Download PDF Version
Printable Version
Reconciliation: Lessons for Peace and Justice in Palestine (Part One) By Hania Bekdash
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Palestine
Center Brief No. 181 (18 August
2009)
By Hania Bekdash*
Overview: Often, peace in the Holy Land is treated as the consequence of a negotiated settlement on material issues between Israel and the Palestinians: the border, jurisdiction over East Jerusalem, the fate of the refugees, Palestinian militarization and sovereignty. This understanding undermines the importance of historical memory. Positive peace will not come about simply by agreeing on such issues, but instead rests on popular-level historic memory and feelings towards the other.1
Israelis and Palestinians must engage in reconciliation efforts to achieve sustainable peace. Reconciliation does not necessarily imply "forgiveness." Instead, it is a means of conflict transformation. The aim of reconciliation is to form new relationships among divided groups by addressing historical grievances and systemic injustices while working toward future cooperation. In the context of inter-group conflict, reconciliation is sought among national, political, social groups or sometimes between individual members of one or more groups. Conflict settlement without reconciliation leaves historic grievances and systemic injustices embedded in collective memories and narratives which often may lead to prolonged cycles of violence.
In the absence of a credible reconciliation process, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely result in unfavorable and unsustainable “solutions.” For instance, the most likely alternative to reconciliation would be a two-state “solution” reflecting the current power asymmetry through cantonized Palestinian communities with Israeli domination over resources.2 Other unfavorable results may involve a total military defeat or a continuation of the “status quo”. Looking at reconciliation processes in prior conflicts offers some lessons that can be applied to Israel and the Palestinians.
What is Reconciliation?
Reconciliation is one part of the greater framework of transitional justice. The International Center for Transitional Justice defines transitional justice as a process that "seeks recognition for victims and to promote possibilities for peace, reconciliation, and democracy.”3 Recognition can vary from mere acknowledgment of responsibility to establishing formal judicial bodies such as criminal tribunals. Transitional justice embodies a variety of mechanisms, including: criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, security system reform and memorialization efforts. In its formal application, reconciliation has been a function of state sponsored truth and justice mechanisms but it can also be very instrumental at the grassroots level. The International Center for Transitional Justice stresses the importance of incorporating as many of the five approaches as possible because one alone is often insufficient.
Transitional justice mechanisms offer the hope of recovery from both inter and intra-group conflict. After reaching a stalemate in unabated conflict and violence, some inter-group conflicts converted from struggles for nationalist liberation to campaigns for political and economic equality; major examples include South Africa and Northern Ireland. In other cases, reconciliation was deemed a goal of inter-state collaboration like the reconciliation between post-Yugoslav states with their dominant focus on international retributive justice via the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.4
Since no two conflicts are identical, it follows that any transitional justice mechanisms or reconciliation institutions created for Israel and Palestine must be individualized. There can be no archetypal or model framework for post-conflict reconciliation. Many have attempted to provide important guidelines which refer to academic conflict transformation frameworks more generally5 or design a tentative model for Israel-Palestine specifically6. Examples from other conflicts can provide important insights on which policymakers and peacemakers must draw. These lessons are crucial for Palestinians and Israelis to move forward from the occupation and history of displacement, whether their path to peace lies in partition or unification.
Truth and Justice
The pursuit of truth and justice is central to reconciliation. Because there are different interpretations for the “core causes” of the conflict, two kinds of truth commissions are necessary for Israel and Palestine to expose and overcome from both historical grievances and systemic injustices. Israel and many of its supporters view this conflict as an identity-based quest for ethnic survival attached to their historic homeland. Palestinians are driven by a desire to restore land that was stolen and seek justice against Israeli oppression and occupation. An objective historical investigation of the past that sets out for a truth may be needed towards the building of a common narrative. Palestinian legislator, activist and scholar Hanan Ashrawi explains, “allowing the truth to come out will go a long way to starting a process of reconciliation.”7
Divergent narratives are considered a major factor in prolonging many intractable conflicts. An absence of a common historical narrative impedes reconciliation because each party views itself as the sole and absolute victim and justifies its use of violence or oppression as a means to prevent perpetual victimhood. Northern Ireland tried several different kinds of commissions and imposed government-mandated political laws to achieve the status of equality categorized as distributive justice. Still, society remained separated along ethnic cleavages due to conflicting historical narratives. A Historical Enquiries Team was eventually created in 2005 to address these grievances8. Bosnia is another example of a case where historical grievances continue to fuel disunity and unrest and is described today as more ethnically divided than it has been in the past fourteen years9. Rwanda’s conflicting narratives is another example of strife perpetuated by warring parties viewing “the other” as unconditional perpetrators.10
The existing Palestinian-Israeli relationship is often treated as zero-sum in terms of the differing historical narratives. Accepting a historic truth, independent of polarized collective memories, is consequently central to reconciliation. Formulating a common historical narrative is not impossible. For example, a joint German, Czech and Slovak historical commission succeeded in drafting a common interpretation of the events of 1938-1947.11 A similar joint historical commission would be necessary in Israel and Palestine to prevent biased interpretations. It may present a unified story that not everyone will agree on but it would be a powerful starting point to a necessary conversation.
Fortunately, there are still classified documents in Israeli archives that can be used in deciding historical narrative and truth12, as can the documentation of oral history narratives of the survivors of key events. The emergence of “new historians” in Israel focusing on the establishment of the state in 1948 offers one such avenue for collective narrative-building. They argue that in 1948 “it cannot be disputed that the Jews (and later the IDF) carried out violent acts, often targeting civilians.”13 This, some argue, is not only possible but also inevitable as information and exchange is facilitated by technology. Director of Mada al-Carmel and Palestinian Israeli Professor of Conflict Resolution Nadim Rouhana believes new Israeli historians represent a “greater readiness of new generations, farther removed from the original injustice, to face the historical truth.”14 In facing the historical truth, apologies and reparations can then be sought similar to those offered to Israel by Germany after World War II.
The second kind of truth commissions that should be established must deal with addressing and remedying injustice. Those, for instance, whose homes have been demolished or appropriated, must be compensated for their losses. Otherwise, those victims not accounted for in peace agreements may turn to violence which would threaten to undermine them. The risks of failing to account for history are thus tangible.
Such commissions raise the difficult tension between the simple restoration of victims’ livelihoods and retribution against the former oppressors; the latter may be at odds with peace. Determining what kind of transitional justice mechanisms are best suited to the conflict is therefore integral to the process. Restorative justice is aimed at healing the relationship between the victims and perpetrators and seeks to restore communal well-being by acknowledging and validating victim’s experiences of wrongs committed. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is perhaps the most well-known example. Retributive justice concentrates on punishment of crimes by domestic and international bodies. For example, criminal tribunals of Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia led to the imprisonment of war criminals.
Many scholars prefer restorative rather than retributive justice in Israel-Palestine because the conflict involves a diverse and broad set of actors, far beyond the simple formula of high-level perpetrators on whom formal criminal trials generally focus; retributive justice would therefore not be able to capture the complex nature of violations in the conflict.15 Retributive forms of justice may also not be feasible. Truth commissions are likely better equipped to address the long and complex nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict because violence is more systemic than interpersonal. Therefore, “even successful prosecutions do not resolve the conflict and pain associated with past abuses.”16 Furthermore, in Israel and Palestine, “recognition of responsibility is not likely to lead to demands for the prosecution of individual perpetrators of crimes.17” Considering both models and concerns is an important part of the reconciliation process especially since Palestinians view the concept of justice as primary to their historic narrative18.
For the continuation of this article, please click here.
*
This information brief was written by Palestine
Center
intern Hania Bekdash, a student at the Fletcher
School at Tufts University, as
culmination of her research during the Summer
2009 Internship Program. The
views expressed within are her own and do not
necessarily reflect those of The
Jerusalem Fund or its educational program, The
Palestine Center. This brief may
be used without permission if credit is given
to the
Center.
1 Galtung, Johan. (1969) “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 6, No. 3. 167-191. Positive peace as described by Johan Galtung as an end to both physical and structural violence and systemic injustices.
2 Ali Abunimah, One Country (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006); Ilan Pappé, “The Visible and Invisible in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” in Exiles and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, ed. Ann Lesch and Ian Lustick (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 179-295; Tilley, Virginia. The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
3 Louis Bickford, "What is Transitional Justice?," http://ictj.org/en/tj/ (accessed on 6/23/09).
4 Daniel Bar-Tal, "From Intractable Conflict Through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis," Political Psychology 21, no. 2 (2000): 351-365.
5 David Crocker, "Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework," Ethics and International Affairs 13, no. (1999): 43-64.
6 Daniel Bar-Tal, "From Intractable Conflict Through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis," Political Psychology 21, no. 2 (2000): 351-365.
7 Yoav Peled, Nadim Rouhana,“Transitional Justice and the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees”, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 5, no. 2 (2004): 328
8 Nevin Aiken, “Learning to Live Together: Transitional Justice and Intergroup Reconciliation in Northern Ireland,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association’s 50th Annual Convention “Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future”, New York, NY February 15-18, 2009. USA Online <PDF>. 2009-05-22 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p314063_index.html
9 Nebojsa Bjelakovic, "Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice in the post-Yugoslav States," Southeast European Politics 3, no. 2-3 (2002): 163-167; "Bosnia Marks Srebrenica with No Reconciliation in Sight," Agence France Presse, July 9, 2009, http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200907092153dowjonesdjonline000919&title=bosnia-marks-srebrenica-with-no-reconciliation-in-sight (accessed on 7/9/09).
10 Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
11 Daniel Bar-Tal, "From Intractable Conflict Through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis," Political Psychology 21, no. 2 (2000): 359.
12 Benny Morris, “Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948”, in The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim eds.) Cambridge University Press, 2001: 49-50.
13 Ami Isseroff, "Nakba: The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited." [Weblog Zionism-Israel Weblog] 30 March 2008. Progressive Zionism and Israel Weblog. Web.2 http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000518.html (accessed on 5/12/2009).
14 Yoav Peled, Nadim Rouhana,“Transitional Justice and the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees”, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 5, no. 2 (2004): 322.
15 Ariel Meyerstein, "Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Israel/Palestine: Assessing the Applicability of the Truth Commission Paradigm," Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 38, (2007): 307
16 Priscilla Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity. (New York: Routledge, 2001): 14.
17 Yoav Peled, Nadim Rouhana,“Transitional Justice and the Right of Return of the Palestinian Refugees”, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 5, no. 2 (2004): 329
18 Gershon Shafir, “Reflections on the Right of Return: Divisible or Indivisible?” in Exiles and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews, ed. Ann Lesch and Ian Lustick (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005): 297-317