On Monday, specialists came together at Tufts to discuss the conflicted Middle East.
An audience of about 40 students in Barnum 008 listened as Shai Feldman and Dr. Khalil Shikaki debated the question "Israel and the Palestinians: Towards Resolution or Explosion?" The event was sponsored by the New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP).
An expert on Israeli policy, Feldman is the director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He served as a member of the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters and currently is a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Shikaki is the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and a renowned expert on Palestinian public opinion. He has conducted more than 100 polls among Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Throughout the discussion, Feldman stressed that a solution could be reached, while Shikaki was less optimistic.
According to Feldman, peace is possible, but only in the presence of "major, major concessions."
"The contours of a peace are clear...for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement," he said. He suggested as a model the Clinton Parameters, which were proposed in 2000 by then-U.S. president Bill Clinton and called that 94 to 96 percent of the land should go to Palestine.
"This conflict will be resolved along those lines because there are no other lines," he said.
Feldman also noted a lethal paradox that keeps Israel in a "cycle of violence", namely that a trust cannot exist without peace, and peace cannot exist without trust.
While Feldman did not make his definitive position on the conflict known, Shikaki did not hold back his views by suggesting optimism is "speculating with little confidence."
"One could conclude an explosion is imminent," he said, referencing the combination of the war with Lebanon and Hamas' legislative victory.
Shikaki became more passionate in his discussion as he began to cite a second "cycle of violence," saying that the result of the war with Lebanon has made it clear to the Palestinians that Israel can be defeated with rockets, which, in turn, has made Israel "more determined to keep the Palestinians from making rockets."
Also aware of paradoxes, Shikaki noted that, although Hamas was elected, problems in its electorate need to be resolved.
"Hamas has a problem with its own voters ... Hamas needs to do some soul-searching" to determine possible concessions and govern, but "the public does not want to see progress in the peace process," he said.
"Hamas tries to have its cake and eat it too," Shikaki said, "[because] Hamas isn't about to make a strategic shift ... and the public opinion is not pressing it to."
Still, despite his cynicism towards optimistic viewpoints, Shikaki relented somewhat.
"There is room for the two sides ... to negotiate a peace. It would not solve any of the problems, but it would bring quiet," he said.
Shikaki cited the Realignment Plan, proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in this year's elections campaign. According to this plan, Israeli settlements along Judea and Samaria would be moved closer to the border established in 1967.
He said that although the Realignment Plan was shelved by Israel at the start of the war, at least it was a strategy. He said that the most feasible solution would be to create a government in which Hamas and Fatah, the previous Palestinian majority party and the party of current president Mahmoud Abbas, govern together.
While Shikaki and Feldman were friendly to each other during the debate, it was clear from their discussions that they differ on views.
When asked how an immediate conflict with Iran would affect Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, Shikaki predicted that Hamas' sympathy with Iran would result in the explosion scenario, whereas Feldman said that a new conflict would divert attention away from the old one. Instead of resulting in a military attack, it would lead to a chance for peace between Israel and Palestine, he said.
Matan Chorev, a founder of the New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP), the sponsoring organization, said the event was a success.
Ariel Deshe, a freshman majoring in Middle Eastern Studies, agreed. It was "incredibly insightful and balanced," he said.
