seeking mandela: peacemaking between israelis and palestiniansby heribert adam; kogila moodley

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Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians by Heribert Adam; Kogila Moodley Review by: Anthony Oberschall Social Forces, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Jun., 2008), pp. 1869-1871 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20430843 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 10:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:42:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians by Heribert Adam; KogilaMoodleyReview by: Anthony OberschallSocial Forces, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Jun., 2008), pp. 1869-1871Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20430843 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 10:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:42:00 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews . 1869

work and to spark debate. Still, its content will be valuable to many. Those interested in nonprofits and informal work arrangements will find unique perspectives on both. Those who study work or deviance may use it to identify elements of deception in an array of workplace behaviors and to understand its micro-level context, antecedents and outcomes. As such, the book may be useful in an undergraduate course on work or deviance, especially if supplemented with more mainstream perspectives on structural influences. A nonacademic audience is also likely to be highly interested - especially managers, who will no doubt find some of its content instructive. Not everyone will agree that this book offers the best approach to understanding workplace behavior, but anyone who reads it is likely to be captivated, at least momentarily, by the unique perspective it offers - one that reveals deception hidden everywhere... in plain sight.

Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians By Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley Temple University Press, 2005. 252 pages. $21.95 paper.

Reviewed by Anthony Oberschall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Anyone comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with that between whites and blacks in South Africa before the end of apartheid and majority rule is treading on controversial territory, as former president Jimmy Carter found out upon publication of Palestine: Peace notApartheid in 2006. Carter did not actually describe what the institutions of South African apartheid had been; instead he used "apartheid" in the title for its shock value. Nor was he the first public figure to use that term in reference to the Occupied Territories, although academics preferred "settler society" and "colonialism" as categories for analysis. In Seeking Mandela, two seasoned sociologists who have experienced, studied, and written eloquently about South Africa for decades from within (though they have emigrated to Canada and become Canadian citizens) ask whether there is a valid analogy to be made between these two cases of deeply divided societies, and whether the negotiated settlement of the white-black conflict has any useful lessons for peace making in Palestine.

In the authors' view, if one views the Palestine conflict through South African lenses, it challenges cliches based on "helplessness of the situation," ancient hatreds fueling "endless cycles of violence," a Greek tragedy with a built-in momentum that can't be stopped, and similar deterministic explanations. The authors believe that leaders, political groups, "human agents," make choices, conflict and history, and that includes compromise

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1870 . Social Forces Volume 86, Number 4 * June 2008

and peace as well. Almost all informed observers predicted "race war" in South Africa, yet it did not happen. How was it avoided, and couldn't Israelis and Palestinians avoid a similar catastrophe?

The comparison the authors make has two dimensions. If there is a fundamental similarity in the social structures and causes of both conflicts, then the successful management of the conflict and the reforms in South Africa might be a model of how to proceed with peace making and with constitutional changes in Palestine. But even if there do not exist compelling similarities, the shift from violence to peace building in South Africa might have some lessons for peace making between Israelis and Palestinians.

On the first dimension, the authors argue that "differences outweigh similarities."(19) In South Africa, the economy couldn't function without African labor; the Israeli economy has successfully substituted Asian and East European for a lower level of dependence on Palestinian workers. Thus there is no economic reason for integration. A common Christian religion with many overlapping religious groups active in peace and reconciliation united some of the adversaries in South Africa. In Palestine, Islam and Judaism both legitimize and mobilize hostile constituencies in the name of religion. For example, the orthodox religious parties, with 20 percent of the electorate, obstruct compromise over the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) settlements, and the control of holy places - in Jerusalem and elsewhere as in Hebron - are contentious issues blocking peace making. Religion feeds extremism in violence with the cult of jihad, martyrdom and suicide bombing justifying the targeting of Israeli civilians, and violent Israeli counterinsurgency producing lots of collateral (civilian) casualties and collective punishment for Palestinians, whereas both adversaries observed limits to violence in South Africa. Leadership within both adversaries was more unified in South Africa than among both Israelis and Palestinians, where factions constantly outbid one another on security concerns and on violence that undermines negotiations. External support for white South Africa was minimal: the African liberation movement captured world opinion and the regime had no external legitimacy. In contrast, despite on and off pressures upon Israel for peace making, the United States acts as an enabler for the Israeli hard liners' evasions about final status negotiations. Lastly, on the dimension of political culture, whereas " by the mid-1 970s, Afrikaners had begun to recognize the impossibilities foisted on them by apartheid,"(83) and they developed moral qualms that disturbed their national psyche, in Israel, "collective guilt toward stateless Palestinians in the occupied territories is either totally absent or overwhelmed by a collective sense of victimhood through Palestinian suicidal attacks and perceived Islamist threats to Israel's very existence."

The authors explore at great length the two-state "endgame" which was attempted at Camp David in 2000 and the prospects of a multiethnic single state encompassing Israelis and Palestinians a la South Africa. In

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Book Reviews . 1871

my opinion, and judging from Israeli polls, the multiethnic state prospect is dead upon arrival: it is the worst nightmare for Jewish political leaders and the public. The fundamental issue in peace building radically differs in the two situations: for South Africa it was how to terminate separation and build a multi-racial democracy; for Palestine, it is how to partition Israelis and Palestinians once and for all into two states at peace with one another.

Without a clear cut separation through an internationally recognized peace treaty and the creation of a viable Palestinian state, behind a protective wall, Israel risks continued occupation and/or intervention in a fenced in and fragmented Palestinian territory that resembles the grand apartheid Bantustan policy with two sets of laws and differential treatment for Israeli and Palestinian residents which South Africa abandoned.

Despite these differences, the authors believe that the adversaries in Palestine can learn from the peace process in South Africa. They recommend negotiations without preconditions (e.g., "all violence must first stop" hands the extremists a veto power on peace making), excluding some groups (Hamas) from the negotiations, giving up the goal of defeating the adversary by military means and/or fostering civil strife within it, preparing one's public for difficult compromise, and other useful counsel drawn from a number of recent peace processes (Rhodesia, Northern Ireland, Bosnia). The authors recognize that regardless of process, "the crucial issue in Israel/Palestine... will be ironclad guarantees of mutual security," and on this score their project for a multiethnic single state remains vulnerable.

This is a brief book packed with a lot of information, analysis, and thought. The authors assume a fair amount of familiarity with both the South African conflict and peace process and with the Israeli-Palestinian one. The writing is lucid, the arguments are well stated. Peace making is for them both an instrumental and a moral process. The authors interviewed both Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinian point of view is less analyzed than the Israeli. The reader may well ask, for instance, why is it that despite zero returns over five decades for violent attacks on civilians (in fact loss of territory, more Israeli settlements, harsher occupation, and more recently loss of external support on account of the war on terrorism), many Palestinians believe that it is advancing their cause? As for the criticisms of the Israeli government, the authors write up-front "...concerns with Israeli policy for many reasons must be distinguished from anti-Semitism. Criticism of its government does not question the legitimacy of the state of Israel, neither should it be construed as an attack on Jewishness."(xiii) This is a scholarly book dealing with a major human tragedy and one would hope its reception by scholars will bear this caveat in mind.

Work cited: Jimmy Carter, Palestine. Peace not Apartheid, 2006.

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