Ingredients of a Successful Track Two Negotiation Open Access

In the entire history of the seemingly intractable Israeli–Palestinian conflict, there has been only one instance in which a group of influential Israeli and Palestinian figures jointly signed a detailed draft proposal for a final status agreement between the opposing sides. This group negotiated for about three years, and at the end of 2003 signed a document known as the “Geneva Initiative.”

Various unofficial negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians had taken place for years before these talks, starting as early as 1967 (Agha et al. 2003; Kelman 2005). But the Geneva process began at a particularly difficult time in the conflict: after the formal Camp David Two Summit and Taba Summit track one negotiations collapsed in 2000. The failure of these negotiations led to the outbreak of violence between the sides known as the Al‐Aqsa Intifada or the Second Intifada. During these violent events, no official negotiations took place between Palestinian and Israeli leaders and neither side trusted the other.

The group of Israelis and Palestinians who would sign the Geneva Initiative started meeting in secret. In March 2003, after two years of negotiations, they held a three‐day meeting in London. Because most of the work to draft an agreement was undertaken by a few individuals, the aim of this meeting was to discuss it in a larger forum and to finalize the issues that remained in dispute. Eight Palestinians and eight Israelis, all men, participated in the group meeting in London.¹ Each team's leader was a former official negotiator; these team leaders began drafting the Geneva Initiative approximately two years before the London talks. In addition, one Israeli and one Palestinian were the chief drafters who drafted much of the agreement before the meeting. Some of the other participants were consulted during the drafting process, while for the rest, the London talks was their first involvement in the initiative.²

After the London talks, it took the sides another half year to find solutions to all remaining disputes, sign an agreement, and publicly release it. Nonetheless, they made significant progress in London, and this meeting was considered an important milestone. The meeting also convinced the Israeli and Palestinian drafters that the agreement would be acceptable to moderate leaders on both sides.

In this article, I examine how the facilitators framed and conducted the London meetings by analyzing their video recordings. Understanding how the talks were organized helps explain the key elements that encouraged both sides to agree to a draft agreement in an unofficial negotiation and can serve as a model for future track two negotiations. My findings confirm some characteristics of successful track two negotiations that have been identified previously in conflict resolution studies. Some of the elements I describe here are new, however, and my analysis challenges some of the previous assertions about how track two negotiations should be structured, framed, and managed.

Diplomatic scholarship typically divides negotiation into three distinct kinds of tracks: track one negotiations, in which official representatives of the parties in conflict participate; track two negotiations, in which unofficial but influential participants participate; and track three negotiations, which comprise grassroots meetings involving people from both sides (see, e.g., Montville 1995; Said and Lerche 1995; Diamond and McDonald 1996; Chigas 2003; Bohmelt 2010).

The Palestinians and Israelis who participated in the London talks were different from each other in some important ways — in addition to the more obvious difference of being on opposite sides of this conflict. The Israelis were retired army officers, academics, and previous government ministers, although none held official roles in the government when the meeting took place. Some of the Palestinians, on the other hand, did hold key positions in the Palestinian Authority at the time, all were in close contact with their leadership, and the head of the Palestinian Authority at the time, Yasser Arafat, was aware of the track two process that they were involved in. As Menachem Klein (2007) has noted, some of the Palestinian participants even received permission from Israel to travel outside of the Palestinian territories because they represented Palestinians at official meetings with the Middle East Quartet in Europe before the London talks began.³ Therefore, although the Israeli participants in the London talks were involved only in that track two negotiation, the Palestinian participants engaged in discussions that have been characterized as “track one and a half diplomacy” (Nan 2003; Mapendere 2006) because they were official representatives, although the discussions themselves were unofficial.

The content of the London meetings was characteristic of track two negotiations. The participants' goal was to generate new ideas and promote understandings that could then be disseminated to the public (Çuhadar 2009). The unofficial nature of the meetings would, they hoped, enable participants to question ideas and beliefs that were not raised or thought of in the official track (Agha et al. 2003). The ongoing negotiations, comprising several meetings, were kept secret and followed “Chatham House Rules” (Fisher 1997; Kellen, Bekerman, and Maoz 2013; Jones 2014).⁴

As I noted above, other track two negotiations had taken place between Israelis and Palestinians prior to the Geneva Initiative talks. The facilitators incorporated their knowledge about what had proven productive and counterproductive in previous track two meetings to frame these discussions.

Measuring “success” in diplomacy is difficult (Bohmelt 2010) especially in unofficial negotiations in which the goals “are most often left undescribed” (Rouhana 2000: 301). In official track one diplomacy, the ending of violence, a change of policies, or the signing of a peace agreement can be understood as outcomes that represent success. In unofficial tracks, on the other hand, success can take other forms, such as whether the talks have an impact on official negotiations, whether they change official negotiators' views or give them a greater understanding of the other sides' perspective, whether the process itself is seen as fair and just to the negotiators, or whether the participants feel satisfied with the outcome (Rouhana 2000; Mapendere 2006; Bercovitch 2009; Bohmelt 2010). The extensive body of research on this topic usually suggests that the best result of successful unofficial diplomacy will have included objective components (like changes in the relations between the sides) and subjective components (e.g., changes in the ways the sides think) (d'Estrée 2008: 21).

According to these terms, the Geneva Initiative negotiations and the London talks in particular were at least partially successful and have lessons to offer. The London participants reached consensus on the agreement, and the final draft of the Geneva Initiative is almost identical to what they had agreed to. The Geneva Initiative model has since been cited frequently as an example of a proposed Israeli–Palestinian agreement that both sides can agree with along with the official yet never published “Clinton Parameters.”⁵ It is the only track two negotiation in which a group of influential Israelis and Palestinians have agreed on such a detailed draft agreement.

The Geneva Initiative is not perfect. It neglects certain crucial issues, mostly those involving narratives of historical identity, which scholars and politicians have both argued must be included in any legitimate and durable Israeli–Palestinian agreement. Moreover, as we retrospectively know, the understandings reached as part of the Geneva Initiative have never been implemented as part of any official track one policy.

Nonetheless, I believe these negotiations offer us important lessons because the participants achieved their initial goal of drafting a proposal for a detailed Israeli–Palestinian peace treaty and because their draft agreement embodied their understanding of what such an agreement should include, even if critics argue that it was incomplete. I believe therefore that this case is instructive.

The study data include video recordings of sixteen hours of meetings. These recordings encompass all the negotiations held during the meetings except for two: one that was not recorded correctly and one that was held at the same time as another one (and therefore only one of them was recorded).

Three previous studies have been published from this data: two books by Menachem,Klein, The Geneva Initiative — An Inside View (2006) and A Possible Peace Between Israel and Palestine — An Insider's Account of the Geneva Initiative (2007), which are based on his own participation in the negotiations and on these recordings, my previous study (Benziman 2014), and a documentary produced by an Israeli television station that was broadcast shortly after the accord was signed (Uvda 2003). This study seeks to analyze these talks in the broader context of track two negotiations and to identify some ingredients that made these talks successful, which facilitators could potentially adapt to improve the effectiveness of other track two efforts.

I have conducted this analysis using Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss's (2008) “grounded theory,” which involves gathering data, analyzing it qualitatively, and theorizing from it. After reviewing the previous studies of this negotiation and of similar meetings and workshops (see Maoz 2000, 2011), I have tried to identify the specific components of these talks that led to a signed agreement. Knowing the significant differences between the two sides, I have focused on how the leaders of both groups framed the discussions and guided the participants toward mutual understanding. I have looked for specific phrases, ideas, and themes that were repeated throughout the negotiations by the group leaders and chief drafters, and then grouped these into broad conceptual categories of framing techniques. I then rechecked to verify that these categories encompassed all the main ideas and themes of the discussions and that each broad category was adequately supported by the data, for example, each framing technique occurred numerous times. This methodology, which is commonly used in the study of group encounters (see Çuhadar and Dayton 2012; Kellen, Bekerman, and Maoz 2013), provides insight into how the facilitators conceived and conducted the discussions.

The organizers framed the London talks, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, in ways that seem somewhat contradictory and even oxymoronic. On one hand, they suggested that the participants should view the negotiations as an “exercise,” that their positions didn't need to be rigid, and that they could be open‐minded and distance themselves from entrenched national beliefs. Researchers have cited flexibility as the main strength of track two negotiations (Rouhana 2000; d'Estrée 2008). But on the other hand, as I explain below, the organizers presented the talks as serious and even crucial, implying that failure would end all hopes that any future agreement could ever be reached between Israelis and Palestinians.

The participants referred to the talks as an exercise several times throughout the three‐day meeting. For example, the chief Israeli drafter said at the beginning that if the official Camp David Two or Taba negotiations had succeeded “we wouldn't be doing this exercise” (video 1 at 0:46:25). He used the term again when discussing payments to Palestinian refugees (“another thing that the nature of the exercise has imposed on us …” (video 2 at 0:32:09) and the decision not to address historical narratives (“in this exercise … we decided not to try and agree on historical narratives” (video 2 at 0:37:10).

Although the negotiation was framed as an “exercise,” participants were told that they were taking part in something that was of immense importance. According to this framing, success in this exercise meant correcting the wrongs of the official track one negotiations that had failed and thus prove the feasibility of a Palestinian–Israeli peace. In addition, the team leaders sought to convince participants that failure in this exercise would prove that even the most moderate, peace‐oriented people on both sides could not actually agree, and by implication no future peace agreement would thus be possible. On the other hand, if they succeeded, peace was a viable possibility.

For example, the head of the Israeli team explained to the participants that he and the head of the Palestinian team began the track two process because “we felt we had to continue in order to prove to ourselves” (video 4 at 0:34:01) that it is possible to reach a draft agreement. As he explained it, the conventional wisdom in Israel was that the failure of the official track one Taba negotiations proved “… that the most dovish government in Israel trying to reach an agreement with the Palestinians failed because it was impossible” (video 4 at 0:34:50). He therefore framed this track two Geneva Initiative process as a continuation of the official track one Taba negotiations. Furthermore, because the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian teams in London had both been official negotiators at Taba, they likely also saw these talks as a continuation of the previous ones.

The supposedly historic nature of the exercise became even clearer when the sides failed to agree on specific issues. For example, when they failed to agree on the borders issues, one participant proposed that the draft include multiple possible resolutions rather than a single agreement, but the Israeli team leader objected, saying that “[t]hey do not need us in order to say there are many options” (video 11 at 0:06:15). In other words, it was up to the London talk participants to sort through those options and prove that agreement could actually be reached on all issues. “[I]f we are not setting an example,” he said, “and this example by itself is also something that has a missing variable, it will miss its significance” (video 11 at 0:07:13). He also said, “Like always, we are always 90 percent … in Camp David, in Taba, in the Clinton Plan, in all our discussions, it was 90 percent … if it is proven again that even we cannot agree to sign something … it will be quite ridiculous …” (video 12 at 0:11:40).

While taking part in an unofficial track two negotiation, an “exercise” or game, the participants were also asked to experience it as a true official negotiation, one they could not run away from, one that was binding, and that theoretically would guide the future relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.

The team leaders emphasized that participants should avoid dealing with the conflict's historical narrative. At the first joint Israeli–Palestinian meeting in London, one of the facilitators stated their approach was “interest‐based, trying to avoid ‘positions,’ ” and that they wanted to “avoid including ‘red herrings’ ” (video 1 at 0:47:34). In other words, they were trying to lead the participants not to talk about the history of the conflict, their perceptions of whose fault it was, what its roots were, who did what to whom, and so on.

The facilitators further explained that controversial issues likely to generate antagonism were removed from the proposed draft that had already been written prior to the meeting in London and set aside to be placed in annexes that would be written later. In practice, that meant that the negotiations bypassed and left for future debate any controversial issue that the leaders of both parties believed would hinder agreement. The participants were asked to try to avoid raising questions on topics that are controversial and expressing reservations unless they believed that discussing such issues was absolutely required to reach an agreement.

The facilitators did not hide this approach from the participants. They bluntly declared that they chose not to deal with issues deemed unessential because their intention was to reach an agreement and stated that they expected the other participants to act similarly.

Clearly, this approach is risky. The issues that this draft ignored might be seen as crucial for implementation of an actual agreement to succeed. The participants themselves questioned this problematic approach, which prioritized reaching agreement over addressing important issues, with representatives of both sides arguing that issues of narrative had to be dealt with. Participants from both parties argued that this was especially problematic because the price paid for reaching an agreement was to ignore issues central to Palestinian identity.

For example, when discussing the issue of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, the main debate concerned a timetable for their release.⁶ The Palestinians wanted the agreement to clearly state that all prisoners would be released and treated as war prisoners. The Israelis objected, arguing that such an action could be seen as condoning and promoting terrorism because potential perpetrators would be more likely to go through with their attacks knowing that they would be released once an agreement was actually signed.

Because the sides could not agree on this issue, the discussion focused on whether it should be moved to the annexes. The Palestinian participant who raised the issue claimed that other important topics were not moved to the annexes, and that this topic could not just be dismissed by leaving it for future negotiations. Delaying the discussion was effectively the same as failing to address it. Because the draft agreement dealt with other controversial issues, he insisted that this topic should also be addressed. Interestingly, in an internal discussion, a member of the Israeli team voiced different objections regarding the same issue, arguing that the truth must be told and not ignored, that not all Palestinian prisoners would be released as part of an agreement, and therefore the draft should address this issue and not leave it for some future negotiations.⁷

Another postponed discussion was over the issue of Palestinian refugees. Although this is known to be the most dominant theme in the Palestinian narrative, the Geneva Initiative agreement does not discuss the suffering of the refugees nor mention the historical context in which the problem was created. The draft presented to the participants in London contained only a description of the different mechanisms that should be established to compensate the refugees, ensure that they could choose where to live, and end their refugee status. Some of the Palestinian participants objected to this and requested that the narrative aspects be included and that Palestinian suffering be described. But the Palestinian chief negotiator argued that it was he who had deliberately decided not to mention this aspect. He explained that the Israeli drafters wanted to mention the suffering of the refugees, but that the Palestinian drafters had rejected the idea because, as they saw it, a technical agreement could not adequately convey the complexity and significance of the refugee narrative. The chief Israeli negotiator concluded that the historical and narrative aspects should not be ignored and must be addressed, but that “… we decided not to try and agree on the historical narrative. Ultimately believing that it was more important to provide a solution …” (video 2 at 0:37:17).

Narratives create unity and help a group construct its shared identity (Anderson 1991; Bar‐Tal 2013). It is thus unsurprising that some participants rejected an approach that ignored something so fundamental. Nonetheless, the participants ultimately played by the rules. They agreed to leave aside the historical narrative questions and to participate in “dialogues without narratives” (Benziman 2014). I argue that this approach was critical to their progress and ability to reach agreements.

Although some issues were avoided, the participants were not silenced. Instead they were encouraged to raise any topic or ask any question they had. For example, a goal of the initial plenary meeting was to consult with the participants themselves about how to approach the issues in dispute and how to conduct the meetings.

Therefore, the discussions were in many ways very open and transparent, and participants were encouraged to discuss anything that was future‐oriented, technical, and pragmatic. Participants were never silenced, and if the issue raised was determined to be essential for the success of the agreement it was discussed. If the issue raised was thought to be less essential, the group leaders argued that, although important, it should not be dealt with in the context of the draft agreement.

Because the London talks were part of the ongoing Geneva Initiative process that had begun two years before, the leaders of the groups had already drafted an almost final agreement by the time they arrived in London. The London talks were not meant to start negotiations all over again, but to help bridge the gaps between the sides on unresolved issues.

Consequently, the discussions were structured in the following way. In most of the meetings, the participants sat on opposing sides of a u‐shaped table. In the center an Israeli and a Palestinian representative sat together and they conducted the discussions. A screen was located above the facilitators' heads, and the text of the draft was screened on it. When border issues were discussed, maps of the region were placed on an easel in the center of the room.

Issues, topics, and agreed‐upon text were either read verbatim or summarized. The facilitators mainly directed the participants' attention toward the points that were still under dispute. In addition, participants could raise any additional topic they chose. They were encouraged to argue, to confront each other, and to discuss topics in dispute in order to resolve all issues.

All discussions began with a recitation of all previously resolved issues, which served to emphasize agreement over conflict and nurtured a sense of cooperation among the participants. They were led to believe that most of the issues had already been resolved. Participants were discouraged from rehashing issues already in agreement and were thus encouraged to focus on the few unresolved issues without endangering all the understandings that had already been achieved.

The head of the Palestinian delegation spoke as if the main task of the negotiations was to complete the document and agree upon it, saying, for example, that “[t]here are still issues that are not resolved … I hope we will do our outmost to conclude it” (video 4 at 0:27:57). He seemed to take for granted that this would happen, turning attention to how a final agreement could be promoted and disseminated, saying “… this will make us all able to focus on the real issues and conditions and then to talk openly about what should we do after we conclude” (video 4 at 0:30:47). The head of the Israeli group continued this approach by calling for an open discussion, but at the same time emphasizing that enormous work had been done so far in order to reach understandings about most issues. “I do not know how many, fifty drafts that we worked on,” he said (video 1 at 0:22:38), making clear how he wanted this meeting to end: “I would very much like to get to a point where we have a paper we are willing to commit to” (video 1 at 0:23:08).

In different meetings, the head of the Israeli group even said more explicitly that “[i]n the coming twenty‐four to thirty hours … we will know that this is the paper … we can use it as a kind of a done deal” and “I think that tomorrow we can sign the paper” (video 4 at 0:45:27). This hope of his had practical implications: Palestinian and Israeli public relations experts were invited to the final meeting to discuss how to publicize an agreement. Because the meetings took place in London, presumably these experts were invited before the talks even started.

While the leaders promoted the impression that the agreement was all but a “sure deal,” a close reading of the transcript reveals that the participants did not actually agree to all the points that were reportedly already resolved and that some of them were completely unaware of all the details of the draft. For example, just before some of the participants left the meetings at the end of the third day, the head of the Israeli delegation asked them if they were willing to declare that they agreed to what they had discussed. One Israeli participant remarked that he theoretically agreed, but only if the discussions truly reflected what was written in the document — presumably, he had not actually read the entire document.

The transcript also reveals that, at an internal Israeli meeting, the Israeli team leader mentioned that he was unsure that he and the head of the Palestinian team saw the goals and objectives of the meeting in the same way. In addition, at one joint meeting, the Palestinians stated that they did not agree among themselves about the final resolution of the border issue and what the maps should look like, although these were issues that had been allegedly settled earlier.

These examples suggest that if the discussions had encompassed all the issues in the agreement, including those that were allegedly resolved, more disputes might have arisen. If the participants had actually discussed everything, they might have found more conflicts than they originally thought. But the way the group leaders framed the discussions encouraged resolution of specific difficult issues under the assumption that the other issues had already been resolved, although this may, in fact, have not been the case.

The two group leaders also framed the London talks in ways designed to create a sense of superordinate group identity among the participants, to make them believe that they are all members of one Palestinian–Israeli group with shared values, goals, and understandings of the situation. This superordinate group supposedly shared a desire to reach peace and believed that this was achievable. Track two negotiators often frame the talks to emphasize what the participants have in common and to build a shared group identity — and the facilitators prod the participants to reach an agreement that reflects the values and beliefs that all members of the group share (see Gaertner, Dovidio, and Bachman 1996; Huo et al. 1996; Pettigrew 1998; Brewer 1999; Gaertner and Dovidio 2000). The participants were encouraged to reach agreement, because failure would suggest that creating a Palestinian–Israeli peace group with agreed and shared understandings was impossible.

In practice, the participants did not abandon their original national identities. They simultaneously perceived themselves as negotiating on behalf of their nations and as part of the joint group. For example, one of the claims raised by a Palestinian participant during the discussion of the issue of prisoners was that “no Palestinian leader would ever sign an agreement without all prisoners being released” (video 11 at 0:19:10). In other words, even if such a solution were acceptable to the Palestinian participants, in this negotiation, it is not something that they could agree to because their people would not accept it. Likewise, the Israelis repeatedly reminded the Palestinians that they were talking to the most moderate representatives of Israeli society, who could not go back to Israel with a deal that diverged too much from mainstream Israeli positions. This framing strengthened the participants' perceptions that they shared values, interests, and a commitment to reach agreement, while also being semi‐representatives of their nations.

The participants in the London talks leading to the signing of the Geneva Initiative participated in a negotiation characterized by contradictions. They were asked to bring up any issue that seemed important to them, but at the same time they were also requested not to deal with the conflict's underlying historical narratives. They negotiated in theory all the issues in dispute, but were presented with a draft that was supposedly almost complete and resolved. They were asked to take part in an “exercise” but were warned that a failure in this attempt could preclude ever achieving peace.

The leaders thus framed these unofficial negotiations as a serious game, allowing the participants to raise any issue but only actually negotiate those deemed essential and resolvable. They treated the participants as representatives of opposing sides who were also part of a joint group, encouraging the belief that the sides had much in common even when they disagreed about major issues. They promoted the idea that these negotiations were a continuation of track one negotiations but at the same time encouraged the flexibility and open‐mindedness of a track two “exercise.” In these ways, I believe the leaders of this process created a framework that encouraged participants to reach agreement.

Framing is often used to give negotiators “more control over the negotiation process” (Lewicki, Barry, and Saunders 2010: 143). As Linda Putnam wrote, “[b]ecause the process of framing is enacted in ongoing interaction, the parties may become unaware of it or may not resist it” (Putnam 2010: 148). Effective framing may be invisible to participants.

These findings depart from the existing scholarship in some important ways. For example, track two scholarship has suggested that meetings between rivals should tackle all topics, discuss all issues that the participants feel are necessary, and find ways to resolve them (Burton 1986; Kelman and Cohen 1986; McCartney 1986; Kelman 1990; Rothman 1998; Ropers 2004), but in these talks that idea was not fully embraced. Also, the principle that track two diplomacy should “emphasize the value and importance of addressing the deep‐seated, psychological aspects of disputes” (Jones 2014: 349) was completely and deliberately abandoned. In fact, not doing so may have promoted agreement.

The lessons that I take from this negotiation (and the strategies described above) do not negate existing theories of track two diplomacy. But they suggest that different models may suit different kinds of track two negotiations. The six framing techniques I have identified in this case study in all their contradictory complexity enrich existing theories. They may help explain other track two negotiations and provide insight for facilitators seeking to implement future unofficial negotiations.

Future research on track two diplomacy in other settings and conflicts could provide additional insight. Would making the participants believe that they are participating in an “exercise,” but a crucial one, increase their commitment toward achieving a resolution? What would be the effect of directing participants to avoid discussion of historical narratives in other long‐standing intractable conflicts? What is the impact of encouraging both sides to believe they have agreed about issues when this may not be true? Such inquiry could reveal whether the strategies I have identified promote the success of track two negotiation more generally or are limited to the test case presented here.