Hidden Assumptions
I've been talking to my good friend recently about our joint plan to visit each other's country together - nothing remarkable except for him being iranian - and a few things have crossed my mind with regards to this mess called the middle-east.
You know how whenever there are discussions of various peace plans, there are these arguments about what kind of pre-conditions must be accepted by the sides in order to come to the negotiations? well, nobody ever talks about a couple of particular aspects, and yet they are arguably the most critical in allowing a negotiations to happen: the hidden assumptions.
What am I talking about? well, there are a couple of powerful guiding thoughts prevalent in the thinking of each side, so powerful in fact that they color every discussion about some sort of settlement. They are so prevalent that they have become instinctive, part of each side's interpretation of the world. Yet, they are not necessarily true.
On the Israeli side, the guiding principle is that even with a peace agreement, the opposing side's goal would be to kill us. That's why Israelis have such a hard time giving up the golan heights, for example; it will make it more or less impossible to defend the country when, say, the syrians decide they have had enough peace and choose to make a surprise attack. Or at least so the common wisdom goes; whether this is actually true or not is a wholly different question (note that Israel survived much more difficult strategic circumstances when it was a lot weaker during the first two decades of its existence).
Think about this for a second; when you are coming to a negotiations with the basic premise that the other side is there simply for the purpose of buying enough time through whatever agreement is reached so that eventually they can turn around the betray you, well, that might guide your negotiations process somewhat.
I can't tell for certain what the hidden assumption is on the other side, but I think I have a good guess; it is that Israel is essentially imperialistic and will use the opportunity of having peace to build itself up to the point where it will be so powerful that it would willy-nilly walk over its peace-abiding neighbors at some point in the future. If I were to follow this train of thoughts, it makes sense that it arises from the repeated traumas of Israel's creation, tied as strongly as it was to imperial britain, almost seemingly a natural extension of it, and then Israel's remarkable success in gaining territory during the six-day war.
Of course, if this is your guiding thought process, then of course you would want as much assurance as possible that this latent imperialism will be contained, and how better to do so then to put the imperialist in an untenable strategic position?
Unfortunately, as is always the case, these hidden assumptions clash so severely that they make negotiations all but impossible. The only way through such an impasse is by having leaders on both sides who, at the same time, can see through this and put themselves in each other's shoes; this has happened twice in recent history, first when Begin and Sadat negotiated the Israel-Egypt agreement, and later on, when Rabin and the late King Abdullah did the same between Israel and Jordan. In both cases, there was strong opposition to the agreements on both sides, with seemingly logical explanations of why they were untenable in the long-term, and these arguments continue to this day. And yet, the agreement hold even in difficult times, most remarkably in Egypt effectively staying out of the recent Israel-Lebanon war, when they could have used that to their advantage to surprise Israel with a strike to the south - well, if you buy into the hidden assumption anyway.
The first step towards understanding is put yourself in the other's shoes. And the first step towards being able to do that is the examination of all of your own personal hidden assumptions about who the other is.
You know how whenever there are discussions of various peace plans, there are these arguments about what kind of pre-conditions must be accepted by the sides in order to come to the negotiations? well, nobody ever talks about a couple of particular aspects, and yet they are arguably the most critical in allowing a negotiations to happen: the hidden assumptions.
What am I talking about? well, there are a couple of powerful guiding thoughts prevalent in the thinking of each side, so powerful in fact that they color every discussion about some sort of settlement. They are so prevalent that they have become instinctive, part of each side's interpretation of the world. Yet, they are not necessarily true.
On the Israeli side, the guiding principle is that even with a peace agreement, the opposing side's goal would be to kill us. That's why Israelis have such a hard time giving up the golan heights, for example; it will make it more or less impossible to defend the country when, say, the syrians decide they have had enough peace and choose to make a surprise attack. Or at least so the common wisdom goes; whether this is actually true or not is a wholly different question (note that Israel survived much more difficult strategic circumstances when it was a lot weaker during the first two decades of its existence).
Think about this for a second; when you are coming to a negotiations with the basic premise that the other side is there simply for the purpose of buying enough time through whatever agreement is reached so that eventually they can turn around the betray you, well, that might guide your negotiations process somewhat.
I can't tell for certain what the hidden assumption is on the other side, but I think I have a good guess; it is that Israel is essentially imperialistic and will use the opportunity of having peace to build itself up to the point where it will be so powerful that it would willy-nilly walk over its peace-abiding neighbors at some point in the future. If I were to follow this train of thoughts, it makes sense that it arises from the repeated traumas of Israel's creation, tied as strongly as it was to imperial britain, almost seemingly a natural extension of it, and then Israel's remarkable success in gaining territory during the six-day war.
Of course, if this is your guiding thought process, then of course you would want as much assurance as possible that this latent imperialism will be contained, and how better to do so then to put the imperialist in an untenable strategic position?
Unfortunately, as is always the case, these hidden assumptions clash so severely that they make negotiations all but impossible. The only way through such an impasse is by having leaders on both sides who, at the same time, can see through this and put themselves in each other's shoes; this has happened twice in recent history, first when Begin and Sadat negotiated the Israel-Egypt agreement, and later on, when Rabin and the late King Abdullah did the same between Israel and Jordan. In both cases, there was strong opposition to the agreements on both sides, with seemingly logical explanations of why they were untenable in the long-term, and these arguments continue to this day. And yet, the agreement hold even in difficult times, most remarkably in Egypt effectively staying out of the recent Israel-Lebanon war, when they could have used that to their advantage to surprise Israel with a strike to the south - well, if you buy into the hidden assumption anyway.
The first step towards understanding is put yourself in the other's shoes. And the first step towards being able to do that is the examination of all of your own personal hidden assumptions about who the other is.
posted by Blinkered at 4:56 AM
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