Israel, Palestine, and the Last Four U.S. Presidencies: An In-Depth Analysis

Abstract

The Israel-Palestine conflict is, at the same time, one of the most important challenges in international politics and one of the most difficult issues to solve. The problem is made worse by the fact that stakeholders do not refrain from spin, bias, and historical falsification, so it is not easy to obtain even an objective statement of relevant facts much less to provide a clear analysis and propose a workable solution. The chief goal of this thesis is to contribute to the clarification of some of the main issues in this conflict by employing a useful tool of analysis in international relations called the Three-Level Analysis (Allison & Zelikow, 2000). Because this approach looks at the immediate decision makers in a particular issue in international relations, as well as the constraints placed upon them by the organizations of which they are parts and the ideological commitments to which they ascribe, it is possible to analyze important decisions from several angles. Moreover, by using this approach, one can assess to what extent a particular event or outcomes was the result of the mistakes or abilities of individuals (and hence historically contingent). By the same token, this kind of analysis can identify events in which individual decision makers were completely constrained by organizational and ideological factors. These distinctions also enable us to predict what might be possible in the future. I apply this approach to the four American presidents holding office from 1981 to 2017 (George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama) and look at all stakeholders individually to come up with a general assessment. This time period was chosen because it constitutes an era in which the influence of the Soviet Union was dramatically reduced and many rounds of peace negotiations took place. The general assessment I will defend is that the intertwinement of Israeli and American political interests is a matter of both the organizational structures and the ideological commitments of these governments, which explains why there has been little change in their relationship regardless of changes in governments. I argue against a widespread position that the support Israel receives from Washington is to be understood primarily as a consequence of the power of the Israeli lobby (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006). The synergy of American and Israeli interests has produced a situation in which implementation of the international law that prescribes the two-state settlement based on pre-June 1967 borders has not been possible. Negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in the period under consideration have been pursued with a tacit understanding that a solution based on international law would not be on the agenda. The only thing such negotiations achieved was to perpetuate the status quo and give it further practical and political legitimation. Furthermore, I argue that the Palestinian leadership participated in these talks largely for personal gain, which ultimately alienated them from the rest of the population. Regarding prospects for the future, I argue that a lasting solution to the conflict can only be achieved if it includes a two-state settlement based on pre-June 1967 borders. Any other solution would not be welcomed by neighboring Arab states and the Palestinian population, and it would only lead to further destabilization in this highly volatile region of the world. This solution has not been politically possible so far because of the overwhelming power that America possesses over the region and in geopolitical affairs generally. However, with a growing international consensus about the need for a viable solution for the situation in the entire region of the Middle East, and the decline of American hegemony, a solution to the Israel-Palestine question that is based on international law might return to the agenda.