In the history of international conflicts, some have been perceived as “intractable.” These conflicts have some characteristics such as durability, destructivity, and resistance to political settlement. Also, many of them are identity-charged, like ethno-national conflicts over territory. The examples range from Northern Ireland to Kashmir. The Palestine Question is a typical example of this conflict, and the contestation over Jerusalem would be one of the most difficult to solve in that conflict.

In the research field of conflict resolution, many academic and practical attempts have been initiated to make the intractable conflict tractable. Most of the concern was drawn toward the ideal style of effective political negotiation, or the ways of conflict transformation leading to fruitful negotiation. These kinds of research yielded results, however these studies miss an important point. They do not consider the influence or implication of the negotiation on the contested issue itself and the political dynamics of the parties to the conflict, particularly in terms of substance there. Although research about the spoiler problem in the peace process has a similar sort of interest, these mostly pay close attention to the way to control the spoiler and the political rivalry over the negotiation itself. Most of the analyses does not extend into the internal details of some specific political issue. This point might have much importance on the Palestine Question after the Oslo Accords (1993), which started the peace process over 20 years ago but has not borne fruit. In this case, the negotiation is just a short-lived moment in the protracted conflict, so an analysis on the relationship between negotiation and the internal political dynamics is required for the future resumption of negotiation.

This article tries to fill the gap in previous research by taking the example of Jerusalem and by examining the political implication of negotiation by dividing the peace process into the Oslo period (1993–2000) and the Post-Oslo period (2000–). Concerning the Oslo period, the article deals with Palestinian strategic formation and diverse understanding about the meaning of negotiation for Jerusalem, by Jerusalem-based leaders and pivotal leaders in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or the Palestinian Authority (PA). As regards the Post-Oslo period, the article discusses the transformation of the Jerusalem Problem, caused mainly by the failure of negotiation and the shift of the stakeholders in Palestinian politics over Jerusalem. The separation of the Oslo framework into two periods will clarify how negotiation affects Palestinian politics and how it functions in the conflict.

抄録全体を表示

The aim of this article is to describe how Israeli non-military occupation policies cause problems among Palestinians and how the Palestinians tackle these problems through a case study of Palestinian merchants in the Old City of Jerusalem. Many studies of Israeli occupation and Palestinian resistance have focused on their military aspect. On the other hand, researches on East Jerusalem have generally examined Israeli occupation policies, particularly the policy of “Judaization,” and their impacts on “the Final Status” negotiation in the future, apart from the context of the occupation and the resistance.

Making use of fieldwork conducted in East Jerusalem by the author, this article will describe the following:

1. Judaization of Jerusalem has been promoted not only by making the population balance desirable for Jewish Israelis and undesirable for the Palestinians, and confiscating as much land belonging to the Palestinians as possible for Jewish citizens, but also by eliminating “non-Jewish” social, historical, economic, and cultural factors.

2. The problems of living under occupation are deeply connected to the daily lives of the Palestinians, such as tax problems and settlement activities by Jewish Israelis. These problems are caused by the legal and administrative systems of the occupier.

3. The reactions of the Palestinians to the problems are also expressed within the occupier’s legal and administrative systems. However, the Palestinians are not subordinate who just obey the occupier’s systems. They re-interpret and utilize the occupier’s legal and administrative systems in order to survive the occupation and keep living in East Jerusalem.

抄録全体を表示

Since autumn of 2000 the circle of violence has derailed the Israel-Palestinian peace process. In order to prevent the resurgence of violence both parties had tried to promote security cooperation and form an effective security regime between them, but failed to do so.
It is reported that since 1988 till 1998 thirty-eight formal peace accords were signed, and of them thirty-one failed to last more than three years. Various factors, such as security dilemma, existence of spoilers, and intervention by external parties, cripple the implementation of the peace accords, including the Oslo peace agreement. In addition, the asymmetrical relations between Israel and Palestinians have heavily affected the peace process and resulted in its failure.
One of the most salient asymmetrical relations is the difference in the nature of both parties. Israel is an independent sovereign state with very powerful armed forces, and has occupied The west Bank and the Gaza Strip. As such, Israel uses its armed forces under the name of invoking the right of self-defense, and has an almost excusive power to determine a future of the occupied territories. On the other hand, despite the establishment of their own self government, Palestinians are still under occupation and struggling for establishing an independent sovereign state. The asymmetrical future also results in a very wide gap between both parties' perceptions of peace. From Israeli viewpoint, a peace should bring an end of any form of violence and eliminate the threat of military and terrorist attacks. For Palestinians, a peace should realize both an end of occupation and an establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Furthermore over the peace process both parties, i. e. the Israeli Government and the Palestine Authority/PLO, have taken even conciliatory attitudes and policies toward spoilers in their own constituencies with the intention to broaden their power basis.
A number of proposals and suggestions for a military intervention by a third party have been made, but no international presence in the occupied territories has been materialized. Taking into consideration the asymmetrical characteristics between the two parities, however, an international presence could make valuable contributions to restoring a peace process in the following two aspects. First, an international presence could ease to a certain extent an asymmetrical feature of the relations and reduce the feeling of vulnerability on both sides. And by doing so, an international presence could narrow the gap of perceptions concerning peace. Second Israel and Palestine are no exception that political leaders manipulate security concerns to solidify their positions and extract additional resources from their society and consequently they create and intensify the security dilemma. The introduction of an international presence could decrease the possibility of this kind of manipulations.

抄録全体を表示