ABSTRACT
Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, international actors such as Canada, the European Union, European member states and the United States have played a leading role in building a Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) meant to drive Israel and the Palestinians towards conflict resolution. However, their efforts appear to have reached an impasse. Western MEPP policy at present represents both an analytical and a policy failure. While Western governments have been able to sustain this failed policy for years, developments in the Israeli-Palestinian arena could shift the nature of the conflict and therefore, shatter conventional Western policy towards the region. This article posits that the MEPP’s failure may be tied to structural-cognitive weaknesses in the international community’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These weaknesses, which simultaneously undermine both the Palestinians and Israel, include a failure to confront false and misleading collective assumptions in donor policy, a main contributor to the failure of the MEPP. Meanwhile, changed realities on the ground and a paradigm shift brought on by the apparent demise of the two-state solution present challenges and opportunities for the international community as it struggles to remain relevant in conflict resolution in the Israeli-Palestinian arena in the coming years.
