International Symposium - The Obama Middle East Peace Initiative: Lessons Learnt and Implications for a Dialogical Roadmap for Peace
Research and Development Park Conference Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne
Thursday and Friday 23 - 24 June 2011
Background
As President Obama assumed office, most commentators agreed on one thing: that the strength and quality of the relationships between Muslim and Western societies were under considerable strain. In forging a new Middle East policy, the incoming Administration had to contend with the wide-ranging expectations of Arab and Islamic countries which were themselves riddled with their own divisions. The Administration also inherited two unpopular and relatively unsuccessful wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - both of which faced deep-seated and intractable problems of their own. Even more challenging was the need to review the relationship with two other key stakeholders, namely the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In response to high expectations and profound anxieties, the Obama Administration set out in the first few months of 2009 on a large-scale exercise in advocacy and shuttle diplomacy. Central to this process were a number of ground-breaking speeches delivered by the President himself, notably in Cairo, Istanbul, and Jakarta. In September 2010 after months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, along with the Egyptian and Jordanian governments, met in a series of talks hosted by the Obama Administration. The aim was to forge a new framework for peace. To date, relatively little progress has been made.
With the dramatic events now sweeping many parts of the Arab world, the middle of 2011 serves as an opportune moment to revisit the vicissitudes of the peace process and the lessons to be learnt from the Obama initiative, especially when viewed from a dialogical perspective. Simply put, the aim of the Symposium is to place this most recent third party attempt at mediation into a larger conceptual and practical framework, and to explore ways in which it might still be possible to advance the prospects for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. For this to happen it is necessary to include a dimension to which lip service is often paid, but is seldom rigorously considered, namely the role of civil society.
What will the Symposium do?
The Syposium is designed to analyse and evaluate the approach - both what was said and left unsaid, what was done and not done – of the Obama Administration in the Middle East during 2009 and 2010, with particular reference to the Israel-Palestine conflict, keeping in mind, however, recent dramatic developments in many parts of the Arab world.
In examining the US role in the Middle East, the proposed Symposium will seek to clarify several questions which are critical if we are to understand why these initiatives have thus far failed to bear fruit, and what a dialogical perspective might bring to the analysis of recent efforts and future prospects. The focus will centre on the difficulties that inevitably accompany any attempt by a third party (in this case, the United States) to inject a meaningful and sustained dialogue in a situation marked by longstanding and profound mistrust, suspicion, and hostility.
Compounding the difficulties involved is the fact that this conflict brings to the fore the conflicting attitudes, perceptions and interests not of two monolithic parties, but two parties (Israel and Palestine), each of which is itself the site of profound division not only about strategy and tactics, but about objectives. Though not as dramatic as the struggle for Palestine, which pits Hamās against Fatah, the political differences within Israel about the central question of the nature and future of the Jewish state are no less troublesome or divisive. The Symposium seeks to make sense of US diplomacy by posing probing questions regarding its own understanding of the nature and dynamics of the conflict on the one hand and its conceptualisation and operationalisation of the 'dialogue' process on the other. Specifically, the Symposium will seek to clarify whether the US Administration (and by extension the Israeli Government, the Palestinian Authority and other key actors) are psychologically, intellectually and organizationally equipped to bring fresh ideas to the peace process– and more to the point what factors are assisting or impeding this possibility.
This is precisely where the role of civil society becomes especially salient. In this context three key questions merit careful consideration:
- What role has civil society played (especially in relation to the negotiating process) in the United States, in Israel, among the Palestinian community, in the Arab countries, and among the Jewish and Palestinian Diaspora in different parts of the world?
- Has civil society in these different political domains facilitated or impeded the process of dialogue?
- How might civil society be enabled to play a more effective facilitating role? What would be the implications of such an approach for the relationship between state and civil society?
The question of civil society is one which has been brought to the fore by the visible upsurge of public opposition in several Arab countries over the last few months. The aim is to examine the role of civil society not in isolation but in relation to the political process, that is to the attitudes and perceptions of governments and the key political players in the conflict as well as to salient international forums and institutions. In line with these objectives, papers to be presented at the Symposium will be asked to address one or other of the following questions:
- What exactly is the Obama Administration’s underlying strategy for facilitating a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian settlement? How does this strategy fit in with the Administration’s wider policies in the Middle East? What are the important elements of change and continuity when compared with the strategies and policies of previous administrations?
- How did the Obama Administration engage the conservative-radical tension that represents one of the distinguishing features of the current Middle Eastern political-religious spectrum - within Israel, Palestine and the Arab world more widely?
- To what extent have the efforts of the Obama Administration been constrained by its inability to engage a wider array of stakeholders in the dialogue - e.g. Hamas, Syria, Iran? How effectively did the US coordinate its activities with the EU, the UN, Russia or China?
- How has the Obama Administration viewed the role of the Jewish and Israeli Diaspora? To what extent, and with what success, has it attempted to incorporate these elements of American society into the dialogue agenda?
- To what extent can civil society play a more active role in the dialogue process? With what kind of implicit or explicit relationship with government/s?
- Can we envisage a multidimensional dialogue process and strategy that involves many, if not all, the actors referred to above? How can such a dialogue be stimulated? What useful steps might a sympathetically disposed US Administration (and other national and international actors) take in this direction in the short and longer terms?