Logic of Conflict: Making War and Peace in the Middle East by Steven Greffenius

Author:Steven Greffenius [Greffenius, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Political Science
ISBN: 9781315486321
Google: pzz3DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-12T01:36:52+00:00

The Influence of International Norms

Grasping the role of foreign policy stabilizers in the bargaining process yields insight into the factors that bring about lasting change in foreign policies and into those that inhibit it. International stabilizers operate earliest in the process of institutionalizing change. They originate in the international system itself rather than in the culture, politics, or governmental apparatus of individual states. Because they operate at so fundamental a level, they may be seen as a prerequisite for the full stabilization of peace. Thus the Israelis gave normative and legal regulation of their new relationship with Egypt the highest priority at the outset. When they pleaded for the normalization of relations, they sought a relationship regulated by the international norms that govern relations among any group of states seeking to live together in peace. In this light, UN Resolution 242 acted as a kind of constitutive declaration for the region, since its provisions evoked these norms. Additionally, the resolution set out in very general terms the territory-for-peace formula that inspired the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Hence Israel strove for diplomatic recognition, an exchange of ambassadors, borders open to trade, tourism, and other travel, and an end to the formal state of war that had existed between the two states since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. In return, it agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt.

If international law was the first sphere of normative regulation in the peacemaking process, the issue of human rights was the second. As we have seen, the central human rights issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict (Palestinian autonomy) complicated efforts to reach a settlement on the territorial and military ones. When extricated from the complexities of Middle Eastern politics, the Palestinian question reduces to a claim of national self-determination. On a variety of grounds—primarily those of national security and ancient biblical right—Israel strove to keep Judea and Samaria and implicitly sought to gain American acquiescence in this aim. Israel was willing to make concessions on territorial and military issues so long as it was given freedom to deal with the Palestinian question in its own way. Since Carter pressed Begin on this issue so relentlessly, Begin held firm on virtually every issue and conceded points only after months of painstaking negotiations. Sadat and Carter, however, expected Israeli concessions in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in the Sinai; consequently, Israel’s immovable adherence to the principle of bilateral negotiations for bilateral issues frustrated both leaders. Carter and Sadat, each for his own reasons, were unwilling to abandon the opportunity for a comprehensive peace, and Begin’s recalcitrance proved to be a source of great stress on the institutionalization process.

In short, Sadat found Begin willing to negotiate on bilateral issues and extremely resistant to any change in the status quo on the central human rights issue: a Palestinian homeland. Moreover, Begin negotiated in a spirit of suspicion and legalism rather than generosity on the territorial and military problems in the Sinai that had to be resolved. He

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