Transformation of Armed Conflict Lessons from the Arab-Israeli Conflict

From its earliest formulation, the theory of intractable conflict posited the idea that any number of factors might act to transform such a conflict, whether working separately, in parallel with other factors, or even in conjunction with them. Thus, the theory eschewed any tendency toward one-factor analyses or single-factor models. Nonetheless, examination of an intractable conflict, in this case the Israeli-Arab conflict, can produce lessons pointing to the relative importance of some factors as distinct from others, as well as highlight those factors that may have been (or will be) necessary but not sufficient, or perhaps even critical in the future. To reach such conclusions, it is necessary to examine not only actual transformations, that is, moves from violence to negotiation or breakthroughs (or near-breakthroughs) toward resolution, but also the failures—so as to try to determine which factors, or the absence thereof, constitute potential obstacles to transformation and resolution (Golan 2014). My analysis of the factors connected to Israel, as one party in the conflict, begins with 1967 primarily because the 1967 war created conditions that might have facilitated resolution of the conflict. This is not to say that there were no possibilities or even efforts at resolution before 1967 (Podeh 2015) but the Israeli acquisition of territories previously under Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian rule provided an opportunity for trading land for peace without changing Israel’s de facto borders created by the 1949 armistice agreements.