Unofficial Talks Yielded Mideast Peace

reprinted from The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 14, 1993
By Jay Rothman

Viewing the secret talks in Oslo between Israelis and Palestinians as a kind of fluke lessens them. Their success wasn't a case in which the stars all happened for one brief moment to line up and finally smile on the troubled Middle East. It took decades of toil.
The media have discussed in detail two of the three factors that converged to help bring about the peace agreement witnessed in Washington yesterday by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
One factor is the currents of history that finally swept the two sides together-from the 1967 war to the Camp David Accords, from the Gulf War to the Madrid talks. Another is the converging self-interests of Rabin, his foreign minister Shimon Peres and Arafat, who were pressed to make peace or move over for hardliners.
But the third, and equally important factor, is much less known. This is the "track two" unofficial diplomacy and its part in what Secretary of State Warren Christopher called the "conceptual breakthrough" achieved in Oslo.
It involved many hundreds of "academic" meetings, in the U.S., in Europe, even in the outskirts of Jerusalem through which a new agenda articulating the human dimension of the Middle East conflict-the hopes, fears, motivations, values and needs of the people, not their politicians-was gradually constructed.
The participants in these meetings-academics, businessmen, leaders of community groups, artists and analysts, among whom I number- insisted that in existential conflicts of this type, political deals at the highest level could be consolidated only through confidence and commitment from those whose lives and destinies were at stake.
Not until Oslo were these insights really formally incorporated into the broader peace process that had been running out of steam. This "track one" diplomacy, guided by the Kissingers, Sadats, Carters, Bakers and other "big names," was necessary but insufficient to bring real peace to the Middle East. Former Secretary of State Jams Baker acknowledged as much at the end of the Madrid talks, which he initiated: "Formulas, terms of reference and negotiations are not enough. Support for a negotiating process will not be sustainable unless the human dimension is addressed by all parties."
The PLO had to be included in peace talks. Without them, there would be no progress. And without an agreement on that front, talks with Syria would also be stymied.
The success in Oslo resulted from talks among a small group of academics, with sanction from the top. They generated interesting ideas that were handed off to Peres, Rabin and Arafat. Desperate for a breakthrough, these leaders got one.

Three factors led to success:

• First, with the support of third party facilitators to assist the process and help foster a calm and peaceful environment, the meetings were held in absolute secrecy, freeing participants of constituency constraints and enabling creative exploration of new ideas. The talks were "safe" because if leaks had occurred, the higher-ups could deny their significance by relegating them to what in fact they were: analytic and exploratory discussion among academics.
• Second, the talks focused on a different type and style of discourse than is possible in formal political negotiations. This involved establishing an agenda that moved away from exclusive positions (e.g., statehood vs. autonomy) to underlying and overlapping needs and interests (e.g. safety, control over destiny, mutual problem-solving, economic development and well-being.).
• Third, when new ideas were generated, they were communicated to the right channels and given concrete expression in policy.

The broader meaning of these dramatic events, so potentially earth-shaking and peace-building, is that what these "underlings" did in Oslo was neither sudden nor serendipitous.
Track two diplomacy is studied in universities and diplomatic academies. It helped set the stage for peace between Israel and Egypt prior to Camp David. It has been ongoing, at unofficial levels for several decades between hundreds and thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. It is happening now with enemies in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and parts of the former Soviet Union.

The success at Oslo does set a precedent, but it is not unprecedented.