreement was opposed by the groups excluded from the mediation, namely right wing parties in Israel

248

(Shlaim 1994) p. 34, see also (Lustick 1997) See (Dajani 1994); (Michels 1994) 250 See (Parsons 2005) p. 55 ff. + p. 281 ff. 251 See (Abd al-Shafi 1993); (Roy 1995); (Roy 1994); (Dajani 1996); and especially (Said 2000) 252 See (Abbas 1995); (Beilin 1994); (Beilin 1999); (Peres and Landau 1995) 253 (Peres and Naor 1994)p. 87 249

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and extremist groups on the Palestinian side. 254 Another problem was the perception of the Oslo accord as a peace treaty and not as the beginning of a peace process, although it was probably rather the latter. 255 Indeed, it is possible to argue that no agreement would have been reached at Oslo if less moderate persons had come together and discussed the issues more narrowly. But these were the sources for the obstacles in the following.

Case 3 –OPIC (Stockholm) In October 1993, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin met in Tunis, at that time seat of the PLO headquarters. The two agreed to start a new round of secret meetings to consider the basis for further official negotiations on the issues still open after the Oslo accord. For the Israeli side, the two scholars Hirschfeld and Pundik were to participate again. The Palestinian participants were to be named by Mahmoud Abbas later. 256

The mediation attempt was initiated by Arafat and Beilin. It profited from the preparations done by the Washington-based NGO Search for Common Ground 257 which suggested a Swedish sponsorship of the workshop. Thus, the mediation attempt was financially supported by the Swedish Foreign Minister Magarita Af Ugla, who was succeeded by Lena Hilm Wallen after the Swedish elections in August 1994. The elections were won by the Swedish Socialist Party. The Prime Minister’s special envoy to the Middle East, Sten Anderson, was also the head of the Olof Palme Institute and so, in the following, the meetings were co-organised by the Foreign Ministry and the Palme Institute. 258

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The Swedish Olof Palme International Center designed the mediation attempt as a follow-up workshop to solve the questions left open after the Oslo accord. The Olof Palme International Center (OPIC) was founded in 1992 by the Swedish Social

254

(Lustick 1997) p. 63 (Beilin 1999) p. 136; see also: (Bar-Tal and Vertzberger 1997) 256 (Beilin 1999) pp. 141-145; (Hirsh 2000) 257 See: www.sfcg.org/sfcg/sfcg_home.html (29.03.2008) 258 (Beilin 1999) pp. 157-158 255

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Democratic Party and the Trade Confederation and today has 28 member organisations within the labour sector. 259

The first meeting took place on 1 September 1994 and during the following months several workshops were organised 260 until the final agreement between the participants was reached on 31 October 1995. 261 In the meantime, the Jerusalem-based Economic Co-operation Foundation, an NGO founded by Hirschfeld and Pundik, and the Jaffee Center headed by Joseph Alpher, organised parallel workshops on the same issues. These debates took place on weekends between 8 April and 5 May 1995 and were sponsored by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Among Alpher and Shlomo Gazit, another member of the Jaffee Center participated who had already been part of the AAAS organised workshops in 1992-1994; more precisely, he had been a participant of the inner circle meetings which were hosted and shielded by the AAAS conferences. 262 These workshops of ECF and the Jaffee Center were designed to bypass official negotiations and to support the OPIC meetings, but the participants were not aware of the secret meetings in Sweden. The concept was to gain further expert input from academics and scholars skilled at the security issues in Israel, without widening the circle of confidants. 263

The issues for the meetings in Sweden were similar to the ones discussed during the Oslo process. Some participants were the same, and the mediator was also a Scandinavian NGO; nonetheless, it was not simply a repeat of the Oslo mediation attempt. However, according to the success of the former Norwegian mediation attempt, the Swedish mediated meetings were also to be secret and non-binding. Further, like in Oslo, the aim of the meetings was to draft alternative proposals to later pass them on to the governments of both sides and facilitate the official negotiations. Especially on the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

question of borders and frontiers between the Israeli and a Palestinian state, much time was devoted to reach basic agreements on the modus of what was called “land for peace”. 264

259

http://www.palmecenter.org/AboutUs.aspx (31.03.2008) For the Working Papers agreed on, see: Appendix V 261 This document became titled: Beilin-Abu Mazen Document, see Appendix VIII 262 See (Beilin 1999) pp. 146-151 263 See (Hirsh 2000) 264 See (Beilin 1999) pp. 145-161 260

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Participants Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundik participated again for the Israeli side. They were formerly part of the Israeli delegation of the Track-II mediation in Oslo which led to the signing of the DOP. Hirschfeld and Pundik were then directing the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), Tel Aviv, a non-governmental organisation engaged in Israeli-Palestinian people-to-people exchanges concerned with social and economic development. In the later phase of the meetings in Sweden, Nimrod Novik, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies joined the Israelis. 265 Today, Novik is chairman of the ECF. For the Palestinians, Hussein Agha and Ahmad Khalidi, who had already participated in the AAAS meetings, took part in these mediation attempts. Later, Hassan Asfour joined the Palestinian side. He had also been a participant of the Oslo mediations. Thus, with the participation of Hirschfeld, Pundik, Asfour, and Khalidi, most participants were former members of the Track-II mediations by AAAS and FAFO. This made the Stockholm approach a real follow-up of the former rounds of problem-solving workshops.

But consequently, the participants of the OPIC-led workshops are also to be considered as “moderate” for this attempt as they were for the former ones. Opposing positions on the Israeli and Palestinian sides were excluded. The Israeli participants were close to Labour positions, namely “land for peace”, while the Palestinian counterparts were members of the pro-Arafat group within the PLO. Therefore, important opposing groups to the conflict were excluded. The workshop consisted only of “moderate” positions from the Israeli and the Palestinian sides and cannot be considered as well-balanced.

Character of conflict Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

At the time the Swedish mediation attempt was initiated, the situation of the conflict was still severe. The character of conflict was still in “violence” in the terms of Wright, and “destruction” according to Fisher/ Keashly. 266 There were nearly weekly attacks from both sides with a number of fatalities. 267

265

(Agha et al. 2003) pp. 77-80 See (Wright 1965); (Fisher and Keashly 1991) 267 See for example the Journal of Palestine Studies 266

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The conflict was still value-driven (Palestinian sovereignty). Thus, the character of the conflict was not facilitated by a shift of the topic.268 The perceived gap between the adversaries might have been shortened through the preceded mediation attempts and especially between the participants of these workshops who had also taken part in the OPIC-led meeting. 269 Thus, one precondition can be considered as improved in relation to the previously analysed cases. The precondition “jointly requested mediation” by Kressel was given. The other preconditions for effective mediation - “equal power” and “no conflict on fundamental principles” - were not given. 270 In sum, the preconditions for this third mediation attempt analysed were more promising. This was to a certain degree due to the progress the Israeli-Palestinian relation has made and the improved mutual perception reached through the work in the previous mediation attempts.

Stage of conflict The stage of the conflict is different in relation to the first two cases analysed. Although the Swedish mediation attempt was initiated only shortly after the AAAS and FAFO mediations and the conflict was still protracted and severe (more than 500 fatalities), there was a crucial difference. After the signing of the Oslo Accords and the mutual recognition of the Israeli government and the PLO, the way was paved for further official negotiations. These official negotiations took place and therefore the stage of conflict is to be considered as “protracted” and no longer as “stalemate”. 271 The mutual lethal attacks continued. During the OPIC-led mediation attempts was the Hebron Massacre (February 1994), the Hamas suicide bomber in Tel Aviv (October 1994), and the killings by the Islamic Jihad in Netanya (January 1995). 272 But beside these mortal obstacles to a solution of the conflict, there was again the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

support of the Israeli government and PLO-leader Arafat for the mediation attempt. Therefore, it can be considered that at least the leaderships were ready for a resolution of the conflict, although not all concerned groups were. 273

268

See (Burton 1986a); (Fisher and Ury 1981) See (Galtung 1989) 270 See (Kressel 2006) 271 See (Bercovitch et al. 1991); (Zartman 1996) 272 See: Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 24-26 273 See (Pruitt 2005) and (Pruitt 2006) 269

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Participation The Swedish participants fulfilled merely the role of organisers. They provided the location and, with the support of the Swedish government, assured the security of the Israeli and Palestinian participants. But they never took part in the discussions. 274 They neither expressed their views of the conflict nor suggested solutions. Thus, their participation was limited to material support, making the meetings of the two adversary parties possible. 275 It shall not be underestimated how important the role of a third party can be in facilitating the meetings through intimate talks with single participants. But according to the measures of participation deployed in Part I (see section Participation) the participation of the Olof Palme staff is to be considered as “communicators”. 276 They organised the meetings and conveyed messages of the parties between the sessions in Sweden but they did not actively participate in the discussions.

Secrecy Following the experiences with the Oslo success, the Palestinian side requested again strict secrecy of the meetings. There were no reports conveyed in the high official circles but some colleagues were informed about the discussions which were going on. 277 Faisal Husseini, the senior Palestinian leader in East Jerusalem was regularly briefed and also took part in one meeting of the Stockholm round. 278 There was a special need for secrecy because the participants also discussed the highly sensitive and controversial issue about the final status of Jerusalem. Leakages to the public of these discussions and their content would have caused serious problems to the participants. Therefore, Mahmoud Abbas distanced himself from the conclusions reached in Sweden when parts of it leaked to the press in the afterwards. 279

According to the levels of secrecy defined in Part I, the meetings in Sweden are to be Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

considered as “secret”. The progress of the discussion was not reported broadly to officials, neither on the Palestinian nor on the Israeli side (indeed, Israeli Foreign Minister Peres was informed about this Track-II attempt only when the meetings were

274

See Appendix VII, Document One, 2 (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 87-89 276 See (Zartman 1991); (Northedge and Donelan 1971) 277 See Appendix VII, Document One, 7 278 (Agha et al. 2003) p.78 279 See (Hirsh 2000) 275

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already finished). Further, no leakages to the media occurred. The workshop and its outcomes remained totally secret until revealed by its participants.

Funding The meetings were from the beginning financially and logistically supported by the Swedish Foreign Ministry which allocated a special budget to this project. 280 After the Swedish elections in August 1994, the workshops were co-sponsored by the Olof Palme International Center, which also organised the meetings.

The sponsoring can be considered as neutral; its origin was outside the conflict and the Swedish government was perceived as impartial by both adversaries. There has already been a long history of Swedish mediation attempts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which made them a trustful mediator to both sides. 281 Further, the Swedish government was not suspected to have proper political interests in the region, making this mediation attempt a wholly neutral perceived one. Again, like in the FAFO-led mediation attempt, the support of the NGO’s government assured not only financial resources, but also the availability of security forces and special treatment at the borders (especially at airports) for the participants. These services were not possible to provide for an NGO but proved critical for the secrecy and security of the whole workshop. Therefore, the funding by the Swedish Foreign Ministry can be considered as important for the successful outcome of the workshop.

Backing The third-party mediation attempt which took place in Stockholm was not equally backed by the Israeli and the Palestinian governments. For the Palestinian side, the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

question about backing is clear to answer. Arafat and Abbas initiated together with Beilin the Track-II attempt and were contacted immediately after the Swedish organisers had asked Agha and Khalidi to take part in the meetings. Arafat and Abbas both were convinced that this kind of secret Track-II talks could provide new ideas for the official negotiation process. Because they knew Hirschfeld and Pundik from the 280

(Beilin 1999) p. 155 For the attempts made by the Swedish Foreign Ministry to facilitate meetings between PLO officials and Israelis in the late 1980s, see: (Rabie 1992)

281

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former Oslo mediation, they were even more willing to support this initiative and to back Agha and Khalidi as participants. 282

On the Israeli side, it is rather indefinite to which degree the leaders Rabin and Peres knew about the meetings at all. Beilin, who was at this time Foreign Deputy Minister in the government, did not inform them about the start of the Track-II attempt in Sweden. 283 Also when the participants reached progress which resulted in agreements, he did not report to his superiors. It can be assumed that Rabin was informed about the meetings in Sweden by Israeli intelligence and accepted them implicitly but it is only proven that Beilin never did brief him and that he had only informed Peres a week after the assassination of Rabin in November 1995. 284 The Israeli leadership did not refuse the Track-II attempt; it simply never was informed about it.

Therefore, the backing of the OPIC-led mediation attempt is to be considered as merely partial. It was fully backed by the Palestinian side, but since it was only backed by the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin and none of his superiors the attempt was not equally backed from the leaderships. This fault of Israeli backing not only led to lacking instructions for the Israeli participants but caused further unwillingness for the implementation in the afterwards. As mentioned in the preconditions in Part I of this study, political leaders are often reluctant in adopting solutions they did not develop by themselves. In this case, then, Israeli Prime Minister Peres was not interested in the solution of a workshop he had not attended and preferred instead a solution via Syria. 285

Outcome During the Stockholm meetings, the participants discussed issues concerning the final Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

status of the peace process, in particular the solution of the conflict on Jerusalem. First, they agreed about a land swap between Israeli settlements in the West Bank and an equal territory in the Negev. Further, the Stockholm agreement included security issues, namely, that there would be no Arab military troops stationed west of the Jordan River.

282

(Agha et al. 2003) pp. 78-83 (Beilin 1999) p. 145 284 (Agha et al. 2003) pp. 80-83; (Beilin 1999) pp. 172-181 285 (Beilin 1999) p. 183 283

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Finally, and probably the most crucial outcome of the Stockholm workshop, there was a solution recommended for the highly emotional conflict about the city of Jerusalem. 286 The participants proposed to divide the city into an Israeli and a Palestinian part, but to allow free access to both parts of the city to all citizens. Further, they suggested installing security checkpoints at the points of exit and not at the points of entry. 287

The political situation changed dramatically after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin on 4 November 1995 and another time, after the Likud party won the Knesset elections in May 1996. Thus, there was no opportunity to implement the agreements reached between the Israeli and Palestinian participants and to reinforce the peace process.

But although these recommendations were not directly adopted by the two governments, they contributed to a new discussion within the Israeli political leadership of Labour and Likud members about the partition of Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular. Israeli and Palestinian participants considered the meetings in Sweden as “groundbreaking” where they had “made progress on the issues of territory, borders, security and even refugees, although there were both advances and retreats on every issue.” 288 The Israeli as well as the Palestinian participants both offered concessions about security questions and border lines that were also longstanding taboos in leftist Israeli circles. They did not fully agree on the issue of the status of Jerusalem, but reached further progress to a solution. 289 The workshop produced an agreement which later became labelled the Beilin-Abu Mazen Document. 290 The agreements reached in the OPIC-led workshop were adopted in the afterwards by the so-called Mashov circle, a group of young leaders within the

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Labour Party. 291

286

(Agha et al. 2003) pp. 72-75 See Appendix VIII, Article VI, 15 288 See (Sontag 2001) 289 See (Hirsh 2000) and (Prince-Gibson 1999) 290 See Appendix VIII 291 See (Inbari 1996a) 287

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PART III – RESULTS The cases analysed in this study have some preconditions in common while they differ critically in others. In the following, the findings of the preceding Part II shall be analysed in relation to the broad theory in general and in comparison to the other cases in particular.

Participants The often highlighted precondition that all concerned parties to a conflict should be involved in a mediation process was not met in any of the analysed cases. 292 The mediation attempts took part in the time of a Labour-led government and therefore, only government-linked and no Likud-members where involved on the Israeli side. Further, all Israeli scholars who participated in the Track-II meetings can be considered as “moderate”; there were no advocates of hard-liner positions like “Greater Israel” 293 involved in the discussions. The participants were not at all offended by the idea of Palestinian self-government which should lead to Palestinian sovereignty in the forthcoming. The meetings were initiated to estimate and find new models and a general solution for the transition to Palestinian self-governance and sovereignty. Therefore, a strict opponent of a Palestinian state would probably have hindered the whole mediation attempt and would have been a critical obstacle for the successful outcome of the workshops. But according to the theory about third-party mediation, such “spoilers” and their arguments must be included to alleviate their opposition in the afterwards when it comes to the implementation of agreed settlements.

On the Palestinian side, only members of the pro-Arafat group within the PLO took part in the cases analysed. Opposing positions of members of the anti-Arafat group within

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the PLO or other opposition groups (for example Hamas and Islamic Jihad), were excluded from the mediation process. This exclusion caused exactly those problems for an implementation of agreements reached that were mentioned in the model of “twolevel games” by Putnam. 294

292

See (Habermas 1981); (Groom 1986); (Azar 1990); (Müller 1994); (Mitchell and Banks 1996) “Greater Israel” includes the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip, see (Lustick 1988) pp. 104-110 294 See (Putnam 1988) 293

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The Israelis and Palestinians in the three analysed cases met to develop models for a solution of the conflict under exclusion of important opposing groups on each side. The result is an unbalanced proposal, the work of “groupthink” where “out-groups” and their positions were underrated. 295

Character of conflict The character of conflict was slightly different in the three analysed cases. All three cases had in common the highly conflicted history of the issues, the inequality of power of the adversaries and the focusing on “fundamental principles”; no good omen for successful mediation attempts. 296 According to the measurement of conflict-stages and the recommended instruments by Fisher/ Keashly, none of the analysed conflict situations was appropriate for NGOmediation with only “arguing” skills as instruments. The needed services in such severe conflicts were not among the possibilities of NGOs, therefore the chances of successful mediation were definitively meagre. 297

But beyond these framework-conditions there were differences in the setting of the analysed mediation attempts. While in Case 1 - the AAAS-led conferences - the mutual perception of the adversaries was at the lowest point. The perception and acceptance of the opponent and its positions improved from one mediation attempt to the following, from one case analysed to the next.298 The difference in the preconditions for the AAAS and the FAFO attempts was rather marginal due to the fact that the meetings were held nearly parallel. But for the forthcoming OPIC-led Track-II meetings, the preconditions had improved because of the change in the mutual perception of the adversaries reached through the work of the other attempts.

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The data analysed in this study are too small to allow a broader conclusion.. The number of analysed cases was too low. But generally, the analysed cases have proven that there are possibilities for third-parties to improve the relation between two

295

See (Janis 1983) For conditions for effective mediation, see (Kressel 2006) 297 See (Wright 1965) and (Fisher and Keashly 1991) 298 The perceived gap between the adversaries shortened, see: (Galtung 1989) 296

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adversaries, to facilitate their negotiations although the preconditions for such mediation attempts were sombre.

Stage of conflict Similar to the character, the stage of conflict changed in the time between the first attempt (AAAS) and the last analysed (OPIC). The crucial difference was that official negotiations between the Israeli government and the PLO on the issues of Palestinian self-government were initiated as a result of the FAFO-mediation and the signing of the Declaration of Principles. This mutual recognition and beginning of formal negotiations changed the stage of conflict from “stalemate” to “protracted”. 299 The mortal attacks from excluded groups of the negotiations also caused problems for the mediation attempts. But nonetheless was there was some “readiness” of the political leadership on both sides to resolve the conflict. In accordance with the theory of third-party mediation, the preconditions for a successful outcome improved from one analysed attempt to the next in the cases analysed in this study. The character of the conflict improved as well as the mutual treatment of the opponent parties. The analysed cases prove at least that mediation attempts can be successful, although they try to facilitate the resolution of a conflict that has already caused more than 1.000 fatalities. 300

Participation The level of participation differed in the analysed cases but in view of the degree of involvement in the discussions, they were the same. The personal relation between the organiser and the participants was surely different as Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

was the sheer number of participants. The FAFO-staff, namely Terje Rod Larsen, was more involved than the other NGO-staff and he developed a deeper personal relationship to the participants than did his colleagues. But all three mediation attempts had in common that the organiser, the NGO-staff, and in the Scandinavian cases the involved government-staff did not participate in the discussions of the adversaries.

299 300

See (Bercovitch et al. 1991) and (Zartman 1996) Compare the results of the study of Bercovitch et al.: (Bercovitch et al. 1991)

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In the cases of the workshops led by the AAAS and OPIC the mediators did not provide proposals for the solution of the conflict nor did they suggest which proposals were the most promising. Their contribution was a merely organisational one: providing secret and secure locations for the meetings, communicating between the adversaries in the phases among two meetings and conveying messages, and organising flights and visa issues. Therefore, their role is to be considered as “communicator”.301 Although the framework-conditions and the relation between the adversaries had changed and although the character and stage of conflict was improved and each time another NGO as organiser was involved, the level of participation was the same. This is in accordance with the recommendations of many scholars experienced in thirdparty mediation, who emphasise that the third-party should stay neutral, outside the discussions and should not provide own proposals for a solution. 302

The third-party in the Norwegian case, the FAFO Institute, however, was fulfilling the role of a “formulator”, providing own suggestions and trying to convince the participants of promising seeming models. And the FAFO-led mediation attempt was the most successful of the three analysed cases in this study. There were for sure other important variables which must be considered when evaluating the success of this Track-II attempt, but at least it shows that contrary to the common sense in third-party literature it is not naturally an obstacle when the third-party suggests own proposals and is more involved than merely as a “communicator”.

Secrecy The maintained secrecy of Track-II mediation attempts is one critical precondition to secure the best possible outcome. 303 All three analysed mediation attempts were not held publicly and no leakages to the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

media occurred. The participants of the AAAS inner circle meetings briefed high governmental officials, but these reports were also not publicly available. Thus, all three analysed cases have a high degree of secrecy in common. But the secrecy in the analysed AAAS-led meetings was lower than in the two other cases. The number of confidants who were briefed about the progress was higher. This 301

See (Zartman 1991); (Northedge and Donelan 1971); (Fisher and Keashly 1991) See (Azar 1990) p. 22; (Bercovitch 1997) p. 232; (Burton 1986b) p. 114; (Kelman 1996) p. 506; 303 See (Rubin 1991); (Bercovitch 1997); (Kriesberg 1992) 302

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led to the decision of the Israeli side not to back this attempt and lowered thus the meaning of the whole workshop. The analysed cases show that the difference between .

moderate secrecy (reports to high governmental officials) and total secrecy (reports only to the top leaders) can be an important criterion in conflicts as severe as the IsraeliPalestinian. According to Joel Singer, Israel’s representative at the Oslo meetings: “All the breakthroughs (in Israeli-Arab Accords) occurred through secret meetings. There is no other way but through secret meetings at very high levels to attempt to resolve disputes.” 304

Funding The source of funding was neutral and impartial in the analysed Scandinavian-led mediations but problematic in the AAAS case. The AAAS funding was further problematic in two ways: First, the funder - the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation - were originated in the U.S. and therefore the whole mediation attempt was possibly perceived as U.S. influenced. 305 At least, an American initiated and funded mediation attempt was probably perceived as less impartial than a Scandinavian one. But there is another conjecture that the source of funding could have been critical for the Israeli decision which of the several Track-II attempts to choose at this time. The FAFO and OPIC attempts were backed by the Norwegian and Swedish Foreign Ministries. This fact included, beside the higher availability of financial resources, the possibilities to provide security forces to protect the meetings and organise border entries without public attention and records (i.e. for visa). In the case of the AAAS, the independency from its government could have been a shortcoming because the Israeli leaders (namely Prime Minister Rabin) possibly expected the forthcoming logistical Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

expenditure as too huge for an NGO without governmental support.

As a result, the NGO which was the most independent from its government (AAAS) experienced the least interest by the adversaries to mediate their conflict. There were other important factors to consider (namely the different levels of secrecy), but the kind of funding might have had an impact on the decision of the adversaries’ leaderships. 304 305

Quoted in: (Rubin 1999) See (Leonhard 2002) and (Mitchell and Banks 1996)

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Further, it is not likely to assume that the decision would have been different if the (U.S.) government’s support and involvement had been stronger - probably the opposite. Especially the Palestinians were suspicious about the chances for the implementation of an American-brokered agreement. 306 Therefore, it can be assumed that the origin of funding of mediation attempts does matter. In the cases analysed in this study, the possibilities of the funder (logistically and financially) mattered just as much.

Backing The preconditions “secrecy” and “funding” listed above led to the different decisions of the Israeli government and the PLO to back the third-party attempts or not. While the PLO was amenable to support all three offered Track-II channels, the Israeli government decided in the first two cases to back the FAFO-led attempt and not the AAAS-led. The AAAS meetings lost in the forthcoming also the Palestinian backing because in this way the Palestinians demonstrated to the Israelis that they considered the Oslo Track-II equally valuable.

In the third case, the attempt was supported only by the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin, but he neither informed Prime Minister Rabin nor Foreign Minister Peres. On the Palestinian side the attempt was initiated and backed on the highest level by PLOleader Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, but since this backing was not responded to on the highest level of the Israeli side, the backing in its whole must be considered as “partial”. As a result, the attempts not fully backed (AAAS + OPIC) were less qualified for testing new solutions since they lacked the instructions and confirmation from the leaderships of the adversaries. Further, their impact remained limited on the discussion level and did not experience the quasi-diplomatic importance which is inherent in Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Track-II attempts that are mentioned to facilitate official Track-I negotiations. Without mutual backing of the leaderships of the adversaries, the possibilities of mediation attempts are strictly limited on the development of new ideas without any guarantee for their implementation.

306

(Corbin 1994) p. 120

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The results of the different variables in all three analysed cases are listed in the following in the table Fig. 1:

Fig. 1 AAAS

FAFO

OPIC

participants

not balanced

not balanced

not balanced

character

4/ IV

4/ IV

4/ IV

stage

stalemate

stalemate

protracted

participation

communicator

formulator

communicator

secrecy

reports

secret

secret

funding

problematic

neutral

neutral

backing

no

yes

partial

outcome

progress

breakthrough

progress

not balanced

participants: character:

–

balanced

(1) inconsistencies

(2) tensions

(I) discussion

(II) polarization (III) segregation (IV) destruction protracted

(3) pressure

-

(4) violence

stage:

early

-

stalemate

participation:

communicator

formulator

arbitrator

manipulator

secrecy:

public

leakages

reports

secret

funding:

neutral

-

problematic

-

partial

backing:

no

-

partial

-

yes

outcome:

no progress

-

progress

-

breakthrough

Outcome Case 1 and Case 2 have in common the (unbalanced) scope of participants, the violent

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character of conflict (4/ IV) and the stage of conflict (“stalemate”). They differ in the participation of the mediator (1: “communicator”/ 2: “formulator”), the level of secrecy (1: “reports”/ 2: “secret”), and the source of funding (1: “problematic”/ 2: “neutral”). The different preconditions caused no backing of the adversaries’ leaderships in Case 1 and in contrast, full backing in Case 2. This resulted in a reached “progress” in Case 1 and a reached “breakthrough” in Case 2. It can be assumed that one or more of the differing variables caused the varying outcome.

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Case 1 and Case 3 have in common the (unbalanced) scope of participants, the violent character of conflict (4/ IV), and the participation of the third-party (“communicator”). They were different in the variables stage of conflict (1: “stalemate”/ 3: “protracted”), secrecy (1: “reports”/ 3: “secret”), and funding (1: “problematic”/ 3: “neutral”). These preconditions led to no leadership backing in Case 1 and partial backing in Case 3 and resulted in both cases in a reached “progress”.

Case 2 and Case 3 have in common the (unbalanced) scope of participants, the character of conflict (4/ IV), the level of secrecy (“secret”), and the source of funding (“neutral”). They differed in the stage of conflict (2: “stalemate”/ 3: “protracted”) and the participation of the mediator (2: “formulator”/ 3: “communicator”). Following these settings, Case 2 was fully backed by the adversaries’ leaderships, while Case 3 was only partial backed, and this resulted in a reached “breakthrough” in Case 2 and a reached “progress” in Case 3.

Since there was no case analysed with a more balanced scope of participants, no statement can be made about the impact of this variable on the outcome. It can be merely supposed that more opposite political positions may cause an obstacle for a “breakthrough” or may hinder the achievement of a “progress”, but this is untested. The findings allow the statement that “progress” and even “breakthrough” is possible although the character of conflict is worst possible. In one case (Case 2) “breakthrough” was reached, although the precondition stage of conflict was disadvantageous in relation to Case 3 when only “progress” was reached. Therefore, it can be noted that the preconditions “character of conflict” and “stage of conflict” are not crucial for the outcome.

The degree of the third-party’s participation was the highest in the analysed case with Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

the most successful outcome (Case 2). Therefore, it can be at least stated that a higher participation of the mediator is not necessarily an obstacle for a successful outcome. Secrecy is the most important precondition for leaderships’ backing; was secrecy limited (Case 1), no backing was given. The source of funding might equally impact the (adversaries’) leaderships’ decision to back an attempt but this could not be tested due to the lack in variance of the analysed cases’ variables.

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“Breakthrough” was in the analysed cases only possible with full leadership backing, but “progress” was also possible with partial backing and even without. In sum, the best result was reached when secrecy was fully maintained, the source of funding was unequivocally perceived as neutral, the attempt was mutually backed by the adversaries’ highest leadership, and the mediator was formulating own proposals instead of merely organising the meetings.

In consequence, missing secrecy about the meetings, a (perceived) problematic source of the workshop’s funding, and only partial backing of the adversaries’ leaders were the obstacles for a best possible outcome in the analysed third-party mediation attempts.

All three NGO-led mediation attempts analysed in this study can be considered as successful problem solving workshops. According to the statements of the participants and political leaders from the both adversaries, each mediation attempt produced new models for a solution of the conflict and new ideas that stimulated the political discussion. There were shortfalls in the organisation, generally in view of the narrow scope of political opinions that were represented in the discussions; and further in one case (AAAS) the source of funding and the maintained secrecy were suboptimal. The problem of “groupthink” is always given when too like-minded participants work on a given conflict and the analysed cases exemplified the problems of implementation of solutions reached in this way. But in sum each attempt fulfilled its purpose, namely, the development of new ideas and the fostering of exchange of the adversaries’ positions in a non-polemic atmosphere. The workshops led by the AAAS and the FAFO produced proposals and drafts which later became the DOP. The OPIC-led workshop resulted in the so-called Beilin-Abu Mazen Document which in the afterwards at least was adopted by a faction within the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Labour Party.

The secret third-party mediation attempts made the critical progress when the official negotiations at Washington had reached a deadlock. As Ahmed Khalidi, one of the Palestinian key participants who took place in the AAAS and OPIC attempts, pointed out:

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“In fact, we believe that in some senses the United States’ position in Washington was not very helpful to the story – to the talks that were taking place. It was only when the talks went through Norway, through a back channel, that we managed to get to any success.” 307

The FAFO-led mediation attempt is probably one of the best documented and analysed examples for Track-II diplomacy because it paved the way for a historical political breakthrough. But the other two workshops had also considerable outcomes and it is an interesting supposition how the OPIC-led agreement would had been received and maybe implemented if the Israeli Prime Minister Rabin had not been murdered.

The outcomes show, at least for such intense conflicts, that the most important precondition for successful mediations is the maintained secrecy of the meetings in general and of the discussions in particular. The more secretly the participants could meet, the more open they were to develop new models for the resolution of the conflict. The second crucial precondition was the backing of the two concerned leaderships. The stronger the backing, the more the workshops and its outcome mattered because they really functioned as laboratory experiments for new political ideas. The analysed cases further showed that problem solving workshops can contribute to the improvement of conflicted relations and can facilitate the resolution of these conflicts. NGOs as third-parties can not only serve as organisers but also propose own solutions to foster the conflict resolution process. This soft-power method using the instrument of arguing discussions is also able to improve relations under the worst conditions, a fact that is broadly underestimated in the scientific literature on third-party mediations.

Sabet argues that especially the NGO’s Western origin meant a critical change in the Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Israeli-Arab peace process. The NGOs implemented their Western conflict resolution mechanisms and changed thus the perceived “closed agenda” determined by core values which are not negotiable to an “open agenda”. This shift led to super ordinate goals that moderates from both adversaries’ groups aimed at and made the reached agreements possible. 308

307 308

Khalidi in an interview on CNN (1993, September 12th), see: (Meserve 1993) See (Sabet 1998)

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The crucial precondition, before all others, is the mutual request for mediation from the adversaries. If this level of “readiness”309 is reached, great progress in conflict resolution is possible no matter how problematic the further framework to the conflict

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is.

309

According to (Pruitt 2005); (Pruitt 2006)

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PART IV – CONCLUSION The results of the analysed cases presented in Part III highlight the different preconditions in each of the mediation attempts, the contribution of the organising NGOs, and the crucial conditions for successful outcomes of these Track-II meetings. But this study allows assuming further impacts, more general findings about the possibilities of NGOs to facilitate negotiations and thus contribute to the resolution of conflicts.

NGOs as third-parties NGOs are capable organisers of third-party mediation attempts. The non-binding atmosphere in which the participants meet is an ideal precondition for the development of new ideas and solution models. This is especially true when the organising NGO has a scientific background, an academic or research institute for example. The character of the discussions might under such auspices change from narrow political bargaining, to merely a defending of one’s own positions, to a scientific search for the solution of a given problem. This is probably too optimistic for protracted severe conflicts which have caused numbers of fatalities, but shall illustrate a possible shift in the participants’ approximation to the conflict.

But NGOs were in more than just one way involved in the three mediation attempts analysed in this study. Beside their function as organisers of Track-II attempts, NGOs contributed as pioneers and provided the participants with subjects for discussions. The AAAS conferences were based on the work of an earlier workshop by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). 310 They were directly prepared by a workshop of the Foundation for International Security (FIS) which took place in June 1992 and were

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in the beginning jointly organised with the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). 311 Thus, three NGOs paved the way and contributed to the AAAS mediation attempt.

The OPIC-led workshop was also supported by the preparatory work of another NGO. The Search for Common Ground (SFCG) had been installing a regional dialogue for the 310 311

See (Mendelsohn 1989) (Agha et al. 2003) p. 58

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Middle East conflict and thus facilitated the Swedish Government’s support for the workshop. 312 The work of these four NGOs was crucial for the success of the analysed cases; they defined discussion issues, selected participants, and provided communication lines in the preparation phase of the later workshops. The participants of the three workshops analysed in this study were also connected to different NGOs. Hirschfeld and Pundik, the two scholars who participated on the Israeli side in the FAFO-led and OPIC-led workshops, were members of the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), Tel Aviv. Alpher and Novik, who participated in the AAAS-led and the OPIC-led workshops, were (former) members of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, based also at the University of Tel Aviv. On the Palestinian side, three participants - Khalidi, Sayigh, and Shikaki - were members of the Nablus-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). The combination of NGOs active as pioneers, organisers, and participants results in the relationship “NGO universe” of the Israeli-Palestinian mediation attempts, represented

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in Fig. 2:

312

(Agha et al. 2003) pp. 77-78

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The NGOs supported each other’s mediation work, they profited from the progress made in the other’s attempts, and participated mutually in their workshops. This network of NGOs provided a considerable base for the organisation of problem solving workshops.

On a more personal level, there are only few key participants of the three workshops analysed in this study who link the important institutions. Hirschfeld and Pundik, the scholars from Haifa University, were mentored by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Beilin during the FAFO-led and OPIC-led workshops. While the OPIC-led mediations took place, they organised jointly with Alpher from the Jaffee Center bypass workshops to further elaborate possible solutions. Novik, one of the Israeli participants of the OPIC-meetings, was a former fellow of the Jaffee Center and a policy advisor of Peres, Beilin’s superior. He is now chairman of the ECF. Thus, since Hirschfeld and Pundik were scholars from Haifa University (running their ECF in Tel Aviv) and Alpher and Novik were connected through the Jaffee Center’s activities, four key participants of the three analysed cases were related on a scholarly level.

On the Palestinian side, Asfour participated in the FAFO-led and OPIC-led workshops. He was related to the Directorate of International Relations as well as Ammar, who was a participant of the AAAS-organised conferences. The Directorate of International Relations was headed by Mahmoud Abbas, who appointed the Palestinian participants. Khalidi, who participated in the mediation attempts of the AAAS and OPIC, was member of the PSR as well as Sayigh and Shikaki who also were participants of the AAAS meetings. Sayigh was directly connected with Abbas and became in the afterwards a consultant to the Palestinian delegations in the formal PLO-Israeli

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negotiations in Cairo and Taba. 313

In sum, with the relations of these eight key participants, the whole network of institutions is understandable. They were connected on an institutional and a personal level. It can be assumed that this small group of participants was the nucleus for all the new ideas and solutions that resulted from the three workshops analysed in this study.

313

(Agha et al. 2003) p. 60

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Fig. 3 illustrates the relations of these key participants:

This inter-personal network continued and in 1999 the former participants of the AAAS-led workshop - Alpher, Shikaki, Sayigh and Schiff - published together with Professor Kelman a concept paper on the Palestinian refugee problem. 314

Considering this personal network of scholars and researchers and their influence on the political discussion in general and on the political leaders in particular it can be assumed

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that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution process has been crucially influenced by what Haas has labelled an epistemic community. The key participants worked together over several years in different constellations of workshops, seminars and conferences on a solution to the problem and constantly tried to implement their models on the official political level on both sides.

314

See (Alpher et al. 1999)

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In the end, NGOs are highly dependent on the political situation. They can only help develop models which the leaderships of the adversaries are willing to implement. Missing backing of a workshop, neglected consideration of a workshop’s findings or the change of government after elections – the implementation and the impact of a problem solving workshop is not in the hands of the organising NGOs nor its participants. Thus, the possibilities of NGOs are limited to the adversaries’ leaderships’ amenability for implementing new resolution models. The backing of the adversaries’ leaderships is a crucial precondition which is also not controllable for the NGOs.

There are other critical preconditions for a best possible outcome that are not controllable for NGOs as third-parties. The often emphasised need for secrecy of mediation attempts in highly intense conflicts can only be maintained by all participants and concerned leaderships together. The organising NGO can employ all necessities to shield the meetings from public awareness, but if only one participant ignores the rule of confidence, the whole attempt can fail. In the analysed cases, the support of the NGO’s own governments was a necessary condition for the successful realisation of the third-party attempts. The organising NGOs lacked completely the unique possibilities of governmental bodies in view of security and border entrance of the participants..

The workshops analysed all missed a better balanced participation of opposite political opinions. This shortcoming led to the well known problems with implementation of agreements in the afterwards. Maybe it is possible for the organising NGOs, in cases where the participation of divergent political positions is not possible, to mandate/ advocate these positions by themselves.

In the analysed cases, the opposing positions of the Likud Party, and Hamas, were not Copyright © 2012. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

represented. Maybe the problems afterwards with the implementation, notably the DOP implementation, would have been more successful, had the participating NGOs insisted in considering the opposing positions. This point is rather speculative since the organising NGOs did not participate in the discussions of the analysed workshops, but might be an interesting issue for further studies of third-party mediation attempts.

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In general, the weakness of NGO-mediators - their lack of power, resources, and ability to settle binding agreements - is on the other hand their advantage. Since the adversaries do not have to fear being pressed into agreements unwillingly or that concessions once made experimentally will become the status quo of further negotiations. Thus, they may rather conform to unofficial NGO mediation attempts than to official ones run by governments. This might be especially true when it comes to conflicts about secession and sovereignty.

One strength of Track-II attempts is their opportunity to find meaningful facts and new political solutions that can work. The participants are highly skilled scholars, experts on their political or social topics and, therefore, often consultants to high governmental officials, which makes them influential. Politicians hardly develop astounding new ideas with breakthrough-potential for protracted conflicts, therefore, it is rather possible that scholars will find new solutions and problem solving workshops are the adequate atmosphere to develop unorthodox political solutions. NGOs as third-parties can help the adversaries in finding super ordinate aims and defining win-win solutions. Especially foreign NGOs originated in a region with a different culture of conflict resolution might stimulate the mediation process with new ideas.

There are certain ways in which NGOs can facilitate official negotiations and thus contribute to the solution of conflicts, especially when they are protracted. However, there are also certain problems regarding the measurement of their contribution. There are always many fathers to success and especially when conflicts are protracted it is difficult to name the actors vital for reaching an agreement because so many actors are involved. But if the conflict would have been easier and less complex in its structure, and had less issues concerned and less groups involved, the conflict probably would not

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have been protracted.

How did NGOs facilitate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the early 1990s? As the three analysed cases in this study have shown, the NGO-led problem solving workshops contributed to an improvement of the Israeli-Palestinian relations, although the conflict is still going on.

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The meetings organised by NGOs provided an umbrella for secret talks between the adversaries and if direct contacts were refused, the NGOs had the function of links within a “communication chain” between the adversaries. NGOs brought together the innovative minds of both adversaries to develop new solutions and succeeded in this proposal. However, they missed including diverging opinions and thus produced solutions only acceptable to a certain part of the adversaries’ people.

NGOs helped the moderate groups of the two adversaries to reach an agreement under the exclusion of the opposite groups (namely the Likud Party and Hamas). The problem in the afterwards was that when Likud was elected in 1996 it refused the implementation and initiated new proposals that fostered the Palestinian opposition and eventually led to the election of Hamas in 2006. 315 But since NGOs were limited to the adversaries’ leaderships’ willingness, they are not to blame for the shortcomings.

The NGOs involved in the several mediation attempts between Israelis and Palestinians in the early 1990s could only go as far as the political situation and the participants in each case allowed. One NGO could continue the mediation work initiated by another, or two NGOs could work simultaneously on one and the same conflict. Inbari, for example, considered the parallelly organised workshops by AAAS and FAFO as mutually complementary. He labelled the AAAS meetings as a “security channel” because mainly security issues were discussed, and the FAFO workshop a “political channel” because the participants discussed mainly the political aspects of mutual recognition. 316 The two attempts fulfilled as a whole the purpose to develop models for the transition of self-government to the PLO and thus contributed both to the reached

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agreement (DOP).

Each NGO-led mediation attempt analysed in this study improved the mutual perception of the adversaries’ participants, contributed to better understanding of the opponent’s interests, and produced jointly agreed proposals. The peace process and notably the Oslo Accords would not have been possible without major changes in world politics 315

In January 2006, the Hamas won 76 of 132 seats at the Palestinian parliamentary elections, see (Jeffery 2006) and (Wilson 2006) 316 (Inbari 1996b) p. 223 ff.

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which consequently caused changes in the regional circumstances. However, the progress reached in Oslo and other attempts did not occur automatically in accordance with advantageous preconditions but through the work of many actors seizing the opportunity.

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The NGOs analysed in this study played a pivotal role in the reached progress.

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APPENDICES

I

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/7869303.html

II

United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7FB7C26FCBE80A31852560C50065F878

III

Declaration of Principles http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/dop.html

IV

Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II) http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3de5ebbc0.html

V

AAAS working papers (Agha et. al. 2003) p. 201 ff.

VI

Oslo draft (Agha et. al. 2003) p. 197 ff

VII

Stockholm talks (Agha et. al. 2003) p. 203 ff

VIII Beilin – Abu Mazen-Document

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