Negotiations at Peril

The Sunday declaration of the Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat of their clear intent to approach the United Nations to endorse an independent Palestinian state comes as no surprise. Erekat stated that this significant decision to ask the United Nations without Israel’s consent was based on the ground that the Palestinians were losing hope to achieve their aspirations through peace talks. The Palestinian negotiator pointed out that 18 years of on-again, off-again political negotiations with Israel had failed to yield any political settlement.
In recent times, the role of negotiations as a means towards resolving outstanding political issues between conflicting parties has come under greater threat. Though negotiation continues to be provided as an alternative to armed and violent confrontation, its failure to actually resolve and find solutions has become a matter of grave concern. While it is fair to say that negotiations as a principle has not failed, the many factors influencing any negotiating process have ensured its failure. One such factor which in many ways defines the outcome of any negotiation is the existing power imbalances between conflicting parties. Negotiations can work only when both parties have the will to solve their differences, but in the presence of power imbalance, the powerful often tries to assert its own perception of a solution, often at the cost of the broader peace process.  
Unless the issue of power – and more precisely state monopoly of power – is adequately addressed and redefined in the context of peace processes, the tool of negotiation as a peaceful means to resolving conflict will continue to be undermined. The cases of East Timor and Kosovo are recent examples in which the limitation of negotiations in the context of power imbalances provided vital learning lessons in the field of peacebuilding. Consequently, both East Timor and Kosovo creatively used internal processes of mobilizing the will of its own people and garnering international opinion to gain their independence; an objective which they could not achieve through negotiations. And interestingly, within this same time frame, negotiation processes in the middle-east and Sri Lanka were breaking down and returning to armed confrontation.
Perhaps it is for these reasons that the Palestinian leaders have begun to think outside-the-box of conventional negotiations and to imaginatively work their ways towards achieving their goals. Their decision to approach the United Nations Security Council to endorse their declaration as an Independent state without the consent of Israel has caused a situation that will become a precedent to other liberation movements. From the stand point of its Charter and Principle, it is well within the scope of the United Nations to recognize the rights of the Palestinians. However considering the fact that it is realpolitik that often determines and defines the decisions of the United Nations, the new Palestinian approach to secure its aspirations will depend on how the Security Council members decide.
One thing for sure is certain; the frightening recognition that negotiations as a peaceful means to end conflicts is at peril.