American engagement and the pathways to Arab

Abstract

This close empirical study of decades of US efforts to bring peace between Arab states and Israel helps reflect on Arild Underdal and Oran R. Young’s leadership typologies. Distinguishing between coercive leadership based on the incentives and sanctions that robust capabilities make possible and instrumental leadership focused more on talking, skilled mediation, and policy innovation is useful. However, this US mediation demonstrates that the two are not wholly distinct as previously suggested. The narrative of US efforts from Richard M Nixon to William J Clinton, including 22 cases of US involvement in Arab–Israeli mediation, suggests successful US mediation has been based on four factors. US involvement has led to breakthroughs when the US administration was highly engaged and kept at the problem after an initial diplomatic setback; benefitted from an exogenous event; managed that event to the US advantage; and dealt with strong Arab and Israeli partners.

Keywords

Arab–Israeli foreign policy leadership mediation peace process United States

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

ABC News (2000) Israeli Foreign Minister Levy resigns. ABC News, 2 August. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82991&;page=1

Anderson

(1970) Nasser warns U.S. on aid for Israel. The New York Times, 2 May, 1, 12.

Arab Report and Record (1970) Nasser appeals to Nixon on US-Arab relations. Arab Report and Record, 1–15 May, 276.

Baker

III with DeFrank

(1995) The Politics of Diplomacy. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Berridge

(1989) Diplomacy and the Angola/Namibia accords. International Affairs 65(3): 463–479.

Boot

(2009) Re: the wrecking crew. Commentary. Available at: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/155832

Brzezinski

Erekat

Kurtzer

. (2010) Middle East peace: so why have we failed? Foreign Policy. Available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/19/so_why_have_we_failed?page=0,0

Bush

GHW

(1990) Address to the United Nations, 1 October. Available at: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3426

Bush

GHW

(1991) Address before a joint session of congress on the end of the Gulf War, 6 March. Available at: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3430

10.

Carter

(1982) Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam Books.

11.

Chada

(1986) Paradox of Power: The United States in Southwest Asia, 1973–1984. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.

12.

Cluverius

IV (1990) Interview, association for diplomatic studies and training foreign affairs oral history project. Available at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004clu01

13.

Cook

Telhami

(2008) Addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict. In: Haass

Indyk

(eds) Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, pp. 131–158.

14.

Council on Foreign Relations (2010) Interview with Elliott Abrams: focus on West Bank, not negotiating. Available at: http://www.cfr.org/publication/21187/focus_on_west_bank_not_negotiating.html?breadcrumb=%2Fregion%2F411%2Fpalestinian_authority

15.

Eisenberg

Caplan

(2003) The Israel-Jordan peace treaty: patterns of negotiation, problems of implementation. Israel Affairs 9(3): 87–110.

16.

Federation of American Scientists (1998) Transcript: Albright interview On NBC-TV February 19. Available at: http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/19/98021907_tpo.html

17.

Ford

(1979/1980) A Time to Heal. New York: Berkley Books.

18.

Grubb

Gupta

(2000) Leadership: theory and methodology. In: Gupta

Grubb

(eds) Climate Change and European Leadership: A Sustainable Role for Europe? Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 15–24.

19.

Hess

(1970) Egypt held ready to stop shooting and begin talking. The New York Times, 23 July, 1–2.

20.

Hudson

(1996) To play the hegemon: fifty years of US policy toward the Middle East. The Middle East Journal 50(3): 329–343.

21.

Inbar

(1991) Great power mediation: the USA and the May 1983 Israeli-Lebanese agreement. Journal of Peace Research 28(1): 71–84.

22.

Kaufman

(2012) Roger D. Fisher, expert at ‘Getting to Yes,’ dies at 90. The New York Times, 27 August. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/world/americas/roger-d-fisher-expert-in-getting-to-yes-dies-at-90.html

23.

Kelman

(1985) Overcoming the psychological barrier: an analysis of the Egyptian-Israeli peace process. Negotiation Journal 1(3): 213–234.

24.

Kelman

(1992) Acknowledging the other’s nationhood: how to create a momentum for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Journal of Palestine Studies 22(1): 18–38.

25.

Kelman

(1997) Some determinants of the Oslo breakthrough. International Negotiation 2(2): 183–194.

26.

Khouri

(1985) The Arab-Israeli Dilemma. 3rd ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

27.

Kissinger

(1979) The White House Years. London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd.

28.

Kissinger

(1982) Years of Upheaval. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.

29.

Kleiboer

(1998) The Multiple Realities of International Mediation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

30.

Kriesberg

(1987) Timing and the initiation of de-escalation moves. Negotiation Journal 3(4): 375–384.

31.

Kriesberg

(2001) Mediation and the transformation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Journal of Peace Research 38(3): 373–392.

32.

Kurtzer

Lasensky

(2008) Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. Washington, DC: USIP Press.

33.

Leep

(2010) The affective production of others: United States policy towards the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Cooperation and Conflict 45(3): 331–352.

34.

Lewis

(1998) Interview, Association for diplomatic studies and training foreign affairs oral history project. Available at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004lew03

35.

Mandell

(1990) Anatomy of a confidence-building regime: Egyptian-Israeli security co-operation, 1973–1979. International Journal 45(2): 202–223.

36.

Meital

(1997) Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967–1977. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

37.

Miller

(2008) The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. New York: Bantam Books.

38.

Miller

(2010) The false religion of Mideast peace. May/June. Available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/19/the_false_religion_of_mideast_peace

39.

Peres

(1995) Battling for Peace: Memoirs. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

40.

Pressman

(2007) Mediation, domestic politics, and the Israeli-Syrian negotiations, 1991–2000. Security Studies 16(3): 350–381.

41.

Pressman

(2013) Explaining the Carter administration’s Israeli-Palestinian solution. Diplomatic History 37(5): 1117–1147.

42.

Qaimmaqami

Howard

(eds) (2008) Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976: Volume XXIV, Middle East Region and Arabian Peninsula, 1969–1972; Jordan, September 1970. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. Available at: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v24

43.

Quandt

(1971) The Middle East conflict in US strategy, 1970–71. Journal of Palestine Studies 1(1): 39–52.

44.

Quandt

(1977) Decade of Decisions: American Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–1976. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

45.

Quandt

(2001) Peace Process. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

46.

Quandt

(2009) Forty years in search of Arab-Israeli peace. Macalester International 23(1): 24–82.

47.

Ross

(2004) The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

48.

Saunders

(1985) We need a larger theory of negotiation: the importance of pre-negotiating phases. Negotiation Journal 1(3): 249–262.

49.

Sciolino

Friedman

(1994) Crossing the river: the Israel-Jordan pact – a special report. The New York Times, 31 July.

50.

Sheehan

(1976) How Kissinger did it: step by step in the Middle East. Foreign Policy 22: 3–70.

51.

Shultz

(1993) Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

52.

Spiegel

(1985) The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

53.

Stern

(2003) Crisis studies and foreign policy analysis: insights, synergies, and challenges. International Studies Review 5(2): 183–191.

54.

Stern

(2009) Crisis navigation: lessons from history for the crisis manager in chief. Governance 22(2): 189–202.

55.

Telhami

(1999) From Camp David to Wye: changing assumptions in Arab-Israeli negotiations. The Middle East Journal 53(3): 379–392.

56.

Tessler

(1994) A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

57.

The New York Times (1970) Text of Rogers letter to Egyptian aide. The New York Times, 23 July, 2.

58.

Underdal

(1994) Leadership theory: rediscovering the arts of management. In: Zartman

(ed.) International Multilateral Negotiation: Approaches to the Management of Complexity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 178–197.

59.

Vance

(1983) Hard Choices. New York: Simon & Schuster.

60.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2004) Camp David 25th anniversary forum. Carter Center (January), 17 September 2003.

61.

Young

(1989) The politics of international regime formation: managing natural resources and the environment. International Organization 43(3): 349–375.

62.

Young

(1991) Political leadership and regime formation: on the development of institutions in international society. International Organization 45(3): 281–308.

American engagement and the pathways to Arab–Israeli peace

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References