The Myth of the Missed Opportunity In Israeli-Arab Peace
Akiva Eldar examines the question of whether every diplomatic process that does not result in an agreement between the Arabs and Israelis should be considered a “missed opportunity.”
The month of March holds out the promise of abundant political opportunities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected, in all likelihood, to form his third government; President Barack Obama is coming on his first visit as a sitting president to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, and immediately after that the summit meeting of the Arab League is convening in Doha. As it does every year, the summit will likely ratify the Arab Peace Initiative born in Beirut more than 10 years ago.
Absent noisy surprises, Obama’s visit will be crowned “another missed opportunity”. But already now, before the guidelines of the new government have been finalized, and before we know what the American president is carrying in his bags other than a note to be stuck in the Wailing Wall and a wreath to be laid at [the Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem, it appears one can take an additional step forward and determine that this time, too, the expected lamentation over “the opportunity that was missed” is baseless. Simply, because to begin with, there was no opportunity; therefore, it wasn’t missed.
What kind of diplomatic initiative is worthy of the title “opportunity”? Should every diplomatic move that does not result in agreement between the sides be considered “a missed opportunity”?
In a research study soon to be published in a thick volume, Professor Elie Podeh of the Department of Islam and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University, addresses these issues. The senior scholar of the Levant contends that historians tend to use the term “missed opportunity” in the context of diplomatic contacts between Israel, the Arab states and the Palestinians, despite the fact that to begin with there was no real chance of their success.
