Negotiating Under Fire

By Matthew Levitt

On October 3, 2008, Ghaith al-Omari and Dennis Ross joined me at a Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to honor the launch of my new book, Negotiating Under Fire. Mr. al-Omari, a former advisor to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, is currently the advocacy director at the American Task Force on Palestine. Ambassador Ross is an independent consultant to The Washington Institute and has previously served in senior foreign policy positions in the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton administrations. The following is drawn from the rapporteur's summary of our remarks. An audio recording of the event is available here. A special publisher's discount on the purchase price of the book is available here.

A peace process is not necessarily a peaceful process. Negotiations do not occur in a vacuum, and external events -- violent attacks, in particular -- have a direct impact on the process. Terrorist attacks upset the negotiation process by freezing whatever positive momentum the parties have established, and then injecting a countermomentum that undermines the ability and willingness of both parties to continue.

Consider the following three cases highlighted in Negotiating Under Fire: the February 1994 Hebron massacre by Baruch Goldstein, the November 1994 kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldier and dual U.S. citizen Nachshon Wachsman, and the February/March 1996 string of terrorist attacks in Israel.

After the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, Israeli and Palestinian negotiations began to gain momentum. The progress was halted abruptly when Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli citizen, shot and killed more than thirty Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs (Ibrahimi mosque) in Hebron. It wasn't until August 1994 that the peace process was back on track.

In October 1994, the process was disrupted yet again, this time by Hamas's abduction of an Israeli soldier, Nachshon Wachsman. Although Israeli and the Palestinian security services worked together to locate Wachsman -- a notable development itself -- he was killed in the subsequent rescue attempt.

Terrorism continued to plague the peace process through 1995 and 1996, including numerous Palestinian strikes on Israeli targets, as well as attacks by Israeli extremists -- such as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir -- who were determined to stop the peace process.

It is clear that terrorist attacks have a major impact on peace processes. Leaders find themselves unable or unwilling to pursue a peace policy after violent events have cut into their public support and approval, their authority as negotiators, and the perceived credibility of the other party. The early-1996 suicide bombings in Israel illustrate this vicious cycle. Because of the credibility gaps that existed prior to the crisis, each side viewed the string of bombings as a direct result of the other's intransigence, further undermining each side's credibility in the eyes of the other.

Terrorist attacks are going to occur, and the parties concerned may have serious political constraints on their willingness and ability to crack down on domestic extremists. Therefore, a considered strategy is needed: namely, the preemptive insulation of the negotiating process through prior agreement on a crisis-response mechanism. This mechanism should include negotiating what types of action would be taken in response to various crises, developing communication channels at both the political and the working levels, and establishing intelligence coordination mechanisms that will withstand the initial shock of the crisis. Having anticipated such crises, the parties are then able to create guidelines for an effective crisis response that will not only manage the crisis, but also encourage the resumption of negotiations.

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