Alpher Was Running the Wrong Way on Track Two from Day One

As an early participant to just one of the meetings Alpher describes below in his op-ed piece (he didn't invite me back because he thought me too extreme and disruptive), I thank this day that I am privileged to witness, 11 years later, Alpher recanting.

THE STRATEGIC INTEREST: Time To Hang Up My Track (II) Shoes
By Yossi Alpher
June 16, 2006

Israelis and Palestinians have been conducting informal talks about resolving their conflict for several decades now. The first such contacts between Israeli intellectuals and Palestine Liberation Organization stalwarts took place some 30 years ago. These meetings picked up steam in the late 1980s, after the PLO officially accepted the principle of a two-state solution.

Since then, I have been involved in a number of such efforts. I organized some meetings, such as those between Fatah leaders and West Bank settler leaders in 1995, and participated in many others. Now, however, informal Israeli-Palestinian meetings, commonly known as "Track II," are in danger of becoming pathetic and pointless.

I can testify that Track II meetings were very useful during the pre-Oslo and early post-Oslo years, and certainly contributed to advancing [advancing??? - YM] the process.

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So Track II does not always work, and some conflicts can be solved or at least mitigated without it, relying primarily on official contacts and negotiations. On the other hand, Track II generally is not harmful, and usually enables the two sides to know one another better and enrich their knowledge and understanding.

But lately it can be a waste of time and, worse, of self-respect. I began to be skeptical of Israeli-Palestinian Track II meetings after the peace process collapsed at Camp David in July 2000 and the violence began in earnest. I would sit down with Palestinian colleagues — all of us ostensibly committed to rescuing a two-state solution — in a hotel or think tank meeting room in Rome or Amman, and offer my analysis of what had gone wrong, freely pointing to what I considered to be the mistakes made by both Israel and the Palestinians.

The latter's response was to affirm Israel's mistakes, deny any of their own and claim that absolute right and justice were on their side. We were at war, and my Palestinian colleagues, who had nearly always needed some sort of official sanction from the PLO leadership to attend these meetings, were now loyally toeing the patriotic line. I finally walked out and refused for a while to come to more meetings.

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Then, a few months ago, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections. Since then I've become allergic to Track II meetings. They tend to be despairingly unproductive, for two reasons.

So, Alpher's trackless?