Israel and Palestine don't need more friends - but the peace process does
By Jonathan Freedland
I spent much of last week being a Palestinian. And not just any Palestinian. I was the man charged with negotiating their future. Over the course of two full days I was Saeb Erekat, longtime (and now caretaker) negotiations chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, facing off against an Israeli team led by one of Binyamin Netanyahu's closest confidants. Behind closed doors, and under the watchful eye of Barack Obama's handpicked envoy, George Mitchell, we argued and haggled over the knottiest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – seeking to find common ground on questions of rights, refugees and recognition as well as security and sovereignty.
I succeeded in extracting from the Israelis an acceptance that the states of Palestine and Israel will be separated by a border reflecting the 1967 lines, more or less, and that Jerusalem will serve as the capital of both nations. Which I considered a rather good week's work.
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Strictly speaking, the names above should all come wrapped in quotation marks. For I was playing the role of Erekat in an elaborate simulation game – alongside a dozen or so people whose professional lives are steeped in the conflict, whether as diplomats, NGO officials, scholars or journalists, from both inside and outside the region. Participants were asked to step outside their comfort zone.
We were under Chatham House rules – so no names I'm afraid – but I can tell you that my fellow "Palestinian" negotiators included an Israeli citizen who is a full-time advocate for his country, a senior official of a pro-Israel charity, and a top figure from the Jewish Chronicle. Representing Israel were two Palestinians – one a citizen of the US, the other a citizen of Israel – and two luminaries of London-based NGOs with long experience of the occupied territories. Crucially, both teams could call on coaches – one Israeli, one Palestinian – who had served as negotiators at high-level peace talks. Holding the ring was a serving European diplomat whom we all had to address as Senator Mitchell.
The scheme is the brainchild of an American academic, Natasha Gill, who calls it "Track 4" to distinguish it from the three more conventional tracks of diplomacy: those involving government-to-government talks, civil society, or people-to-people encounters. Her aim is not to have a "peacenik lovefest", in which each side learns to empathise with the other, but rather to understand the dynamics, and difficulties, of the negotiations themselves.
I admit I had deep fears, starting with a dread of embarrassment – speaking as one for whom the words "role play" are second only to "audience participation" in their ability to chill the blood. So what happened once we were in the room?