Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov - Böcker

This volume represents an important new step forward in the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies. Its essays argue that, while conflict resolution is well equipped to bring about temporary settlements and brief periods of peace in volatile situations, conventional conflict resolution techniques are not capable of building long-term stability. Instead, the authors contend, practitioners of conflict resolution need to focus more on reconciliation (the restoration of confidence, friendship, and harmony between rivals) than on mere conflict resolution. Whereas traditional conflict resolution has focused primarily on halting quarrels with agreements between leaders on each side of a conflict, reconciliation techniques shift the focus in two ways. First, they take more of a grassroots approach, building agreement among the members of rival communities, not only between leaders. Second, reconciliation takes a long-term view of dispute resolution. While the authors acknowledge that the role of traditional conflict resolution is important in stopping violence and tension, they argue that, in order to achieve stable peace, negotiators and practitioners of conflict resolution must focus much more on what is to be done after an agreement among leaders is reached.

Traditional studies of linkage politics tend to assume that internal political instability leads a government to divert attention from internal problems by initiating an external conflict or stressing the pressures of international problems. In contrast, quantitative studies typically conclude that there is little or no relationship between interna

In this case study of Syria's internal political instability, the author shows that a relationship between the two types of conflict for the years 1961–1967 existed and identifies the various kinds of links between internal and external conflicts, their direction and changes in their intensity.

This book builds on the original conceptualization of stable peace by Kenneth Boulding and adds contemporary theoretical and empirical understandings of its nature, causes, conditions, dimensions, and prospects for consolidation and expansion. In original research, fifteen international scholars assess the policy relevance of stable peace for the Middle East peace process and for the future of Europe.

In this book, the late Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process so far has been mainly the result of the inability of both sides to reach an agreed formula for linking justice to peace. The issues of justice and injustice are focused mainly on the outcomes of the 1947-1949 first Arab-Israeli War and specifically in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The conflicting historical narratives of the two sides regarding the question of responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a classic case of linking the issues of justice and peace.Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov maintains that the narratives of justice and injustice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have proved to be formidable barriers to peace. Hence, he recommends that justice should be compromised for the sake of peace.The link between justice and peace is an important issue requiring both sides’ attention, but, given the wide and currently unbridgeable gap separating the two sides, it should be postponed to the phase of reconciliation rather than being included in the process of conflict resolution. The two-state solution is endorsed as the best and practical solution and as a first step for a "just peace" in this conflict, to be followed by reconciliation. Highly topical, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Peace Studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict.