Marta Jiménez.- Since the Oslo negotiations numerous proposals have been putting forward, including the “Arab Peace Initiative, the Bush initiative, the Road Map, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Initiative, the Geneva Initiative, the Saudi peace plan, and the Annapolis Peace Conference. While many of these peace plans exhibited varying degrees of success in addressing some of the barriers that led to the breakdown of the talks, none of them fully grasped the extent of the obstacles, thus, impeding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process” (Bar-Siman-Tov 2010). The discourse of ‘peace’ seems to have been invigorated at the diplomatic level, whereas facts on the ground reveal their failure to bring about effective reconciliation among both peoples, hindering a just and lasting solution of the conflict. If the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is, in fact, caught in a deadlock at the negotiating table is significantly due to the unwillingness to compromise by the respective political leaders, to whom markedly different collective imaginary hang over. That indisposition is rooted in and thereof, driven by mutual fear and broken trust that fuel a psychological warfare in Palestine/Israel.

Continue reading →