Democracy and Conflict Resolution: The Dilemmas of Israel's Peacemaking

5: Identity Matters

133 5 Identity Matters The Oslo Peace Process and Israeli National Identity Dov Waxman O N T H E E V E N I N G of Saturday, November 4, 1995, twenty-five-yearold Yigal Amir walked up to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had just finished addressing a massive rally in Tel Aviv in support of the Oslo peace process, and fired three shots into his back. Rabin died shortly afterwards. Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish religious-nationalist extremist determined to prevent Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) shocked and horrified Israelis. The act and its aftermath—in which some Israelis mourned, whilst others rejoiced—laid bare the deep division within Israel between supporters and opponents of the peace process . The assassination of Rabin was the culmination of an increasingly bitter and divisive domestic debate in Israel over the Oslo Accords and the peace process with the Palestinians. At the heart of this debate was not just the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but Israeli identity. The Oslo peace process involved more than a historical accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians and the final setting of Israel’s territorial borders , it also involved the reshaping of Israeli national identity. It heralded a new era of Israeli-Palestinian peace and reconciliation, and with it a new Israeli identity. Peace and reconciliation, however, never came. Instead, the collapse of the Oslo peace process led to violence and bitter recriminations between Israelis and Palestinians. More than eighteen years after Rabin’s 134 ▲ Dov Waxman assassination, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains stubbornly unresolved . Indeed, it is one of the most protracted violent ethno-national conflicts in the world. To understand why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so intractable we must take into account not only the issues at stake, but also the identities of the antagonists. It is their national identities as well as their national interests that Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over. Rival national identities are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a conflict over these identities, just as much as it is a conflict over land and resources. Recognizing this often overlooked dimension of the conflict is essential to its ultimate resolution. Peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians depends upon changes to both of their national identities. Without changing their national identities, any IsraeliPalestinian peace agreement will be fragile at best, if not completely unattainable . But while mutual identity change is necessary for there to be an enduring and stable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it is also a potential obstacle to be overcome. National identities cannot just be revised at will. Attempts by policymakers and political elites to redefine national identities from above are by no means always successful and risk provoking fierce domestic opposition, as Rabin’s assassination tragically demonstrates. By examining the case of Israeli identity and the Oslo peace process, this chapter contributes to a broader understanding of the extent to which national identities are resistant to change and the ways in which they can complicate peacemaking efforts. I will argue that although changes to national identities are often necessary for peacemaking efforts to succeed, attempting such changes can arouse internal resistance that may derail a peace process. Hence, with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this chapter stresses the need to address identity issues in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, while also underlining the political risks involved in doing so. To support and illustrate this argument, I examine the attempt by the Rabin government at the beginning of the Oslo peace process in the early 1990s to revise Israeli identity in accordance with its policy of peacemaking with the Palestinians, and the domestic backlash this generated. This chapter also has theoretical implications for democratic peace theory. The argument of this chapter that collective identities can be an Identity Matters ▲ 135 obstacle to peacemaking efforts draws our attention to the fact that popular norms, beliefs, and ideas within a democracy are not always or necessarily conducive to peace and peacemaking. Some proponents of democratic peace theory (Doyle 1986; Weart 1998) have attributed democracy’s pacifist inclinations to ideational variables, particularly a collective norm that disputes should be resolved peacefully. Not all ideational variables in a democracy promote peace, however. National identities, religious beliefs, and other ideational variables can sometimes promote or sustain conflict. There is, therefore, no reason to assume, as one...