Uncertain Prospects for Middle East Peace

Terrorist bombings by militant Palestinians and Netanyahu's election have raised doubts about the future of the peace process.

Left to right: Adnan Abu Odeh, Ahmad Samih Khalidi, Samuel Lewis, and Mordechai Bar-On.

The book chronicles the evolution of the Israeli peace movement from a few individuals on the margins of Israeli politics to a multifaceted group of organizations able to stage enormous street demonstrations and influence the national political agenda. In addition to his activism in the Peace Now movement, Bar-On has had a distinguished military and political career: He served as Moshe Dayan's bureau chief in the 1950s, chief education officer of the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1960s, a leader of the World Zionist Organization in the 1970s, and a member of the Knesset in the 1980s.

Panelists at the briefing included Adnan Abu Odeh, a senior Jordanian government official and senior fellow at the Institute, and Ahmad Samih Khalidi, an adviser to Palestinian negotiators and editor of the Arabic edition of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Participants assessed the past accomplishments of Jewish and Arab peacemakers and the present realities of an Israeli administration deeply skeptical about the understandings reached with the Palestinians in the early 1990s--especially in the wake of a series of terrorist bombings designed to undermine political support in Israel for the peace process.

Whither Peace?

All the panelists expressed concern that the peace process might now be slowed or even stopped. Bar-On noted that, according to recent polls, "fully 60 to 75 percent of the Israeli public favors the Oslo agreements [between Israel and the PLO]," albeit with reservations. If that is true, Bar-On argued, this public will need to convince Netanyahu to continue the peace process already under way.

Although most peace activists are less active than they were in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a wide variety of peace groups "are still around, waiting to be activated or expanded," Bar-On said. Just as in the past the peace movement helped "stir Israelis to think the unthinkable"--negotiating with the PLO, closing down Jewish settlements in the territories occupied in 1967, and trading land for peace--so today the peace activists must persuade their compatriots to continue thinking the "unthinkable," such as withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Abu Odeh--anticipating that Netanyahu might slow or halt the process--warned that "it is in this vacuum [of no war, no peace] that militant groups flourish. . . . The challenge is how to strengthen Netanyahu's pragmatism"--a challenge to which neighboring Arab states and the United States must respond soberly and constructively.

Neither Abu Odeh nor Khalidi was optimistic that these challenges would be met, but they said they found some reason for hope in the pages of Bar-On's book. "Much needs to be learned from the lessons of the past," Khalidi said. "Mordechai's book could not be more timely."

© 1996 United States Institute of Peace