The Balance of Power and the Search for a Palestinian State

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

No negotiations take place over any issue, large or small, at an international, party, or personal level, in isolation from the balance of power between the parties. And the importance of the scope and scale of the balance of power at the state level varies according to the type of negotiations, their subject, and the relationship of the negotiating parties to one another.

For example, there are negotiations between friends — negotiations of understanding aimed at arranging relations, or resolving incidental problems arising from daily activities or non-hostile conflicts of interest. There are negotiations over matters governed by international law that the parties acknowledge, which are not hostile but reconciliatory. There are confrontational negotiations arising from a conflict of interests, where each side tries to gain the greatest benefit at the other’s expense. And there are coercive negotiations, in which one side tries to get what it wants despite the other side’s objections, and so on.

Negotiations between states do not fall under a single classification — they vary according to the subject under discussion, and their requirements multiply accordingly. For instance, reconciliatory negotiations under international law do not require a large amount of power to influence the other side, but the amount of power required to settle claims of land ownership is large, and may reach the level of a race to accumulate power between the parties.

In every case, the negotiating table requires cards of strength that each side uses to influence the other, even if held covertly, or through insinuation and hints. And if the table is devoid of such cards of strength, it is difficult to call it a negotiating table at all — it is merely a table of talks, since negotiation consists of give and take, tightening and loosening, pulling and repelling, or a contest of wills resting on something beyond themselves, whereas talks consist of listening and attempting mutual understanding, without rising to the level of a contest of wills.

Israeli-Palestinian Talks

What has taken place between Palestinians and Zionists since 1991 amounts to talks that have never once risen to the level of negotiations, because of the absence of a balance of power between the two sides, and the absence of any cards of strength in Palestinian hands. The table at which the two sides sit has remained empty of any arm-wrestling contest, and the Israeli side never needed to show its cards, because its cards were already present on the ground — the confiscation of land, the continuation of settlement construction, the Judaization of Jerusalem, and so on.

The Palestinians went to the Madrid Conference after accepting the American conditions set by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1975, which were in fact Israeli conditions. The PLO accepted these conditions at the Algiers Conference in 1988, recognizing Israel and Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, having already renounced terrorism in 1985 through a statement made by Arafat at the time.

The PLO had set one condition for accepting the American terms: American recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination — but it abandoned that condition, and accepted the other side’s terms unconditionally. In addition to the bitter reality the PLO was going through internally and externally in 1991, its acceptance of going to the Madrid Conference meant accepting the fait accompli and turning historic, traditional slogans into media material disconnected from reality. In other words, the PLO effectively accepted talks in which the other side might decide to give something — it was never qualified for negotiations.

A Strategy of Weakness

The official Palestinian side has not hesitated, since the Madrid Conference, to affirm its rejection and renunciation of violence and its adherence to what it calls “negotiations” to resolve the crisis or the existing conflict. It has become clear that the Palestinian side has adopted a strategy of weakness — a strategy unique of its kind in the history of conflict between peoples.

This strategy holds that the Palestinian side is not hostile, does not want wars or fighting, is not preparing at all for any military duel, and does not intend to develop its military or defensive capabilities no matter how far things go at the table it calls negotiations. Mr. Abu Mazen has confirmed this repeatedly, saying “our choice is negotiations,” and affirming that if negotiations fail, he will negotiate, and if that fails, he will negotiate again.

The message of the strategy of weakness is directed not at oneself but at the other, and its content is that there are rights belonging to whoever adopts it, that he is incapable of seizing them, or does not want to seize them, and does not work to seize them, and that he is entirely peaceful, does not incline toward bloodshed, and is prepared to pursue anyone seeking confrontation — and therefore deserves to be viewed with sympathy, assistance, or pity, so that he might obtain even a portion of the rights he says are his.

And the message says that the other side, Israel, should feel reassured about the future, because the Palestinian state that might be graciously bestowed will not be hostile or antagonistic, and will abide by whatever conditions are placed upon it.

The Palestinian strategy of weakness rests on convincing Israel that the price of peace with the Palestinians is not exorbitant, requiring only a curbing of Zionist ambitions regarding settlement and land confiscation, and recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, without specifying what this state would actually be.

And as long as the Israeli side remains resistant to persuasion, working through the great powers, the United States especially, might prove fruitful. The Palestinian strategist believes that convincing the United States of the Palestinian vision might lead to American pressure being exerted on Israel, causing it to accept the Palestinian demand.

History has never seen the philosophy of weakness succeed, and it is clear that its adoption by Palestinians has not proven useful. Israel has not been convinced, America has not applied pressure, and Israel’s aggressive policies have not diminished.

Fleeing from America to the United States

The official Palestinian side has been unable to obtain anything beyond what Israel has wanted to see crystallize since 1967. Israel wanted to establish an Arab authority to manage the affairs of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza so that it would not appear before the world as an occupying state, and wanted this authority to play a security role serving Israel.

At the same time, it had no objection to leniency on humanitarian matters, if it saw fit according to its security standards and strategic interests. For example, it has no objection to allowing Palestinians to import vaccines against spreading diseases, but it does not permit Al-Aqsa Mosque to become a safe place for worshippers.

The Palestinian side believed the United States would exert its power in support of the Palestinians, and would pressure Israel into accepting this peace offered not only by the Palestinians but by the Arab states collectively. Official Palestinians, together with Arab regimes, made many concessions — some recognized Israel, normalized relations with it, and cooperated with it militarily and in security matters — but without obtaining anything tangible from the United States, and continued spinning within an empty American circle about the continuation of negotiations and the necessity of breaking the deadlock. It was not difficult to conclude, logically and practically, that America is Israel’s partner, not an honest broker.

Perhaps the official Palestinian sense of despair drove the turn toward the United Nations, hoping its demands might find an echo there. But in doing so, it fled from America to the United States — like someone seeking refuge from the fire in the scorching desert heat. Beyond the fact that the United Nations is itself one of the fundamental elements in the making of the Palestinian people’s tragedy, it was never expected that the United States would allow a UN resolution recognizing a Palestinian state — and so it has been.

The Old Balance of Power

The Palestinian Authority, and the PLO before it, planned its activity toward finding a peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause based on a balance of power entirely skewed in Israel’s favor at the regional level, and in the United States’ favor at the global level.

In the justification prevalent during the Madrid Conference, the PLO said it was going to negotiations and recognizing Israel because the balance of power had shifted in Israel’s favor following the fall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Iraq, and that Palestinians had no choice but to accept the conditions for entering negotiations, otherwise solutions would proceed without those who actually own the cause.

I was never among those convinced by the Palestinian justification, and my assessment was that the Palestinian leadership had failed to fulfill its duty over the years — I had already predicted the outcome back in the 1970s. I had anticipated the PLO’s recognition of Israel and its path of talks toward reaching a solution with Israel, based on the evidence I laid out in a book titled “The Road to Defeat.”

But even if we were to accept, for argument’s sake, that the PLO’s justification was correct, we find that it did not work, over twenty years of negotiation, to overcome this imbalance in the balance of power, but instead preferred to remain within the old framework.

Now the Palestinian Authority operates within a balance of power that once was, but no longer exists. It exists in the mind of the Palestinian leadership, and exists in the West Bank if we isolate it from the outside world, but it no longer exists within the currently prevailing power equation.

Israel is no longer capable of waging its traditional wars, in which it used to be victorious before they even began, and the United States is no longer capable of, or willing to engage in, military adventures. Israel failed disastrously in the 2006 war, was unable to achieve its goals in the Cast Lead war on Gaza in 2008/2009, and has come to fully realize that the region now has a different Arab soldier than before, and that self-reliance in terms of armament has become an established reality. The two wars shook its security doctrine, and it has been forced to make fundamental changes to its military and security outlook.

As for America, it has suffered severe exhaustion as a result of its two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was forced to halt its direct participation in the war against the Gaddafi regime. America is intellectually depleted to a considerable degree, and this intellectual depletion has led it into military pitfalls and foolish adventures that have brought it great harm — not to mention its economic exhaustion, which it is struggling hard to escape.

Israel’s Anxieties in Its Maneuvers

Israel is a state that never neglects its security — it is constantly active in security and military matters, always vigilant over its various affairs, and there is no doubt it has set an example in caution, training, organization, armament, and execution.

But its circumstances now are much more difficult than they were years ago, and this is evident in its maneuvers and patterns of preparation. For example, Israel used to train for entering Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, but now it trains for how to expel Hezbollah fighters from its northern cities.

It used to train for bombing specific sites in Arab countries, but now it trains for how to reduce the danger of Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s rockets. It used to train for bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor, but now it trains for how to confront the Iranian response, should it decide to bomb sites in Iran, and so on.

Israel now operates with far less information than it used to obtain in the past. Israel fought a blind war against Hezbollah in 2006, and was taken by surprise by the military tactics the other side used, and by the type of weapons available to it. It is now preparing and developing more weapons, and trying to devise new military methods of confrontation, but at the same time it does not have enough information to plan properly.

The Arab armies used to be an open hand before its intelligence services, and it used to wage wars armed with enough information to deliver decisive blows, but it can no longer do so now. In any case, this is a matter that requires extensive analysis, but the basic idea is that Israel is no longer what it once was.

The New Balance of Power

The Arab-Islamic region is now witnessing a new balance of power, one that does not favor Israel, or at least no longer favors Israel as it once did. Israel now knows that war is no longer a picnic, and that the possibility of losing a coming war is very real. So will Palestinians remain within the old balance of power, or must they break out of their cocoon to see a now-different world?

Whoever operates within an old balance of power prefers to remain in the past, and does not try to benefit from new realities and changes. The truth is that if the Palestinian Authority wants to continue negotiations, it must sit at a genuine negotiating table within the new balance of power. This requires changing alliances, or at least rearranging its relations in a way that brings the new balance of power into the negotiating equation.

But if it wants to remain within the past, Palestinians will keep spinning in a vicious circle. It is true that the transition to new alliances is costly, and Palestinians will lose financial aid and assistance, but the homeland is too sacred to be a subject of bargaining. The present is always stronger than what once was, and whoever insists on remaining in the past is insisting on remaining defeated, trailing behind the nations.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ميزان القوى والبحث عن دولة فلسطينية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.