Creating the Conditions for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

The article conceptualizes a prenegotiation process, designed to create the political and psychological conditions for beginning Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward a mutually satisfactory settlement, conducive to stable peace and reconciliation. The goal is direct negotiation of a win-win formula for sharing the land, within a framework utilizing the legitimacy achieved by each side. To mobilize existing incentives for such negotiations (despite severe political and psychological constraints) requires steps that increase the sense of opportunity and decrease the sense of danger associated with negotiations. Such steps confront a dilemma, rooted in the conflict's special zero-sum character: Acceptance of the other party's identity and rights (which it needs to feel reassured) is profoundly threatening to each side's own identity and rights. To overcome the resulting barriers to negotiation, a process of successive approximations is outlined, which enables each party to offer the other sufficient reassurance to begin communication without thereby threatening its own vital interests.