Carlos Batallas
This old conflict has seen a myriad
of peace initiatives as well as violence. The last attempt to find a solution
has been the Oslo Agreements. From 1996 to 2000, these agreements were
still seen as heavily sick but within reasonable perspectives of healing.
However, the failed Camp David Summit of 2000, the visit of A. Sharon to
the Al-Aqsa mosque esplanade and the subsequent second Intifada killed
all the good outlooks of recovery, starting a long period of agony.
Conflict management was nonexistent from 2000 to 2002. After the wave of suicides bomber, Israel decided to take it into its hands and reoccupy the West Bank (WB). Since, the conflict was mildly managed being, in general, an open one between, as usual, dissimilar forces, between the strong and the weak. The strong party was too weak to implement the policies that would have lead to an easing of the conflict. The weak party was too strong in its legitimate claims as to move towards a common ground. All tries to make them speak were condemned to failure.
The new paradigm of Israel 's conflict management was presented in December 2003, after the failed ceasefire and the failure of the Abu Mazen Government, when PM A. Sharon launched the Unilateral Disengagement Plan (UDP). Faced to the 2000 "no-partner" theory (that in the meantime become a reality for a majority of the Israeli establishment), Israel decided to find alone solutions to the conflict, setting themselves the timing and the arenas.
The UDP marks the breaking of the Oslo process and starts a new way of conflict management: no negotiations and imposition of the conditions on the loser as it has been the case since the dawn of the wars. However, the UDP has not only an external component (to Palestinians) but as well an important internal message: the occupation is wrong. The settlers are ruling and ruining the State of Israel. Somehow, Israel has to find a way out to the occupation. These new internal parameters are as important as the externals. For the first time ever, scores of Israelis are convinced that the occupation has an expiration date and that Eretz Ysrael (Great Israel) is not compatible with the State of Israel. Therefore, it is needed to save the State giving up the dreams of being able to recover what -in their opinion- it was given to the Jewish people.
Faced to a rebellion within its own party (still lingering within the old paradigm), A. Sharon founded a new one to accommodate all those who followed his vision and to have enough support for going ahead. Sharon 's stroke has not meant the dissolution of Kadima; on the contrary, today the party will get more seats in the Knesset than before. We could argue that most of the votes come from sympathy to the old warrior , that the current support is related with feelings and not with heads. However, it could be as well argued that Sharon - Kadima managed to crystallise the inner wishes of the people and offers a fresh solution to the conflict. For Kadima's followers, it is clear that the end of the conflict will not be determined by negotiations but by unilateral initiatives.
The recent Palestinian elections and the landslide victory of Hamas have to be seen in the framework of the conflict's searching of a new paradigm. Palestinian people were living since the signing of the Oslo Agreements dreaming of a peaceful solution. The start of the second Intifada brought expectations of a victory similar to the first Intifada (which ended up in Madrid 1991). Very soon, however, the reality showed the opposite. The full force of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) was lashed out, a new and more severe occupation set off, both creating so many and different problems to the population that years if not decades would be need to be alleviated. The internal paralysis due to (but not only) Arafat ruling and the corruption averted any possible active searching of a renewed peace process. Disenchanted with a second Intifada that throw to the bin all achievements of the 90s, impoverished, prisoners at their own homes (when not expelled from them to build a new section of the West Bank wall), Palestinians have come to see that the old conflict management was putrid and worthless.
The "Road Map" was the last international attempt to revive the old (and rotten) conflict management. The Quartet tried to build up on the 2002 Bush's vision of two States. When this effort botched in 2003, many decided to withdraw the safety net and let the conflict find its own solution.
The campaign of suicide bombing initiated by Palestinian factions was a strategic mistake of the Palestinian fight against occupation. The post September 11 th world is a very much different one. Terror as political weapon was never accepted but few saw it with a mild eye. However, after New York , Bali , Madrid , the killing of Van Gogh in Holland and more recently London , terror is not anymore seen as the weapon of the weakest but as simply terror. In perspective, the second Intifada brought a serious diplomatic defeat for Palestinians. The day Arafat passed away, spirits were somehow high in the Palestinian street with everybody waiting for a quick peace agreement with Israeli and the return of the good-old-days. This not happen, mainly because the old framework was too shattered to work again.
On the Israeli side, time was running and a new paradigm (unilateralist) was growing, maturing and being incorporated in the psyche of the people. The 14 September 2005, when the last Israeli soldier abandoned the Gaza Strip, it was already been seen as a victory for both camps. For the Israeli unilateralist as it was the open salvo of the new reality and for the Hamas party as it showed that political determination, and not gradual steps, was the new path in the fighting against Israel .
Consequently, Hamas' victory in the 25 January elections has to be taken as the search by all Palestinians of a new paradigm. The conflict will not be solved via Oslo ; it will neither be solved via negotiations between equals, nor between the strong and the weak, nor by the Quartet or the USA . Israel has chosen unilateralism and Palestinians are giving a chance to Hamas to find out a new paradigm for the management of the conflict.
In this sense, the victory of Hamas must not be seen as the victory of those aiming at the destruction of Israel or those warmongers. Despite that in the surface it looked like a punishment vote on Fatah misgovernment and corruption, its deep subtext is related to the searching by Palestinians of their new peace (or conflict management/resolution) paradigm. In Hamas' post-electoral statements we clearly read that the end of occupation will solve all the misfortunes and Palestine will be able to be a State ruled by Palestinians for the Palestinians. Now, there is no more progressive steps, no small is beautiful , but a party thinking they can win an all or nothing game against the Israelis.
Therefore, politicians and political scientists are facing now a 'unilateral paradigm' and a 'maximalist one'. The lack of phase of both approaches and the fatigue of both societies may lead to either a surge of the violence or -paradoxically- to a decrease of it, being both parties too much busy with their internal issues as to restart a new chapter of the conflict. For those liking the middle ground theory is going to be difficult to find it here. New paradigms require new approaches and new mentalities. As usual, the answer is actually out there, somewhere, but nobody has still managed to get a glimpse at it.
* Carlos Batallas - Colaborador del Instituto de Estudios sobre Conflictos y Acción Humanitaria (IECAH) Madrid, 8 de febrero de 2006