Varieties of Olive Branch

Abstract

While such factors as the actual state of the conflict or the existing relationship between the adversaries form part of the context working for (or against) conciliation and are powerful influences on the effective use of conciliatory gestures and their development into accommodative sequences, a second set of influences clearly arises from the nature of the initiative itself. The contrast between Anwar Sadat’s conditional offer to reopen the Suez Canal and his later personal visit to Israel is obvious, as is the different impact these initiatives had upon the prospects for a resolution of the Egyptian-Israeli conflict. It is almost tempting to start consideration of this particular influence on successful conciliation by proposing a general rule of thumb that the more ‘dramatic’ the gesture, the more likely it is to have the initiator’s desired effect, although the number of conciliatory gestures, even some of those containing elements of high drama, that have failed to move forward a peace process, or even begin cautious accommodative moves, warns against easy generalisation. While dramatic gestures may achieve a high degree of recognisability, the key issue is whether they invariably achieve similarly high levels of credibility and respondability with members - and particularly leaders - of an adversary; and whether ‘drama’, however defined, is a necessary characteristic of successful conciliatory gestures.KeywordsSuez CanalBargaining PositionConciliatory ProcessPeace ProcessConciliatory MoveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.