| CONFERENCES 2000 - EuroMeSCo | |
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Volker Perthes
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin
(Comment to the Panel on "Palestinian Transition")
Regarding the title of this panel – “Palestine in Transition: Experience and Lessons”-, I have to say that I learned quite something about Palestinian experiences, but I still have a couple of questions concerning the lessons from the Palestinian experience, as well as the issue of transition.
We have learned through five excellent presentations about the structural difficulties of peace negotiations on the Palestinian-Israeli track (from Hani Al-Hassan and Hanan Ashrawi), we have learned about the lack of consultation and democratic participation (from Mohammed Jadallah), we have learned about the responsibility of Israelis, Palestinians and third parties for the lack of real transition (from Ghassan Khatib) and about the failures of external parties to protect the peace process against the imbalances of power. We have also heard about the failure to link “democracy programmes” to social services (from Izzat Abdul Hadi), and, very importantly, we have heard that there is indeed a public opinion that counts – not only in Israel, but in Palestine as well (from Hanan Ashrawi).
However, let me ask you a couple of questions, from a European perspective, about the lessons to be drawn from the Palestinian experience. There are several points here that could be valuable for the Euro-Mediterranean experiment too. One: is there something to be learned from the negotiations on the Palestinian-Israeli track for the Syrian and Lebanese tracks that are still less advanced; issues that come to my mind are those of gradualism, and of postponing central issues. We may also ask whether Palestinians and Israelis, over their long negotiations, acquired some particular experience in peace-making, or even in cooperation between societal actors, that could be made use of for the Syrian and Lebanese tracks.
Other issues are the lessons which the Europeans might draw from their involvement in Palestine. Europe has been involved politically in Palestine (and the Palestinian track of the peace process) much more than on any other track: Consider Europe’s support programmes for Palestinian universities and government institutions, or even for security cooperation. Political involvement, of course, always involves a degree of interference with the sovereign rights of another political entity.
One might ask, of course, whether we can speak of interference with another entity’s sovereignty if that entity, i.e. Palestine, has not yet become sovereign in the first place. Nevertheless, we have to admit that the question of how much political involvement is appreciated by our partners, and at what point it turns into interference, which is refused, constitutes a problem for the entire Euro-Med Partnership. And perhaps we can learn from our Palestinian experience here.
Regarding the issue of transition, I got the impression that all speakers understood this concept as referring to the transition from occupation to independence or statehood, or state-building. What I missed was the notion of socio-political transitions and elite changes. Are their no new elite, new leaders, emerging from society that have a different understanding of politics, of governance, and of cooperation than the old leadership that we find in both the PA and the opposition? We have heard in this panel that the “old left” is not much more open to pluralism and political competition than the ‘sulta’. And we know from experience that many of the Palestinian NGOs are not actually very open to co-operation among each other. So the question is – and its relevance extends beyond the Palestinian case – where new elites would come from, that are less authorization, less a mirror–image of the old elites, and more open to pluralism and cooperation.
Let me close with a note on a remark by Mohammed Jadallah. He said that Palestinians do not feel to be part of the negotiations. My feeling (probably coming from a very “realistic” perspective of international relations) is, that this is nothing particular to the Palestinians, or to the Arab-Israeli peace process. People do not make peace. States do (this, among other reasons, makes it necessary that a Palestinian state is established). People, then, have to fill peace with life, to build their state, and to manage transitions.