SA’s Lessons Go Unheard in the Middle East

The Spier initiative is a South African plan to help resolve the Middle East conflict by leveraging on lessons learned by South Africans during the negotiations which brought about the historic fall of Apartheid.

Almost a month ago a team of South Africans, Israelis and Palestinians got together at Malmesbury for a Goedgedacht forum.

At the conference sociologist Herbert Adam, who has lived and worked in Canada and South Africa for the past two decades offered 10 lessons from the South African transition.

Some of the lessons are superficial at best and suggest a simplistic understanding of the last 15 years of the conflict. I will try work through all ten lessons, providing some commentary, and here, I present to you, the first two lessons.

1. Negotiations require mutual respect – usually proceeding from a stalemate – whereas Israel believes it has to defeat the Palestinians before negotiations can take place. 2. You cannot wait for violence to end before you negotiate because that puts the veto power over negotiations in the hands of extremists including agents provocateur; the ANC learned this lesson after the Boipatong massacre in 1992.

The lessons are of zero value because they offer nothing new. Throughout Oslo Israel followed the strategy implied by the lessons. I will show why it is inaccurate to claim that Israel believes it has to defeat the Palestinians before negotiations can take place, how the Palestinians have failed to show respect at crucial moments, and how Israel has pursued the path of negotiations in the face of the worst acts of violence.

The essence of the first point may be true, but it is certainly not a lesson that needs to be learned from SA. The basis for any successful negotiations of this nature is mutual respect. The essence of the second lesson is also true, but only if the negotiating parties are doing their utmost to stop the violence emanating from their people. It does not hold if one of the negotiating parties is allowing the violence to take place. Israel has paid the price of this lesson with the blood of their people.

Looking back into history is a good way of understanding Israeli strategy. Three points suggest that Israel has in fact pursued a strategy consistent with the first two lessons. They will also highlight the risible nature of the information added to lesson 1.

(1) Oslo began in 1993 with the signing of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self –Government Arrangement. The DOP provided for Palestinian self rule in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip for a period of no longer than 5 years during which Israel and the Palestinians would negotiate a permanent peace settlement.

(2) It was in 1993 that Shimon Peres convinced Rabin to bring Arafat into Gaza from Tunisia.

(3) The run up to Oslo was intense and coincided with the first Palestinian Intifada. The years after the signing of the DOP brought an increased number of terror fatalities.

What does this look back at history tell us about Israeli negotiations?

Bringing Arafat, their eternal enemy, back into Gaza was a tremendous sign of respect shown by Israel to the Palestinian leadership. Arafat had not changed one bit, yet Israel, against the backdrop of a violent Intifada, was willing to start negotiations. (Lesson 1).

During Oslo the number of terror incidents shot up sharply. After the signing of the accords the years 1994 and 1996 saw the largest number of terrorist fatalities since the occupation began in 1967. Amazingly however, Israel pushed forward with the Oslo accords and continued the path of negotiation.

The Labour government tried their very best to create a peace partner even though they knew one did not exist. The extent of the Israeli leap of faith in Oslo was mind boggling. Aafat persistently violated the agreements and the Israelis would complain but in order to create a peace partner they would close their eyes to the violations and proceed regardless. After pressure from the Israeli public to end the negotiations on the basis of the terrorist attacks in 94 Shimon Peres said “we close our eyes, we don’t criticize because for peace we must produce a partner.”

Yossi Beilin in 1993 is on record as stating that an increase in terror would force Israel to renege on their agreements, yet after terror skyrocketed the Israelis did not act on that promise; rather they continued with the negotiations. (Lesson 2)

The charge about Israel wanting to first destroy the Palestinians does not stand up to the test of history. Today Israel needs and wants to first destroy terror before they begin negotiations – if by Palestinians Adams refers to terrorism then its Adam’s unfair comparison and not mine.

Now fair enough, Adams may feel that the Israelis have not showed enough respect to the Palestinians in negotiations, but surely the greatest example of improper respect was when Aafat questioned the basic fabric of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, arguing to both Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton that the Jewish Temple never stood in Jerusalem, saying that it was in Nablus. This at a time when both sides were closer than ever to forging a peace deal - at Camp David and then later at the White House when Arafat rejected outright the Clinton Ideas.

For negotiations to be successful both sides need to respectfully accept the religious claims of the other side. Yet in questioning the existence of the Jewish temple, the basis for Jerusalem's status as the Holiest place in the world for Jews, Arafat challenged the core of the Jewish faith and showed zero respect.

These two rules actually contradict each other. Both lessons cannot hold.

The second lesson calls for the Israelis to continue negotiating regardless of terror. But the first lesson requires BOTH sides to show mutual respect. Acts of terror highlight the rejection of Israel’s very existence and undercut the political strength of any Israeli government to make concessions. If the PA is not fighting terror then they are complicit in the rejection of Israel’s very existence – the worst form of disrespect. So why should Israel adhere to lesson 2, if lesson 1 is being flagrantly violated?

Comments

[Jona]

SA seems genuinely sincere in their attempts to help solve the problems here- yet they turn a blind eye to the Zim situation. Granted they have sucesfully played the role of peacemaker in central Africa, but Zim is rite on their doorstops and they are not applying enough pressure onto Rob.

Shalom Achshav beZimbabwe!

First fix up your own house then you can try to stick your noses into our business.

Am Yisrael Chai

[Katherine]

You know, the thing that really gets me is South Africa's continued view that our opinion matters to the rest of the world. Somehow we think we can help with the Middle East situation, we can meddle in haiti etc. I don't get it. Doesn't South Africa have enough problems at home to deal with without wasting time on the rest of the world? I don't know..

This is just my ill-informed perspective..