Suchergebnisse

Responds to critiques made by David Bar-Illan & Martin Peretz on Rubin's article (for all, 1996 [see abstracts 9713269, 9713226, & 9713263, respectively]) about the decline of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is contended that the dispute has undergone recent integral changes despite the continuation of violence & unfulfillment of the peace process as evidenced in rhetorical & philosophical shifts in the Palestinian perspective. Israel is now referred to as a separate & viable state. Compromise has become a tool in the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO's) relationship with Israel, though the atmosphere remains volatile. The Camp David accords, PLO agreements with Israel, Iraq's defeat in Kuwait, the USSR's collapse, & other historical events have combined to alter Palestinian perception toward Israel. The 1993 Palestinian demand for a clearly defined state of its own represents the specific turning point for this historic attitude shift. D. Bajo

A review of the pattern of hostilities between the Arabs & Israelis over the last 50 years shows that the Arab side has slowly reassessed Israel, while the Israelis have reduced their demands & again taken up their earlier land-for-peace approach. As long as the conflict was viewed in existential terms -- as Israel's destruction or the Palestinian Arabs' nonexistence -- it was unsolvable. The deadlock persisted for decades, because the Arab side completely rejected compromise. Solutions proposed by the Arab states to achieve stability & progress during the period -- eg, militancy in Iraq or the expulsion of Western influence in Iran -- often made matters worse. Terrorism also damaged the Palestinian cause. After a number of defeats, & the realization that all other options had been exhausted, the Palestinian Liberation Organization strategy of destroying Israel was reappraised, but not until 1991. Israel was ready for peace, & the US then stepped in to define the conflict in a solvable way. The lesson is that zero-sum existential conflicts can be potentially resolvable if leaders differentiate between real chances & unacceptable risks in solutions. M. Pflum

The Arab—Israeli conflict, which at first had a zero-sum, protracted nature, has changed over time because of effective conflict management that has made conflict reduction and even resolution possible. Following an adaptation process in response to the outcomes of the Six Day War, and the shifts from suppression to regulation, and vice versa, both sides experienced after the Yom Kippur War some learning process by which they became ready to transform their mode of thinking in the conflict. However, without the active encouragement of the USA, the learning process could not be developed. However, the Arab—Israeli conflict is not a single conflict, especially when analyzing and evaluating movements toward new forms of behavior in a given conflict system. The differences in the rate and scope of learning in each conflict influenced differently the shifts in conflict management, and from conflict management to conflict resolution. An initial learning process proved to be necessary for shifting from regulation to institutionalization, but this was not sufficient to move from institutionalization to resolution. There was a need for a further and deeper learning process to enable conflict resolution.

The popular undergraduate political science course on "The Arab-Israeli Conflict" at the University of Michigan has had as its focus since 1975 an enormously successful large-scale simulation game, or simprovisation in Frederick Goodman's phrase. While the four-credit upper division level course of some 100 students is of the quite standard lecture-discussion section format, the simulation game has been closely integrated into it. The game is the goal towards which the students move and is the educational structure around which the course has been organized.The concept of simulation gaming was introduced almost as an aside when Clement Henry and I were designing the course, to be taught by Professor Henry, in 1974. The games organized that year were small, short and disjointed, but they were sufficient to demonstrate the educational utility of the idea, if nothing else. The following year, with the central collaboration of Leonard Suranski, the game was moved to the fore and from that point on it has been the focus of the course.

Israel has very limited indigenous hydrocarbon resources and is located next to the energy-rich Persian Gulf region. This study is divided into two parts. In the first part Israel's energy outlook is profiled. Specifically, the paper examines the country's oil and natural gas exploration and potential. In the second part the seemingly successful negotiations to export natural gas from Egypt to Israel is discussed. This is followed by an analysis of the efforts to export the Iraqi oil via Israel (the Mosul-Haifa pipeline) and the attempt to revive the scheme in the aftermath of the 2003 war in Iraq. Finally, the article examines the shortlived experience in exporting Iranian oil to Israel under the Shah and the current status of the Trans-Israel pipeline. The study suggests that a regional energy-cooperation would benefit all parties and international energy markets. However, such cooperation is unlikely in the near future. Adapted from the source document.

Arab-Israeli partisanship fits a broader pattern in which distance turns greys into blacks and whites, increasing political passions. In the case of the Contra war in Nicaragua, the journalist Stephen Schwartz writes that, on the one side, 'Sandinistas often commented to me that they were put off to realize that their Democrat supporters in Washington employed a bloodthirsty rhetoric that would never have been heard in the towns of Central America.' When asked about this, a Sandinista explained: 'We have to face death, and it makes us less willing to speak idly about it; but they enjoy talking about a death they will never risk or inflict on others. This pattern runs contrary to the general assumption that the frenzied combatants in a war need cool-headed outsiders to help guide them to resolution and peace -- an assumption that sometimes leads to the unfortunate decision to put ignoramuses in charge of diplomacy and policy. Adapted from the source document.