I can give you an example. When the Hamas government was elected into power in 2006, I was passed a message, to pass on to the Israeli government, that Hamas wanted to start thinking about transporting goods over the border. Hamas wanted to start this at a technocratic level over time and build up a relationship with Israel. I passed this message onto an Israeli colleague who responded not pragmatically, but full of emotion.
It was not long after the Second Intifada and the suicide bombing campaign, and so the response was emotional, not strategic – not thinking about what was in each others best interests and how you build peace.
There are so many examples of this on both sides where the kind of violence and traumatic history sits in the way of creating the conditions for the end of conflict.
I started working on this conflict over twenty years ago thinking that if each side could understand the mind of the other better, it would help prepare the ground for moving towards peace. What I found was that people lived in parallel worlds with very different narratives and very little common ground, and also without the capacity to have any interest or ability to get into the mind of the other.
This was true on both sides, and I learnt that what trauma does is it hardens people’s minds, hardens people’s hearts, and it doesn’t make them think about how war causes terrible human suffering to their enemy. Rather, trauma stimulates a kind of existential fear in which people think about their own survival. They’re not thinking at all about what they’re doing to the other. It kills their ability to empathise with the other side.
Trauma hardens people’s minds and hardens people’s hearts. It stimulates an existential fear for survival, not empathy
openDemocracy: Having done this job now for twenty years, would you say it’s getting harder?
Gabrielle Rifkind: Interesting question! I also work on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. It’s harder in the sense that there are more parties involved in conflict. You look back when peace was made and at the time of the Cold War, and it was clear then who was in charge and who the powers were. Now things are much messier, involving non-state actors, which adds another layer of complexity. But even if conflict mediation is getting harder, it’s all the more necessary.
openDemocracy: Now, Iran and Lebanon have also been pulled into the conflict signalling all-out war in the Middle East. Doesn’t this complicate things further? How can there really be a way out of this mess?
Gabrielle Rifkind: I think everyone’s nervous at a real escalation although we’re already there. But the Middle Eastern state of mind is that it is a tough neighbourhood and you have to hit back to show you are stronger than your enemy. The Israelis talk about re-establishing their deterrence. This means you have to punish, you have to show you are the superior force. This creates a dangerous escalation and makes peace even more difficult.
A regional war is extremely dangerous, especially if America comes in – and makes it all the more dangerous to imagine what the end game will look like. However complex and difficult it is, we still have to think of a way through and project and imagine a better future.
One area where serious time and energy needs to be spent is some kind of regional peace in which there is some kind of grand bargain. There’s talk about these ideas but that’s more around how there’ll be normalisation with Saudi Arabia, with the exclusion of Iran since it is seen as the enemy.
In the end, we have to ask the question: how do we bring Iran into this regional peace and explore what is possible. Otherwise you’ll have them acting as saboteurs and continuing to support Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
We need to begin talking about the language of inclusion and not to divide the world into friends and enemies and work very hard to find this end game. We make peace with our enemies and not our friends.
We need to begin talking about the language of inclusion and not to divide the world into friends and enemies
Gabrielle Rifkind: The Saudi peace initiative is very interesting on this and that provides part of the opportunity – but then we need to be talking about a bigger regional plan. And much of this is psychological, if Israel is going to recognise a separate Palestinian state she will need to feel she is not surrounded by enemies and has the potential to feel secure in the region. Then we need to think through what kind of security is needed for Israel and other countries . Ultimately, if there was regional peace this could allow the region to flourish, but we will need the political will to make this happen.
openDemocracy: How realistic is it to involve Iran in these negotiations?
Gabrielle Rifkind: As things are escalating at the moment, it seems impossible, but as things continue we have to continue to hold an inclusive process in mind. I did work on the Iranian nuclear deal and worked closely with Iranians at the time and built a number of relations. So we need to stay open to thinking about this, but of course, it always seems impossible at the height of war.
openDemocracy: The imagery and stories that come out of these wars can often make one lose any faith in humanity. How do you keep positive when wars go on for years and years?
Gabrielle Rifkind: War mostly brings out the worst aspects of human behaviour, people suffer and have sacrificed so much they do not want to compromise. Yes it is easy to lose faith in human behaviour, but somehow this is not my temperament.
I carry the belief that the world is not split into good or bad people and we all have the capacity to behave well and be destructive and so as awful as it is, I also know that underneath, people have the capacity and desire to live in peace side by side with one another.
People have basically very simple desires. They want to take their children to school and visit their grandma and so I never lose my faith and believe that people do in their hearts want to ultimately live in peace.
But it’s what war does. War hardens the mind. People suffer so much. They don’t want to compromise, they want to hit back and make the other side suffer in equal measure, and this is why war is so dangerous and the more that it goes on the more that people have these emotions.
If only there was more political commitment to intervention and early prevention then things could look very different. One would only hope after one year of horrendous conflict, there would be some end in sight.
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