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Developing an Israeli Grand Strategy toward
a Peaceful Two-State Solution
Israel’s democracy is facing new challenges. In view of the
upheavals that have occurred in so many countries of the
Middle East since the Arab Spring of late 2010, there is a
growing demand on the part of Israel’s Arab-Palestinian
citizens for greater civil equality, along with their efforts to
internationalize the Palestinian cause. These two processes
call for a reexamination of the relationship between Israel’s
Jewish majority and its Arab minority, and of the relationship
between Israel and the region and the world. The change in
status that Israel’s Arab-Palestinian citizens seek will directly
impact the fabric of relations within Israel, as well as Israel’s
relations with the peoples of the region. Cross-state actors,
such as research institutes in Israel and Arab countries,
whose influence has surged since 2010 and who are trying
to jump-start democratization processes in the region, can
play an instrumental role in this process.
In addition to the internal processes of change taking place
inside Arab society in Israel and the lively public debate it
engages in on its social networks, which have reshaped
the popular discourse among Arab-Palestinians in Israel,
Israeli Arab intellectuals and research institutes are involved
in extensive academic activity. All of these impact the elite
discourse and represent the principal axes for a collaborative
approach to dealing with the processes of change taking
place in the Middle East and the uncertainties of the future.
This approach is based on the premise that Israel’s Arab-
Palestinian citizens are the only Arabs in the Middle East
and the world who share a common expanse with the Jews
in Israel. This could be decisive for the formation of new
relationships between Israel and the Arab world, and drive
the seizing of unique opportunities in the relations between
Israel and the Palestinians in the territories, the other Arabs
of the Middle East, and with state and non-state actors in
the world. If Israel were to take a more egalitarian approach
towards its Arab minority, they would feel a far greater sense
of identification with and belonging to the state, and would
more willingly engage in building partnerships between
Arabs and Jews in Israel and the region.
The question is then whether the Arab-Palestinian citizens of
Israel can contribute to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
and Israeli-Arab conflict and to promoting a better future in the
Middle East in a way that has thus far not been implemented?
Who are the key actors that shape the discourse in Arab
society in Israel and how has this discourse evolved to the
place where it is today? How can we build on this discourse
in order to identify and perhaps exercise new opportunities
for Israel and its Arab-Palestinian citizens? This article
offers an attempt to answer these questions and present
a conceptual and practical approach to the current reality.
The United States’ failed policy in Iraq and its
impact on developments in the Middle East
In January 2010, I was selected by the US Embassy in Israel
to participate in a study program. The program took place
over a period of six months at the University of Syracuse,
New York, where I met other program fellows from the
Arab world and the Middle East. Our meetings testified
more than anything else to our desire to learn from the
experience of other states and nations in dealing with issues
and challenges in an effort to improve the existing situation.
In the context of the program, I met Dr. Larry Diamond, a
senior lecturer at Stanford University in California and an
expert and adviser to President Clinton on matters related
to democratization in the Middle East and the world. At our
meeting, we discussed the contribution made by research
institutes to the democratization process.
The subject of research institutes is an area in which I have
taken an interest and been writing about since 2006. I have
published numerous articles on this topic, the most recent
of which focused on the development of research institutes
in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring. “Since
the Arab Spring there has been an increase in the number
of research and policy institutes in the Arab world, in their
ability to operate independently and in the interest they are
taking in Israel.”
1
As part of my research, I met with two world
experts on this subject: James G. McCann of the University
of Pennsylvania, who runs the Think Tanks and Civil Societies
Program, which ranks research institutes in the world, and
Donald Abelson of Western University in Canada, author
of
Do Think Tanks Matter?
I had met Abelson in Herzliya
at a lecture organized by the Mitvim Institute.
2
At the three
meetings, I learned about the complexity of democratization
processes, the diverse tools available to promote these
processes, while taking into account the unique features of
each nation or state, which can be crucial to the process
of democratization.
In his book
The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build
Free Societies Throughout the World
, Diamond points to
universal values as the infrastructure for democratization in
the world. He discusses three pillars that together comprise
the foundation for the democratic process: external factors,
internal factors and regional factors. Later on, he asks: can
the Middle East democratize? In his view, the toppling of
Saddam Hussein, the dictator who ruled Iraq until 2003,
1 Kamal Ali-Hassan, “The New Kingdom of Forces: Research Institutes
in the Middle East,” in Israel and the Arab Spring: Opportunities
in Change, Nimrod Goren and Jenia Yudkecvich., (eds.), Ramat
Gan: Mitvim, 2013.
2
Kamal Ali-Hassan
What can Israel’s Arab-Palestinian Citizens
Contribute to the Middle East?
