Spoiling and Coping With Spoilers ― Israeli-arab Negotiations

For as long as people have been working to bring peace to areas suffering long-standing, violent conflict, there have also been those working to spoil this peace. These "spoilers" work to disrupt the peace process, and often this disruption takes the form of violence on a catastrophic level. Galia Golan and Gilead Sher offer a broader perspective. They examine this phenomenon by analyzing groups who have spoiled or attempted to spoil peace efforts by political or other nonviolent means. By focusing in particular on the Israeli-Arab conflict, this collection of essays considers the impact of a democratic society operating within a broader context of violence. Contributors bring to light the surprising efforts of negotiators, members of the media, political leaders, and even the courts to disrupt the peace process, and they offer coping strategies for addressing this kind of disruption. Taking into account the multitude of factors that can lead to the breakdown of negotiations, Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers shows how spoilers have been a key factor in Israeli-Arab negotiations in the past and explores how they will likely shape negotiations in the future.

Galia Golan is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The most recent of her many publications is Israeli Peacemaking since 1967: Factors behind the Breakthroughs and Failures. Golan is the recent recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the International Studies Association (ISA) for her work in peace research.

Gilead Sher was Senior Negotiator at the 2000 Camp David summit and the 2001 Taba talks and served as Prime Minister Barak's Chief of Staff. Sher leads the Center for Applied Negotiations (CAN) at the Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). His books include The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations, 1999-2001: Within Reach and The Battle for Home.