Abstract
This article proposes that historical acknowledgment strategies are not only useful if and when they lead to coexistence and reconciliation in the post‐conflict stages, but also as an early conflict negotiation strategy. To develop this proposition the article integrates literature on conflict resolution and conflict transformation with models of negotiation and underscores the potential utility of historical acknowledgment strategies in early stages of official negotiations. The article proposes that historical acknowledgment strategies address the lack of long‐term trust, which is often a significant impediment during negotiations. Such strategies signal a commitment to changing the public space as well as the education of future generations in ways that acknowledge the adversary’s history and identity. This action is likely to provide assurances to the other side that peaceful coexistence is a long‐term goal of the leadership and the public. Furthermore, the article proposes that the current international normative environment—that is, existing human rights norms and strengthening international norms of “dealing with the past”—places expectations and demands on states’ leadership. These expectations and demands are part of the constraints and pressures within which a conflict operates and within which any peace process is negotiated. Therefore, the current international normative environment makes the positive effects of incorporating historical acknowledgment strategies into early peace negotiations more likely. To illustrate the feasibility of the rationale developed here and its practical implications, the article considers the application of historical acknowledgment strategies to the case of Israel/Palestine and specifically to the 1948 Palestinian refugees issue.
Introduction
The demand for the right of return is more of a moral position that the Palestinian public is taking. There is a need for recognition, in fact it goes beyond that, Palestinians want an apology from the State of Israel. We find that … if we talk to the Palestinian public, [if] Israel is willing to apologize for the suffering of the refugees as a result of the 1948 war, we see significant willingness on the part of those Palestinians to show willingness to compromise.
In recent years, a widespread consensus has been emerging among conflict resolution practitioners and scholars about the long‐term positive effects of strategies aimed at “dealing with the past” in conflict processes. Strategies of historical acknowledgment, including, for example, official apologies and historical narrative revisions, are assumed to lessen the effects of contested history as an underlying cause of conflict and/or facilitate changes in the perceptions of and relationships between former adversaries. In general, historical acknowledgment strategies focus on the outcome of a peacemaking process and are associated with its long‐term psychological and emotional effects. This article proposes that historical acknowledgment strategies are not only useful if and when they lead to coexistence and reconciliation in the post‐conflict stages, but also as an early conflict negotiation strategy.
In the context of official negotiations, historical acknowledgment strategies address the lack of long‐term trust, which is often a significant impediment during negotiations. They signal a commitment to changing the public space as well as the education of future generations in ways that acknowledge the adversary’s history and identity. This action is likely to provide assurances to the other side that peaceful coexistence is a long‐term goal of the leadership and the public.
According to this proposition, “dealing with the past” is not exclusively about the goals of reconciliation and justice, nor is it something to be left for the post‐conflict period or for civil society, but it is rather a strategy to be considered and initiated by the leadership early on in a negotiation process. To develop this proposition, I integrate the literature on conflict resolution and conflict transformation with models of negotiation. I then illustrate the applicability of historical acknowledgment strategies to the case of Israel/Palestine and specifically the 1948 Palestinian refugees issue, as well as the feasibility of such strategies.2
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict and peace process have been the focus of a voluminous body of academic literature; therefore, when it comes to negotiations this is a case that is rich in both theory and information. At the same time, there has been relatively little attention directed to the use of historical acknowledgment as a tool in the process of resolving this conflict.3 The main reasons for this omission are the zero‐sum labeling of the conflict as intractable (Kriesberg 1993), the primary focus on security, and practitioners’ dismissive attitudes toward issues of justice, morality, and reconciliation during past negotiation rounds (Herman 2006).
The empirical data were drawn from previous rounds of official negotiations, Track‐Two workshops and initiatives, and civil society projects. It highlights the extent to which historical acknowledgments have been tried in the past and the extent to which they might be feasible and acceptable by the leadership and the public. This case illustrates that even in the “hard” case of Israel/Palestine, introducing historical acknowledgment as an early negotiation strategy is a feasible and potentially more desirable path for negotiations.
Before proceeding, two clarifications are in order. First, this article focuses on historical acknowledgment by the Israeli side. One might argue that ideational concessions must be reciprocal and symmetric. However, conflict negotiations are more often than not asymmetrical. With their identity well established and the country’s statehood secure, Israeli society and the State of Israel are arguably in a good position to address history with a critical eye. The Palestinians, moreover, are in the early stages of nation‐ and state‐building, when historical reflection is not as easy or as feasible. In addition, the asymmetry in power relations overwhelmingly favors Israel and supports this article’s focus on the Israeli side. Furthermore, there already have been many civilsociety initiatives on the Israeli side along the lines suggested in this article; these offer ideas and evidence for developing a historical acknowledgment strategy. The choice to focus primarily on the Israeli side also has a theoretical basis, as the literature on positive inducement suggests that in negotiations, the side with greater resources—in this case, Israel—is more capable of using positive inducements (Kriesberg and Dayton 2012). This choice does not, however, suggest that one should avoid considering similar strategies for the Palestinians or even joint mechanisms.
Second, this article focuses on historical acknowledgment strategies as distinct from material means of “dealing with the past,” such as reparations, compensation, and restitution. This distinction is for analytical purposes only and does not imply that historical acknowledgment would suffice or that the separation between tangible and intangible strategies is in practice either possible or desirable (Osiel 2015). Historical acknowledgment is not the only or even the primary factor that shapes actors’ preferences and strategies during negotiations; nevertheless, its positive effects on negotiations are not marginal and should not be ignored. Resettlement schemes and monetary reparations will be an important part of the resolution of the refugee issue. Since there have been myriad theoretical and political schemes for addressing the monetary aspects (Brynen and El‐Rifai 2014), this article brackets those aspects to focus more clearly on the lacunae in the literature regarding the incorporation of nonmonetary acknowledgments and their potential role as a negotiation strategy.
The Constructive Effects of Historical Acknowledgment in Conflict Resolution
In the context of conflict transformation and resolution, and of post‐conflict peace‐building, the incorporation of historical acknowledgment strategies has become a common practice (Roht‐Arriaza 2006; Llewellyn and Philpott 2014). Historical acknowledgment strategies are practices that attempt to come to terms with historical grievances through nonmonetary means.4 These practices convey a message of acknowledgment for past wrongdoing (O’Neill 2001; Hamber 2004). They may include:
truth and reconciliation commissions, which examine past records of human rights violations with the assumption that the investigative and testimonial processes, along with the resulting official report, will have multiple positive effects, including justice and reconciliation (Hayner 2010);
historical narrative revision, which is a process designed to replace a one‐sided victor’s history with a more complex account that incorporates factual descriptions of past human rights violations while emphasizing the victims’ experiences and narrative(s);
an official apology, which is a public expression of remorse for past human rights violations (Nobles 2008); and
public commemorations to honor victims, which may take various public forms, including building museums, erecting monuments or memorials, renaming spaces, and designating days of remembrance (Gillis 1994).
In the conflict resolution literature such strategies have been positively associated with changing a conflict’s dynamic (Borer 2006). Adversaries often recount a conflict in a way that portrays one side as victims and justifies its use of violence while delegitimizing the other side (Opotow 2001). Often, the contestation of history itself becomes a significant obstacle to peace and can further incite conflict. Distorted and self‐glorifying narratives not only foment conflict, but also shape perceptions of intentions and convey contempt to others (Van Evera 2003; Lind 2008; Mendeloff 2008). Accordingly, historical acknowledgment strategies have the capacity to produce and legitimize a single or shared historical narrative, which can defuse tensions and may help to prevent the return of violence.
The conflict transformation literature suggests a more substantive role for historical acknowledgment strategies focusing on their contribution to the goals of reconciliation and healing (Dayton and Kriesberg 2010). That is, historical acknowledgment vindicates victims and may alleviate underlying feelings of resentment and a desire for revenge, thus proving conducive to conflict transformation (Lund 1998). A related argument views peace and reconciliation as “inevitably conjoined” (Bar‐Siman‐Tov 2004; Bar‐Tal and Bennik 2004; Borer 2006; Kerr and Mobekk 2007; Lambourne 2009), and historical acknowledgment as a means to foster trust, respect, and cooperation. Historical acknowledgment is, therefore, critical for securing stable and sustainable peace (Abu‐Nimer 2001; Kelman 2004; Govier 2006). Also, the harmonization of national memories is considered key for realizing deep reconciliation between states, making war no longer imaginable between former adversaries (He 2009).
These arguments generally address the outcome of peacemaking processes and the psychological and emotional long‐term effects that are associated with historical acknowledgment strategies (Kriesberg 2007; Dayton and Kriesberg 2010; Strombom 2014). For example, in the years following the 1998 Belfast Agreement, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland disclosed disappearances, acknowledged wrongdoing, and offered apologies that “seem to have been an important component in the process of conflict‐transformation and confidence‐building …. [and have] provided an implicit confirmation of the IRA’s shift from political violence to peaceful engagement” (Dudai 2011: 801). However, the use of these strategies has been typically associated with bottom‐up peace‐building processes practiced by civil society organizations, and not with formal negotiations between political representatives (Bar‐Tal 2000; Wüstenberg 2017). In fact, it is often assumed that some level of political closure is a precondition for reconciliation (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall 2005) and often negotiators are concerned outright that addressing historical injustice and harm would be so controversial early in negotiations that it would potentially backlash and destabilize the negotiations.5 Therefore, if and when historical acknowledgment is considered at the official level, it is often left for the post‐conflict stages.
In sum, conflict resolution academics and practitioners have accepted three facts about the constructive effects of historical acknowledgment: first, they operate at a societal level; second, the optimal timing for these societal processes is during the post‐conflict stages; and third, civil society organizations are or should be the designated agents.
Historical Acknowledgment During Conflict Negotiations
More recent work seeks not to place historical acknowledgment solely within the purview of civil society initiatives, but rather to view it as a tool for official negotiations. Binningsbø and Loyle (2018), for example, find that “during‐conflict justice” (i.e., the introduction of transitional justice tools to the bargaining process) signals resolve, creates a better negotiating position, and changes the outcome of negotiations or the likelihood of a compromise. In another large‐n empirical study, Wagner and Druckman (2017) found that procedural justice (trust, respect, and courtesy‐based elements of the process of negotiation) correlates with reconciliation as a component of durable peace. Others, more specifically focusing on the negotiation of conflicting narratives, propose various frameworks to integrate identity formation with the bargaining process and negotiations.6 These works on narrative and recognition highlight the importance of acknowledgment during conflict negotiations. However, they are ultimately concerned with its potential to transform identities and lead to reconciliation. I propose that the effects of historical acknowledgment are not limited to the typically assumed emotive and long‐term reconciliatory effects, but also encompass short‐term effects on the dynamic of negotiations.
In this sense historical acknowledgment is a “strategy of positive inducement” wherein one side provides the other with meaningful “incentives to bring about positive behavior” (Nincic 2010: 139). I argue that using these strategies to reflect the adversary’s history and identity, one side in a conflict negotiation can extend concessions and thereby signal the potential for future coexistence. This approach follows the logic of the integrative approach to negotiations—also known as the positive‐sum or problem‐solving approach. Negotiators attempt to reconcile conflicting positions by meeting underlying interests, values, and/or needs of the parties.
It should be noted that the signaling proposition developed here does not assume nor contend that historical acknowledgments are indeed effective in yielding real forgiveness and reconciliation. This question has been much debated in social psychology literature with mixed evidence about actual effectiveness, especially that of official apologies (Hornsey and Wohl 2013). These studies propose, however, that when official apologies are offered together with acceptance of guilt, change in records of history, and material reparations, the effects might be positive (Hornsey, Wohl, and Philpot 2015). The proposition builds on this more integrative framework of historical acknowledgment and places it early on at the heart of political bargaining. As such, it addresses the lack of trust between the negotiating partners, which is palpable in a protracted conflict. In so framing the proposition, I underscore the potential of historical acknowledgment to overcome, or at least lessen, this obstacle to negotiations.
Trust, Costly Signals, and Historical Acknowledgment
The lack of trust is often a significant impediment during negotiations, especially in intractable conflicts in which negotiations have repeatedly been ruptured (Kriesberg 1993). The role of historical acknowledgment in initiating or restoring trust can be understood as a strategy of graduated reciprocation in tension reduction (GRIT) and of signaling. GRIT is a strategy in which one party in a conflict unilaterally initiates a series of cooperative moves. These moves are announced along with an invitation for reciprocity, yet continue whether or not the invitation is accepted (Kriesberg and Dayton 2012). This strategy is based on the idea that conciliatory moves accompanied by a request for reciprocation should generate hope, reassurance, and attraction—all of which build trust and confidence (Baldwin 1971). Historical acknowledgment is particularly suited for GRIT for several reasons. It can be initiated unilaterally, regardless of the status of the negotiations; it is conciliatory by definition; and, since the “identity needs” of each side are quite different, the invitation for reciprocity can be general and bridge different issue areas.
According to the signaling hypothesis (Fearon 1994, 1997; Schultz 1998), in contexts of incomplete information, parties can credibly signal assurances of trustworthiness to communicate their commitment to improve relations (Hoffman 2002; Kydd 2005).7 Signaling through historical acknowledgments—for example, by officially committing to educate future generations using textbooks that acknowledge past harm—provides a combination of committed costs (“costly signals”) and “tying hands” by the party that offers the signal (Slantchev 2011). Specifically, signaling recognition of existential concerns—sacred values and identities—is closely related to building trust during negotiations (Atran and Axelrod 2008), particularly because positive signals can be more effective than negative ones (Nincic 2006). The acknowledgment of the other side’s narrative validates the other side’s identity and values. This “serve[s] as a dependable concession that changes the expected payoffs facing the parties so as to encourage them to choose peace” (Long and Brecke 2003: ix). Specifically, the endorsement of a public commemoration indicates a commitment to changing the public sphere in a way that acknowledges the “other.” The endorsement of historical narrative revision indicates a commitment to educating future generations in light of a joint narrative. Together, these commitments can provide assurances that peaceful coexistence is indeed the long‐term goal to which the negotiating leadership and the public are committed. These nonmaterial concessions credibly signal a commitment to taking actions, which allows the other side to imagine a future in which both sides are not enemies.
Signaling through historical acknowledgment also relates to threat perception and threat reduction. States’ historical memories affect how they perceive the intentions of and the threat posed by other states. In the cases of Germany and Japan after World War II, for example, there was a relationship between the expression of contrition and the reduction of threat perceptions by these states’ former adversaries (Lind 2008). By that logic, the signaling of and commitment to contrition—through a commitment to a public apology and acknowledgment of the other side’s suffering early on in negotiations—is a way to show good intentions. Studies of political apologies further suggest that they serve as diplomatic signals that take some nonlegally binding responsibility for past offenses (Bilder 2008) and can help to restore reputation (Weyeneth 2001). Some states have pragmatically used apologies as a diplomatic signaling tool. Japan, for example, incorporated elements of both regret and apology in its 1956 negotiations over the Japan–Korea Normalization Treaty and its negotiations in the 1970s over the Sino–Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty (Yamazaki 2006; Dixon 2018). These costly signals of commitment can, therefore, be taken as diplomatic mechanisms to build trust, signal good intent, and make it easier for the other side to make concessions during negotiations.
A key question is whether historical acknowledgment strategies—such as apologies, public commemorations, and official narrative revisions—are indeed “costly” signals or should be dismissed as merely “cheap talk.” A growing body of empirical scholarship suggests that states—for example, Austria, Japan, and Turkey—and political actors within states care quite deeply about history and identity (Art 2006; Seaton 2007; Dixon 2018). In fact, it is the strong resistance to changes in narrative and to acknowledgment of past wrongdoing in these cases that demonstrates that these are indeed costly actions. Furthermore, the politicization of history and narrative within states’ domestic society and politics suggests that they should also be valued in international negotiations. Accordingly, acknowledgments of the other side’s historical narrative are costly signals, since they relate to a narrative that both society and politicians care about. Therefore, acknowledgments that are sanctioned by the political leadership are likely to provide assurances to the other side that peaceful coexistence is a long‐term goal to which the leadership and the public are committed, making concessions more likely during negotiations (Govier 2006).
Considering Audience Costs
Critics of positive inducements view them as insufficient at best and a moral hazard at worst (Reardon 2010). In a negotiation setting, such critics argue that positive inducements signal weakness, which can lead to more demands and/or encourage stalling of the negotiations in hopes of gaining greater leverage. As a result, domestic audiences may view conciliatory strategies negatively, signaling weakness and putting the state in a less favorable position. While these risks are real, in the case of historical acknowledgment, they are potentially mitigated. Historical acknowledgment strategies not only signal to the other side’s leadership but also, more broadly, to the other side’s domestic audience. If the other side’s leadership consists of “hardliners,” then the offer of historical acknowledgment may undermine their argument that they are merely victims of aggression or their calls for “rallying around the flag” in order to face that aggression. If the other side’s leadership is pro‐peace, they can use historical acknowledgment concessions to offset domestic opponents or enlist further support for a deal. In general, the acknowledgment of at least some aspects of the adversary’s identity and history is more likely to convince the mainstream in both societies that the envisioned future would be peaceful (Scham 2006). Therefore, it is more likely to strengthen the more moderate and pro‐peace‐agreement factions in both societies (Nincic 2010; Solingen 2012).
Another potential cost relates to identity. Acknowledging the harm that one side has inflicted on the other—even decades ago—may damage the self‐perception of the side that caused the harm. This might carry significant audience costs, since the degradation of moral identity can evoke resentment and strong domestic opposition. This cost, however, is mitigated by a couple of factors. First, the identity cost largely depends on how much of a departure the acknowledgment is from the (official) national narrative of the side offering it. This, in turn, depends on whether there has already been a domestic debate over the historiography of the events under question. For example, from the 1950s through the 1980s, even the mention in Turkey of the Armenian Genocide was taboo; yet, since the mid‐1990s, there has been some public and scholarly contestation and acknowledgment of some basic facts (Dixon 2010). If there is already a public debate over the nation’s historiography, then there are fewer domestic audience costs associated with the potential loss of identity. The second factor that mitigates domestic identity costs is the fact that historical acknowledgment also carries with it the potential for identity gains; namely, apologizing and acknowledging past wrongs can be a way to feel morally superior and raise one’s “moral threshold” (Gibney and Roxtrom 2001).8
International Incentives and Identity Gain
A final aspect of the signaling proposition developed here is that the current international normative environment makes the positive effects of incorporating historical acknowledgment into peace negotiations more likely. Negotiations and the related cost–benefit calculations are set in an international normative environment—that is, within existing human rights norms and strengthening international norms of truth‐ and justice‐seeking (Ben‐Josef Hirsch and Dixon 2020), which supports the incorporation of human rights concerns in peace negotiations (ICHR 2006) and the use of historical acknowledgment strategies. Over the last two decades, there has been a nascent global historical justice regime, which builds on a human rights discourse that legitimizes demands for acknowledgment (Berger 2012). This global historical justice regime has been embedded in the institutionalization of the practice and theory of transitional justice at the international level (Teitel 2003; Ben‐Josef Hirsch 2014). This institutionalization implies that international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the UN embrace and promote a growing international consensus about the need to confront legacies of past abuses and actively form expectations of and demands for the application of historical justice in ending conflicts (Hannum 2006). These international institutions, which are often allied with domestic actors, use both positive and negative incentives, including conditional membership or aid, “shaming,” and sanctions to apply pressure (Boli and Thomas 1999; Pevehouse 2005). Accordingly, the emerging international norm of “truth‐seeking” places expectations and demands that become part of the constraints and pressures within which a conflict operates and within which any peace process is negotiated (Ben‐Josef Hirsch 2014).
When leaders enter negotiations in this international normative environment, they may realistically expect that issues of human rights, including demands for historical justice and acknowledgment, will enter into the negotiations. Even when demands are not explicitly made by the parties in the negotiations, this international context is part of what frames the expectations of both domestic and international audiences (Albin 2001). Accordingly, addressing issues of human rights is both a constraint and an asset in negotiations. It is a constraint in that it may initiate new demands by domestic and international actors who use such issues as leverage against other parties, jeopardizing a final agreement. But it may also be an asset, since it introduces and frames the identity benefits of moral superiority, international prestige, and reputation that are attached to historical acknowledgment. Leaders entering negotiations calculate that by addressing issues of justice and acknowledgment, they can strengthen the legitimacy of their negotiation position and of any final agreement.9 Overall, the international norms of human rights and justice‐seeking offset the potential identity costs by providing international identity benefits as well as negative incentives to make historical acknowledgment strategies more appealing during negotiations.
The 1948 Palestinian Refugees: What Signaling Does and Can Do
In the course of military operations in Palestine/Israel before, during, and after the 1948 war, about 400 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed. Due to flight and expulsion, either locally initiated by Jewish fighters or coordinated from above by the Zionist leadership, about 80 percent of the Palestinians who had lived on lands that became part of the State of Israel became refugees or were internally displaced. There were an estimated 700,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948; today the number of the refugees and their descendants is in the millions. The Palestinian refugee issue has political, economic, legal, and psychological dimensions and has been one of the sticking points, if not the major impediment, in past rounds of peace negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides (Susser 2011).
The issue of the 1948 refugees was first negotiated as part of the Madrid process in 1991, in which the Refugee Working Group, which operated from 1991 to 1997, focused primarily on practical resettlements, citizenship solutions, and financial compensation schemes. In the Oslo peace process, which began in 1993, negotiations focused primarily on issues of security and borders. For reasons of political feasibility, tensions between Palestinian leadership and refugees, and the perception among Israeli leadership that the issue is too complex (Gal 2008), the refugee issue has been postponed for future final status talks. The underlying logic has been that a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders would be the catalyst for the ultimate resolution of the refugee issue (Bell 2000).
In unofficial and Track‐Two meetings, the 1948 refugee issue has been considered mostly within a legal framework and with a focus on the economic aspects of reparations and rehabilitation plans. These Track‐Two meetings have made many contributions to issues of compensation schemes and permitted and forbidden modes of the refugees’ return.10 Historical grievances, however, have been largely ignored and acts of acknowledgment have been avoided or rejected by the Israeli side due to concerns over legal liability11 and mutual concerns of being held back by irresolvable historical debates.12
The following section illustrates the rationale for using historical acknowledgment as a signaling strategy in the negotiations over the Palestinian refugee issue. Once I establish that the lack of trust is palpable, I draw on previous rounds of negotiations as well as ongoing civil society initiatives to illustrate how signaling with historical acknowledgment could overcome or at least lessen this obstacle.
The 1948 Refugees: Intractability and Lack of Trust
More than any other conflict, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been described as intractable (Kriesberg 1993). The intractability has often been associated with the differing—and even mutually exclusive—narratives of the two sides (Alpher and Shikaki 1998; Rotberg 2006; Khoury 2016). The perception of “mutual exclusivity of claim and existence” is captured by the refugee issue and the question of the right of return (Friedman 2003: 63). From the Palestinian point of view, the “right of return” is an inalienable individual and collective right and it is the only way to resolve the historical grievances brought about by the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which is termed the Nakba (Arabic for “the Catastrophe”). From the Israeli point of view, the return of the 1948 Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel remains the ultimate threat to the viability and Jewish character of the state. Palestinians seem to hold that, beyond the practical ramifications of the refugee issue, the right of return is a matter of national identity and justice and, therefore, cannot be forfeited. Israelis seem to believe that the Palestinian position on the right of return is aimed at the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians’ insistence on the right of return is, thus, viewed by Israelis as an indication that their goal is not to end occupation, but to eliminate the Jewish state (Pressman 2003). For Palestinians, ignoring the right of return is a sign that Israelis never intend to accept Palestinian nationhood.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is cited not only for its intractability but also for the endemic lack of trust on both sides, especially following the failure of the Oslo process, the second Intifada, the numerous rounds of violence, and the standstill in official negotiations. According to John Kerry, the former U.S. Secretary of State and the mediator in the last 2013–14 peace effort, “the negotiations did not fail because the gaps were too wide, but because the level of trust was too low” (Kerry 2016). Reflecting this, in a 2016 survey, “an overwhelming majority of Palestinians (87 percent) and Israeli Jews (77 percent) indicated that the other side is untrustworthy” (Shikaki 2017: 117). As Shikaki further explained, “[e]ach side believes that the other is not trustworthy, does not want peace, does not support the two‐state solution, and entertains deep‐seated, if hidden, long‐term aspirations to wipe out the other side from existence” (Shikaki 2017: 117).
Signaling Trust: Historical Acknowledgment in Past Rounds of Negotiation and by Civil Society
In the few negotiation rounds in the last two decades, there are indications that Israeli negotiators have considered incorporating some historical acknowledgment into the discussions. In part, this move toward considering historical grievances in the negotiations can be traced back to the public debate sparked by the work of the Israeli New Historians, who have been probing the origins and dynamics of the Arab–Israeli conflict, including the role of the Yishuv (pre‐state Jewish Palestine) and later Israel in creating the Palestinian refugee problem (Ben‐Josef Hirsch 2007; Nets‐Zehngut 2011). These New Historians broke a long‐standing taboo in Israeli politics and society and made it possible to at least raise and debate the issue of Israeli responsibility for the Palestinians’ catastrophe.
An acknowledgment of Israeli historical responsibility and the offer of an official apology were part of the 2000 Camp David negotiations, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak rejected both proposals.13 Still, in the so‐called Clinton Parameters, President Clinton noted: “I believe that Israel is prepared to acknowledge the moral and material suffering caused to the Palestinian people as a result of the 1948 war and the need to assist the international community in addressing the problem” (Clinton 2000). In the next round of negotiations, held in January 2001 in Taba, Egypt, a Palestinian proposal on the refugee issue was met with a private Israeli response (a “non‐paper”) (Beilin 2001). Though far from an official apology or an acknowledgment of responsibility, this response included a framework never before presented in the context of the negotiations: “For all those parties directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of the status of Palestinian refugees, as well as those for whom a just and stable peace in the region is an imperative, it is incumbent to take upon themselves responsibility to assist in resolving the Palestinian refugee problem of 1948.”14 This non‐paper also includes expressions of sorrow for the “tragedy” and states: “The State of Israel notes its moral commitment to the swift resolution of
the plight of the refugee population in the Sabra and Shatila camps [in Lebanon]” and “[t]he international community and the State of Israel shall be the principle contributors to the International Fund [for the Rehabilitation Assistance and Compensation Programs] (Le Monde diplomatique2001a).”
Some Israeli leaders have moved even further toward acknowledgment and apology. In the December 2003 Geneva Initiative, which is the only public joint Track‐Two Israeli–Palestinian effort to draft a final status agreement, the role of historical acknowledgment in exchange for Palestinian concessions was further developed. The Geneva Initiative reaffirmed the significance of the refugee problem to the resolution of the conflict and called for “creating forums for exchanging historical narratives and enhancing mutual understanding about the past.” The initiative also prescribed intercommunal programs that “include developing appropriate ways of commemorating those villages and communities that existed prior to 1949” (Article 7 of the Geneva Accord 2003). While the Geneva Initiative is far from the official consensual framework for a permanent status agreement, polls have shown that at the time of its publication a majority of both Israelis (64 percent) and Palestinians (54 percent) supported its content.15
At the Annapolis Conference in 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert provided the first official and public expression of symbolic empathy: “I know and acknowledge the fact that … your people have also suffered for many years, and some still suffer. Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation. I know that this pain and this humiliation are the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred toward us” (Olmert 2007).
Beyond formal expressions of guilt and acknowledgment,16 the changing of the narrative is a critical element of the historical acknowledgment strategy. Textbook revisions and public commemorations signal an intergenerational commitment to lasting peace and provide costly signals to the Palestinians that peaceful coexistence is a long‐term goal of both the Israeli leadership and the Israeli public. This commitment is likely to make it easier to accept concessions during the negotiations, such as the concession over the return of refugees into Israel. These types of historical acknowledgment strategies have not been attempted during past negotiations or by Israeli officials, but there have been civil society initiatives in Israel that illustrate the applicability of narrative revisions (e.g., dual‐narrative textbooks) and public commemorations (e.g., the naming of public spaces and the creation of an alternative Memorial Day ceremony).
In the Israeli–Palestinian context, it has been widely documented that each side’s textbooks show a one‐sided narrative and foster a culture of enmity that sustains the conflict (Adwan and Firer 1997). A recent study reviewed at least nine initiatives in the last decade that proposed a common or dual narrative that acknowledges both the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives of 1948 (Nets‐Zehngut 2013). This study found that these initiatives helped to popularize among scholars and the general public the idea that the two parties have different narratives of the conflict and that some acknowledgment of the other’s narrative contributes to peace.
While there is some corroboration of the claim that learning the history of the other shapes interactions in intergroup dialogue encounters between Israeli and Palestinian students, these effects are not substantial and require significant investments of resources and time (Goldberg and Ron 2014). Accordingly, by introducing and committing to narrative revision projects in official negotiations, the goal of changing attitudes and building interpersonal trust is at best a distant one. Instead, the more immediate expected outcome is to signal to the Palestinians (in this case) that there is a commitment on the Israeli side to the long‐term goal of building the interpersonal trust needed for a peace agreement.
A similar logic applies for public commemorations. In the Israeli–Palestinian context, the Israeli civil society organization Zochrot (Hebrew for “Remember”) provides an example of such commemorative activity (Gutman 2017). The organization seeks to raise the Israeli public’s awareness of the Palestinian Nakba. It uses diverse methods to educate and commemorate, including leading tours of the sites of former Palestinian villages and neighborhoods and placing commemorative signs at these locations. Another civil society organization, Combatant for Peace, organizes an alternative Memorial Day ceremony, which commemorates all victims of the conflict, both Israelis and Palestinians. Here too, the reconciliatory effects might be realized only in the long term (Gutman 2011). However, if officials were to commit to similar commemorative activities, it would send a signal of investing in a lasting peace.
These civil society initiatives do not represent coordinated or official commemorative efforts, yet their operation illustrates the principles of acknowledgment of Palestinian victimhood as a way to alleviate their resentment of the establishment of the State of Israel, and construction of a joint narrative (or at least giving voice to more than one narrative) as a mechanism for defusing tensions. Should these mechanisms remain solely civil society initiatives, their positive effects are likely to be limited. In the Israeli–Palestinian context, findings about civil society's and NGOs’ peace‐building activities suggest that they have had limited direct influence on political decision‐making (Baskin and Al‐Qaq 2004; Maoz 2004; Herman 2006).17 However, if these initiatives were adopted as part of the trade‐offs in future negotiations, they could have immediate effects by indicating an official commitment to these reconciliatory efforts, and the initiatives also hold the potential to have long‐term reconciliatory effects.
Assessing the Utility and Feasibility of Historical Acknowledgment
Would the introduction of historical acknowledgment yield a compromise that is acceptable to domestic audiences? On the Israeli side, beyond the general lack of trust that is epitomized in the frequent official complaint that “there is no partner for peace,” there are also moral hazard concerns. As an Israeli journalist put it in 2013, “The fourth goal of the Palestinians is that any agreed number won’t be a final one: after a few years and after the first quota is completed they can demand another quota for the following years … we can argue that the Palestinian leadership did not compromise on the holy right of return; but merely agreed to its gradual implementation” (Yakobson 2013).
Nevertheless, in addition to the views of official negotiators discussed above, there are indications that acknowledging at least partial Israeli responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem has already entered the public sphere, including the Israeli media and the education system (Ben‐Josef Hirsch 2007). As long ago as 1999, a public opinion survey found that one‐third of the Israeli Jewish public departed from the conventional Israeli position. When asked “What caused the 1948 Palestinian refugee problem in the first instance?” the response of 31 percent was “mainly Jewish forces expelled the refugees.” While 29.9 percent believed that the refugees left voluntarily, only 17.3 percent believed that “mainly the refugees were told to leave by Arab leaders,” which has long been part of the official Israeli narrative. When the question was framed in terms of which group bore responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem (Israel or Arabs), 4.8 percent of Israeli Jews responded that it was “Only Israel,” 7 percent responded “Mostly Israel,” and 35 percent attributed the same degree of responsibility to Israel and the Arabs. This means that 47 percent of the Israeli Jewish population acknowledged some degree of Israeli responsibility for the refugee problem (Yuchtman‐Yaar and Herman 2001). A 2008 survey found that while on most issues Israeli Jews aligned with a so‐called Zionist narrative, this was not the case on the issue of Palestinian refugees: 47.2 percent believed that in 1948 the refugees were expelled, while only 40.8 percent believed that the refugees left of their own initiative (Eldar 2009).
In the Israeli political sphere, the revised narrative of the events of 1948 is found not only on the ideological fringes. In 2009, the Knesset’s Center for Research and Information used the term “Nakba”—thus acknowledging that Israel’s founding was a catastrophe for the Palestinians—in one of its official publications (Ronen 2009). In 2015, a former Israeli Minister of Education noted that he supported the teaching of the Nakba to all Israeli students (Sterman 2015). Since 2009, the Israeli government has proposed a policy that would equate the status of Jews that emigrated from Arab countries following the establishment of the State of Israel with that of Palestinian refugees. This equating of status seems to implicitly accept the idea that as the Arab states are responsible for the refugee status of Jews from those countries, so is Israel responsible for the refugee status of Palestinians (Ravid 2012a; Shilon 2013).
On the Palestinian side, the refugee issue poses an important domestic constraint on concessions. Over the years, the Palestinian perspective on the resolution of the refugee issue has evolved significantly. Initially, the focus was solely on the actual return and physical rehabilitation of the refugees. Since 1967 and the Arab defeat, as the actual return seemed less viable, the focus has been on the practical legal and moral aspects of the issue. While these concerns have persisted since the failure of the Oslo process, emerging voices have begun to place greater emphasis on the national identity saliency of the refugee issue (Shiblak 2009). At the same time, some among the Palestinian leadership have shifted from an ideological tone to a solution‐oriented—or pragmatic—approach, which implicitly accepts that an actual right of return to the State of Israel cannot be realized (Klein 2001). As far back as the mid‐1990s, Rashid Khalidi termed this approach “realistic justice” (Khalidi 1995). Seri Nusseibeh, who at the time was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in Jerusalem, delivered a speech at the Hebrew University on October 15, 2001, in which he stated that the two‐state solution must de facto mean no right of return (Greenberg 2001). Even a Hamas leader, Yahye Sinwar, expressed a pragmatist quid‐pro‐quo approach with regard to the right of return (Ariaeli 2018). All in all, the more the refugee issue has become an identity issue and the more pragmatic the Palestinian leadership has become, the more this issue holds the potential for concessions.
Further support for this potential can be found in public opinion polls, interviews with social elites, and statements by Palestinian political leadership. In a June 2003 survey, while the majority of Palestinians still believed the refugee issue was a critical one, no more than 10 percent of Palestinian refugees and their descendants wanted to move to and live in Israel. In that survey, a sizable majority of respondents (71 percent) indicated that they would choose to reside in a place other than Israel (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research 2003). These findings may alleviate the Israeli moral hazard concerns noted above. Another survey of Israelis and Palestinians (2004–2008) found that opposition to concessions for peace grew when respondents were offered material incentives in exchange for what are considered sacred values, that is, “core values that incorporate moral beliefs” (Atran and Ginges 2009). Moreover, when an acknowledgment was offered (e.g., an Israeli apology for the displacement of civilians in the 1948 war) opposition to compromise by those on the other side decreased (Ginges et al. 2007).
A 2013 study that interviewed both Israeli and Palestinian politicians and experts who participated in the peace process found that the Palestinian interviewees “distinguished between the recognition of each refugee’s right of return and a limited implementation of this right.” The study further found that this distinction did not escape the notice of Israeli participants, whose “prevailing feeling … was that, throughout the negotiations, Palestinians have emphasized the symbolic demand in this regard but have been willing to compromise on its concrete implementation” (Nagar and Shamir 2013: 217).
The Palestinian leadership seems to share similar positions. Leaked documents published on the Al‐Jazeera network in 2011 cite a conversation between Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, and then‐Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in which Abbas acknowledged that it does not make sense to ask Israel to absorb five or even one million refugees (Bronner 2011). And, in a November 2012 interview with Israeli Channel 2 TV, Abbas said that, “although he is a refugee from Safed, he does not intend to return to the city as a resident; if at all, he would visit as a tourist.” He further noted that “Palestine for me is the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital, this is Palestine, I am a refugee, I live in Ramallah, the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine, everything else is Israel” (Ravid 2012b). In 2016, Saeb Erekat, a chief Palestinian negotiator, wrote an op‐ed in an Israeli newspaper calling on Israel to acknowledge the Nakba without explicitly mentioning repatriation or reparations (Erekat 2016). In 2019, the Palestinian Committee for Interactions with the Israeli Society, which is an official committee appointed by Abbas, published an updated position paper on the so‐called core issues. While the publication reaffirms the right of return, it also notes that the Palestinians accept the Arab Initiative, including a just solution that provides a formula for creative solutions to the refugee issue (Livni 2019).
Overall, there is significant evidence—including public opinion polls, interviews, and official statements—indicating that, with regard to the 1948 refugee issue, historical acknowledgment is desired and would be positively accepted by Palestinians, and that Israeli moral hazard concerns about further demands are not substantiated.
Nevertheless, some valid objections to the logic developed here remain. One objection is that the pragmatic approach presented here will be seen as instrumental and hence “cheap” or “fake.” I argue that this outcome is mitigated by at least two factors. First, the introduction of historical acknowledgment strategies at the official level makes them costlier signals. Ensuring that there will be obstacles for going back on commitments made in negotiations is part of any peace agreement (Fortna 2003). Second, the context of an international normative environment that values strategies for “dealing with the past” is likely to make it harder for local actors to go back on their public commitments. We never know if any official statement is truly sincere, and, in most cases, it does not really matter. The commitment and the costs of retraction to one’s reputation exist regardless of the sincerity of the action.
Another objection concerns the reversibility of the process. One could argue that in the same way Israelis came to accept a new narrative of 1948, so can they reject it. Indeed, there are direct and conscious political attempts to “reverse” the new narrative. In the Israeli public sphere, the breaking of the taboo over the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem unleashed a popular and political backlash over the Nakba. This backlash included direct official attempts to legally block Nakba commemorations18 and reverse the content of textbooks that had been revised to include the Palestinian narrative, and public education campaigns against the legitimacy of the Nakba and the Palestinian narrative.19 In addition, there have been official attempts to block the release and publication of archival documents that might—according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs—affect “Israel’s international standing, and… future negotiations with the Palestinians or… UN institutions’ decisions that pertain to the refugee issue” (Ravid 2016). In spite of these efforts, “erasing” public knowledge is quite difficult in a democratic society. This backlash may in fact be viewed as an indication that the Nakba and its commemoration have become issues of legitimate political debate, and as such, have become open for negotiation.
One could also argue that since the negotiations never broke down over the refugee issue, why assume that this issue even holds any potential to break the deadlock in negotiations? As I have argued, the application of historical acknowledgment strategies early in the negotiations addresses not only the specific aspects of the refugee problem but also the more general problem of lack of trust between the negotiating parties. It is likely that the constructive effects of introducing historical acknowledgment will be broader than the specific issue acknowledged.
International Motivations and Identity Gains
As noted earlier, the current international normative environment, specifically the international human rights regime, places expectations and constraints on ongoing conflicts and peace negotiations. In the Israeli–Palestinian context, there are already indications of these expectations; namely, the growing scrutiny over Israel’s human rights conduct and record in the Occupied Territories, including the publication of reports that focus on justice and accountability by leading international NGOs (Klein 2011) and growing pressure for justice and accountability in the United Nations as well as by other states (Abunimah 2011). Thus far, the Israeli leadership, which has not failed to notice these campaigns, has addressed them with counter‐campaigns that either reject the charges or aim at drawing attention to positive aspects of Israel’s image (Ben‐Meir and Alterman 2011). It is likely that these campaigns will continue and that international pressures for a justice‐based approach will likewise increase (Slater 2011).
Demands for a justice‐based approach are also likely to grow due to shifts in the Palestinians’ framing of their demands. Starting in the mid‐1990s, the Palestinian leadership has accepted the prominence of the Holocaust in the West and has begun adopting the universal notion of crimes against humanity. Many Palestinian intellectuals placed the Palestinian experience in this context and voiced demands for acknowledgment and memorialization of their own founding calamity: the Nakba (Litvak and Webman 2003). The fact that Palestinian demands are now increasingly grounded in the language of universal norms of human rights and in the emerging norm of truth‐ and justice‐seeking provides a rationale for Israel to reconsider how to address these international pressures. The introduction of historical acknowledgment strategies to negotiations would signal to the international community an Israeli commitment to justice and international norms, and strengthen signals of intent and commitment to the Palestinians, while departing little from what is already part of the Israeli public narrative. Therefore, there is potential for identity gains by elevating international perceptions of Israel’s moral standing.
Beyond Kumbaya: Conclusion and Limitations
The common wisdom in the transitional justice and conflict resolution literatures is that historical acknowledgment strategies are primarily concerned with reconciliation, healing, and forgiveness and, therefore, with post‐conflict peace‐building processes. The image of the wolf and the lamb feeding together, which is often associated with notions of reconciliation, seems to contrast sharply with the reality of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has often led to an all‐out rebuff at the Israeli official level of anything having to do with reconciliation. Taking neither a romantic nor a normative position, I have advanced a pragmatic and even utilitarian argument that supports the application of historical acknowledgment earlier, at the negotiations stage.
In negotiations, the main value of historical acknowledgment is as a strategy for signaling intent and commitment. Using this strategy would by no means suggest that all differences would be resolved or that the practical and financial aspects of the refugee problem are no longer important. Historical acknowledgment could, however, provide a mechanism to address the overall lack of trust between the parties.
At the present time, no Israeli–Palestinian negotiations are taking place and there is little room for optimism. Nevertheless, if resolution of this conflict in any format (two‐state, federation, or one‐state) is ever to be achieved, it will be through negotiations. Without assuming that this will happen any time soon, my analysis holds at least two important implications for such negotiations. First, it is important for negotiators to keep in mind that issues of historical justice and acknowledgment are important, not only as psychological elements of identity, but also as potential facilitators of negotiations. Accordingly, strategies of historical acknowledgment should not be considered as secondary, nor should they be left for civil society actors to address when all other material issues have been settled. Instead, they should be an integral part of negotiations from the outset.
Second, for historical acknowledgment strategies to facilitate negotiations in the ways illustrated here, it is critical that they be introduced into official negotiations by state officials and supported by official measures. Studies of recognition—or other strategies of acknowledgment—have found that perceptions of threat, distrust, and dehumanization of adversaries are barriers that prevent “moral acts of recognition” (Nagar and Maoz 2017). This argument, however, assumes that strategies of recognition are societal and assesses their feasibility, or lack thereof, at the societal level of analysis (e.g., via public opinion polls). The logic advanced here is different and seeks to focus on the political leadership and official negotiators. While it is beneficial to work with civil society initiatives that are already up and running,20 historical acknowledgment strategies must be visible and official to have the trust‐building and signaling effects developed here.
This approach has an important caveat: introducing historical acknowledgment could evoke negative reactions, further mobilization against the resolution of the conflict, and more energized opposition. In the Israeli–Palestinian case, for example, one could envision veto players such as Israeli settlers and Hamas mobilizing against acknowledgment strategies and the politicians who propose them. While these outcomes are possible and even probable, I argue that under current dynamics and in light of past failed attempts to resolve the refugee issue in negotiations, historical acknowledgment is unlikely to be costlier than any other strategies.
One obvious question comes to mind: if this strategy makes so much sense, why has it not been tried? First, the mindsets of negotiators are hard to change. Interviews and conversations with people who participated in different rounds of negotiations reveal how fixed the perception is that the refugee issue has no just or feasible solution. Therefore, what is still clearly needed are open‐minded and courageous negotiators who can embrace this new strategy. Second, the viability of this approach relates to the international normative developments I outlined, which significantly shape the utility and feasibility of historical acknowledgment in any specific negotiations, including between Israel and Palestine. Therefore, the introduction of this approach is contingent upon the current international normative environment and its growing emphasis on justice, including historical justice.
My analysis has been largely informed by the application of historical acknowledgment as a negotiation strategy to the Israeli–Palestinian case. However, this logic should apply to other cases as well. Thus far, consideration of historical acknowledgment to conflict resolution is largely assumed to be a principled behavior. This article argues that this is not necessarily the case; rather, the application of historical acknowledgment as a negotiation strategy can be pragmatic. That historical acknowledgments may seem morally superior is part of their pragmatic appeal. Implementing these strategies is perceived as a positive gesture and, therefore, may enhance the moral standing of those who offer historical acknowledgment. It is, therefore, worthwhile to explore further the role of historical acknowledgment strategies in facilitating negotiations and in applying political solutions to ongoing conflicts.
Acknowledgments
I thank the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University for supporting early research on this project. Thanks to Diego Lopez (Suffolk University) for his research assistance. Early versions of the ideas developed here benefited from constructive comments from the participants at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 2012; the Annual Conference of the Historical Dialogues, Justice & Memory Network 2012, 2017; and the Chatham House workshop on The Palestinian Refugees Issue: Normative Dimensions, 2014. I am also grateful to conversations with Gershon Baskin, Eva Bellin, Ron Dudai, Nir Eisikovits, Keren Fraiman, Shula Gilad, Menachem Klein, Rami Khouri, Rev. Gary Mason, Joel Peters, Tim Phillips, Jeremy Pressman, Robert Reardon, Steve Van Evera, and Uri Zaki. For detailed comments on this draft I thank participants of the Conflict Security and Public Policy seminar 2019, 2020 as well as a special thanks to the anonymous reviewer, Jennifer M. Dixon, Ehud Eiran, Mari Fitzduff, Kelly Greenhill, Abigail Jacobson, and Manjari C. Miller.
NOTES
Since 1993, Dr. Shikaki has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis.
The term “1948 refugees” refers to the Palestinians who became refugees in the course of the military operations in Palestine/Israel before, during, and after the 1948 war.
In relevant literature, these practices are referred to by multiple terms, including “restorative justice,” “symbolic reparations,” and “moral compensation.” This article uses the term “historical acknowledgment” for several reasons: to avoid the normative tone suggested by the terms “justice” and “moral”; to avoid confusion with monetary means that are suggested by the term “reparations” or “compensation”; and to avoid belittling the potential effects of these strategies using the term “symbolic.”
Rev. Gary Mason, who was involved in the Northern Irish peace process, notes that this was the mindset of negotiators in Northern Ireland as well as that of Israeli negotiators who came to learn from the Irish experience. Interview with the author, June 2, 2020. Also, in the most prominent Track‐Two effort between Turks and Armenians, the genocide issue was set aside after an initial meeting in which it seemed likely that the issue would prevent the group from moving forward with other discussions and from progress in general (Phillips 2005).
Khoury (2017) reviewed the arguments in this literature, including those on recognition as a step toward the resolution of conflict (Strombom 2014; Gustafsson 2015); on bridging collective memory as a process of deliberation (Bashir and Goldberg 2014); on finding a psychologically acceptable middle ground (Karn 2006); and on narrative equilibrium as a core idea of reconciliation (Dwyer 1999). A slightly different rationale focuses on the normative logic that underlines incorporating reconciliation and sympathy in conflict negotiation (Eisikovits 2010).
In addition to these rationalist explanations, anthropological studies identify the role of rituals as signals that foster cooperation within and between groups (Bulbulia and Sosis 2011).
A good example of this dynamic is the rehabilitation of Germany post‐World War II (Feldman Gardner 2012).
These concerns are not without basis in international law, as apology is connected to the obligation for reparations for breaches of international norms (Bilder 2008). Specifically, one could argue that an apology by a head of state is more likely to raise concerns over culpability and legal liability and, therefore, makes historical acknowledgment an “expensive” strategy. At the same time, continuation or even escalation of the conflict is often costly. Moreover, research on apologies in the medical context suggests that “although fears about potential litigation are the most commonly cited barrier to apologizing after medical error, the link between litigation risk and the practice of disclosure and apology is tenuous” (Robbennolt 2009: 376) and that acknowledging responsibility has the potential of reducing both anger and feelings of blame and of improving trust. I thank the reviewer for this point.
While Barak was strongly opposed to “Israeli recognition of legal and moral responsibility for creating the refugee problem,” other possible formulations, such as that of shared responsibility, were not excluded by the team and were reportedly discussed prior to Camp David (Lustick 2006: 68).
According to a document prepared by Miguel Moratinos, the EU envoy to the talks, “the Israeli side offered to present a mutual narrative on the tragedy of the Palestinian Refugees. The Palestinian side discussed the suggested narrative and considerable progress was achieved though there was no agreement” (Eldar 2000).
These polls were jointly commissioned by the Israeli Truman Institute and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (see http://www.geneva‐accord.org, accessed June 24, 2005).
A Chatham House workshop provided some alternative wording for historical acknowledgment that can be used as a starting point for future negotiations. “The Palestinian Refugee Issue: Normative Dimensions,” Chatham House, UK, February 12–14, 2014. See https://prrnblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/the-palestinian-refugee-issue-normative-dimensions-2014-workshop-summary.pdf.
Germany, which is often mentioned as an ideal case of official reckoning, provides an example of how bottom‐up efforts to acknowledge and commemorate past violence have been gradually taken over by the state via quasi‐official and official commemorative activities (Wüstenberg 2017).
The so‐called Nakba Law, which was approved by the Knesset in March 2011 as part of Amendment #40 to the Budget Law, enables the Finance Minister to withhold government funding from state‐funded bodies engaged in activities that display a rejection of “the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” or commemorate “Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as a day of mourning” (i.e., commemorate the Nakba).
For example, the civil society advocacy organization Im Tirtzu (Hebrew for “if you will it”) published a booklet that discredits the narrative of the Nakba: Nakba Harta (Hebrew for “Nakba nonsense”), https://imti.org.il/publications/booklets/.
Notably, negotiations are never held in a vacuum. It is societal actors, such as those in academia and the media, that break taboos (Ben‐Josef Hirsch 2007). And, it is civil society agents—such as grassroots reconciliation organizations (Dudai and Cohen 2010)—that introduce historical acknowledgment precedents that lay the groundwork for negotiations over historical acknowledgment and provide a menu of feasible acknowledgment strategies.