Israeli and Palestinian people willing to compromise, Brandeis experts say

Released on July 23, 2007
Contact: Charles Radin, 781-736-4210 or radin@brandeis.edu

BOSTON, Mass. – A day after President George W. Bush announced plans for a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading experts from Brandeis’ Crown Center for Middle East Studies expressed skepticism about the administration’s commitment to re-launching the peace process and outlined the many challenges that lie ahead.

“It is a cautious step,” said Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and senior research fellow at the Crown Center. “We don’t know if Bush is willing to make a serious commitment.”

There is a new desire, however, on the part of Israelis and Palestinians to begin to change the situation, Shikaki said at a recent Boston event hosted by Brandeis. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Israelis and Palestinians have lost confidence in diplomacy and instead believe in the viability of violence, both publics are becoming more moderate, according to Shikaki.

Visit the Campaign '08 Web site.

“Palestinians and Israelis have never been more willing to compromise than they are today,” he said. “There is a majority on the two sides who are willing to accept most if not all of the Clinton parameters.”

While about 50 percent of Palestinians and Israelis supported a two-state solution in 2003, two-thirds of both sides now support it, he said. The problem is that neither side is aware of the other side’s willingness. According to polls, 75 percent of Palestinians don’t believe Israelis would support a two-state solution, while only 25 percent of Israelis believe Palestinians would support it.

Shikaki reported the results of his latest polls during "Domestic Developments, Foreign Impact," the second in a series of events hosted by Brandeis University focusing on the Middle East and the challenges that regional issues present to the United States and to the country’s next president. Brandeis is bringing the Middle East expertise of its faculty and research fellows to downtown Boston this summer, followed by programs on the Brandeis campus in the fall.

Regardless of public opinion, Israelis are not going to begin negotiating any serious agreements until they can count on Palestinian security services enforcing an agreement, Shikaki said. The fragmentation of the Palestinian government can in part be addressed by reforming Fatah, he said, and the next attempt at forming unity government would have to be based on a genuine power-sharing agreement between Hamas and Fatah.

“This is not about to happen anytime soon,” Shikaki said.

Shai Feldman, the Judith and Sidney Swartz Director of the Crown Center, also outlined the critical questions facing the next presidential administration, including the fundamental question of whether Arab-Israeli peace building will even be made a priority by the next administration.

“When the Bush administration came in six and a half years ago, it vowed not to repeat what it perceived were President Clinton’s excessive investments in this area,” Feldman said. “Will [the next administration] make the investments that the Bush administration to-date has avoided?”

If the United States makes an effort to re-launch a peace process, the administration will have to decide who should be considered the Palestinian partner given the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, as well as who the primary Israeli partner should be given Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s low approval rating.

Feldman said the next administration will also have to come to a decision about which direction negotiations should take. Previous stabilization plans have failed and conditions for permanent status negotiations seem worse than in 2000, Feldman said. A better option, he said, might be concentrating on a long-term armistice or Phase II of the Roadmap, which focuses on the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders.

The United States will also have to determine if it is willing to abandon efforts to destabilize key Arab governments to obtain their support, which is critical to the success of the peace process. “You are not going to get serious support from Egypt or Saudi Arabia in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process if the same time you are pushing them to democratize,” Feldman said.

The next “Campaign '08: Spotlight on the Middle East” discussion at the Old State House in Boston will take place on Thursday, Aug. 2.

Download the flyer for the Aug. 2 event. (PDF)

Khalil Shikaki

Shai Feldman