My problem with the Peace Agreements is that the conflict isn't something that can be solved with Geography.
The territorial disagreements stem from the way both sides feel about each other. There is a lot of hate and until this emotional conflict is resolved meaningfully nothing will really changes.
But very few policies anywhere on earth focus on how people feel. Its just not the way we're used to thinking.
Exactly. Unfortunately, enough "leaders" - in the region, and in other countries (e.g. US) - benefit from the conflict that those who have the influence to dissipate the hate have incentive to, instead, exacerbate it.
Yeah, it is complex problem. I know of very few examples where this inner emotional conflict between people was solved. Maybe the American civil rights movement is one but even that took decades.
Nothing short of giving everyone on both sides Magic Mushrooms could heal this much conflict quickly.
There is no both sides. There is only one side. The continuation of the state of Israel insuring a place where Jews of this world can be protected. While that clearly needs work it is the only reason for being. If there was no antisemitism there would be no war.
There is not now nor were there ever Palestinians. They are frauds. Those who lives in the land before 1948 were able to stay in the state of Israel. They chose to fight and take it all. And lost.
How does the works explain that there are so many different religions alive and well inside Israel? How is their coexistence explained to the uneducated ? It is not. Shame.
Maybe 20 years but I think more like three generations it will take to change the minds of any bigot or antisemite. Until that process begins nothing will change. Not even the rhetoric of our woke politicians and woke institutions.
I found this incredible insightful and thorough--thank you for your work on this, it adds so much detail to the relative sound bites I get from the Times each morning. Is this article part of a series you have plotted out? I see your teaser for the next article and I’m stoked for the one solution that hasn’t seen much discussion yet, but was wondering if you have the total table of contents for this whole Israel/Palestine saga in your Stack?
Tomas, it's really helpful to see the nitty gritty of the two negotiations laid out so clearly in your usual excellent maps. It is frustrating and saddening to see how close they were to agreements. But my impression from listening to Arafat during and after Oslo and Camp David was that he was psychologically incapable of accepting Israel's existence and reaching any pragmatic agreement with them. I think he defined himself largely in terms of opposition to Israel, often violent, and couldn't make the mental transition to the bureaucratic mind set of day to day governance. I'm general revolutionary leaders don't make great administrators... Think Mao, Leni, Stalin, Castro, Ortega, Caesar, etc, not that Arafat was at their level. Arafat was the wrong person to lead the Palestinians to nationhood, tragically. Had he been committed to moving from opposition to nationhood, he would have seized the opportunity brokered by Clinton. Part of the Palestinian people's plight is that they have never had good leaders.
This could very well be true. It's definitely the complain that the Israeli & US camps had, and even some Palestinians.
Since I wasn't there, I can't judge. On one side, it would be logical that he'd think this way. On the other, I think a more parsimonious explanation is that there was a lot of mistrust between the teams, and massive pressure not to give in at home.
The most likely answer is probably: " a bit of everything"
Exactly. It is incredibly rare to find people who are good at war and good at peace.
It is also very difficult to give up power once you have it, particularly for warriors. Even if they wanted to, they feel they can't just "retire peacefully" as they tend to acquire powerful enemies!
I wonder how many women were involved in the negotiations?
A great article. I’d like to add that the couple of thousand square km fought over during these negotiations are desert lands, shrubbery and arid, much like New Mexico and all of it could have been on sale for a couple of million dollars if religion and geopolitics didn’t intervene.
Great article. I'm sympathetic to Arafat's view that the WB+Gaza already were a compromise from the UN proposed borders, so the Palestinians shouldn't have to compromise more, but you point out the difference was 1-3% of land. The flip side is that all land isn't equal, and land in the Negev doesn't have the same value as land in the West Bank.
It would be interesting to learn more about why Arabs left the cities of Jaffa and Acre. These were areas allocated to the proposed Arab state with fertile soil and water access. I read that the water supply in Acre was poisoned with typhoid as a way to get the Arab population to leave.
From reading all the accounts from that time, the frustration on the US and Israeli side was more that the Palestinian leadership was not very engaged in finding a creative solution. If that were true, maybe the gap could have been further narrowed or made equivalent.
One important addition - the reason why Israeli left wing PM Barak lost his support and was replaced by Sharon is the Palestinians started the second intifada shortly after Barak became prime minister sabotaging the peace process again by making Israelis see them as untrustworthy and causing a right wing turn in Israel politics that is ongoing to this day.
I look forward to the next installment in the series!
Ha! Always a good bet. At the level of the actual negotiators for Israel and Palestine at Oslo, it sounds like they did achieve a level of mutual trust. But this didn't extend to Arafat, Peres, and Rabin, or subsequently Arafat and Barak. Trust isn't absolutely necessary for a successful agreement if there are adequate enforcement mechanisms, but it helps. In the current situation there is no trust.
@Tomas Can you please move on??? There are so many more important topics that get neglected with this disproportionate focus on one never ending argument, conflict. Nothing has been resolved in decades & what's the probability of any meaningful impact with your series of articles on this issue (compared to your own series on Covid for example, or global warming or AI risks etc) ?
I find this historical examination to be insightful. Tomas isn't trying to resolve the issue, but shed more light on the context. We all have free will on what we choose to read, so you can always move on to other content.
Of course I can choose to read other things. But, as a paying subscriber I wanted to indicate my preference on which topics to cover which often @Tomas asks us for.
This was in connection with my comment on another of his article on this topic:
Our energies are best spent by not focusing on endless news cycle & cycles of retribution from two sides in a permanent conflict / war. Solution hasn't been found and not likely to be found soon. World has too many problems that are much worse - existential risks from AI, global warming, pandemics etc. It just keeps sounding like two boys fighting in school yard and claiming "he started it" and yes one is a bigger bully. But, we have to worry about 8 billion humans and we can't be spending disporoportionatly high amount of energy on a small fraction of humanity when 8 billion humans have much bigger problems and so many animals are not just killed but entire species are going extinct.
The trees are part of the forest and the forest is part of the whole planet. To understand the whole and see the possible solutions it is sometimes useful to take specific examples that can illustrate useful general principles (see article one of the series).
FWIW, my vote goes towards Tomas continuing to do exactly what he is already doing, but I do understand and agree with some of the points you are making and respect your right to hold a different opinion from mine.
I personally disagree - I find it is refreshing to have such a neutral, fact-and-insight-based analysis of a current / ongoing conflict, through Tomas' unique geopolitical and socioeconomic lens. I'm thoroughly enjoying this series, though gave the evolutionary sex one a miss - I guess you can't please all the people all the time!!
I think it's invaluable to have people of such intellect, research capability and a willingness to go where others daren't. And this particular subject of Israel is important not just for its own sake (& it could become a massive conflict), but a test case for humanity to demonstrate its humanity — if we can solve this we can solve anything, and if we can't stop (or at least steer away from) such mindless killing, well honestly what's the point of tackling global warming or AI risks? (& I think both are important)
I like the sex/gender stuff too — also hugely important for greater harmony amongst us all, given how it affects relations, divorce, families etc. The Western world has gone mad on some of this stuff lately — it needs an injection of rationality.
And the most common factor amongst school shooters & terrorists is having a Dad-deprived childhood.
But I don't get a vote, because I'm not paying, because I'm unemployed. 😔
Well as you can probably tell from my many comments recently, I'm spending more time reading and thinking about your work than applying for jobs — because that's my passion, but unfortunately free-thinking public policy research isn't easily monetised, unless you get a lucky break like you did with Covid.
Please look at my work here, and get in touch if you want to discuss any of it:
You seem anxious for the information to move on. In all my looking at info on the topic I’ve found Thomas’s engaging and the clearest explain action of a topic most feel happy to say it complicated and move on. This groundwork is both detailed and Anne accurate outline at once. Sorry you can’t see it for the gem it is.
What I admire about Thomas Pueyo is his capacity to face difficult problems head on and search for solutions. Sometimes, as in the Israeli/Palestine problem, there’s no obvious solution. Nevertheless, this conflict may soon lead to a global war that overshades all our other worries. Keep on, Thomas!
Conflict is at the very heart of human existence on this planet.
Covid, global warming, AI, inequality and nuclear weapons wouldn't be such big issues if we were able to have sensible, peaceful discussions that helped us to agree a way forward.
We are all different and have different priorities in life. The question is: can we resolve our differences or can we learn to tolerate them? Or do we just keep fighting?
Sometimes understanding how to NOT solve a conflict is just as important as learning how to solve one.
Just wanted to point out that it is rather paradoxical that Jews got their state, Israel, based on the premise of their "right to return" to what was, at some point in time, their land. But when the Palestinian people try to apply the same right, resistance from Israel is huge. It reminds me of some immigrants to the US who, after gaining legal status, advocate for a closed borders policy. "I got in, now close the door and do not let anybody else inside."
Also, I believe that both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were negotiating in good faith, meaning that they really wanted peace. Too bad that they did not have the support of the majority of Israelis. Whereas Sharon, Netanyahu, and most of the right wing Israeli prime ministers were/are not really interested in peace, but in a conflict as means of perpetuating their power. And the same can be said of current Palestinian leaders.
It’s important to make a distinction: Israelis are not opposed to a Palestinian state at all. They are opposed to Palestinian violence, and a state could help them get that. The opposition to a state is indirect.
Hi, Tomás. You did not directly address my comment on the "Right to return" for the Israelis, but not for the Palestinians.
1. By claiming their "right to return," Israelis de facto pushed Palestinians out of the land where they were living, have been stalling any potential solution, and insist that Palestinians should not have the right to return or, if at all, have a very restricted one. The question is why Israelis have a "right to return," but Palestinians do not?
2. Israel has always responded to violence with even greater violence. They might, as you say, be "opposed to Palestinian violence," but they do not have qualms about their own violence. I am NOT saying Palestinians are completely innocent: they, and their Arab "allies" also carry considerable part of the blame in this game.
3. In theory, Israelis might say that they are "not opposed to a Palestinian state," but in practice, most Israeli governments have done everything to avoid it. It is called "paying lip service", or being utterly passive-aggressive, by saying something and then doing the complete opposite.
4. Lots of people object (with reason or not) to the use of terms like "apartheid" or "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" to describe (mostly) right wing Israeli governments policies towards Palestine, but -any way you want to name it- the result is the same: millions of Palestinians displaced from the place where they lived, with little possibilities of return, and thousands of death Palestinians. How many years before Israel wipes out (either by killing or expelling them through violence and rules) the Palestinian population living in what both peoples consider to be their territory? What should we call this?
5. Lastly, a preemptive comment that has become compulsory every time one criticizes the Israeli position: Criticizing the actions of Israeli governments is NOT antisemitism.
Luckily for me, I have no skin in this game, so I believe I can look at things with relative objectivity, and what I see is a country claiming for itself what it refuses to concede to another, and hypocrite, passive-aggressive intentional policies that continue to make matters worse instead of solving the issue. It is indeed a pity that Arafat refused to take the solution offered to Palestinians back then.
Israelis coming back was not mutually exclusive to Arabs staying. Israelis accepted every opportunity they had of a state for each, and from the little I’ve read about the violence pre-1948, it seems the attacks were more from Arabs to Jews than vice-versus (my confidence in this is medium-low). Arabs are the ones who never accepted a Jewish state. Note that the Jews wanted a state there before there was any local Arab state. So it’s not like states were formed and Israel wanted a piece of Palestine. There were no Arab states, they were barely emerging. So Arabs simply didn’t want a Jewish state in their midst.
The Nakba was a consequence of the conflict between them, not a direct consequence of Israel’s existence. Only indirectly.
You’re right that Israelis consistently react to violence with more violence, but from what I can tell it’s nearly always a response (for big conflicts), and it’s never all in. Eg Israel could have reached Cairo but didn’t. It could have invaded Jordan but didn’t, etc.
I do agree that, right now, Israelis are against a Palestinian state in practice.
I agree that, if you want to be precise, terms like “occupation” and “apartheid” don’t apply, but I think the spirit does: it’s a military force overseeing another ethnicity without rights.
I don’t think you can claim Israel wants to kill all Palestinians, since their number has 10xed since the Nakba, and Arab Israelis (“Palestinians as in the offspring of Arabs who lived in mandatory Palestine) have a better life than most Arabs in the region.
Agreed that criticizing Israel is not antisemitism.
Netanyahu (& many others) opposes a Palestinian state (and any 2-State solution) — that's why he supported Hamas, and he's now blatantly pursuing ethnic cleansing.
Many Israelis are also opposed to Palestinians reclaiming the land they've been pushed out of (recently or many years ago).
You can't really say Israel's only opposed to Palestinian violence. It's more than that.
I don't think you can presume "they" all think this way Tomas. Obviously there is a spectrum of opinion. I looked at the videos you shared elsewhere, and whilst it was heartening to see most of the Jewish Israelis interviewed considered Palestinians to be equal, some didn't, like here:
The problem is that extremists are more attracted to politics, and political systems tend to elevate extremists to the top — especially (but not only) in Israel.
Then there are illegal settlers, many of whom have paid for the land they live on (at a discount). Regardless of safety issues, they're not going to support being told to leave.
I am not under the impression that Israelis feel superior. Maybe they feel more intelligent and that they can beat everyone at this game. But they would probably feel differently if they lost the financial and military support they receive from the US, and the moral support of the majority of the world.
I have the feeling that they will not stop until they either the Palestinians are subdued to their will or are kicked away, either through violence or legislation. And yes, the settlements are unacceptable, and one of the actions that gives away Israel's true intentions, which is keeping the land for themselves, tiny bit, by tiny bit.
Oops. Sorry, I must have deleted my repeated comment while you were writing an answer to it. Here it is again: "Luckily for me, I have no skin in this game, so I believe I can look at things with relative objectivity, and what I see is a country claiming for itself what it refuses to concede to another, and hypocrite, passive-aggressive intentional policies that continue to make matters worse instead of solving the issue. It is indeed a pity that Arafat refused to take the solution offered to Palestinians back then."
A friend of mine is a film producer in Israel. About ten years ago her cameraman - unbeknownst to her - flew a drone at 5 AM over the Temple Mount. I am pretty sure what he did was illegal, and 100 percent sure that if anything went wrong it would have incited some sort of international incident.
Is there any precedent that has a small geographic area be divided based on religion and the two groups live happily ever after, each in their own nation-state? Isn't the 2-state solution just a pretext for continuing war and suffering?
Also, aren't the so-called Cuban refugees in Florida demanding a right-of-return, and hasn't that distorted US policy, to the detriment of both the US and Cuba, for 60 years?
I’d say that Germany in the 18th century is a good precedent. After devastating wars between Catholics and Protestants they were able to coexist peacefully.
Not sure I follow you. What is now Germany was a collection of feifdoms/duchys. Even before Martin Luther and the Reformation there were violent power struggles between them. Religious ideology was used as an excuse to devolve into a century of violent power struggles. The 18th century was a temporary stand off. Then, Germany unified into 1 state. It would be unusual today to hear somebody suggest that Germany needs a 2-state solution, a Protestant north and a Catholic south. Instead, it's recognized that both religions share enough fundamental values that they can share a government, and can even teach the two religions side-by-side in the schools.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 made each duchy or principality of the Holy Roman Empire practically independent, and let the ruler decide the religion. There was little or no religious tolerance within each state, and many who professed the opposite religion migrated. But these states were able to coexist for two centuries, a pretty good temporary stand off in my opinion. There were no more religious wars, Catholics and Protestants gradually learned how to cooperate and hate each other less.
However, in the present Israel/Arab situation I agree with you that the two state solution is no longer viable. In the long run there must be one state, but that can’t be Israel, since they don’t accept or integrate their Arab population. It’s an Apartheid state meant for Jews only.
That's a good point about the peace after 1648. I don't hear about the rank-and-file Catholics and Protestants hating each other, though. Was it more a power thing than an religious ideology thing? Did the rank-and-file hate each other? And, of course, people of both religious groups had lived there for a long time.
I am still skeptical that in any localized geographic region most neighbors of different faiths will hate each other, and wish to kill each other, without extenuating circumstance. Extenuating circumstances could be 70 years in a refugee camp, and/or a few leaders convincing them all their dissatisfaction with life is because of the "other guys". I don't see good faith from the leadership on either side of the Israel/Palestine situation.
Human beings are tribal animals, programmed to have faith in our tribe and hate the outsiders. And yes, catholics and protestants hated each other in the 17th century. There was a strong religious fervor among common people. Look at the pamphlets and published sermons about the dangers of Catholicism. They also watched their neighbours closely, and reported any religious deviance to the authorities. And an example from the Catholic side, from the interrogation protocols of the Spanish Holy Inquisition: A man in a tavern brawl had said that his daughter was “more virgin than Virgin Mary”. He was reported, arrested and tortured.
I recently visited Northern Ireland and went to the "Peace Wall". The houses on the Catholic side have wire cages covering their whole back garden to protect against missiles thrown over the wall.
That said, I agree with you that people of different religious faiths can and do live side by side without any problems in many parts of the world, so it is not just difference in religion that drives conflict. See Per's comment below, humans are programmed to be tribal. They may choose religion as the basis for their tribal identity, but equally it can be nationalism, skin colour, political or economic beliefs.
Humans have evolved a variety of visceral emotions and reactions. Another aspect of being human is disciplining some of those basic emotions. Sure we have tribal instincts, but we use our self-discipline to not act on violent impulses. Here in the US there are suggestions for a 2-state solution to give the 2 dominant "ideologies" self-determination. That would create a patchwork of "red" and "blue" regions, living side-by-side with their tribe, with fences to separate the two tribes. Almost all informed people agree that would be a step backwards. Instead, those informed people advocate we find commonality and live under a single government - constraining some of our tribal instincts; sharing some basic values; and tolerating and accepting others. And yet many of those same people suggest that in Palestine a 2-state solution is the only way to allow Palestinians and Israelis to each have self-determination. That contradicts thousands of years of empirical data.
I don't think 2 groups living in close proximity ever seriously hate each other. The hate is ginned up by small sets of folks who benefit in various ways from the conflict. How many mothers say "I hate those people so much I will send my children to kill their children, even if my children get killed." Brecht, in Mutter Courage, has her say something like "If you want the war to work for you you've got to give the war it's due" after her son was killed. Ouch! It's a story as old as time.
I wouldn't offer India and Pakistan as an example peaceful coexistence.
The American Indian wars in the USA are a good parallel to the creation of the state of Israel and the hostility between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. The creation of reservations and pueblos was a horrible thing for the indigenous people. The purpose of the reservation system was because indians were not considered worthy of full US citizenship, with all the rights that entails. Rather than conquer and assimilate, it was conquer, separate and isolate. We're still dealing with the consequences of that despicable attitude towards other human beings. The 2-state solution is following that same design.
How many mothers say "I hate those people so much I will send my children to kill their children, even if my children get killed"? You might try reading this piece in the WSJ today: https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-ghazi-hamad-interview-israel-oct-7-0731bd48#. I've been communicating with an old acquaintance who is the CEO of a software company in Israel. He reminds me that there is a distinct difference in cultures when it comes to valuing human life. The horrors committed by Hamas on Oct 7 does not represent outlier morality. We in the west tend to think everyone thinks like we think. We value human life. For Hamas, Oct 7 was only the beginning. This isn't a formula for a one-state solution.
I agree that humans tend to think everyone thinks the same way "we" do. We're always trying to work out what other people are thinking and how they might act, but we can only base our assumptions on what we know: how I think and how those I commonly interact with think and behave. It's not until you talk in depth to people from very different backgrounds that you realise how wrong your assumptions are!
Everyone is different, sometimes in very radical ways as you mention.
The history is not the same. The parallels are not what you think they seem to be. I noticed you resisted reading the article. Respectfully recommend you begin at the top. The story is true and not as you embroider it to be.
I did read the article. I don't see that I'm contradicting anything in the article. Nor is that article the first word on that history. I'm just pointing out that the author is implicitly suggesting that this time is different and empirical data of how humans behave is not helpful in this situation. I doubt that. Peaceful coexistence occurs when people look for their common human desires, not when a few people take power and claim that there "those guys" are not the same kind of human as us, so must not be part of "our society". Isn't it obvious that Israel is a much better government and would serve both Gaza and the West Bank better than the Palestinian "governments" have? Isn't it also obvious that the "right of return" shouldn't even be on the table. Not even some kind of face-saving gesture. Nothing like it is ever going to happen. There is no human precedent for that. We can pretend that might doesn't make right, but sometimes it does. The Israeli's won the 1948 war. Then in 1967 they conquered territory - West Bank & Gaza - which never should have been split off. Peace will occur when that territory is part of the same nation as Israel, and Israel ends the charade of a "Jewish" state. It's not easy to invite people that claim to hate you into your inner circle, but it's the hard path that yields peaceful futures.
Pueyo brought up Pakistan and India. Look how well East & West Pakistan did as a pretend-united, but geographically divided, nation.
Understood. The specific details of this particular situation are unique, but the power of compassion and empathy are ubiquitous. All happy societies are happy in the same way; all warring neighbors are warring for their own specific reasons.
I don't think India and Pakistan is a good precedent. Some of this I mentioned in comment I posted somewhere in this thread which was that both countries had core civilisational territory which wasn't threatened. And also because even though India has moved on Pakistan hasn't, it's just that they can't compete with India anymore.
In most of the MEA statements, geopolitical discussions, etc. etc. Pakistan isn't there anymore. China is the biggest concern, trade relations are second and Pakistan is considered as a no man's land and the military planners are told to handle it i.e. Pakistan is viewed from a military viewpoint with no scope for any more significant relations probably due to disenchantment in Indian establishment as peace talks would only lead to more terror attacks and there is no consensus in Pakistan establishment to have peace with India and they are just bidding their times until they are strong enough to attack India again. There are various vested interests including terrorists and drug mafias.
But the main reason is that Pakistan was established in opposition to India, it sees itself as not India where Muslims could "live and prosper" (but the truth is that Pakistan is a feudal state where its lords continue to fuel anti India sentiment via Kashmir narrative so that public never questions why military controls a sizeable portion of Pakistan economy, why there were no land reforms and tenants are deprived of agricultural land, why they continue to depend on IMF loans) so they never really worked on establishing alternative national identity which was one of the reason that led to the birth of Bangladesh.
My problem with the Peace Agreements is that the conflict isn't something that can be solved with Geography.
The territorial disagreements stem from the way both sides feel about each other. There is a lot of hate and until this emotional conflict is resolved meaningfully nothing will really changes.
But very few policies anywhere on earth focus on how people feel. Its just not the way we're used to thinking.
Rory Sutherland has great videos on influencing people by changing their inner world : https://youtu.be/audakxABYUc?si=1vAZyZX2CvGMOeSy
Spot on
Exactly. Unfortunately, enough "leaders" - in the region, and in other countries (e.g. US) - benefit from the conflict that those who have the influence to dissipate the hate have incentive to, instead, exacerbate it.
Yeah, it is complex problem. I know of very few examples where this inner emotional conflict between people was solved. Maybe the American civil rights movement is one but even that took decades.
Nothing short of giving everyone on both sides Magic Mushrooms could heal this much conflict quickly.
I vote in the US. From today forward, I support the candidate who will send Magic Mushrooms to conflict regions around the world.
I’m going to guess Robert was joking.
There is no both sides. There is only one side. The continuation of the state of Israel insuring a place where Jews of this world can be protected. While that clearly needs work it is the only reason for being. If there was no antisemitism there would be no war.
There is not now nor were there ever Palestinians. They are frauds. Those who lives in the land before 1948 were able to stay in the state of Israel. They chose to fight and take it all. And lost.
How does the works explain that there are so many different religions alive and well inside Israel? How is their coexistence explained to the uneducated ? It is not. Shame.
Maybe 20 years but I think more like three generations it will take to change the minds of any bigot or antisemite. Until that process begins nothing will change. Not even the rhetoric of our woke politicians and woke institutions.
I found this incredible insightful and thorough--thank you for your work on this, it adds so much detail to the relative sound bites I get from the Times each morning. Is this article part of a series you have plotted out? I see your teaser for the next article and I’m stoked for the one solution that hasn’t seen much discussion yet, but was wondering if you have the total table of contents for this whole Israel/Palestine saga in your Stack?
I will have it in my next article
Otherwise just browse the home page:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/
Here are the article in it so far. Highly recommend all of them.
Will Israel Be at War? – The geopolitics of Israel.
Who Can Claim Palestine? – The history of the region, and how that translates into claims from the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
Do Arab States Support Palestine? – Why other Arab states are ambiguous (to say the least) about their support to Palestinians.
The Gaza Trap – The geopolitics of Gaza.
The Three State Solution – The geopolitics of the West Bank.
The Problem of West Bank Settlements – Details about Israel’s settlement strategy.
The Struggle for the Soul of Israel – How internal politics in Israel work, and how that affects the Palestinians.
What Would Peace Look Like between Israel and Palestine?
Wow thank you so much, Josh!! F
On footnote .11, for reading on this complex subject, the following books would be of help:
-One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Tom Segev (2013).
-The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Benny Morris (2004)
-Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Ian Black (2017)
Tomas, it's really helpful to see the nitty gritty of the two negotiations laid out so clearly in your usual excellent maps. It is frustrating and saddening to see how close they were to agreements. But my impression from listening to Arafat during and after Oslo and Camp David was that he was psychologically incapable of accepting Israel's existence and reaching any pragmatic agreement with them. I think he defined himself largely in terms of opposition to Israel, often violent, and couldn't make the mental transition to the bureaucratic mind set of day to day governance. I'm general revolutionary leaders don't make great administrators... Think Mao, Leni, Stalin, Castro, Ortega, Caesar, etc, not that Arafat was at their level. Arafat was the wrong person to lead the Palestinians to nationhood, tragically. Had he been committed to moving from opposition to nationhood, he would have seized the opportunity brokered by Clinton. Part of the Palestinian people's plight is that they have never had good leaders.
This could very well be true. It's definitely the complain that the Israeli & US camps had, and even some Palestinians.
Since I wasn't there, I can't judge. On one side, it would be logical that he'd think this way. On the other, I think a more parsimonious explanation is that there was a lot of mistrust between the teams, and massive pressure not to give in at home.
The most likely answer is probably: " a bit of everything"
Exactly. It is incredibly rare to find people who are good at war and good at peace.
It is also very difficult to give up power once you have it, particularly for warriors. Even if they wanted to, they feel they can't just "retire peacefully" as they tend to acquire powerful enemies!
I wonder how many women were involved in the negotiations?
On footnote .11, for reading on this complex subject, the following books would be of help:
-One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. Tom Segev (2013).
-The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Benny Morris (2004)
-Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Ian Black (2017)
A great article. I’d like to add that the couple of thousand square km fought over during these negotiations are desert lands, shrubbery and arid, much like New Mexico and all of it could have been on sale for a couple of million dollars if religion and geopolitics didn’t intervene.
Thomas,
Do you ever read fiction for pleasure?
If yes, you could try reading China Mieville's "The city and the city".
It is an interesting (weird) take on two different peoples sharing a city.
Seldom. So much non-fiction I need to read!
Usually my fiction is sci-fi: Working towards a better world!
But I take note. Thx!
Great article. I'm sympathetic to Arafat's view that the WB+Gaza already were a compromise from the UN proposed borders, so the Palestinians shouldn't have to compromise more, but you point out the difference was 1-3% of land. The flip side is that all land isn't equal, and land in the Negev doesn't have the same value as land in the West Bank.
It would be interesting to learn more about why Arabs left the cities of Jaffa and Acre. These were areas allocated to the proposed Arab state with fertile soil and water access. I read that the water supply in Acre was poisoned with typhoid as a way to get the Arab population to leave.
From reading all the accounts from that time, the frustration on the US and Israeli side was more that the Palestinian leadership was not very engaged in finding a creative solution. If that were true, maybe the gap could have been further narrowed or made equivalent.
Thank you for putting this all in one place.
One important addition - the reason why Israeli left wing PM Barak lost his support and was replaced by Sharon is the Palestinians started the second intifada shortly after Barak became prime minister sabotaging the peace process again by making Israelis see them as untrustworthy and causing a right wing turn in Israel politics that is ongoing to this day.
I look forward to the next installment in the series!
True.
To be precise, his support had already fallen.
Congratulations on all of these great pieces. A lot of credit due for the detailed and thoughtful work.
Ha! Always a good bet. At the level of the actual negotiators for Israel and Palestine at Oslo, it sounds like they did achieve a level of mutual trust. But this didn't extend to Arafat, Peres, and Rabin, or subsequently Arafat and Barak. Trust isn't absolutely necessary for a successful agreement if there are adequate enforcement mechanisms, but it helps. In the current situation there is no trust.
@Tomas Can you please move on??? There are so many more important topics that get neglected with this disproportionate focus on one never ending argument, conflict. Nothing has been resolved in decades & what's the probability of any meaningful impact with your series of articles on this issue (compared to your own series on Covid for example, or global warming or AI risks etc) ?
I find this historical examination to be insightful. Tomas isn't trying to resolve the issue, but shed more light on the context. We all have free will on what we choose to read, so you can always move on to other content.
Of course I can choose to read other things. But, as a paying subscriber I wanted to indicate my preference on which topics to cover which often @Tomas asks us for.
This was in connection with my comment on another of his article on this topic:
Our energies are best spent by not focusing on endless news cycle & cycles of retribution from two sides in a permanent conflict / war. Solution hasn't been found and not likely to be found soon. World has too many problems that are much worse - existential risks from AI, global warming, pandemics etc. It just keeps sounding like two boys fighting in school yard and claiming "he started it" and yes one is a bigger bully. But, we have to worry about 8 billion humans and we can't be spending disporoportionatly high amount of energy on a small fraction of humanity when 8 billion humans have much bigger problems and so many animals are not just killed but entire species are going extinct.
*Please FOCUS on the FOREST and not on trees.
Thank you for voicing your opinion, Josh.
I very much intend to propose solutions, and some of them AFAIK not very well known.
I also stay on this because it has a lot of geopolitical ramifications.
But we're nearing the end. I think I only have one more article that focuses just on this conflict, and not its broader implications
@Tomas, Thank you for being receptive to suggestions.
The trees are part of the forest and the forest is part of the whole planet. To understand the whole and see the possible solutions it is sometimes useful to take specific examples that can illustrate useful general principles (see article one of the series).
FWIW, my vote goes towards Tomas continuing to do exactly what he is already doing, but I do understand and agree with some of the points you are making and respect your right to hold a different opinion from mine.
I personally disagree - I find it is refreshing to have such a neutral, fact-and-insight-based analysis of a current / ongoing conflict, through Tomas' unique geopolitical and socioeconomic lens. I'm thoroughly enjoying this series, though gave the evolutionary sex one a miss - I guess you can't please all the people all the time!!
One thing we can all agree on: I don't shy away from polemic topics!
I think it's invaluable to have people of such intellect, research capability and a willingness to go where others daren't. And this particular subject of Israel is important not just for its own sake (& it could become a massive conflict), but a test case for humanity to demonstrate its humanity — if we can solve this we can solve anything, and if we can't stop (or at least steer away from) such mindless killing, well honestly what's the point of tackling global warming or AI risks? (& I think both are important)
I like the sex/gender stuff too — also hugely important for greater harmony amongst us all, given how it affects relations, divorce, families etc. The Western world has gone mad on some of this stuff lately — it needs an injection of rationality.
And the most common factor amongst school shooters & terrorists is having a Dad-deprived childhood.
But I don't get a vote, because I'm not paying, because I'm unemployed. 😔
Good luck on your search! 🙌
Well as you can probably tell from my many comments recently, I'm spending more time reading and thinking about your work than applying for jobs — because that's my passion, but unfortunately free-thinking public policy research isn't easily monetised, unless you get a lucky break like you did with Covid.
Please look at my work here, and get in touch if you want to discuss any of it:
http://davidthorp..net
You seem anxious for the information to move on. In all my looking at info on the topic I’ve found Thomas’s engaging and the clearest explain action of a topic most feel happy to say it complicated and move on. This groundwork is both detailed and Anne accurate outline at once. Sorry you can’t see it for the gem it is.
You can't please everybody! It's fine! I accepted it.
But receiving the different perspectives helps me calibrate how much hunger there is for different topics, so thx for sharing!
What I admire about Thomas Pueyo is his capacity to face difficult problems head on and search for solutions. Sometimes, as in the Israeli/Palestine problem, there’s no obvious solution. Nevertheless, this conflict may soon lead to a global war that overshades all our other worries. Keep on, Thomas!
Thank you!
Conflict is at the very heart of human existence on this planet.
Covid, global warming, AI, inequality and nuclear weapons wouldn't be such big issues if we were able to have sensible, peaceful discussions that helped us to agree a way forward.
We are all different and have different priorities in life. The question is: can we resolve our differences or can we learn to tolerate them? Or do we just keep fighting?
Sometimes understanding how to NOT solve a conflict is just as important as learning how to solve one.
Just wanted to point out that it is rather paradoxical that Jews got their state, Israel, based on the premise of their "right to return" to what was, at some point in time, their land. But when the Palestinian people try to apply the same right, resistance from Israel is huge. It reminds me of some immigrants to the US who, after gaining legal status, advocate for a closed borders policy. "I got in, now close the door and do not let anybody else inside."
Also, I believe that both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were negotiating in good faith, meaning that they really wanted peace. Too bad that they did not have the support of the majority of Israelis. Whereas Sharon, Netanyahu, and most of the right wing Israeli prime ministers were/are not really interested in peace, but in a conflict as means of perpetuating their power. And the same can be said of current Palestinian leaders.
It’s important to make a distinction: Israelis are not opposed to a Palestinian state at all. They are opposed to Palestinian violence, and a state could help them get that. The opposition to a state is indirect.
Hi, Tomás. You did not directly address my comment on the "Right to return" for the Israelis, but not for the Palestinians.
1. By claiming their "right to return," Israelis de facto pushed Palestinians out of the land where they were living, have been stalling any potential solution, and insist that Palestinians should not have the right to return or, if at all, have a very restricted one. The question is why Israelis have a "right to return," but Palestinians do not?
2. Israel has always responded to violence with even greater violence. They might, as you say, be "opposed to Palestinian violence," but they do not have qualms about their own violence. I am NOT saying Palestinians are completely innocent: they, and their Arab "allies" also carry considerable part of the blame in this game.
3. In theory, Israelis might say that they are "not opposed to a Palestinian state," but in practice, most Israeli governments have done everything to avoid it. It is called "paying lip service", or being utterly passive-aggressive, by saying something and then doing the complete opposite.
4. Lots of people object (with reason or not) to the use of terms like "apartheid" or "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" to describe (mostly) right wing Israeli governments policies towards Palestine, but -any way you want to name it- the result is the same: millions of Palestinians displaced from the place where they lived, with little possibilities of return, and thousands of death Palestinians. How many years before Israel wipes out (either by killing or expelling them through violence and rules) the Palestinian population living in what both peoples consider to be their territory? What should we call this?
5. Lastly, a preemptive comment that has become compulsory every time one criticizes the Israeli position: Criticizing the actions of Israeli governments is NOT antisemitism.
Luckily for me, I have no skin in this game, so I believe I can look at things with relative objectivity, and what I see is a country claiming for itself what it refuses to concede to another, and hypocrite, passive-aggressive intentional policies that continue to make matters worse instead of solving the issue. It is indeed a pity that Arafat refused to take the solution offered to Palestinians back then.
Not really.
Israelis coming back was not mutually exclusive to Arabs staying. Israelis accepted every opportunity they had of a state for each, and from the little I’ve read about the violence pre-1948, it seems the attacks were more from Arabs to Jews than vice-versus (my confidence in this is medium-low). Arabs are the ones who never accepted a Jewish state. Note that the Jews wanted a state there before there was any local Arab state. So it’s not like states were formed and Israel wanted a piece of Palestine. There were no Arab states, they were barely emerging. So Arabs simply didn’t want a Jewish state in their midst.
The Nakba was a consequence of the conflict between them, not a direct consequence of Israel’s existence. Only indirectly.
You’re right that Israelis consistently react to violence with more violence, but from what I can tell it’s nearly always a response (for big conflicts), and it’s never all in. Eg Israel could have reached Cairo but didn’t. It could have invaded Jordan but didn’t, etc.
I do agree that, right now, Israelis are against a Palestinian state in practice.
I agree that, if you want to be precise, terms like “occupation” and “apartheid” don’t apply, but I think the spirit does: it’s a military force overseeing another ethnicity without rights.
I don’t think you can claim Israel wants to kill all Palestinians, since their number has 10xed since the Nakba, and Arab Israelis (“Palestinians as in the offspring of Arabs who lived in mandatory Palestine) have a better life than most Arabs in the region.
Agreed that criticizing Israel is not antisemitism.
Netanyahu (& many others) opposes a Palestinian state (and any 2-State solution) — that's why he supported Hamas, and he's now blatantly pursuing ethnic cleansing.
Many Israelis are also opposed to Palestinians reclaiming the land they've been pushed out of (recently or many years ago).
You can't really say Israel's only opposed to Palestinian violence. It's more than that.
I can see how you can reach that conclusion, and on the surface this is true.
The assumption is that they do this just because they feel superior, when in fact it’s the only way they’ve seen they can ensure their safety.
I don't think you can presume "they" all think this way Tomas. Obviously there is a spectrum of opinion. I looked at the videos you shared elsewhere, and whilst it was heartening to see most of the Jewish Israelis interviewed considered Palestinians to be equal, some didn't, like here:
https://youtu.be/OOFRNGlEB6k?t=415
The problem is that extremists are more attracted to politics, and political systems tend to elevate extremists to the top — especially (but not only) in Israel.
Then there are illegal settlers, many of whom have paid for the land they live on (at a discount). Regardless of safety issues, they're not going to support being told to leave.
Not in everything though. The settlements are unacceptable.
I am not under the impression that Israelis feel superior. Maybe they feel more intelligent and that they can beat everyone at this game. But they would probably feel differently if they lost the financial and military support they receive from the US, and the moral support of the majority of the world.
I have the feeling that they will not stop until they either the Palestinians are subdued to their will or are kicked away, either through violence or legislation. And yes, the settlements are unacceptable, and one of the actions that gives away Israel's true intentions, which is keeping the land for themselves, tiny bit, by tiny bit.
Oops. Sorry, I must have deleted my repeated comment while you were writing an answer to it. Here it is again: "Luckily for me, I have no skin in this game, so I believe I can look at things with relative objectivity, and what I see is a country claiming for itself what it refuses to concede to another, and hypocrite, passive-aggressive intentional policies that continue to make matters worse instead of solving the issue. It is indeed a pity that Arafat refused to take the solution offered to Palestinians back then."
A friend of mine is a film producer in Israel. About ten years ago her cameraman - unbeknownst to her - flew a drone at 5 AM over the Temple Mount. I am pretty sure what he did was illegal, and 100 percent sure that if anything went wrong it would have incited some sort of international incident.
Maybe
Is there any precedent that has a small geographic area be divided based on religion and the two groups live happily ever after, each in their own nation-state? Isn't the 2-state solution just a pretext for continuing war and suffering?
Also, aren't the so-called Cuban refugees in Florida demanding a right-of-return, and hasn't that distorted US policy, to the detriment of both the US and Cuba, for 60 years?
I’d say that Germany in the 18th century is a good precedent. After devastating wars between Catholics and Protestants they were able to coexist peacefully.
Not sure I follow you. What is now Germany was a collection of feifdoms/duchys. Even before Martin Luther and the Reformation there were violent power struggles between them. Religious ideology was used as an excuse to devolve into a century of violent power struggles. The 18th century was a temporary stand off. Then, Germany unified into 1 state. It would be unusual today to hear somebody suggest that Germany needs a 2-state solution, a Protestant north and a Catholic south. Instead, it's recognized that both religions share enough fundamental values that they can share a government, and can even teach the two religions side-by-side in the schools.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 made each duchy or principality of the Holy Roman Empire practically independent, and let the ruler decide the religion. There was little or no religious tolerance within each state, and many who professed the opposite religion migrated. But these states were able to coexist for two centuries, a pretty good temporary stand off in my opinion. There were no more religious wars, Catholics and Protestants gradually learned how to cooperate and hate each other less.
However, in the present Israel/Arab situation I agree with you that the two state solution is no longer viable. In the long run there must be one state, but that can’t be Israel, since they don’t accept or integrate their Arab population. It’s an Apartheid state meant for Jews only.
That's a good point about the peace after 1648. I don't hear about the rank-and-file Catholics and Protestants hating each other, though. Was it more a power thing than an religious ideology thing? Did the rank-and-file hate each other? And, of course, people of both religious groups had lived there for a long time.
I am still skeptical that in any localized geographic region most neighbors of different faiths will hate each other, and wish to kill each other, without extenuating circumstance. Extenuating circumstances could be 70 years in a refugee camp, and/or a few leaders convincing them all their dissatisfaction with life is because of the "other guys". I don't see good faith from the leadership on either side of the Israel/Palestine situation.
Human beings are tribal animals, programmed to have faith in our tribe and hate the outsiders. And yes, catholics and protestants hated each other in the 17th century. There was a strong religious fervor among common people. Look at the pamphlets and published sermons about the dangers of Catholicism. They also watched their neighbours closely, and reported any religious deviance to the authorities. And an example from the Catholic side, from the interrogation protocols of the Spanish Holy Inquisition: A man in a tavern brawl had said that his daughter was “more virgin than Virgin Mary”. He was reported, arrested and tortured.
I recently visited Northern Ireland and went to the "Peace Wall". The houses on the Catholic side have wire cages covering their whole back garden to protect against missiles thrown over the wall.
That said, I agree with you that people of different religious faiths can and do live side by side without any problems in many parts of the world, so it is not just difference in religion that drives conflict. See Per's comment below, humans are programmed to be tribal. They may choose religion as the basis for their tribal identity, but equally it can be nationalism, skin colour, political or economic beliefs.
Humans have evolved a variety of visceral emotions and reactions. Another aspect of being human is disciplining some of those basic emotions. Sure we have tribal instincts, but we use our self-discipline to not act on violent impulses. Here in the US there are suggestions for a 2-state solution to give the 2 dominant "ideologies" self-determination. That would create a patchwork of "red" and "blue" regions, living side-by-side with their tribe, with fences to separate the two tribes. Almost all informed people agree that would be a step backwards. Instead, those informed people advocate we find commonality and live under a single government - constraining some of our tribal instincts; sharing some basic values; and tolerating and accepting others. And yet many of those same people suggest that in Palestine a 2-state solution is the only way to allow Palestinians and Israelis to each have self-determination. That contradicts thousands of years of empirical data.
India and Pakistan maybe is a good precedent?
Principalities in the Holy Roman Empire?
Not sure.
I actually think when 2 groups hate each other’s guts, splitting is a good way to reduce opportunities for conflict.
I don't think 2 groups living in close proximity ever seriously hate each other. The hate is ginned up by small sets of folks who benefit in various ways from the conflict. How many mothers say "I hate those people so much I will send my children to kill their children, even if my children get killed." Brecht, in Mutter Courage, has her say something like "If you want the war to work for you you've got to give the war it's due" after her son was killed. Ouch! It's a story as old as time.
I wouldn't offer India and Pakistan as an example peaceful coexistence.
The American Indian wars in the USA are a good parallel to the creation of the state of Israel and the hostility between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. The creation of reservations and pueblos was a horrible thing for the indigenous people. The purpose of the reservation system was because indians were not considered worthy of full US citizenship, with all the rights that entails. Rather than conquer and assimilate, it was conquer, separate and isolate. We're still dealing with the consequences of that despicable attitude towards other human beings. The 2-state solution is following that same design.
How many mothers say "I hate those people so much I will send my children to kill their children, even if my children get killed"? You might try reading this piece in the WSJ today: https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-ghazi-hamad-interview-israel-oct-7-0731bd48#. I've been communicating with an old acquaintance who is the CEO of a software company in Israel. He reminds me that there is a distinct difference in cultures when it comes to valuing human life. The horrors committed by Hamas on Oct 7 does not represent outlier morality. We in the west tend to think everyone thinks like we think. We value human life. For Hamas, Oct 7 was only the beginning. This isn't a formula for a one-state solution.
I agree that humans tend to think everyone thinks the same way "we" do. We're always trying to work out what other people are thinking and how they might act, but we can only base our assumptions on what we know: how I think and how those I commonly interact with think and behave. It's not until you talk in depth to people from very different backgrounds that you realise how wrong your assumptions are!
Everyone is different, sometimes in very radical ways as you mention.
The history is not the same. The parallels are not what you think they seem to be. I noticed you resisted reading the article. Respectfully recommend you begin at the top. The story is true and not as you embroider it to be.
I did read the article. I don't see that I'm contradicting anything in the article. Nor is that article the first word on that history. I'm just pointing out that the author is implicitly suggesting that this time is different and empirical data of how humans behave is not helpful in this situation. I doubt that. Peaceful coexistence occurs when people look for their common human desires, not when a few people take power and claim that there "those guys" are not the same kind of human as us, so must not be part of "our society". Isn't it obvious that Israel is a much better government and would serve both Gaza and the West Bank better than the Palestinian "governments" have? Isn't it also obvious that the "right of return" shouldn't even be on the table. Not even some kind of face-saving gesture. Nothing like it is ever going to happen. There is no human precedent for that. We can pretend that might doesn't make right, but sometimes it does. The Israeli's won the 1948 war. Then in 1967 they conquered territory - West Bank & Gaza - which never should have been split off. Peace will occur when that territory is part of the same nation as Israel, and Israel ends the charade of a "Jewish" state. It's not easy to invite people that claim to hate you into your inner circle, but it's the hard path that yields peaceful futures.
Pueyo brought up Pakistan and India. Look how well East & West Pakistan did as a pretend-united, but geographically divided, nation.
Somehow the thread is not responding as I wanted. I was responding to Josh and his comments. Sorry for the confusion.
Understood. The specific details of this particular situation are unique, but the power of compassion and empathy are ubiquitous. All happy societies are happy in the same way; all warring neighbors are warring for their own specific reasons.
I don't think India and Pakistan is a good precedent. Some of this I mentioned in comment I posted somewhere in this thread which was that both countries had core civilisational territory which wasn't threatened. And also because even though India has moved on Pakistan hasn't, it's just that they can't compete with India anymore.
In most of the MEA statements, geopolitical discussions, etc. etc. Pakistan isn't there anymore. China is the biggest concern, trade relations are second and Pakistan is considered as a no man's land and the military planners are told to handle it i.e. Pakistan is viewed from a military viewpoint with no scope for any more significant relations probably due to disenchantment in Indian establishment as peace talks would only lead to more terror attacks and there is no consensus in Pakistan establishment to have peace with India and they are just bidding their times until they are strong enough to attack India again. There are various vested interests including terrorists and drug mafias.
But the main reason is that Pakistan was established in opposition to India, it sees itself as not India where Muslims could "live and prosper" (but the truth is that Pakistan is a feudal state where its lords continue to fuel anti India sentiment via Kashmir narrative so that public never questions why military controls a sizeable portion of Pakistan economy, why there were no land reforms and tenants are deprived of agricultural land, why they continue to depend on IMF loans) so they never really worked on establishing alternative national identity which was one of the reason that led to the birth of Bangladesh.
One major bone to pick here
Jews don't "believe" that the two temples were on the temples mount, there is archeological evidence for them. They were there