NEGOTIATING UNDER FIRE:

PRESERVING PEACE TALKS IN THE FACE OF TERROR ATTACKS

by Matthew Levitt

 

October 31, 2008

 

Matthew Levitt is director of the Stein Program on

Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington

Institute and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins

University's School of Advanced International Studies

(SAIS). From 2005-07, he served as deputy assistant

secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of

the Treasury. Previously, he served as an FBI

counterterrorism analyst. This essay is based on his book of

the same title (Rowman & Littlefield, August 2008). Levitt

is also the author of Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism

in the Service of Jihad (Yale, 2006).

 

 

NEGOTIATING UNDER FIRE:

PRESERVING PEACE TALKS IN THE FACE OF TERROR ATTACKS

 

by Matthew Levitt

 

There has been renewed emphasis on diplomacy recently and

the potential of various potential "peace processes." But

negotiations, even if desirable, do not occur in a vacuum.

Understanding how violence undermines the legitimacy of a

peace process can help determine what measures may

effectively insulate peacemaking from the efforts of outside

spoilers to wreck ongoing negotiations over long-festering,

ethnic conflicts. To this end, I interviewed some 75

Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators, mediators,

diplomats and experts, to write Negotiating under Fire:

Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks (Rowman

& Littlefield, 2008).

 

Without commenting on the efficacy of the Oslo peace process

itself, I would note that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

in the years 1993-96, the period I focused on, offer a

telling set of case studies of violent attacks undermining

ongoing peace talks. I lookd at three specific cases: the

February 1994 attack by Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein

against Muslim worshipers in Hebron; the November 1994

kidnapping and murder by Hamas of Israeli corporal and dual

Israeli-American citizen Nachshon Wachsman; and the string

of terror attacks, in particular Hamas suicide bus bombings,

in February and March 1996.

 

FITS AND STARTS: NEGOTIATING AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF

ATTACKS, 1994-1996

Following the signing of the Declaration of Principles in

1994, Israeli-Palestinian negotiators began to gain positive

momentum. This progress was temporarily halted when Baruch

Goldstein, an Israeli citizen, shot and killed more than 30

Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi

mosque in Hebron. Many more people were killed and injured

in the riots that ensued, and the peace process was stalled

until an agreement was reached over a UN Security Council

resolution and the deployment of unarmed, symbolic

international observers in Hebron. By August 1994, the peace

process was back on track, and in August, Israel and

representatives from the Palestinian Authority signed an

accord on the early transfer of a number of powers from

Israel to the Palestinian Authority.

 

In October, the process was disrupted once again, by Hamas's

abduction of Nachson Wachsman. While Palestinian Authority

and Israeli security services worked together to locate

Wachsman--a notable development--he was killed in the

subsequent raid.

 

Terror attacks of various intensities continued to plague

the peace process as it continued through 1995 and into

1996. These included numerous attacks by Palestinian

terrorists on Israeli targets, as well as attacks by Israeli

extremists (such as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by

Yigal Amir) determined to stop the peace process from going

forward. But despite the violence of extremists opposed to

peace talks, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators made

several significant achievements. In September 1995, Israeli

and Palestinian negotiators concluded the Interim Agreement

(Oslo II) on the transfer of powers in the West Bank from

Israel to the Palestinian Authority.

 

On February 24, a Hamas suicide bomber blew up the Number 18

bus in downtown Jerusalem in the middle of the morning rush

hour. An hour later a Hamas bomber targeted a bus stop in

the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. The next day, a

Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative rammed his car into a

group of Israeli civilians. Despite severe security measures

and a full closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, another

Hamas suicide bomber targeted the same Jerusalem bus route

almost exactly a week after the first attack, blowing up the

Number 18 bus during rush hour a second time.

 

THE MECHANICS OF UNDERMINING PEACE THROUGH VIOLENCE

The literature abounds with discussion of the need for

conflicts to be ripe for resolution, the need for the timing

to be right for efforts to settle or resolve conflicts, and

the need to establish momentum for successful negotiations.

Missing is an effort to understand the factors involved in

preserving that ripeness, maintaining the timely

environment, and sustaining momentum, especially in the

context of a crisis.

 

More than anything else, terror attacks upset the

negotiation process by first freezing whatever positive

momentum the parties have established and then injecting a

countervailing momentum that undermines the ability and

willingness of the parties to continue negotiating. Leaders

find themselves unable and/or unwilling to pursue a peace

policy when events cut into the public's approval and

support of the leaders themselves and the legitimacy of

their regime (negotiator authority), the policy of

negotiation (policy legitimacy), or the credibility of the

other party.

 

Terror attacks strike at the heart of these factors of

legitimacy, forcing decision makers from each party to turn

defensively inward and secure renewed domestic support for

themselves and their policy of negotiation, and the

credibility of the other party.

 

The need to settle political issues at home-whether they are

issues of legitimacy such as balancing concessions with the

associated political costs or questions of personal security

after a massive attack--takes precedence over the need to

build confidence with the negotiators across the table.

 

Terror attacks also prompt the central questions, once back

at the negotiating table, how do negotiators cope with both

loss of faith in one another and the underlying question of

whether the opposing negotiators remain the legitimate

spokesmen of their people? Do they have the authority to

make concessions and live up to their end of any settlement?

Without successfully selling the policy of negotiation at

home all over again, and in the absence of positive answers

to the above questions, negotiations cannot resume.

 

If and when negotiations do resume, what changes have

occurred on factors like negotiator authority, policy

legitimacy, and credibility of the other party that

collectively form the negotiating environment? Certain

tactics are no longer viable in the post-crisis phase of

negotiations, and others have suddenly become viable. While

every concession and agreement will now face extra scrutiny

measuring its marginal utility against the cost to

legitimacy, events often empower decision makers with

leverage against opposition factions among the public, in

the government, and with negotiators for the other party.

 

For example, terror attacks seriously undercut popular

support within each party for the policy of continuing

negotiations. Leaders and publics alike question the

legitimacy of such a policy when the process that is

supposed to usher in an era of peace produces instead an

increase in terror attacks. Decision makers find themselves

in the unenviable position of trying to explain to a public

in mourning that peace processes themselves are rarely, if

ever, peaceful processes. In the Goldstein case, for

example, 77.3 percent of Palestinians opposed a return to

negotiations either outright (38.5 percent) or unless

additional conditions were met (38.8 percent)

 

Attacks also undermine the legitimacy of the regimes engaged

in peace talks as well as their authority as negotiators.

The abduction and murder of Corporal Wachsman, for example,

generated serious challenges to the negotiator authority of

both Israeli and Palestinian decision makers. At the same

time that these leaders were thrust on the defensive in

terms of justifying the legitimacy of their peace policy,

they were also facing challenges to their own legitimacy as

leaders and therefore to their mandates as the fully

empowered negotiators for their people. Israeli leaders

sought to dispel the notion that the brazen Hamas attack was

indicative of an underlying flaw in the peace policy with

which Rabin had come to be identified. Having wrapped

himself and his government so tightly in the mantle of the

peace process, Rabin's fate became entirely intertwined with

it. The same was true for Arafat on the Palestinian side.

Palestinian leaders sought to counter the perception that

while Hamas took action and delivered on its promises,

Arafat negotiated and negotiated but failed to deliver on

such key issues as prisoner release.

 

Terror attacks also undermine the credibility of the other

party, challenging the trust that is critical to resolving

long festering conflicts. Tellingly, the Spring 1996 suicide

bombing crisis did not occur in a political vacuum. Indeed,

going into the crisis each party already felt there was a

gap in the other's credibility. Israelis felt Palestinians

had yet to engage in the kind of counterterrorism crackdown

required of them under the peace accords, while Palestinians

felt Israel was dragging its feet on several of its peace

process obligations such as prisoner releases, dealing with

Israeli settlements, and implementing the redeployment of

Israeli forces from Palestinian populated areas. From the

stated perspective of each side, the February/March bombing

crisis was a direct result of the other's intransigence,

which further undermined the credibility of each with the

other.

 

WHAT COULD HAVE - AND SHOULD SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE BE -

DONE?

Oslo failed. Perhaps the peace process was doomed from the

outset, as some argue. Both sides failed to meet their

obligations, with Palestinian violence continuing to target

Israelis, and Israeli settler activity continuing throughout

the peace process. When the parties did meet their

obligations, they invariably did so behind schedule and in

fits and starts. Some among Israelis and their supporters

concluded that Yaser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority

never really intended to forswear violence and live in

peace, side by side with Israel, while some among

Palestinians and their supporters concluded that Israel and

its leaders never intended to end the occupation and enable

the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian government. This

may have been the case for some decision makers on each

side, but others clearly labored--in some cases at great

personal expense--for the success of what by all accounts

started out as an unexpected and historic breakthrough.

 

Despite its inherent flaws and the fact that Oslo ultimately

did fail, there were things that could have been done at the

time to increase its odds of success, and these same things

should be done in advance of future negotiations. Several

recommendations for insulating a peace process flow from my

analysis of the three crises discuss above. These include:

 

1. Prenegotiation: This means anticipating that crises will

happen and negotiating in advance what types of actions will

be taken in response to various types of crises. Part of the

utility of negotiating or discussing these issues before a

crisis happens is that post-crisis negotiations over

concessions and face-saving gestures occur, by definition,

under the stress of crisis conditions. Prenegotiation

discussions of these issues would provide a crisis-free

baseline framework for post-crisis negotiations on crisis

response and the terms for a resumption of talks.

 

2. Implementation Verification: Delayed implementation of

past agreements also stands out in the analysis of this

study as a major stumbling block to resolving crises.

Whether related to security protocols, prisoner releases,

conditioning the public for eventual concessions, or other

issues, such delays are further exacerbated by the fact that

the issues most likely to be postponed or delayed are those

that are core issues for one side and contentious ones for

the other.

 

3. Positive Momentum: The cases I studied not only reveal

the severe impact of negative momentum, but, by extension,

the potential benefit of positive momentum. It is not enough

to insulate peace processes from negative baggage; a

positive negotiating environment must be nurtured to

shepherd the process through difficult times. Recognizing

that crises will happen, and creating a mechanism for

dealing with them before they happen, can engender faith in

the process and confidence between the parties.

Haidar Abdel Shafi, who participated in the Madrid

negotiation process that preceded the Oslo Accord,

highlighted the importance of maintaining forward momentum.

"What is important in the long run," he wrote, "is not the

spontaneous and natural response of the people, but whether

the process is leading toward the fulfillment of our

rights." Or, in the words of former Israeli Finance Minister

Dan Meridor, "The peace process was like being on a bicycle;

one must keep pedaling lest you crash and fall off." The

logic of creating positive momentum, however, is not just to

prevent a "crash and fall," but to keep up the parties' hope

and optimism that tangible progress is possible in the

foreseeable future.

 

4. Leaders Vested in the Process: The more leaders

themselves identify with the peace process and are

identified with it by their constituents, the more driven

they will be to find a way to make it work. Rabin, Peres and

Arafat were all so closely identified with the peace process

that their personal and professional fates were intimately

tied to it. To be sure, leaders who open negotiations with a

former enemy need success to justify the decision to

"negotiate with the devil." Negotiations between former

mutual enemies demand that both sides be committed to

resolving the conflict.

 

A corollary to this principle is the fact that solutions

imposed by third parties will not work. Not only must the

parties themselves iron out an agreement for them to have

any sense of ownership of it and responsibility for it, but

agreements will only be seen as authentic and binding when

produced through the process of recognizing the needs of the

other side, confronting assumptions and mythologies, and

selling the principle of concessions for peace at home

 

5. Broadening Grassroots Support: While leaders must become

vested in the process, it is at least as important that

leaders condition their publics for peace and build

grassroots support for the process. Especially in the case

of prolonged social conflicts, reconciliation and peace