You can't fail us

First, writing peace agreements empowers and energizes students in ways that more straightforward lectures, discussions, case studies, and even role-playing or simulation cannot.¹

Indeed, no one failed. The greatest difficulty that students experienced was in balancing the incommensurable trade-offs inherent in multifaceted negotiations. If Israel compromises on settlements, for example, what exactly is that worth in terms of Palestinian concessions on, say, a right of return? In making such judgments, the most successful agreements avoided crossing political red lines while forging connections among the dazzling array of issues. Not surprisingly, students found that compromise on single, discrete issues was much harder without linking these issues to others. A trade-off on Israeli water rights and access, for example, could be achieved more easily by associating it with Palestinian sovereignty—at least in principle—over its subterranean natural resources. A political division of Jerusalem, some found, was untenable unless tied to carefully considered provisions to assure freedom of movement and the protection of holy sites.

Active Engagement

Second, the assignment allows students to work through an enormously complex set of material in an active, creative, and constructive manner. They learn the nuts and bolts of the conflict. They decide how all the details relate to a larger whole that they must devise themselves, within the narrow confines of political reality. They take charge of the substantive issues, detailing a vision of order and justice that makes sense to them. They are empowered to make any choices they deem necessary and wise, but are constrained by the conflict's relatively fixed set of circumstances. Having a specific purpose in mind helps students stay focused, gives them an Archimedean point from which to approach the issues, and keeps them from getting lost in a sea of unfamiliar names, places, and events.

Ideally, the assignment should create a dynamic and multidimensional learning process that requires students to master the substantive issues and rearrange them in a manner sensitive to the hopes and fears of both sides. In the Palestinian-Israeli context, most of the negotiating issues have been on the table for over a decade, so students have little difficulty identifying them and discerning the basic positions of the major political actors. Admittedly, the national consensus constraining or enabling a peace agreement has shifted substantially on each side over the years, creating a moving target of sorts. But rather than reading passively about how and why earlier attempts at conflict resolution have failed, students are responsible for imagining the conditions under which a new consensus in both communities could form. Even if students get some of the details wrong, they are sure to benefit from the effort.

Something for Everyone

Invariably, the assignment yielded a variety of final outcomes, as students focused on different aspects of the peace agreement and called on their own particular talents and inclinations. Some students made hand-drawn maps, showing enormous artistic skill and creativity. One geosciences major researched the underground aquifers at the heart of bilateral water conflict. A young engineer contemplated the design of a raised highway linking Gaza and the West Bank. Another student—now working on Capitol Hill—took great care to use the precise language of a well-crafted political agreement. Indeed, there is something for everyone. Quite obviously, the multifaceted nature of the conflict produces many stumbling blocks to a peaceful resolution. Yet, this also increases the likelihood that most students will find some aspect of it sufficiently compelling to provoke or inspire a measure of dedicated engagement.

To create viable peace agreements, students must also learn about a host of related political concepts, ranging from the traditional (sovereignty, the security dilemma, nationalism, party politics) to more cutting-edge concerns (human security, refugee rights, terrorism, the revolution in military affairs). At the outset, I invoked the logic of two-level games to emphasize the cross-cutting negotiating imperatives facing political leaders (Putnam 1988; Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam 1993). All of this might seem overwhelming for most undergraduates, but the potential payoff is enormous. Students consistently reported that they came to a much better understanding of concepts like Westphalian sovereignty after considering how to enable or constrain the sovereignty of a fledgling Palestinian state. Those with an interest in elections and party politics benefited from grappling with the dilemmas facing Israeli coalition governments. The exercise therefore proved remarkably useful in helping students integrate conceptual abstractions with rich historical materials.

The Art of the Possible

Finally, the assignment offers a much-needed antidote to the pessimistic primordialism that tempts newcomers and non-specialists in Middle East politics. Durable peace accords, by definition, must satisfy the minimal demands of multiple constituencies. Successful completion of the assignment came from accommodating such demands, thereby channeling student efforts in politically constructive directions. Ardent Zionists and devoted Palestinian nationalists alike had to build a peace with the principal touchstone of political sustainability. I told my students that the problem had many conceivable solutions: a peace agreement is less like a jigsaw puzzle and more like a tapestry. If politics is the art of the possible, they had to weave together all the elements in a way that would survive the acid test of political durability.

Of course, maintaining a future accord is not the same as achieving it. Peace and conflict resolution, somewhat like democracy and democratization, have distinct substantive and procedural dimensions—the difference between what they are and how to get or remain there. Some students struggled with the assignment's focus on peace as an outcome or endpoint, wanting to introduce process-oriented elements, such as the gradual building of trust between the antagonists or the strict sequencing of issues on the negotiating agenda. But imagining what the outcome would look like at the conclusion of a successful peace process permitted students to do what many negotiators in the Middle East have avoided for years. They constructed a plausible and just peace, in all its devilish details. This, in itself, was worth the price of admission.

In the end, students took away from the assignment a sober awareness of the difficulty of achieving peace. This is much needed by those who trivialize the Arab-Israeli conflict by framing it in terms of personal disagreements or reducing it to the playground antics of disobedient children. Presumably, some of this learning will translate into a general appreciation for the intractability of other longstanding political disputes. That said, many students also gained a surprising optimism about the possibilities for peace in the Middle East. This is especially important for those who have been taught that regional conflict is a product of inherent cultural antagonism or “age-old” rivalry. Their optimism may not have been entirely misplaced, but even if it was, this is less dangerous than the cynical indifference that comes with writing off human conflict.