The international community's role and impact on the Middle East Peace Process

ABSTRACT

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, international actors such as Canada, the European Union, European member states and the United States have played a leading role in building a Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) meant to drive Israel and the Palestinians towards conflict resolution. However, their efforts appear to have reached an impasse. Western MEPP policy at present represents both an analytical and a policy failure. While Western governments have been able to sustain this failed policy for years, developments in the Israeli-Palestinian arena could shift the nature of the conflict and therefore, shatter conventional Western policy towards the region. This article posits that the MEPP’s failure may be tied to structural-cognitive weaknesses in the international community’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These weaknesses, which simultaneously undermine both the Palestinians and Israel, include a failure to confront false and misleading collective assumptions in donor policy, a main contributor to the failure of the MEPP. Meanwhile, changed realities on the ground and a paradigm shift brought on by the apparent demise of the two-state solution present challenges and opportunities for the international community as it struggles to remain relevant in conflict resolution in the Israeli-Palestinian arena in the coming years.

RÉSUMÉ

Depuis les accords d'Oslo de 1993, les acteurs internationaux tels que le Canada, l'Union européenne, les États membres européens et les États-Unis ont joué un rôle de premier plan dans l'élaboration d'un processus de paix au Moyen-Orient (PPMO) visant à pousser Israël et les Palestiniens vers la résolution du conflit. Cependant, leurs efforts semblent avoir abouti sur une impasse. Actuellement, la politique occidentale du PPMO représente à la fois un échec analytique et politique. Alors que les gouvernements occidentaux ont été capables de maintenir cette politique ratée pendant des années, les développements sur la scène israélo-palestinienne pourraient changer la nature du conflit, et par conséquent, faire voler en éclats la politique occidentale conventionnelle à l'égard de la région. Cet article postule que l'échec du PPMO pourrait être lié aux faiblesses structurelles et cognitives dans la gestion du conflit israélo-palestinien par la communauté internationale. Ces faiblesses qui, simultanément, minent les Palestiniens et Israël, comprennent l'incapacité à se confronter aux hypothèses collectives fausses et trompeuses de la politique des donateurs, qui ont largement contribué à l'échec du PPMO. Entretemps, l'évolution des réalités du terrain et un changement de paradigme causé par la disparition apparente de la solution à deux États présentent des défis et des opportunités pour la communauté internationale qui s'efforce de rester pertinente dans la résolution des conflits sur la scène israélo-palestinienne au cours des prochaines années.

KEYWORDS:

• Palestinian self-determination
• Israeli security
• international aid
• Western policy
• conflict resolution

Disclosure statement

The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not reflect those of the Government of Canada.

Notes

1 Over the past thirty years, there have been a variety of bureaucratic positions created specifically to work on the MEPP. For instance, the United Nation’s envoy is called the “UN Special Coordinator for the MEPP”, while the European Union has a “Special Representative for the MEPP”. In the United States there was a “Special Envoy to the Arab-Israeli peace”. Before Canada abolished it in 2009, Ottawa called this post “Special Coordinator for the MEPP” and operated out of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

2 This is based on numerous informal conversations with Western MEPP officials from 2002–2019.

3 Understanding what Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip want is limited by the questions posed by pollsters, however, a core underlying theme in all polling shows that Palestinians want the occupation to end, irrespective of the form that takes. See http://pcpsr.org/en; and, http://www.jmcc.org/polls.aspx.

4 As noted by Hamada Jaber:

Many European politicians and diplomats recognize the demise of the two-state solution. But they find it hard to say so publicly given that fact that the Palestinian side continues to hold on to it and because of their multi-billion dollar investment in this solution from the pockets of European taxpayers. Therefore, they prefer that the declaration of its demise comes directly from the parties concerned. (Jaber, 2019)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Atallah

Michael Atallah is a Senior Middle East Analyst at the Government of Canada's Privy Council Office. The views expressed here are his own.