The Refugee Studies Centre at the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford will be conducting a weekend workshop on Palestinian refugees on 10-11 March 2012. While rather pricey (£300), it does feature two outstanding experts on Middle East refugee issues:

Weekend Workshop
Saturday 10 – Sunday 11 March 2012

Refugee Studies Centre
Oxford Department of International Development
University of Oxford
3 Mansfield Road
Oxford, OX1 3TB

Fee: £300

This two-day, non-residential, workshop places the Palestinian refugee case study within the broader context of the international human rights regime. It examines, within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions, participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary debates in international law and analyse the specific context of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza).

The workshop commences with the background of the Palestinian refugee crisis, with special attention to the socio- political historical context and legal status of Palestinian refugees in the region. This is followed by a careful examination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including its philosophical underpinnings and ensuing human rights instruments in international law. The key themes, which have taken centre stage in the debate on the Palestinian refugee crisis, are statelessness, right of return, repatriation, self-determination, restitution compensation and protection. These themes are critically examined along with current discussions about the respective roles of UNRWA, UNHCR and the UNCCP in the Palestinian refugee case.

Instructors

Professor Dawn Chatty is University Professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration and Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. She is a social anthropologist and has conducted extensive research among Palestinian and other forced migrants in the Middle East. Some of her recent works include Children of Palestine: Experiencing Forced Migration in the Middle East (ed. with Gillian Lewando-Hundt), Berghahn Press, 2005, andDispossession and Displacement in the Modern Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Dr Susan M. Akram is Clinical Professor at Boston University School of Law, teaching immigration law, comparative refugee law, and international human rights law She is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC (JD), and the Institut International des Droits de l‘Homme, Strasbourg (Diploma in international human rights). She is a past Fulbright Senior Scholar in Palestine, teaching at Al-Quds University/Palestine School of Law in East Jerusalem ApplicationMaximum twenty-five places on the workshop.

For further information contact:

Heidi El-Megrisi
Refugee Studies Centre
Oxford Department of International Development
University of Oxford
3 Mansfield Road
Oxford OX1 3TB
United Kingdom

Tel +44 (0)1865 281728
Email: rsc-outreach@qeh.ox.ac.uk

photo: Jerash camp, by Omar Chatriwala

The video’s brief coverage of Nakba Day commemorations at the Israeli border and Omar’s brief emphasis on the right of return might set off some in the anti-UNRWA crowd, but it clearly represents a faithful representation of refugee attitudes.

The video can be found on YouTube in three parts (below). It is well done, and well worth watching.

The estimated cost of implementation is strongly dependent on the level of compensation and the size of the Palestinian population in the “territories,” which is the subject of intense debate.

A few years ago, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted a survey on the level of compensation Palestinian refugees considered fair to forgo the “right of return.” If we take more than double the minimum amount specified by most polls as fair compensation for relocation/rehabilitation, and if we adopt a high-end estimate of the Palestinian population, the total cost would be around $150b. for the West Bank Palestinians (and $250b. if Gaza is included). This is a fraction of the US expenditure on its decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have produced results that are less than a resounding success.

Spread over a period equivalent to the current post-Oslo era, this sum would comprise a yearly outlay of no more than a few percentage points of current GDP – something Israel could well afford on its own.

If additional OECD countries were to contribute, the total relocation/rehabilitation of the Palestinian Arabs could be achieved with an almost imperceptible economic burden.

Of course, it is all political fantasy of the most unrealistic and unhelpful sort. He attempts to buttress with distorted findings from the 2003 PSR refugee poll, which was neither about Palestinians leaving their ancestral homeland nor giving up the right of return, and which actually shows that only 1% of refugees in the West Bank and Gaza would consider monetary incentives to immigrate as their first choice, and that over 80% of those who might immigrate would hope to retain Palestinian citizenship.

Again, the issue here isn’t that “transfer” is a theme in Israeli political discourse (it has been since before the formation of the state), nor that a former member of Tzomet advocates it. Rather, it is the treatment of the issue as a somehow normal one in the pages of a contemporary center-right-but-mainstream Israeli newspaper.

*I was struggling for the proper academic term here, but I think this one captures it nicely.

* * *

It is no wonder, therefore, that the Jordanian have been eager to host the recently renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks in accordance with the Quartet’s call for a peace agreement in 2012—not only are they concerned about the absence of diplomatic progress and fearful of the domestic “Arab Spring” ramifications of continued stalemate, but in addition Amman has a perennial fear of  ”transfer” (as well as its companion theme, “Jordan is Palestine”). The talks themselves, of course, will go nowhere: Daniel Levy and Leila Hilal are, if anything, being charitable when they noted this week that “Given the positions of the negotiating parties, their respective political realities, and their actions over the last months, the talks in Amman had the theater of absurd quality to them.” Rami Khouri gets it right too when he comments that  we are “starting the new year with failed old diplomacy”:

• The Palestinians are not a real people with an authentic nationalism, but rather “historically fictitious [and] politically fraudulent.” Here, of course, he is taking his rhetorical lead from Newt Gingrich’s mind-numbingly stupid comments on the issue.
• Instead, Palestinians are simply generic Arabs, whose identity was manufactured as a weapon against Israel-an “artificially contrived invention.”
• Because of this, the Palestinians have no real claim to rights of self-determination or an independent state. Rather, Israel should retain permanent control of the West Bank and Gaza.
• But what of all those pesky indigenous pseudo-Palestinians that actually live in the occupied territories, forming the overwhelming majority of the population? Sherman suggests a sort of voluntary ethnic self-cleansing whereby Israel would offer “generous monetary compensation to effect the relocation and rehabilitation of the Palestinian Arabs residents in territories across the 1967 Green Line, presumably mostly – but not necessarily exclusively – in the Arab/Muslim countries.” (He proposes getting rid of UNRWA too, but that’s really a side issue to Sherman’s advocacy of an Arab-free Palestine.)

My point in highlighting this series is not to express surprise at Sherman’s views on the subject—after all, he is a former Secretary-General of the ultra right wing Tzomet Party in Israel, which has previously advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians from Palestine. I didn’t particularly want to waste time pointing out the very obvious political and moral deficiencies in his views—it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, and in any case Hussein Ibish already did an excellent job of demolishing his arguments shortly after they appeared. I won’t even point to the supreme irony of Sherman himself originally being an immigrant to Israel from South Africa. (OK, well too late, I just did.)

Rather, I wanted to comment on the fact that the Jerusalem Post saw fit to publish this not once, but three times. Can you imagine a mainstream newspaper in the US featuring a series of op eds suggesting that the American government pay Blacks or Hispanics to leave the country (presumably on the basis of their ties to Africa or Latin America), so as to maintain White territorial supremacy? Or a major Canadian paper allowing a contributor to suggest that the “problem” of native populations in Canada be resolved by creating financial incentives for them to move to Russia (after all, they all came here via the Bering Land Bridge, didn’t they) and thereby create more space for immigrant groups? Not even a British tabloid would offer a member of the British National Party three opportunities to outline an equally repugnant demographic policy in the UK context , although it might hack their voicemail. If someone suggested that the Saudis pay Israeli Jews to leave Israel for their pre-1948 countries of origin, it would be widely labelled stupid and/or anti-Semitic (as indeed it would be).

The historical and demographic parallels are very poor ones, of course, but the racism inherent in Sherman’s piece is quite clear. That it apparently is considered acceptable (if marginal) discourse is—well, depressing.

And with that, happy New Year from the PRRN blog!

On the refugee issue, support for a compromise deal has increased slightly in the last year:

Among Palestinians 45% support and 53% oppose a refugee settlement in which both sides agree that the solution will be based on UN resolutions 194 and 242. The refugees would be given five choices for permanent residency. These are: the Palestinian state and the Israeli areas transferred to the Palestinian state in the territorial exchange mentioned above; no restrictions would be imposed on refugee return to these two areas. Residency in the other three areas (in host countries, third countries, and Israel) would be subject to the decision of these states. As a base for its decision Israel will consider the average number of refugees admitted to third countries like Australia, Canada, Europe, and others. All refugees would be entitled to compensation for their “refugeehood” and loss of property. In December 2010, 41% agreed with an identical compromise while 57% opposed it.

Among Israelis 42% support such an arrangement and 51% oppose it. In December 2010, 36% supported it and 52% opposed.

This is one of the higher levels of support for compromise arrangements on the refugee issue since polling on this question started in 2003, as can be seen in the graph I have created below:

On the question of “end of claims,” support has also increased somewhat.

In the Palestinian public 63% support and 35% oppose a compromise on ending the conflict that would state that when the permanent status agreement is fully implemented, it will mean the end of the conflict and no further claims will be made by either side. The parties will recognize Palestine and Israel as the homelands of their respective peoples. In December 2010 58% supported and 41% opposed this item.

In the Israeli public 70% support and 27% oppose this component in the final status framework. In December 2010, similarly, 68% of the Israelis supported it while 25% opposed it.

Again, I’ve shown this as a graph:

Overall, the poll shows a substantial uptick in both Israeli and Palestinian support for a Geneva-type deal over the past year, which is now at its highest point since 2004 (see below). Thus, while the Netanyahu government might find it politically useful to highlight the recent events of the “Arab Spring” as a reason not to negotiate a peace agreement on the basis of prior negotiations in 2001 (Taba) and 2007-08 (the Annapolis round), it isn’t at all clear that the Israeli public necessarily agrees. Similarly, while some Hamas leaders might argue that changing circumstances in the Arab world would justify a harder line in future negotiations, half the Palestinian population seems to support a compromise based on a Geneva-type approach.

While it is easy to be pessimistic about the prospects for resuming a meaningful Israeli-Palestinian peace process any time soon—and I am certainly very pessimistic—it is always worth keeping in mind how much overlap there is between the Israeli and Palestinian publics on the very broad contours of a possible future peace agreement.

At the same time, a bit of a caveat should also be applied when interpreting this data, namely that it isn’t entirely clear that respondents understand the questions in exactly the same way as the pollsters. The refugee question is rather vague as to how many Palestinian refugees might return to Israel, for example, or with regard to how much compensation might be made available (and who would finance it). Delving into the sometimes contentious technical aspects of a refugee agreement would find plenty of areas where the parties have very different views—as in many negotiations a host of possible devils lurk in the details.

That’s the problem with Twitter, of course: sometimes you tweet without thinking, and in so doing fatally undermine the entire political message that you’ve been trying to convey.

…remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940’s, and I think it’s tragic.

Gingrich may have a PhD in history, but it is pretty clear he knows nothing of the history or nature of nationalism. All nationalisms are, of course, based on a common sense of identity and experience—what political scientist Benedict Anderson famously referred to as “imagined communities.”  It is hardly surprising that Palestinian identity would emerge from the shared experience of colonial rule, enforced Jewish immigration, repression, war, and forced displacement (that latter being euphemistically described by Gingrich as “a chance to go many places”–as if ethnic cleansing and exile were a summer holiday).

Gingrich later defended his position, arguing that “Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists.” As the Washington Post commented, “the statement put Gingrich at odds not only with the international community but with all but an extremist fringe in Israel” (a point also echoed by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz).

Rather ironically, earlier in the same interview Gingrich draws upon the example of the American War of Independence to make a point, noting that the pin he wears on his lapel is the command flag of General Washington at Valley Forge. Yet American identity is perhaps the preeminent example of an “imagined community” (or an “invented people.”). No one had ever thought of themselves as “American” before the 17th century or so. European colonists were generally of British stock, and “American” nationalism didn’t become politically relevant until the latter half of the 18th century. In the years that followed, the American state deliberately sought to inculcate a sense of common citizenship among its diverse population, through national myths, symbols, and mass education. (“Canadian” nationalism evolved in somewhat similar ways, and since the 19th century has been very much defined in self-conscious distinction to Canada’s powerful neighbour to the south.)

In short, in finding fault with the supposedly artificial nature of the Palestinians’ deep-seated sense of national identity, Gingrich is showing a fundamental disregard for a core principle of freedom (the freedom to choose one’s social identity) and self-determination. His shallow blindness to the rights, hopes, and dreams of others neither does him credit as a political candidate, nor does it serve the search for Middle East peace. He also shows a striking lack of appreciation for the “invention” of his own diverse country—a country of overwhelmingly immigrant origins, once “part of the British Empire”—and its remarkable struggle to forge a common sense of political belonging through the pain of repression, revolution, and civil war.

Last week Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon launched the latest in a series of YouTube videos by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, outlining his government’s view of various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The most recent installment is noteworthy both because of its content—the video examines “The Truth About the Refugees”—and because of the context in which it was released.

The video itself is lively, engaging, and well produced. It makes four major points about the refugee issue:

1. Palestinian refugees fled Israel first because they were “encouraged by Arab leaders who promised they would return as victors”, and  also later because of the failure of their “collective attempt to destroy the newly-reestablished state of Israel.”
2. There were “far more” Jewish refugees than Arab refugees, whose existence in the Middle East long predates the “Arab occupation” of the region. Unlike the Palestinian refugees, Jewish refugees were fully integrated and absorbed within Israel.
3. The resettlement of Palestinian refugees was blocked by discriminatory measures by Arab countries, who (with the exception of Jordan) denied them access to employment and citizenship. The refugee issue was thus perpetuated by Arab countries to use it as a weapon against Israel.
4. Ayalon then draws a distinction between UNHCR and its resettlement activities, versus the role of UNRWA in “perpetuating” the refugee issue through multi-generational refugee status. UNRWA spends more on Palestinians refugees and employs more staff than other refugees receive through UNHCR.

There is little point responding point-for-point to what is, after all, a (well-made) propaganda video. Indeed, in many ways, the video is best appreciated as a statement of views that, however odd they might appear to scholars of the refugee issue, are nonetheless deeply-held among many Israelis. While the forced displacement of approximately 80% of all Palestinians from Israel in 1947-49 had clear elements of ethnic cleansing (deliberate depopulation of key areas, seizure or destruction of refugee properties, the prohibition of their return on ethnic and religious grounds), this is simply not the way that Ayalon, or other members of the current Israeli government would see it. Indeed, the incompatibility of the Israeli and Palestinian narratives is part of the reason why resolving the refugee issue is so difficult.

As noted before at the PRRN blog, the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries has often been used rather cynically by Israel in an attempt to offset Palestinian refugee claims. It is, nonetheless a real issue, rooted in widespread violations by Arab regimes of the rights of their Jewish citizens. Advocates of the Palestinian refugee interest would do well to address it in a more serious way.

Finally, there is the central and familiar theme to Ayalon’s video that the refugee issue is an artificial creation of Arab regimes and the UN. It could be noted, of course, that the majority of UNRWA-registered refugees either already have citizenship (in Jordan), or are denied it not by Arab states but by Israel (through its occupation of Palestinian territories and its refusal thus far to allow Palestinian self-determination in an independent state). While it seems fairly obvious that a population whose national identity was forged through ethnic cleansing would have the experience of al-Nakba indelibly fixed in their political consciousness, it would be a mistake to wholly dismiss Ayalon’s views as cynical obfuscation. On this issue too he is reflecting a perspective that is widely held on the Israeli side.

One of the most interesting things about this video is the very deliberate, official attack upon UNRWA that it contains. The video itself was launched at an event commemorating the 60th anniversary of the UN refugee convention, with the Deputy Foreign Minister condemning UNRWA’s role in the refugee issue as “morally and politically unacceptable.”

Of course, in drawing a distinction between UNHCR and UNRWA the video makes a number of factual errors, failing to note (for example) that UNRWA predates UNHCR, that UNHCR also recognizes multigenerational refugees, and that UNHCR recognizes that refugees have a “right of return” and that such return is the most desirable “durable solution” to most refugee situations. According to the most recent (2009) UNHCR Statistical Yearbook, UNHCR repatriated some 24.7 million refugees to their homelands between 1989 and 2009. By contrast:

Comparatively, resettlement benefits a small number of refugees; in 2009, only one per cent of the world’s refugees directly benefited from resettlement. During the past 10 years, some 810,000 refugees were resettled, compared to 9.6 million refugees who repatriated. For every refugee resettled since 2000, 12 repatriated.

While Israel officials have never been known for showering praise on UNRWA, they have long recognized its value in providing assistance to refugee populations, seeing in such services a bulwark against potential refugee radicalism. In Gaza, for example, UNRWA has emerged as something of a rival to Hamas both as service provider, and because of its promotion of peace, human rights, and greater gender equality. Indeed, it has only been because of the social safety need provided by the Agency that Israel has been able to apply economic pressures against Gaza, knowing that UNRWA food programmes will prevent humanitarian conditions there from becoming critical. Consequently, when Canada ended its contributions to UNRWA’s core budget in 2009, Israeli officials quietly protested the move. Why then Ayalon’s current attack?

There are, I think, two possible explanations. One is that Ayalon—a Knesset member from the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, famous for once deliberately humiliating the Turkish ambassador with an uncomfortably low chair for the benefit of Israeli television cameras (and then having to apologize)—has once again made a political faux pas. The other possible explanation, however,  is that Israel may be shifting its policy towards the Agency, due to either the right-wing views of the current Israeli government or in retaliation for the Palestinians recent bid for UN recognition.

Only time will tell which of these it is.

Discussion was rich and views were varied, making it impossible to provide an overall summary of workshop conclusions. Instead, I’ll offer my own take-away on the issues raised, with the caveat that others who were there may have very different views on these topics.

• The Arab Spring might be a transformative event for the region, but it isn’t a transformative watershed for Israeli-Palestinian relations or the peace process. Instead, the apparent inability to move the peace process forward is largely due to Israeli and Palestinian reasons (compounded, as noted later, by dysfunctional diplomacy by the international community). Continued Palestinian political divisions are part of the reason for the stalemate. Far more fundamental are the problems on the Israeli side, and in particular the current Netanyahu government that has no interest in seeing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on reasonable terms. In the context of such rejectionism, getting the parties to the negotiating table serves little purpose, other than to delegitimize negotiations (especially if it takes place in the context of continuing illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem).
• The Arab Spring was one of the factors contributing to the Palestinian decision to pursue recognition at the United Nations, as Mahmud Abbas responded to growing public expectations. The process also gives the Palestinians a new set of diplomatic options, and a potential source of pressure that can be intensified or relaxed with changing circumstances.
• The Arab Spring was also a factor in the Fateh-Hamas reconciliation agreement, due to increased Palestinian domestic expectations as well as changing regional circumstances (such the impact of events in Syria on Hamas, as well as renewed Egyptian mediation). However, there is still enormous distance to be travelled: a technocratic national unity government must be agreed, elections must be held, rival Fateh- and Hamas- controlled security services must be unified—all against a backdrop of continued political rivalry, hostility from Israel to any involvement of Hamas in the PA, and donor suspicion.
• The transition in Egypt remains uncertain, but it is clear that a future, more representative Egyptian government will be much colder to Israel than was the Mubarak dictatorship. Even if the Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood) and al-Nour Party (Salafists) carry their initial success in the current parliamentary elections into subsequent round (and I’m sure they will), this does not necessarily mean an end to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. A remilitarization of relations with Israel would be enormously expensive for Egypt, both in terms of increased defence expenditures and the almost certain loss of US aid. This could compromise efforts efforts at economic recovery—and the ever-pragmatic Muslim Brotherhood knows it.
• We didn’t spend much time talking about Egypt’s partial loss of control over the Sinai, evidenced in increased tensions with the Bedouins, increased arms smuggling, attacks on the gas pipeline to Israel, and the cross-border attack near Eilat in August (initially blamed by Israel on the Popular Resistance Committees, but possibly conducted by a much more ad hoc group of militants inside and outside Gaza). This will be a continuing source of tension with Israel, and a possible flashpoint if there is a future high-casualty terrorist attack.
• Events in Syria have major geostrategic implications, especially if the Asad regime falls in a way that severs Syria’s longstanding alliance with Iran and results in a downgrading of relations with Hizbullah. Such an outcome would certainly be a major loss for Iran and Hizbullah, and a gain for Israel. Israel, on the other hand, has always had a “predictable enemy” in the Asad regimes, and is also nervous at the possible implications of continuing instability in Syria, or the rise of an unpredictable populist nationalist regime (especially given Syria’s possession of a significant chemical weapon stockpile). Despite Hamas losing Damascus as a functional headquarters as the Syrian civil war intensifies, there is no reason to believe that it will suffer in the same way in the longer term. Hamas (unlike Hizbullah) has not been seen by Syrians as a supporter of the Ba’thist regime, and a great many Palestinian refugees in Syria have been sympathetic to the protesters. It doesn’t hurt that they are Sunnis either, given the sectarian undercurrents of some contemporary Syrian politics.
• We didn’t much discuss the prospects for Jordan (perhaps because we were in Jordan, which generates particular sensitivities). I think the Hashemite regime will weather the storm, albeit with political damage. It will continue to emphasize the unity of Jordan AND play the East Bank vs. Palestinian card as serve its purposes. Any substantial reform in Jordan (and I am doubtful we will see that) would also shine an inevitable spotlight on the situation of Palestinians in the country.
• Overall, we are likely to see greater support for the Palestinian cause in the wake of the Arab Spring among Arab regimes that are more sensitive to public opinion. This will be partly limited for the next few years, however, by a preoccupation with domestic issues in transitional countries. Moreover, I don’t think that an increase in Arab support actually makes a huge difference to Israeli-Palestinian negotiating dynamics. Instead, as suggested earlier, Israeli and Palestinian factors are more important.
• A critical issue, therefore, is how the Arab Spring plays out within Israeli politics. As one colleague noted, events of the past year are refracted by most Israelis through the prism of their preexisting political views. Those who support a two state solution see the Arab Spring as further highlighting the need for peace, lest Israel otherwise find itself isolated in an increasingly hostile and Islamist regional environment. Israeli hardliners, on the other hand, tend to view recent events as confirmation of their view that the Middle East is a dangerous and unpredictable place, with Islamic radicalism lurking around every corner. In such a context, they would argue, it would be foolish to make risky territorial compromises with an unstable and potentially hostile Palestine. This view, of course, was articulated by Benjamin Netanyahu in his Knesset speech late last month, when he warned that “Israel is facing a period of instability and uncertainty in the region. This is certainly not the time to listen to those who say follow your heart,” and declared “I will not establish Israel’s policy on illusions. There’s a huge upheaval here…whoever doesn’t see it is burying his head in the sand.” I think that the alarmist view has a marginal advantage in this battle of interpretations—and in Israeli politics, even marginal shifts in public opinion can be important. On top of this, as Daniel Levy recently noted in Foreign Affairs, political and demographic trends in Israel tends favour the religious and nationalist camp. As a result, not only will Israel be increasingly less inclinded to reasonable compromise, but the Arab Spring will tend to reinforce this reluctance.
• A wild card in all of this is the Israeli economy and related social dynamics. There was considerable discussion at the meeting of the (partly) Tahrir-square inspired Israeli social protests over the summer, and whether they would either shift the Israeli domestic balance or make conceptual connections between issues of Israeli social and economic development and Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. To date they haven’t. The Israeli participants also expressed considerable dismay at the state of Israeli democracy, given efforts to limit NGOs, criminalize commemoration of the Nakba, endorse boycotts, or otherwise freely express political views.
• On the Palestinian side, the Arab Spring has created a sense that some historical momentum has been regained, and even that time might now be on their side. This is particularly true of Hamas, which can look to the political success of Islamist parties in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere as evidence that it can afford to take a long view. I am far from convinced that time is on the Palestinians side, given both continued Israeli settlement activity (especially around Jerusalem) as well as trends in Israeli domestic politics. Moreover, I think the view that history favours Palestinian liberation tends to work against a frank and realistic assessment of Palestinian strategic options, especially within Hamas itself (which has partly made a transition to acceptance of a two-state solution, but in a gradual and limited way).
• There was discussion among the group over whether the two state model of resolving the conflict is itself dead, and whether alternative models might become more attractive. I agree that a two state solution gets harder by the day, although I’m not prepared to pronounce it dead quite yet. I think a one state model is illusory and unobtainable within this century, given Israel’s core, fundamental raison d’etre of being a Jewish state.  More likely, I fear, is a one-and-a-half state solution, in other words an evolving version of what we have now: an Israel state, and a Palestinian Bantustan.
• Concern was also raised by several Israeli and Palestinian participants that trends in the region (the electoral success of Islamist parties, the growing influence of the religious vote in Israel) might gradually transform the conflict into a religious one that would be less amenable to resolution.
• There was a broad consensus among participants that US policy has been something of a disaster under Obama. Too much emphasis had been placed on negotiations at the expense of clarifying core principles. Given the current election season in the US, no one expected that Washington would do much more in the next year. Moreover, if Obama were to be reelected, there was little optimism that his Middle East policy would much different in a second term. While it is hard to predict what Romney might do in the White House (on any issue), the general view was that he would tilt even more to the Israeli right waing. A Gingrich White House, with John Bolton as Secretary of State? That, of course, would be an unmitigated disaster for the peace process.
• I strongly argued that European policy has been a coequal disaster with US policy. The EU had failed to generate the sorts of pressures it is capable of on the settlements issue. It had also failed to grasp the opportunities presented by the Palestinian UN bid. The British (who have some strikingly clever diplomats) has rather sadly lined up behind the American position in many regards. The French had handled it somewhat better in a public relations sense, but in substantive terms had done little better. Given the ongoing Eurozone crisis, no one is expecting European performance will improve any time soon.

Despite the meeting being part of the Minster Lovell series, there was virtually no direct discussion of the implication of this for refugees (some of which had been discussed at the last meeting. However, if my pessimistic view is accurate, it certainly suggests that there will be absolutely no progress to resolving the refugee issue any time soon.