T

here is an equitable and durable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But 

such a solution can only be achieved 

through a long, imperfect process of negotiation. Sadly, Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs 

in general still see the struggle as an existential conflict over physical security and 

political identity. U.S. diplomacy must recognize that ending the conflict is a generational 

proposition.

The fundamental asymmetry between 

Israeli power and Palestinian weakness 

undermines any prospect of making the Oslo 

peace process work.

President Mahmoud Abbas hopes to 

finish Oslo, but suffers from an absence of 

legitimacy. Israelis and Americans could enhance his authority by facilitating his ability 

to deliver politically and economically. Prime 

Minister Ariel Sharon does not believe there 

is a mutually acceptable two-state solution to 

the conflict. His objective is to improve Israel’s tactical, political, and demographic position as best he can for the ensuing struggle.

Through the end of 2005 at least, U.S. 

policy can only hope to manage the conflict. 

Following a successful Israeli withdrawal 

from Gaza, President George W. Bush seems 

poised to seek Israeli-Palestinian agreement 

to a state with provisional borders. Success 

of this initiative would hinge on U.S. willingness to press Israel hard on further settlement building and, subsequently, to draft and 

sanction a plan for the end game that lays out 

the parameters for resolving each of the four 

or five core issues in this conflict.

In any discussion of U.S. policy toward the 

Arab-Israeli issue, honest debate and clarity are 

essential. During my nearly 25 years of advising 6 U.S. secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli 

negotiations, 3 basic propositions have been 

relevant throughout, including during these 

last 4 years when everything that right-thinking Arabs, Israelis, and Americans worked to 

achieve seemed to be battered down or broken.

First, there is an equitable and durable 

solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. These 

words—equitable and durable—are chosen 

carefully. There is no perfect justice and there 

never was. Although not necessarily applicable 

to all conflicts, the one line that needs to be 

emblazoned over the portal of every negotiating room in the world is that “thou shall not 

make of the perfect the enemy of the good.” 

Conflicts are resolved when people understand 

and recognize this. 

Second, the only way this conflict will 

ever be resolved is through the flawed process 

of negotiation—flawed because it is based on 

human frailty and weakness, influenced by 

domestic politics, and requires difficult choices, 

particularly when these conflicts and the parties 

who wage them believe they are existential in 

nature. This is still the perception on the part 

of Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Arabs in 

general: that this is really an existential conflict 

over physical security and political identity.

And finally, the United States has a role to 

play in this process. In an existential conflict, 

no great power that is distant to the region can 

impose or will a solution. The Middle East is 

littered with the remains of great powers who 

believed they could impose their will on small 

tribes. America should not play that kind of 

role. Iraq is just a cautionary tale. However, 

the United States has carried out effective 

diplomacy in the past and is capable of doing 

so again when certain basic concepts and assumptions are understood. Without a different 

kind of American role, however, there will be no 

resolution of this conflict.

A Generational View

The issue of time is a critical variable in 

any negotiation. Negotiators who misjudge 

time as a variable are doomed to failure. Arguably, that was probably one of the most critical 

mistakes made in the last 2 years of the Clinton 

administration. Policy is usually viewed in 

terms of Presidential administrations. But there 

is another view, and that is a generational one. 

The Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has become a generational proposition. It has evolved in phases over 

time, changing slowly with each generation. 

When Washington confronts this view, there is 

likely to be a conflict in the decisionmaking 

process in its pursuit of a solution to the ArabIsraeli conflict as well as other areas of conflict 

such as Iraq, democratization, and the war on 

terror. Washington needs to have a much more 

sober and realistic assessment of time.

Asymmetry of Power

The Oslo peace process between 1993 

and 2000 was essentially a religion for believers, which frequently blinded its adherents to 

certain flaws and imperfections in the system. 

Oslo blinded the believers, including this author, to the notion that somehow negotiations 

in and of themselves, based on rational variables, could find a way to overcome and bridge 

differences. Currently the “peace process” has 

The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Toward 

an Equitable and Durable Solution

by Aaron David Miller

Strategic Forum

No. 215

July 2005

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

http://www.ndu.edu/inss

Key Points

No. 215, July 2005 Strategic Forum 1
2 Strategic Forum No. 215, July 2005

evolved from a religion for believers into a 

business proposition for pragmatists. Sentimentality and much of the ideology of the commitment to a warm and comprehensive peace have 

been drained away from the Israeli-Palestinian 

problem, which is arguably a beneficial shift 

in the minds of those involved. But we have to 

understand why this transition has taken place.

The transition occurred because the 

fundamental asymmetry of power, which the 

United States confronted firsthand between 

Israelis and Palestinians and which also caused 

the Oslo process to collapse, could never be 

bridged by negotiations alone. That fundamental asymmetry of power, which exists to this 

day, is an asymmetry between the power of the 

weak, which Palestinians wield, and the power 

of the strong, which Israelis wield.

The power of the strong is self-evident. 

Israel, by virtue of its military, economic, and 

technological superiority, has the capacity to 

impose a lot on the ground: economic measures, land confiscation, bypass roads, settlement activity, housing demolition, targeted 

assassination, a security fence, and a unilateral 

withdrawal from Gaza. Such is the power of 

the strong. When applied wisely, the power of 

the strong, arguably, could be used to create an 

effective environment for negotiation. When not 

applied wisely, it leads to humiliation and anger, 

both of which lead to ineffective negotiation.

Palestinians, on the other hand, have 

wielded, intentionally and unintentionally, 

the power of the weak. The power of the weak 

should never be underestimated because it 

allows the weakest party in any negotiation to 

rationalize its own inaction and abdication 

of responsibility. The Palestinian sentiment 

seems to be:

We are under occupation; we are 

having our rights taken away from us. 

Therefore, none of this is our responsibility. 

We don’t have a responsibility to confront 

Islamic Jihad or Hamas or Fatah Tanzim or 

al-Aqsa. And we have the power to take away 

because we are weak. We have the power to 

take away from our interlocutors—in this 

case the Israelis or the Americans—the one 

thing they need the most, which is a reliable, 

credible security partner to deliver on what 

we, as Palestinians, must deliver on, which 

is a reassertion of our monopoly over the 

forces of violence within our society, if we are 

going to have a state.

Any political entity that cannot assert a 

monopoly over the forces of violence within its 

society will never be credible to its constituents, 

let alone to its neighbors.

That fundamental asymmetry—the 

power of the strong versus the power of the 

weak—critically undermines any prospect 

of making Oslo work, even in its modified, 

amended form. Additionally, no high-level 

gamble such as that of July 2000—bringing 

Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak together at a 

time when their mutual fundamental suspicion 

and mistrust were profound precisely because 

of the asymmetry of power—could have overcome that gap, particularly in a 2-week summit, discussing borders, refugees, Jerusalem, 

and security.

The process begun at Sharm el Sheikh 

is not a religion for believers. And the peace 

process in general may never again become a 

religion for believers. The expectations gap now 

between Israelis and Palestinians is narrower 

than ever, and the assessment on the part of 

each party regarding the other’s political situation is now more pragmatic and practical than 

ever. Furthermore, in a bizarre way, this partnership has been born not by a negotiation, but 

by a policy that can be described as coordinated 

unilateralism—reciprocal but non-negotiated 

gestures—which will mark the character of 

the Israeli-Palestinian relationship certainly 

between now and the end of the year.

Legitimacy of Abbas 

Without an accurate assessment of the 

conditions of the Israelis and Palestinians, 

particularly Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and 

President Mahmoud Abbas, the United States 

has virtually no chance of managing, let alone 

resolving, this conflict. Here again is a lesson for American policymakers: unless they 

understand the circumstances, political and 

psychological, in which these negotiators are 

operating, how can they effectively structure a 

policy that can succeed? This need is elemental 

and yet arguably, during much of the previous 

administration, Washington did not recognize 

it. Washington did not understand where Arafat 

and Barak were coming from. Consequently, 

it got sucked into a situation in which it used 

American auspices and mediation to engage in 

the gamble of July 2000. And in life, the most 

compelling ideology is not nationalism, not 

capitalism, and not democracy. It is success. 

Success is the world’s most compelling ideology 

because success breeds power, respect, and constituents. So the prospect of failure is daunting.

The situation of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu 

Mazin) is clear. He would like to finish Oslo, a 

process for which he bears some responsibility. 

In this context, Oslo is intended to mean a twostate solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Abbas likely sees himself as a transitional 

figure. He does not suffer from the narcissism 

that characterized Arafat’s behavior for many 

years. Mahmoud Abbas has one problem that is 

not being overcome: an absence of legitimacy.

There are many kinds of legitimacy. There 

is historical legitimacy, which Arafat had as 

the founder of the movement. There is also 

legitimacy through elections, which Arafat had 

and Mahmoud Abbas now has—62 percent 

of the million-plus Palestinians who voted on 

January 9, 2005, voted for him. But since Abbas 

lacks historical legitimacy—though electoral 

legitimacy is still legitimacy—there is only one 

other kind of legitimacy in life that counts, and 

that is the legitimacy of succeeding. His greatest challenge is to deliver because only through 

delivering—politically, economically, and 

psychologically for Palestinians—a process 

that shows that Israel’s occupation of the West 

Bank and Gaza is ending will his political authority be enhanced. If the United States helps 

Abbas gain legitimacy, it will gain a Palestinian 

partner who can more durably handle tough 

questions and situations.

At the moment, Abbas is caught between 

Hamas on the one hand and a younger generation of Fatah leaders on the other who both 

resent and aspire to his authority and that of the 

Oslo-Tunis elites. That dependence is clear. He 

needs Hamas and its own discretion with respect 

to maintaining a cease-fire in order to survive. 

He is also going to need the support of young 

Fatah leaders. The real question for Abbas is 

whether the Israelis and the Americans can 

facilitate this process of delivery both politically 

and economically to enhance his authority.

The Path of Sharon

What is Sharon trying to achieve? Arguably, he is the most honest Israeli prime minister ever, and certainly since Yitzhak Rabin. He 

has made it clear that he does not believe there 

Aaron David Miller is president of Seeds of Peace. This paper is based on a speech Dr. Miller gave on 

April 21, 2005, at the INSS symposium Prospects for Security in the Middle East. Questions and comments 

may be addressed to the Institute at ndupress@ndu.edu or to the author at adm@seedsofpeace.org.
No. 215, July 2005 Strategic Forum 3

is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

There is no conflict-ending agreement that will 

result in a two-state solution that will satisfy 

the needs and requirements of both parties. 

This is merely the continuation of a centuryold struggle that is going to carry on.

Sharon’s objective is to improve Israel’s 

tactical, political, and demographic position 

as best he can for the struggle that will follow. 

That explains the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza 

and why, as Minister of Defense in 1982, Sharon announced 11 new West Bank settlements 

after the Israeli withdrawal and destruction of 

Yamit on the Sinai Peninsula.

Unquestionably, Sharon has changed. He 

has changed not in his heart, but as a consequence of circumstances only, which have led 

him to believe that by giving up 1.2 percent of 

the territories that Palestinians claim—Gaza, 

with 1.5 million inhabitants—Israel’s demographic position has changed. Those conditions have led him to believe that the institution he cares most about—the Israel Defense 

Forces—is threatened by the perversions and 

complications of an occupation that cannot be 

won—certainly in Gaza—and that everything 

must be done to protect that institution. Those 

circumstances have also led him to believe 

that, if possible, Israel must not alienate the 

United States and must not go beyond its domestic political consensus. Those were the two 

lessons that Sharon learned through Israel’s 

invasion of Lebanon in June of 1982, which he 

led. Sharon crossed two red lines in that operation: he violated the domestic political consensus, and he alienated the United States. He will 

go to extreme lengths not to do this again.

Apparently, a withdrawal from Gaza is 

his answer. Can he change to accomplish this 

major agreement? Can he rise to become the 

greatest prime minister in Israel’s history since 

David Ben-Gurion by creating a conflict-ending agreement? If he wanted to, yes. He has the 

capabilities, but not the intentions, to negotiate 

a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, on the other hand, has the intentions but lacks the capabilities.

Beyond Gaza

The last thing Israelis and Palestinians 

need right now is a negotiation on the interim 

issues or on permanent status. Such a negotiation will only increase the prospect of public 

posturing and expose the monumental gaps 

that now separate Israeli and Palestinian 

positions at the bargaining table. Instead, we 

will get coordinated unilateralism at least 

beyond Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from 

Gaza in the summer of 2005. That withdrawal 

will essentially begin to answer the question, 

“How traumatic of a political experience will 

the withdrawal from Gaza be for the Israeli 

polity?” The answer will be critical for what 

happens afterwards.

Will Yeshiva students and rabbis be 

burning themselves in the streets? Will Israeli 

settlers, who are now furtively ensconced in 

places such as Gush Katif, seek to reinforce 

their positions there? Will they fire on Israel 

Defense Forces? Additionally, will the Palestinian Authority be able to assume the responsibility during the process of withdrawal and in 

its aftermath? Will Hamas, Jihad, and al-Aqsa 

feel the need to bring about a withdrawal 

under fire in an effort to demonstrate that the 

Israelis have been chased out of Gaza the way 

the Hizballahi chased them out of Lebanon? 

And, more strategically, will the Palestinian 

Authority be able to control the streets of Gaza, 

or will the Mogadishu syndrome—which 

seems to be ingrained in places such as Jaffa 

and Nablus—lead to a crisis of confidence in 

the security forces and further lawlessness? The 

answers to these questions are unclear, but they 

in large part will determine where this process 

goes after the summer of 2005.

Current Realities

American policy has to be grounded in 

reality. The United States can affect that reality, 

but it can neither recreate nor pretend anymore that one can build a process on 7 failed 

years of negotiations between 1993 and 2000. 

It cannot pretend that it can build a process on 

4 years between 2000 and the present of nonstop Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. There is 

a certain reality in this judgment that governs 

the Arab-Israeli equation now. This reality can 

be categorized into three games.

First, there is the Old Game: the pursuit 

of a two-state solution, mediated by the United 

States in a conflict-ending agreement that 

will address the issues of Jerusalem, borders, 

refugees, and security in a neat package. The 

Old Game is over, at least for now. There are 

enormous risks in trying again to bridge these 

gaps, which the United States failed to bridge 

under much more auspicious circumstances. 

Despite the claims of some, the gap between 

Israelis and Palestinians during the July 2000 

summit was not wide; they were extremely 

close to a negotiation. To say that the gap was 

wide is self-justification or worse; it is just a 

corruption of the truth. The genetic code on 

these issues was in fact cracked at Camp David 

and the DNA was exposed, which was perhaps 

the most positive product of the summit and 

the diplomacy that followed until the end of 

the Clinton administration. On every issue, 

there was an opening, but only an opening. 

However, even though the Old Game is over, 

there is ultimately still a chance for a two-state 

solution, although there is a time limit: after 

enough time—it is unclear how much—the 

two-state solution will no longer be feasible.

The second is the New Game, which is 

a game based in history. The New Game is 

powered by unilateralism, increasing radicalization, demography, hopelessness, and despair. 

The New Game aspires to yield the historic 

solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The solutionists of the Old Game have leveled that one 

is dreaming if he thinks the end of this conflict 

is in sight. All conflicts do not have ends, and 

Americans must understand that. Americans, 

with their pragmatism and practicality and 

can-do mentality, think they can fix the problem. But the forces of history say differently. 

That is the historic solution of the New Game, 

and its future is clear to all of us.

Finally, there is the Interim Game. The 

Interim Game, in one fashion or another, will 

be played between now and the end of 2005 at 

least. But the Interim Game is only intended 

to manage or diffuse a conflict that cannot 

presently be resolved. Furthermore, the United 

States has a problem because the Arab-Israeli 

issue is attached to a broader set of American 

strategic interests. This is not just some shepherd’s war between Israelis and Palestinians. 

This is now a huge conflict. It is huge because 

of Iraq; it is huge because of democratization; 

it is huge because of the global war against 

terror; and it is huge because, for the first time 

in our involvement in this region, the Middle 

East and South Asia represent a threat to the 

security of the continental United States.

A resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict 

will not eliminate that threat, but it will make 

it easier to manage and ultimately combat. 

One of the great baseball managers of all time, 

Casey Stengel, once said that the key to good 

management is keeping the nine guys who 

hate your guts away from the nine guys who 

haven’t made up their minds. And the fact is, 

there are many people in the Middle East who 
4 Strategic Forum No. 215, July 2005

have yet to make up their minds about America, and U.S. actions are not helping them.

America’s Role

Three realities affect the Bush administration’s diplomacy. First, the administration is 

challenged to find a better balance between the 

overengagement on the part of the Clinton administration and the disengagement during its 

first term. Second, the Arab-Israeli conflict is not 

yet a priority for this administration. And third, 

the real constraint on this administration’s 

actions on the issue is not ideological. It may 

have been ideological in the first year when the 

administration wanted to do everything possible 

to be different from its predecessor. Regardless, it is not now driven by ideology. Instead it 

is driven by the fear of failure. And unless the 

administration can overcome this fear, those 

who want to see a more assertive administration 

policy on the issue will not get involved.

However, the administration is uniquely 

well positioned to take on this issue due to the 

relationship between the President and Secretary 

of State, Condoleezza Rice, which replicates the 

relationship between the President’s father and 

James Baker. Additionally, this administration 

has huge political capital in the bank toward 

Israel’s government, people, and prime minister. 

So it could make a large withdrawal on that 

currency and spend it on Arab-Israeli issues.

But the administration also needs to 

reexamine how it engages the issue. So far, it 

has been one-sided in its messages to the Palestinians that they need to reassert their control 

over the monopoly of forces and sources of 

violence in their society. Although that is critical, the administration has not issued similar 

statements to the Israelis on a whole range of 

Israeli behavior. There is an imbalance in the 

American message regarding the conflict.

Administrations usually engage on Middle 

Eastern conflicts for three reasons. First, the region is of strategic interest to the United States. 

Given the other priorities and threats that the 

administration now faces, it has understandably concluded that this shepherd’s war is not 

a strategic interest. The second reason is that 

one engages because it is the right thing to do. 

This is extremely important: engaging because 

it is the right thing to do, because it is morally 

compelling, and because, regardless of where 

the United States has not engaged, when it 

does engage in the Arab-Israeli issue, it has 

a pretty good record for making a bad situation better. That is an important calculation 

that should never be stripped from our foreign 

policy on the Arab-Israeli issue or other issues. 

And finally, a high likelihood of success—if it 

exists—will be a reason for the Bush administration to engage the issue.

The concept and idea of a state with provisional borders is key to understanding the 

administration’s policy. This idea, though not 

widely discussed, appeared in a speech by the 

President on June 24, 2002. However, the idea of 

provisional borders will be discussed a lot more 

after the withdrawal from Gaza takes place. The 

President believes that as a consequence of a 

certain alignment of forces and factors, which 

he believes he helped bring about (such as the 

elections in Iraq, or the serious withdrawal from 

Lebanon, or the sparks of democratization, notably in the Levant), that he can help or at least 

create a choice for Israelis and, particularly, 

for Palestinians using the concept of a state 

with provisional borders. The administration 

is moving toward this path. Its support for a 

withdrawal from Gaza—assuming the Israelis 

withdraw—will enable the administration 

to say that “Israel’s occupation that began in 

1967” has come to an end in Gaza.

Sharon is potentially prepared for significant withdrawals from the West Bank as well. 

Maybe Israel will withdraw from 75 percent of 

the West Bank, keeping 25 percent of it, including strategic areas and pieces of Jerusalem. Several examples seem to point in that direction: 

the letter of assurance that the United States 

provided the Israelis last year, the way they 

have contracted out the rules with General William Ward and now James Wolfensohn, focusing on economic and security issues, and their 

avoidance of the political issues—Jerusalem, 

refugees, and borders—all of which cannot be 

resolved. At some point, if Gaza succeeds, if the 

Palestinians assume responsibility, and if the 

Israelis withdraw from other significant areas 

of the West Bank, the administration is simply 

going to point to this possibility and confront 

Palestinians with a basic choice:

We’re prepared to support a state with 

provisional borders: 75 percent of the West 

Bank and all of Gaza. You choose. We’re 

prepared to support you economically, we’re 

prepared to marshal the resources of the 

international community, we’re prepared to 

confer international and perhaps even Security Council legitimacy on you. Or you can 

reject our assistance. But you have to make 

a choice. If you make the wrong choice, you 

join the dustbin of history. But we, the administration, have done everything we possibly can to bring you to this point.

To make the first choice compelling to 

the Palestinians, the United States would need 

to engage in two other ways. First, on the front 

end, once Gaza withdrawal is complete and if 

the Palestinian Authority is able to maintain 

security, then the United States should come 

down very hard on the issue of Israeli settlement building. And second, at some point on 

the back end, the United States needs to draft 

and sanction a plan for the end game, which 

could be termed the “Political Horizon” of the 

conflict, that lays out the parameters for resolving each of the four or five core issues in this 

conflict. But this second initiative cannot be 

forced or imposed.

Two impediments exist that will hinder 

any solution to the conflict: there is no public 

pressure in the Arab-Israeli arena, and both 

sides presently lack leadership willing to make 

strategic choices the way Rabin, Hussein, and 

Sadat did in earlier times. Without change in 

those two elements, reaching a conclusion will 

be much more difficult.

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