Civil society key to future of Israeli-Palestinian peace-building

The agony of Gaza goes on. No one should mistake the well-meaning efforts of delivering aid through airdrops or the proposed construction of a temporary port for Gaza as anything other than a dramatic failure of conventional, efficient delivery, due to restrictions placed upon its access.

The Gaza crisis represents a grotesque failure of political leadership. Of those in Hamas who organized the brutal raid on Israel on Oct. 7, indifferent to the likely response to the stealing of men, women and children as hostages. Of those in the Israeli government who devised an incoherent plan to save the hostages, while at the same time seeking to destroy Hamas at immense civilian cost. And of the international community, which cannot seemingly prevent or end what is happening, just as it cannot in Sudan or Somalia. The victims of these conflicts are rarely the leaders; it is the poorest and most defenseless, disproportionately women and children, who pay the heaviest price.

It is not easy to see any light at present, but the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee took evidence recently on the post-conflict future as part of an inquiry into the country’s policy in the broader Middle East. It heard from Israeli and Palestinian voices based locally, with one useful theme emerging that highlighted a road less travelled at present — the role of civil society.

This time, a bottom-up process must accompany the top-down for there to be lasting peace, justice and security

Alistair Burt

Listening to these voices and others from the region, I believe the committee will recognize and agree that there is no going back to Oct. 6. There is a growing awareness that the trauma of Oct. 7 and the subsequent reprisals have been so severe that, while it is obvious a new Gaza must emerge, a new Israel must also emerge, such is the shock to an already fracturing political system. Both will require new leadership, as neither can ever be the same again.

Emerging voices are making the case that the failure of political leadership means that a top-down resolution of affairs — the classic conclusions of high-level negotiations of local and international leaders determining the compromises needed for the future — will not be possible to achieve without the greater engagement of civil society. This time, a bottom-up process must accompany the top-down for there to be lasting peace, justice and security for those whose lives have been so cruelly violated not just recently, but for too long before as well.

There are those who wish to build on the fact that one area of anticipated confrontation has not occurred. The fears that, post-Oct. 7, the intercommunal conflict in Israel that erupted in 2021 between the country’s Jewish and Palestinian populations would resurface have not come to pass. Over the last few months, it has been striking that, despite the deep pain both communities have experienced, those who had been patiently working for many years to build common ground between Israel’s different communities have so far seen their efforts contribute significantly to ensuring tensions have not spilled over and added to the catastrophe elsewhere. This deserves greater recognition.

Efforts to promote coexistence are delicate and require skilled handling to minimize pain or guilt

Alistair Burt

None of this is simple. Efforts to promote coexistence are delicate and require skilled handling to minimize pain or guilt. New directions will also be needed, for the societies for which such peace-building were intended have been ripped away. While the base of trust and confidence created this way is vital, more of the same sort of relationship-building is unlikely to be enough, post-Oct. 7. A new political horizon, dealing with the many component parts of the issues between Palestinians and Israel, will be essential to underpin such work in the future, which is where the political process and civil society come together.

While relationship-building must be locally led, the international community has a role to play. The UK has long championed the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which has brought together Jewish and a variety of Arab partners. The Alliance for Middle East Peace, a coalition of more than 170 Israeli and Palestinian peace-building organizations, whose voices have been so prominent in the heart of tragedy, proposes an international contact group, integrating civil society peace-building, convened by the UK and drawn from G7, EU and Arab states. Such a group could be invited to the G7 Summit in June, in what we all hope will be a time when the conflict has ended and serious negotiations have begun.

With the limitations of the existing political leaderships so apparent, it is not unreasonable to demand that civil society efforts be fed into the horizon of a revived peace process. Amid failure, their efforts have been a success. There are precious few other successes to which to point — they have earned their right to be heard.

• Alistair Burt is a former UK Member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from 2010 to 2013 and as Minister of State for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019. X: @AlistairBurtUK