When political elites, governments, and organisations are involved in protracted conflicts, a variety of barriers to peace can block the process. These are often rooted in structural constraints on the legitimacy of a peace process and may include national security considerations, ideologies, and internal power dynamics. These are often interrelated and can be difficult to separate.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas, a group that it has labelled terrorists, making it unlikely that any realistic deal will be made on the creation of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Palestinians have made clear that they will never accept a solution that does not involve an end to the occupation of their territory. Combined with ongoing colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Israeli Jews, this makes peace seem impossible to impose from the outside.
Kobi Michael has outlined some of the more obvious obstacles in his book, The Geopolitical Environment as Barrier to Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. But these are not the only obstacles, and the fact that he has chosen to focus on this particular barrier does not imply that it is more important or severe than any other one.
The other major obstacle is the lack of grassroots participation. This is often a problem with track 3 processes, where grassroots-level organisations and movements play an active role, but it can also be true of tracks 1 and 2. In these contexts, finding new ways to increase grassroots involvement in peace negotiations requires creativity, a willingness to experiment and a recognition that it will likely take time for the mainstream to embrace grassroots initiatives.
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