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

3: Spoiling the Peace

67 3 Spoiling the Peace State Structure and the Capacity of Hard-Liners to Foil Peacemaking Efforts 1 Oded Haklai Introduction The focus of this chapter is on domestic institutional structures that have enabled mobilized domestic opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to disrupt peacemaking efforts since the early 1990s. The chapter pays particular attention to organized ideological settlers and religious groups who have opposed territorial compromise and have undertaken steps that undermine the credibility of government commitments, particularly on the issue of settlements construction and expansion. Since the 1. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the conference, “Democracy, Religion and Conflict: The Dilemmas of Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking,” Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, March 26, 2009; the ISA annual conferences in San Francisco, March 26–29, 2008 and New York, February 15–18, 2009; the Munk Centre, University of Toronto, November 14, 2008, and a number of other seminars. I am grateful to Austin Carson, Alex Downes, Miriam F. Elman, Charlie Glaser, Ian S. Lustick, Ilan Peleg, Jeremy Pressman, George Quester, Joanna Spears, Hendrik Spruyt, and Paul Williams, as well as to audience members for their useful comments . I am also grateful to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University for funding that facilitated work on this project. 68 ▲ Oded Haklai first half of the 1990s, more than 100 new Israeli settlements have been built in the West Bank by settlers without the formal government authorization stipulated in Israeli law (Sasson 2005; Haklai 2007). Commonly referred to as “the illegal outposts,” these settlements have been a particularly thorny issue in the eyes of Palestinian negotiators, US mediators, and the international community at large, who have identified these settlements , or outposts, as a significant obstacle to building trust and advancing Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. Facing external pressures, consecutive Israeli governments have made commitments to the US administration to remove these contentious settlements/outposts, but in the face of domestic obstacles, these commitments have not been fulfilled. In recent years, a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature has acknowledged the impact of domestic factors—structures and actors—on peace processes (Lust-Okar and Organski 2002; Menkhaus 2006; Schweller 1992; Spruyt 2005). Within this body of literature, the role that hard-liners and militants play in foiling peacemaking efforts has not gone unnoticed (Kydd and Walter 2002; Lust-Okar and Organski 2002). Some have recognized that the internal opposition to the peace process that Israeli governments and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been facing is preventing them from proceeding with necessary compromises (Erlich 2001; Lust-Okar and Organski 2002). A regional perspective , however, reveals that vociferous opposition to peacemaking is not unique to Israel and the PA. Egypt is home to a potent Islamic movement and many other organized forces (such as trade and labor unions) that for many decades opposed normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Likewise , a large segment of Jordan’s population is Palestinian, arguably the most aggrieved national group in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And yet, both Jordan and Egypt made peace—if cold—with Israel despite widespread domestic scepticism. Why should Israeli and Palestinian opponents be more successful at disrupting the peace process? It could be argued that the political leadership is uninterested in making far-reaching compromises. As the chapters by Aronoff and Peleg discuss, choices made by leaders are consequential. It is possible that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes it is in Israel’s best interest to maintain its settlements in the West Bank. Unsuccessful peacemaking Spoiling the Peace ▲ 69 efforts, however, predate Netanyahu’s government. Prime ministers who have viewed Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as an Israeli best interest and have offered evacuation of many settlers, like Ehud Olmert, have also faced tremendous difficulties preventing settler-led settlement construction and expansion. Ultimately, the conundrum relates to opponents who manage to disrupt peacemaking efforts led by heads of executives who do view territorial compromises as being in the best interest of their people.2 This chapter argues that the answer to the puzzle lies in state attributes , specifically, state cohesion and extensiveness. The degree of state cohesion and extensiveness determines the capacity of the regime to advance its preferences and the opportunities available for hard-liners to operate and succeed. Favorable institutional conditions, however, are not enough to engender activism...