The Syrian and Israeli governments have clearly passed the point of no return in their negotiations. The two have a clear interest in a peace settlement that achieves each side’s minimum needs: Syria gets full withdrawal and Israel gets true peace. Their diplomats have met for eleven rounds of talks in Washington; documents have been exchanged; semantic Rubicons crossed. Both know the price they will have to pay, and circumstances will never be more propitious. Nevertheless, three years after the start of talks at Madrid, negotiations between Jerusalem and Damascus remain stuck at a preliminary, exploratory stage. Detailed negotiations have barely got under way and a peace treaty still appears distant. Like two excessively polite guests, they remain locked in an endless debate about who is to enter the door first.
Why is this so and what can be done about it? The impasse reflects the fact that Yitzhak Rabin and Hafiz al-Asad differ over more than conflicting interests; the two sides are divided by a set of profound cross-cultural dissonances. Communicating with different codes and negotiating by different rules, Israelis and Syrians cannot construct appropriate mechanisms to bridge the cultural abyss. Worse, they appear oblivious to their predicament. In these circumstances, the precise role of the American intermediary--who must also be a cultural interpreter--is of the essence.
Syrian and Israeli Cultures
The confusions and impediments that mark the present Syrian-Israeli negotiations typify an entire class of confrontation between incompatible cultures. A Syrian-Israeli encounter brings many contrasting tendencies to the fore: collectivism versus individualism; shame versus guilt; high versus low preoccupation with honor and face; hierarchy versus equality; nonverbal subtlety versus verbal explicitness; autocracy versus democracy.
Syrian culture. Syrians are the product of millennia of settled habitation. Invasion, occupation, and four centuries of Ottoman rule elevated local loyalties and communal separatism at the expense of any larger political affiliation. The extended family--the clan--provides them with a primary focus of affiliation. Inter-communal rivalries and suspicions are endemic. Group values are preeminent, casting the individual in a subordinate, even vulnerable, role. Leadership is paternalistic, society hierarchically organized. Conformism and obedience, not individualism, are central virtues. Arabic, the language of the Holy Qur’an, the unmediated word of God, is unique in its richness and complexity. Sunni Islam, a rock of great reassurance in a cruel world, teaches reverence for eternal truths, respect for authority, and affinity with the wider community of the faithful.
In a collectivist society, the individual is vitally concerned with how he will appear in the eyes of others. There is no more powerful sanction than their disapproval. Loss of face, to be humiliated before the group, is an excruciating penalty to be avoided at all costs. Prohibitions tend not to be externalized, and may well be evaded if “nobody is watching.” Shame overshadows guilt. Given the importance of face, words must be weighed carefully, lest they offend. Directness and contradiction are much disliked as threatening communal harmony. The “high context” culture, as Edward T. Hall has called it, communicates allusively rather than directly.1 As important as the explicit content of a message is the context in which it occurs, surrounding nonverbal cues, and hinted nuances. Acute and justified alertness to hidden meanings breeds mistrust of stated intentions and a proclivity for conspiracy theories. The totalitarian and secretive nature of the present regime exacerbates these tendencies.
Israeli culture. In contrast, Jewish culture reflects very different influences. Israelis came together only recently from the townships and cities of Eastern Europe and the Middle East; not for them the certainty of continuous settlement, but memories of a precarious, wandering existence. Instead of ties to a universal ideal, Judaism inculcates a sense of national separateness, of being chosen by the Deity for a special role. Following defeat at the hands of Rome and dispersion, the sacred texts of Judaism preserved national identity and an attachment to the ancient homeland. Study was regarded highly, literacy a religious duty. Wherever they lived, Jews established academies of learning and inculcated habits of rigorous textual analysis. Prohibited from owning land and drawn together to practice their faith, the Jews lived an urban life, supporting themselves as artisans and traders.
Out of wrecked empires and death camps, a motley collection of idealists and survivors gathered to establish an old-new land in the twentieth century. Though they aspired to a clean break with the past, much cultural baggage was carried forward: the collective memories and defense mechanisms of history’s victims; a fiercely disputatious and democratic political system, rooted in the unforgiving communal politics of the shtetl (small town in Eastern Europe); an abrasive society of patriotic individualists, moved not by shame but by guilt, the internalized dictates of conscience. Language is “low context,” bereft of circumlocutions, indirect allusions, and status consciousness. An unadorned, straightforward, blunt style of speech, deliberately negligent of the interlocutor’s “face,” is preferred.
Dialogue of the Deaf
Beginning to decipher the deadlocked talks requires an understanding of the protagonists’ very different objectives. The Syrian government seeks to restore relations with the West and to regain the national patrimony; for it, peace is a means, not an end. The Israeli government sees peace-with-security as a supreme end in itself; other benefits are secondary. This conntradiction is compounded by a profound cultural clash.
The view from Damascus. Syrians see the main obstacle to progress lying in Jerusalem’s refusal to state unequivocally its prior commitment to total withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and the Syrians have, ever since Madrid, reiterated a demand for just this. Every incremental Israeli concession--acknowledgement of the applicability of Resolution 242,2 reference to “withdrawal,” acceptance of the principle of dismantling settlements--has met a redoubled Syrian insistence that full withdrawal is non-negotiable. In Syrian eyes, indeed, these steps are not even admitted to be concessions worthy of reciprocation, much to the annoyance of the Rabin government. Damascus dismissed the Israeli view that withdrawal was as negotiable as anything else and that the details of a peace settlement have to be discussed before agreeing on the basic principles of an accord. The Ba`thist regime, it said, was not prepared “to bargain over its territory and rights.”3
Although Israelis assume that Arabs haggle over everything, the suq (bazaar) model does not apply, as William Quandt points out, to matters of high principle.4 On the contrary, just as for the religious believer principles of faith are not open to negotiation, neither can core national values be bargained over. Memories of the humiliating colonial period magnify sensitivity for such matters. Syrians need a philosophical agreement on the principled framework of the accord before they can participate in the normal give-and-take of negotiations.
It may be small comfort for Rabin, but Asad’s insistence on this top-down approach is typical of negotiations that the high-context partner perceives to touch on cherished values such as sovereignty, honor, the patrimony, and land. The identical conundrum faced Menachem Begin before the Camp David Accords, and Washington before the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué. In each of these cases, substantive negotiations only began following acceptance of a sacrosanct principle (full withdrawal from the Sinai, recognition of the unity of China).5
There’s another distinction: the premises of law. Societies like Israel’s, governed by common law based upon day-to-day precedent (English common law with a flavoring of Talmudic law), tend to have a practical outlook. In contrast, those governed by laws derived from first principles (in Syria’s case, Islamic law, Ottoman law, and the Napoleonic Code) have a more abstract outlook. The former approach inspires detailed and inductive reasoning, the latter tends toward the principled and the deductive.
In face of the opponent’s preoccupation with abstract principle, a pragmatic low-context partner usually tries to piece together a bottom-up agreement. Why become bogged down in philosophy? Why waste effort on high-minded generalities? Better to use the time more profitably in identifying specific areas of mutual benefit and cooperation. When Jerusalem sought to break the deadlock in Spring 1994 by proposing to Damascus a “peace package” of detailed components, the Syrians called the proposal “silly” and “absurd.” Asad sought acceptance of his principles, not new schemes about implementation. Damascene sources accused the Israeli government of trying to
In turn, the Israelis complained that the Syrians had reacted to their offer
But this misstates what Damascus did: not adopt a “negotiating position” but reflect an axiomatic assumption about the necessary first stage in the process.
The view from Jerusalem. The Israeli government sees two main sources of deadlock in the Syrian refusals to implement confidence-building measures or spell out the meaning of peace and normalization. These omissions cause the Ba`thist regime to flunk Israel’s major tests of a genuine desire for peace. Rabin, Peres, and other leaders repeatedly appeal to President Asad to take the kind of steps to convince Israeli public opinion “that he wanted peace,” such as President Anwar as-Sadat took in 1977. “If Asad were to do one third of what Sadat did, there would be no problem in the peace process with Syria,” Rabin has remarked.8 Sadat’s 1977 Jerusalem visit not only convinced Israelis of his commitment to conclude an agreement, but it also demonstrated his conception of the quality of any future peace.
Israeli expectations of Damascus are to be understood in both ethical and political terms. Israelis assume that the highest objective of a peace treaty must be true peace (shalom emeth), not a purely strategic arrangement. The word shalom has compelling Biblical and messianic resonances, and it recurs throughout the daily prayer book: “May He who maketh peace in His high heavens grant peace unto us and unto all Israel!” Thanks to the prophets Amos and Isaiah, the associations of peace are lofty and practical at one and the same time, implying both moral perfection and cooperation between peoples. These connotations are part of the fabric of the Hebrew language, and all, whether believers or not, feel their power. Thus, when Israelis ask Asad to define peace and to make a pacific gesture, they in effect inquire about his ethical credentials, whether he shares their vision of a perfectible world. He clearly does not.
Other political reasons account for Rabin’s calling on Asad to take visible measures to gain the confidence of Israel’s public. No democratic government can make difficult and far-reaching concessions in the face of skeptical public opinion. If sacrifices are called for, ordinary people have to be convinced of the other side’s good intentions. In Israel’s case, this logic is reinforced by keen popular involvement in the issues at stake, the small population (4.5 million Jewish inhabitants), and the accessibility of the political elite. Given the very real doubts about Syria within the ruling Labor party--let alone the opposition parties--goodwill gestures by Asad become essential. Elections by June 1996 and a referendum on any withdrawal from the Golan Heights add urgency to Rabin’s requests. To put it bluntly, Rabin badly wants Asad’s help against his domestic critics.
Such help has not been forthcoming. The Syrian Jewish community was granted exit visas as a gesture to the U.S. government, not to Israel. Asad has transmitted positive signals but these have been subtle and ambiguous. Israelis expect something less devious. For one month prior to the Clinton-Asad summit, Syria curbed Hizbullah infiltration into Southern Lebanon, but then slipped the leash Abdallah al-Ahmad, deputy leader of the Syrian Ba`th party, insisted that Syria would continue to support Lebanese groups fighting the South Lebanese Army in order to destroy the Israeli security zone and force the Israeli Defense Forces to withdraw: “We shall continue the struggle to liberate the occupied territories and to restore Arab rights.”.9 An Israeli journalist was let into Syria but the Israeli press was excluded from the two presidents’ press conference of January 16, 1994. When a group of Israeli Arabs visited Damascus to convey condolences to Asad on the death of his son Basil, they had to travel on Egyptian laissez-passers and were received as a “delegation of the 1948 Palestinians.” Encouraged as a goodwill gesture by the Israeli government, Damascus exploited the visit to score points, generating much Israeli resentment. Palestinian organizations opposed to the peace process continue to find hospitality in the Syrian capital and broadcast in praise of terrorist acts within Israel proper.10 To the Israeli ear, Asad’s discordancies have drowned out the underlyinng harmonny. There is no reason to doubt his genuine committment to the peace process. His problem is singing in tune with Rabin.
Asad’s handling of the situation is based upon a combination of underestimation of Rabin’s needs and an unsentimental conception of diplomacy. The “true peace” motif evokes no chord in Damascus whatsoever. Asad does not accept the Western view of prenegotiation as a preliminary phase of confidence building; to the contrary, he spurns the bizarre proposal that he discard potentially useful bargaining chips as an entry price into substantive talks. No freebies here. Finally, the Syrians scarcely grasp the working of democratic systems. From the perspective of the authoritarian Syrian political tradition, with an undisputed, patriarchal ra’is (president) gaining near-unanimous votes of confidence in elections, ruling through the vanguard party, such imperatives as parliamentary majorities, election years, public opinion, and free media, look very peculiar indeed.
Direct Negotiations vs. Assertive Mediation
The same cross-cultural dissonances that generate an impasse also impede mechanisms to overcome it. The Israeli solution--direct negotiations--is anathema to the Syrian government; what is acceptable to Damascus--assertive mediation--is uncongenial both to Jerusalem and Washington. Yet a compromise solution does exist, in the form of nondirective mediation.
The view from Damascus. The Syrian leadership views the prospect of unmediated negotiations with high-level Israeli representatives with repugnance. They reject Foreign Minister Peres’s request for negotiations in “a site not lit by the sun.” In April 1994, for instance, a Syrian spokesman stated that secret talks and separate agreements would weaken the Arabs and allow Israel to force its terms on them.11 Partly, Damascus is making an ideological point about Arab unity and the need for a comprehensive peace. But such purism rings hollow after the signature of the September 13, 1993, Declaration of Principles (DOP) between Israel and the PLO; nor is the Syrian government being asked to conclude a separate peace. Indeed, Syrian suspension of contacts with Israel whenever progress is registered on the Palestinian or Jordanian fronts simply serves, counterproductively, to deepen Syrian isolation. What the Syrian government viscerally objects to is not just the signing of separate agreements but the dreaded experience of actually making concessions directly to Israelis.
The scathing comments of Syrian commentators on the DOP show Syria’s fears: the contents of a newspaper editorial broadcast on Syrian Arab Republic Radio claimed that the secret Oslo talks revealed that Israel sought to take on each Arab party on its own, so that it could blackmail it and drive it to make more concessions.12 Egyptian sources report Asad complained that the Palestinians made the fatal error of negotiating with Israel from “a position of inferiority.”13 Asad is clearly appalled by the thought of facing Israel on his own in just such a posture of subordination.
Throughout their modern history, Syrians have viewed themselves as leaders of the Arab world and refused to play second fiddle to any other Arab state, whether Iraq or Egypt. They want other Arab players, especially in the Levant, to acknowledge Syrian preeminence. Syrian leaders have reluctantly conceded a special role to the superpowers but have not been willing to conduct relationships on the basis of equality with neighbors, an attitude that may derive from a deep-seated, hierarchical view of human affairs reflected in the rigid stratification of Syrian society. Groups and individuals either dominate or are dominated. Ba`thist ideology significantly enshrines and reinforces this outlook. Asad failed to achieve strategic parity with Israel after the 1982 Lebanon war. In such circumstances he is not prepared to enter an unmediated diplomatic confrontation in which he feels he would be cast in the invidious role of supplicant.
It is particularly galling for Syrians to be constantly reminded of the Israeli government’s asymmetrical, special requirements in the talks. Why, they wonder, must Damascus be obliged to prove its bona fides? The ones whose intentions should be tested are those occupying others’ land, “not the owners of the rights and the land. They [the Israelis] are requested to prove their good intentions by complying with the complete withdrawal from the occupied Golan.”14 Jerusalem’s demands for unequal security arrangements are similarly mortifying. Rather, since Israel is “the occupying party and the aggressor,” Syrian security needs should be given priority.15 To a highly status-conscious, shame culture, repeatedly defeated by Israel in battle, all such claims to unequal treatment are deeply resented. “Syria”, one official remarked, “is not going to beg for peace.”16
From a Syrian perspective, the inevitable result of entering direct talks with Israel from a position of inferiority would be humiliation. Were this not sufficient disincentive, Damascus is chagrined by the prospect of engaging in the cut-and-thrust of negotiation on subjects directly engaging the national honor. To have Syria’s sacred rights to the soil of the homeland sullied by profane bargaining would be intolerable. The only kind of encounter with Jerusalem that Damascus can countenance is one in which the favorable outcome has been predetermined. The Madrid conference and Washington talks were acceptable because the proceedings had been scripted in advance. By definition, an open-ended, direct negotiation involving give-and-take implies the unedifying possibility of an uncertain conclusion. Since Syrians see themselves as the injured party in the dispute, with a monopoly of “justice and right,” the notion that they might receive less than their due is abhorrent. Only guaranteed success, then, could persuade Asad to venture into real negotiations with Rabin. And the only circumstances in which this could occur would be if a Clinton blueprint for a settlement were forthcoming.
American mediation is therefore Asad’s optimal solution to the deadlock. But rather than a detached, even-handed intermediary in the Western sense, Damascus has cast Washington in the intrusive, directive role of the wasta. In a situation of disequilibrium the wasta is supposed to throw his weight into the scales of the weaker party and ensure that it suffer no loss of face. Thus the Syrian government sees no incongruity in its call to the United States to be “an impartial mediator and a full partner and pressure Israel.”17 By “honest and unbiased broker,” Damascus does not imply an impartial facilitator in the Western sense, but an active participant exercising “its influence on the obstructive Israeli side”. Criticism of American failure to put pressure on Israel was, extraordinarily enough, actually broadcast over the Syrian media in the name of President Asad himself.18
The view from Jerusalem. Ever since the Rabin administration made the strategic choice to make concessions for peace with Syria, it has repeatedly called for direct negotiations at a ministerial level “according to accepted international norms.”19 Israeli negotiators find it simply self-evident that constructive diplomacy--learning to appreciate the concerns of the other side, frankly revealing one’s own preferences, exchanging and testing the feasibility of new ideas--requires face-to-face contact at a high level. Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich argues that “any objective observer of the negotiations” would favor this approach, for two reasons:
Israelis have long insisted on direct negotiations with the Arab states. In the early 1950s, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, interpreted Gamal Abdel Nasser’s refusal to meet him face-to-face as a refutation of his peaceful protestations. After the 1967 war, Golda Meir doggedly insisted on direct negotiations. Yitzhak Rabin is strongly inclined to maintain the credo of his two mentors. He knows all about Syrian intransigence, having been a staff officer during the 1949 Rhodes armistice talks, the head of Northern Command in 1956-59, the chief of staff in 1967, and a minister in the Meir government during Kissinger’s 1974 shuttle diplomacy. He repeatedly observed how Damascus, following military defeat, agonized by the need to negotiate with Jerusalem, postponed a resolution as long as possible and sought shelter behind an assertive mediator to ward off full peace and normal relations. If Israel occupies the Golan, Damascus is under the guns of the IDF, and Asad is still unwilling to engage him directly, Rabin must ask himself, what prospect is there of a normal relationship after an Israeli withdrawal? But this time the Israeli government faces no external pressure to settle, while the Ba`thist regime has no savior to turn to. Rabin has absolutely no intention of letting Syria off the hook again.
Syrian vs. Israeli Culture
A volatile chemistry of intercultural dissonance emerged from the civilizational disjunction between Syria and Israel, then was compounded by mutual unfamiliarity. This explains much about the failure of Israeli deterrence before the 1967 war; today its effects are acutely felt in the protracted pre-negotiation stage of the peace process. At the root of the problem is a clash of culturally defined needs. Each party has its own set of conceptions about the way negotiations should be conducted and conflicts resolved, expectations deeply rooted in their contrasting legal, ethical, and political traditions. These expectations are not deterministic, but they are hard for leaders to transcend because as values and habitual practices they shape both ends and means. They tend to be taken for granted as part of the common-sensical order of things by the political elite and the constituency to which it is answerable.
Linguistic usage provides telling evidence of cross-cultural distinctions by citizens of strikingly dissimilar social and political systems. Equivalent words possess subtly distinct meanings. The Arabic word dughri means honest, honorable, and true to the facts; in Hebrew dugri has come to mean honest in the sense of being true to oneself and represents an entire ethic of sincerity.21 Similarly, terms associated with conflict resolution are particularly prone to reflect hidden cultural concerns. For instance, the terms for mediator, metavekh in Hebrew and wasta in Arabic, both refer to third parties, but whereas the Hebrew metavekh is the broker of an urban, commercial culture, the Arabic wasta has the central face-saving function associated with a collectivist, honor-based, rural society.22 These roles have points of resemblance but are not simply interchangeable.
Routine diplomacy can provide mutually acceptable and efficient instruments for settling differences between states at peace; indeed, diplomatic mechanisms were developed over the centuries precisely to overcome culture gaps. But routine diplomatic tools may be inadequate in the resolution of protracted conflicts touching on core values. Extraordinary means are needed to reconcile societies that fought three bloody wars, viewed each other with loathing, and--in Syria’s case--denied the other’s right to exist. Here, cross-cultural dissonance arises in its most acute form, as the most resonant and effective mechanisms within one society turn out to be totally unsuited to the other.
Cross-cultural differences have disrupted Syrian-Israeli negotiations by impeding communications and behavior. Messages have not been given their due weight. Deep-seated needs have been confused with bargaining positions. Projection results in the parties’ interpreting each other’s requirements from an ethnocentric perspective. Stereotyping--for the opponents are convinced that they do understand each other--has obscured true meaning. More subtly, cross-cultural differences result in failures to coordinate behavior, to synchronize the intricate series of interconnected moves and responses demanded of a successful negotiation. The sort of gestures and processes that each side requires to overcome its fears and suspicions are precisely those measures that the other party finds itself unable to make.
What Can Washington Do?
Here, then, is the conundrum: Substantively, the Syrian-Israeli conflict appears to be amenable to resolution (though one cannot be sure of this until detailed negotiations get under way). Procedurally, the protagonists remain far apart. Procedure is substance, and the procedural standoff cannot be finessed. Neither party can impose its procedural preference on the other. Asad wants a mediator to propose the terms of a settlement to rescue him from his tactical vulnerability and relieve Syria of the need to enter into a humiliating direct relationship with Israel, the militarily dominant power in the region. Rabin calls for direct negotiations because he views them as a litmus test of Syria’s willingness to accept Israel’s legitimacy and the best guide to the future ability of the parties to live together in true peace, not separated by barriers or intermediaries. He also wants to derive maximum benefit from Israel’s advantageous strategic position.
What is to be done? In this kind of situation, where the protagonists are entrenched in opposing positions, it is tempting to underestimate procedural concerns and attribute to the third party the power to wave a magic wand and break the deadlock. There are increasing calls for an American quick fix. Judith Kipper has argued that
But it would be a grave error for the Clinton administration to present its own draft treaty, for to do so would mean taking sides on every single issue under contention. The Israeli government could hardly welcome such a development, which would totally undercut its negotiating position and set an unhelpful precedent for future relations with Syria. Far from encouraging the parties to engage each other’s concerns, such a move would relieve the Syrian authorities of the need to respond to Israeli proposals. The negotiation would be transformed into a purely Syrian-American dialogue, with Washington paying for Syrian concessions, both in Israeli and in American coin.
Serious appreciation of the procedural dimension and of the Israeli and Syrian governments’ genuine preoccupations leads to a very different conclusion: Despite slow progress, the best available mechanism for pushing the negotiation forward is that already effectively adopted by the Clinton administration. In the classic American tradition of impartial mediation, the administration has rightly eschewed a directive for a facilitative role. Essentially, this approach has been described as not “one of making demands and applying pressures. [Secretary Christopher] acts more like an attorney who transfers, not in a mechanical fashion, the positions of the sides, points to overlapping areas, and from time to time points to an interesting point where the sides meet.”24
In the early stages of such a negotiation, the mediator limits himself to passing on messages between the parties and encouraging them to come up with their own ideas. He does not present his own plan, since this would abort the essential preliminary exploratory stage, mutual education in the limits of the possible. He may insert himself more actively into the process later on by suggesting bridging formulae, but cannot relieve the parties of the need to respond to each other’s proposals and converge on an agreed solution of their own free will. They, after all, will have to live with the accord and make it work. For the third party to impose his own solution would be to claim infallibility and incur onerous responsibility for any consequences.
Neither Damascus nor Jerusalem care for this impartial and nondirective mediation (Damascus wants an assertive mediator, Jerusalem wants direct talks). Although the existing mediation fails to satisfy the ideal preference of either protagonist, it does have the great virtue of meeting their minimal needs and avoiding their maximal aversions. Rabin cannot force direct negotiations on a reluctant Asad but he can insist that Asad respond to Israeli proposals through the good offices of the United States. Asad cannot compel Clinton to present an American plan and pressure the Israeli government into accepting it but American good offices do save Damascus from the shame of having to make concessions directly to Jerusalem.
No one planned things this way, but practical necessities sometimes produce better solutions than theory. The Clinton administration has adopted a low-keyed and laborious mediatory style, one not geared to producing a dramatic breakthrough but that sees progress as contingent on the parties’ drawing painful conclusions about what is realistically attainable, with no one pulling their chestnuts out of the fire. All Israeli-Syrian negotiations since 1949 have been drawn-out affairs, marked by intransigent bargaining on both sides. The current one is clearly no exception; the long impasse will be relieved by attrition, not innovation. However frustrating and tedious the process may appear, it is essential that Washington avoid an intervention that would foster Syrian illusions about “American pressure on Israel” and postpone the eventual day of reckoning.
Having stumbled on the correct approach, the Clinton administration should patiently persevere for as long as it takes. Impartial mediation is what Americans do best anyway. Rabin and Asad would be well advised to reconcile themselves to a negotiating mechanism that rightly obliges them to take most of the responsibility for solving the problem themselves.
1 Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Doubleday, 1976).
2 UN Security Council Resolution 242: “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”
3 Syrian Arab Republic Radio, May 2, 1994, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Near East and South Asia (hereafter FBIS, NES), May 3, 1994.
4 William B. Quandt, “Egypt: A Strong Sense of National Identity,” in Hans Binnendijk, ed., National Negotiating Styles (Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, 1987), pp. 118-20.
5 Raymond Cohen, Culture And Conflict In Egyptian-Israel Relations: A Dialogue Of The Deaf (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 129-33; Raymond Cohen, Negotiating Across Cultures (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1991), pp. 78-84.
6 Al-Hayah, May 8, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 13, 1994.
7 Itamar Rabinovich, Israel Defense Forces Radio, May 8, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 9, 1994.
8 Yedi’ot Ahronot, Feb. 2, 1994.
9 Davar, Apr. 18, 1994.
10 Syrian Arab Republic Radio, Apr. 14, 1994, in FBIS, NES, Apr. 15, 1994.
11 Qol Yisra’el, Apr. 13, 1994 in FBIS, NES, Apr. 14, 1994.
12 Syrian Arab Republic Radio, Feb. 14, 1994, in FBIS, NES, Feb. 15, 1994.
13 Ha’aretz, Apr. 6, 1994.
14 Al-Hayah, May 8, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 13, 1994.
15 Al-Hayah, May 21, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 25, 1994.
16 Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, Feb. 24, 1994, in FBIS, NES, Feb. 25, 1994.
17 Radio Jordan Network, Apr. 30, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 3, 1994.
18 Radio Monte Carlo, Apr. 6, 1994, in FBIS, NES, Apr. 7, 1994. Syrian Arab Republic Radio, Apr. 20, 1994, in FBIS, NES, Apr. 22, 1994.
19 Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Davar, Feb. 22, 1994.
20 Qol Yisra’el, Apr. 30, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 2, 1994.
21 Tamar Katriel, Talking straight: Dugri Speech in Israeli Sabra Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 11..
22 Robert B. Cunningham and Yasin K. Sarayrah, Wasta: The Hidden Force In Middle Eastern Society (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993). The functional Jewish equivalent of the wasta in his conflict resolution mode is the borer, literally, arbitrator.
23 The Washington Post, June 29, 1994.
24 Qol Yisra’el, Apr. 30, 1994, in FBIS, NES, May 2, 1994.
