Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH): Impartiality and an Adaptive Peacebuilding Approach in Structural Asymmetry

Abstract

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) in the West Bank was and still is the sole international mission deployed inside the occupied Palestinian territories with Israel’s consent. The TIPH had no military or police functions, only civil ones, and it operated within a structural asymmetry embedded in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, despite the peace process. In this context, this chapter analyzes how the TIPH was effective even when it had a very limited mandate (authority) and suffered from structural asymmetry. This chapter provides an overview of the situation in Hebron and the background to establishing the TIPH. In addition, it also covers the TIPH’s mandate and tasks, the challenges it faced, and how it contributed to promoting a sense of security among Palestinians in Hebron. The effectiveness of the TIPH is discussed from two theoretical perspectives, impartiality and adaptive peacebuilding.

Introduction

Hebron is a city located in the southern part of the West Bank of the Jordan River that has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Because of its religious and historical importance and uniqueness, Hebron has witnessed frequent waves of violence. One of the most tragic incidents was a massacre perpetrated by a radical Jewish settler at the Ibrahim Mosque in February 1994, just five months after the Oslo peace accord was signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).¹ To support the newborn and unstable Oslo peace process, an international presence was called for, and a group, labeled the “Temporary International Presence in Hebron” (TIPH), was deployed in the city in May 1994. This has had three phases to date, and although the first two, TIPH I and II, were short-lived, TIPH III operated for twenty-two years, from January 1997 to January 2019.

The TIPH was a unique international presence in many ways. It was, and still is, the sole international mission deployed inside the occupied Palestinian territories with Israel’s consent.² It had no military or police functions, only civil ones. Furthermore, the TIPH operated within the structural asymmetry that has been embedded in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians despite the peace process (Gallo and Marzano 2009, 34). Indeed, Israel is a state actor with sovereignty and the occupying power, while the Palestinians are the occupied and non-state actor with only the limited autonomy granted by the Oslo accord.

There are very few academic research papers on the TIPH (Aggestam 2001, 2003; Baruch and Zur 2019), but it has been well covered by journalists and UN documents. While some of these sources evaluate the TIPH negatively, using adjectives such as “useless” or “toothless,” many Palestinians in Hebron agree that it contributed to promoting a sense of security. In fact, data from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) show that the number of Palestinian injuries in the center of Hebron suddenly increased after the withdrawal of TIPH III in 2019, which strongly indicates that the TIPH was, to a certain extent, effective in deterring violence against Palestinians.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how it was possible for the TIPH to be effective even when it had a very limited mandate (authority) and suffered from structural asymmetry. This question is explored from two theoretical perspectives: impartiality and adaptive peacebuilding. In the context of peacekeeping operations, impartiality is not the same as neutrality. It means that, while the peacekeepers will not take sides in a conflict, they “will not stand idly by when they witness, or become aware of, atrocities or human rights abuses (de Coning 2007, 59).”

Adaptive peacebuilding is a complexity-informed approach where peacebuilders, including communities and people affected by the conflict, actively engage in a structured process to sustain peace by employing an interactive process of experimentation, learning, and adaptation (de Coning 2019, 37). The TIPH was inherently impartial because it was assigned to promote a feeling of security only to Palestinians in the city, the weaker side in the conflict. And indeed, the TIPH operated under the principle of impartiality by trying to deter violence against the most vulnerable. The TIPH’s mandate and authority were strictly stipulated by an agreement between Israel and the PLO, which was not amended or revised for twenty-two years. In this sense, the TIPH should be categorized as deterministic or top-down peacebuilding in terms of its mandate and authority. Practically, however, the TIPH took an adaptive peacebuilding approach by developing broad interactions with local Palestinian organizations and people. In other words, the TIPH was able to build impartiality into an operational principle through different types of activities in specific contexts focusing on the local people and succeeded in deterring violence against the most vulnerable.

As noted earlier, the TIPH’s mandate was only to promote a feeling of security among Palestinians in Hebron, it had no military or police functions. Therefore, from the beginning, it was impossible to expect the TIPH to create or restore peace as a peacebuilder in the general sense. However, the TIPH made a meaningful contribution to sustaining the peace process by deterring violence against the most vulnerable in a very sensitive spot in the occupied Palestinian territories, in which the spread of violence could disrupt the whole peace process. This chapter first provides an overview of the situation in Hebron and the background to the establishment of the TIPH. In the following sections, the mandate and tasks of the TIPH and the challenges it faced in a volatile situation are focused on. Then, how the TIPH contributed to promoting a sense of security among Palestinians in Hebron with its limited mandate is explored. Finally, the effectiveness of the TIPH from two theoretical perspectives, impartiality and adaptive peacebuilding, is discussed. The study is based on literature research in related fields, plus field research in Israel, the West Bank, and Norway in November 2019. During and after field research, eighteen semi-structured face-to-face and remote interviews with former members of the TIPH, officials from local governments, UN agencies and the Israel Defense Forces, the staff of international and local NGOs, and academics were conducted.

Hebron and the Establishment of the TIPH

The Uniqueness of Hebron and the 1994 Massacre

Hebron, or Al Khalil in Arabic, is located about 40 kilometers south of Jerusalem. With a population of over 200,000, it is the second largest Palestinian city in the West Bank (OCHA 2019b, 2). Hebron is considered to be one of the oldest towns continually inhabited by people. In the center of the old city of Hebron, there is the Cave of the Patriarchs or the Sanctuary of Ibrahim, where it is believed that the three patriarchs, Abraham or Ibrahim, Isaac or Ishaq, and Jacob or Yaqub, and their respective wives were buried. Over the cave stands a large structure, which has been the Ibrahim Mosque since the beginning of the Islamic era. Because of its religious significance, Hebron is very important to both Judaism and Islam.

Hebron was under Jordanian rule from 1949, but after the war in 1967, Israel occupied the entire West Bank, including Hebron. At that time, the Ibrahim Mosque was divided into two parts: a mosque and a synagogue. In 1968, Jews who led settlement activities in the West Bank started to settle in the center of Hebron. In addition, a new Jewish settlement Kiryat Arba was built next to the east of the city area of Hebron in the same year. Since then, the old city of Hebron and its neighboring areas have been a place of frequent violent clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians.

In September 1993, the Israeli government and the PLO signed the Oslo accord, and the two parties started their negotiations over how to implement autonomy under the Palestinian National Authority. Hebron became a focal point in the negotiations because several hundred Jewish settlers lived in the very center of the Palestinian residential and commercial areas. On February 25, 1994, a brutal terrorist attack took place at the Ibrahim Mosque. A Jewish settler from Kiryat Arba attacked during Palestinian prayers at the mosque, leaving 29 Palestinians dead, and he was beaten to death by survivors (Boudreau 2014, 75). The Hebron massacre sparked additional violence all over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The perpetrator, Baruch Goldstein, was a devoted follower of radical religious Zionism, which promotes the thought that redemption can take place only when the Jews control all the biblical Land of Israel, including the entire occupied territories. In the aftermath of the Oslo accord, Goldstein came to believe that the peace process could disconfirm the dream of redemption unless he stopped the process by a most dramatic act (Sprinzak 1999, 239–43).

Redeployment of Israeli Forces and TIPH

The Hebron massacre halted the peace negotiations, and the PLO demanded an international presence in addition to the evacuation of Jewish settlers as a prerequisite for resuming those negotiations. Initially, Israel rejected the PLO’s demand for an international presence because of its strong distrust of international forces. In Israeli society, the concepts “the whole world is against us” and “it is a nation that shall dwell alone” have been emphasized in various situations (Itsik 2020, 301). Therefore, as Yaakov Amidror argues, to “defend itself by itself” has been Israel’s national security ethos, and international forces were considered in Israel as “notoriously unreliable, especially when they have been challenged by one of the parties”(Amidror 2014, 52–58).

Meanwhile, international criticism of the massacre gained momentum, and the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 904 on March 18, 1994, which called on Israel, “as the occupying Power, to continue to take and implement measures, including, inter alia, confiscation of arms, with the aim of preventing illegal acts by Israeli settlers,” and called for “a temporary international or foreign presence” as “measures to be taken to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilians” (UNSC 1994).

Finally, Israel agreed to the deployment of a temporary international presence in Hebron (TIPH), consisting of 160 personnel from Norway, Denmark, and Italy, in an agreement with the PLO signed on March 31, 1994. The TIPH I began its operations on May 8, 1994, with a three-month mandate. The TIPH I, however, was withdrawn just three months later because Israel and the PLO could not agree on the extension of that mandate (Weiner et al. 2010, 14).

On September 28, 1995, the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (hereinafter “Oslo II”) was reached, by which the IDF withdrew from major Palestinian cities in the West Bank and the Palestinian National Authority assumed responsibility for internal security and public order as well as civil affairs for Palestinians in these cities. However, Hebron was put under special arrangements, under which the city was, and still is, divided into two areas: Hebron 1 (H1), which comprises 80% of the city (BADIL 2016, 21) and is home to about 115,000 Palestinians, and Hebron 2 (H2), which comprises the remaining 20%, including the Old City and all the areas settled by Jews, and was at that time home to about 35,000 Palestinians and 500 Jewish settlers (B’Tselem 2019, 8). At the center of Area H-2, there are several settlement buildings, the Cave of the Patriarchs/the Ibrahim Mosque, and a road connecting the downtown Hebron settlements to the two large settlements on the outskirt of the city, Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina (Fig. 6.1). 

Fig. 6.1

Central part of the Hebron city. Source: The Humanitarian Bulletin, OCHA-occupied Palestinian territories, January–February 2020, courtesy of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (https://www.ochaopt.org/content/dignity-denied-life-settlement-area-hebron-city)

Because of the presence of the Cave of the Patriarchs/the Ibrahim Mosque and Jewish settlements, Article VII of Annex I to the Oslo II agreement stipulated that in Area H-2, Israel would retain “all powers and responsibilities for internal security and public order,” and only the civil powers and responsibilities would be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, “except for those relating to Israelis and their property which shall continue to be exercised by Israeli Military Government.” In addition, both sides agreed to establish a second TIPH.

While redeployment of the Israeli forces from Hebron was delayed, the two parties reached a new agreement on May 9, by which the TIPH II was established. TIHP II consisted only of Norwegian civilians and was to be replaced by a new TIPH when Israeli forces were finally redeployed from the city. After long and complicated talks, Israel and the PLO reached the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron on January 17, 1997, which called for the establishment of a third TIPH. Four days later, on January 21, both parties signed the “Agreement on Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron” (hereinafter as “the 1997 Agreement”),³ which stipulated the TIPH’s mandate, tasks, and modalities in detail. The 1997 Agreement requested six countries, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, to provide 180 persons as TIPH personnel. Upon this request, the six countries produced the Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing a TIPH on January 30, 1997 (hereinafter as “the MOU”).⁴ The MOU was an agreement between the member countries on TIPH’s basic operational principles, modalities, and details. While the 1997 Agreement did not refer to international law and human rights, the MOU emphasized that the TIPH would operate based on internationally recognized human rights standards.

The TIPH Mandate, Tasks, and Operations

Limited Mandate and Tasks

The TIPH III began its operations at the end of January 1997 with 180 international personnel dispatched by the six countries.⁵ Its mandate and tasks were strictly limited by the 1997 Agreement. Paragraph 1 stipulated that it would “assist in monitoring and reporting the efforts to maintain normal life in the City of Hebron, thus creating a feeling of security among Palestinians in the City of Hebron.” In addition, Paragraph 3 stated that TIPH personnel “shall have no military or police functions, nor will they interfere in disputes, incidents or the activities of Israeli security forces or the Palestinian Police.” Paragraph 5 also stipulated its task as “to promote by their presence a feeling of security to the Palestinians of Hebron.” While it was responsible for the entire area of Hebron city, including Area H-2, the members of the TIPH were not allowed to enter privately held areas, military camps, and security installations without permission.

In short, the TIPH’s mandate was to “promote” a feeling of security among Palestinian residents in Hebron with its presence alone. It was not mandated to become directly involved in the political or social interactions between Israelis and Palestinians or enhance peaceful relations between them, nor was its role to act as a buffer between Israeli and Palestinian security forces (Weiner et al. 2010, 16). To accomplish its mission within this limited mandate, the TIPH focused on patrolling, showing its presence, recording incidents by photo and video cameras, and writing reports. Indeed, the TIPH considered report writing as a “cornerstone” of its work and produced reports on various incidents which its members witnessed, such as damages to private property, prolonged ID checks, physical harassment, trespassing, and stone-throwing. In addition, the TIPH recorded “violations of international humanitarian law, human rights standards and agreements applying to Hebron, whether committed by the Israeli or Palestinian side” (TIPH 2016b). Reports were shared with the Israeli and Palestinian authorities and the member countries of the TIPH. In the twenty years from the start of its operations until 2017, the number of incident reports was more than 40,000, with an average of 2000 per year (Blau 2018). Israel, the PLO, and the six-member countries agreed to keep these reports classified as “not for public use,” and they have not been published at the time of writing this chapter.

In addition to monitoring and reporting, the 1997 Agreement tasked the TIPH with enhancing “the well-being of the Palestinians” and to “encourage economic development and growth in Hebron.” For these purposes, the TIPH was authorized to “assist in the promotion and execution of projects initiated by the donor countries.” While only small-scale assistance projects were implemented due to a lack of funds, such as providing teaching materials for schools, laboratory equipment for hospitals, and food for people under curfew, as described in detail later, these projects were very helpful for the TIPH in the establishment of good relations with the Palestinians.

The 1997 Agreement stipulated that the mandate of the TIPH was to be renewed by the two sides every three months. In practice, it was renewed every six months (Aggestam 2003, 55). On January 29, 2019, however, the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would not renew the TIPH’s mandate, claiming that it “operates against us” (Landau and Berger 2019). As described in the following section, Netanyahu’s decision was criticized for not being well based. The foreign ministers of the five TIPH member-states also announced their regret over the “unilateral decision” to not renew its mandate (Norwegian Government 2019). At the beginning of February 2019, a draft statement was proposed to the United Nations Security Council to express its “regret” about Israel’s “unilateral decision,” but the USA reportedly blocked the proposal (AFP 2019).

The TIPH’s mandate thus terminated at the end of January 2019, after being in operation for twenty-two years.

The Challenges Faced by TIPH

The progress of the peace process based on the Oslo accord is extremely slow or does not happen at all, and the expectations of the Palestinians have not been fulfilled. Consequently, the situation in the West Bank and Gaza has continued to be tense. Particularly during the Second or al-Aqsa intifada, which erupted in September 2000 and lasted for about five years, a storm of violence raged in the entire occupied territories. While the IDF and Israeli settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, military confrontations frequently broke out between Israel and Gaza. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, violent incidents increased for about one year, from the second half of 2015 to the first half of 2016.⁶

While the situation in Hebron, particularly in Area H-2, is almost always tense and volatile because of its historical and religious uniqueness, intermittent waves of violence in the occupied territories further destabilize the situation. Particularly, some young settlers have become radicalized and have caused numerous violent incidents. During the Second Intifada, even senior Israeli government and IDF officials indicated their dissatisfaction with the failure to enforce the law on settlers (B’Tselem 2003, 15). According to a survey of Palestinian families living in H-2 conducted by OCHA in summer 2018, nearly 70% of the respondents reported that at least one member of their household had experienced an incident of settler violence or harassment in the three years since October 2015, when the stabbing intifada broke out (OCHA 2019b, 7).

Under these circumstances, Israeli settlers were hostile to TIPH members because they saw it as a biased organization supporting Palestinians.⁷ In response, the TIPH publicly expressed its concern about an increase in attacks against its patrols by young settlers (TIPH 2002). On the other hand, local Palestinians were generally friendly to the TIPH, but sometimes young Palestinians were also hostile to TIPH members. Indeed, in March 2002, three TIPH members were ambushed and shot by armed Palestinians when they drove a car in the outskirt of Hebron, and two of them died.

While the 1997 Agreement and the MOU guaranteed freedom of movement of TIPH personnel for their tasks, Palestinians’ freedom of movement was and still is seriously hindered because of the many obstacles set by the Israeli security forces. According to an OCHA report, there were 95 obstacles, such as checkpoints, roadblocks, and road gates in Area H-2, as of April 2009 (OCHA 2011). Areas around these obstacles, particularly checkpoints, were always tense, and violence or harassment occurred frequently. Therefore, the TIPH itself called on the Israeli authorities to remove obstacles by arguing that removing them would have no security implications (TIPH 2008).

TIPH’s Contribution to Promoting a feeling of security Among Palestinians

Evaluations of TIPH

Two members of the TIPH were quoted as describing the TIPH as “a band-aid” with no real ability to affect the situation on the ground (Stephan 2004, 252). This negative description is not unusual regarding the evaluation of the TIPH. It is usually poorly, and sometimes negatively, evaluated. Pnina Sharvit Baruch and Lior Zur argue that the “TIPH is another illustration of the limitations of international bodies in fulfilling a meaningful role in the implementation of agreements” and “in influencing the reality on the ground or making any progress in conflict resolution” (Baruch and Zur 2019, 4).

Israeli officials tend to evaluate the TIPH negatively and sometimes question its neutrality. A high-ranking officer at the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in charge of coordinating civil and military activities in the occupied territories, criticized the TIPH for being not balanced between the two parties. According to him, the TIPH did not benefit Israel because it produced biased reports and caused frictions with Jewish settlers.⁸ When Netanyahu announced his decision not to renew the TIPH’s mandate at the end of January 2019, in its editorial, an Israeli daily, the Jerusalem Post, argued that the TIPH had become “part of the problem instead of the solution” and claimed that the works of the Israeli forces in Hebron would be “easier without an antagonistic foreign presence fanning the flames” after its withdrawal (Jerusalem Post 2019).

Before Netanyahu’s announcement, the Israeli police department produced a report on the TIPH. According to a press release, the police report claimed that members of the TIPH confronted Israeli Defense Forces troops stationed at permanent checkpoints and interfered with standard inspection procedures for Palestinians crossing these checkpoints. In addition, according to the police report, TIPH members were accused of deliberately creating friction to justify their salaries (Ben Kimon 2019). Based on the report, Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan requested Netanyahu not to extend the TIPH’s mandate (Ben Kimon 2019). However, Peace Now, an Israeli peace movement NGO, later criticized the police report for “having no basis in fact.” According to Peace Now, the police report was a product of an extensive public campaign for demanding the removal of the TIPH by Hebron Jewish settlers and right-wing organizations (Peace Now 2019).

Some Palestinians living in Hebron also negatively evaluated the TIPH. A civil organization member said that what the TIPH could do was only to produce reports and not to prevent violence.⁹ The dissatisfaction of Palestinian residents with the TIPH might be a result of a large gap between Palestinians’ expectations and what the TIPH actually could do. An evaluation conducted in 2014 by Itad Ltd., which was contracted by the TIPH member-states, also suggested a gap between the expectation of Palestinians and the TIPH’s performance. A summary of the evaluation stated that the mere presence of the TIPH was not perceived as sufficient by the Palestinians, though it might have some positive effect, and Palestinians in Hebron wanted to see more of an active role of the TIPH to influence events (Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015).¹⁰

Impacts of TIPH’s Presence on the Security Environment

As discussed in section “The TIPH Mandate, Tasks, and Operations,” the TIPH was granted only a limited mandate. Although local Palestinian actors frequently demanded an expansion of the TIPH’s mandate,¹¹ the 1997 Agreement was never revised or amended during its lifetime. In this respect, Justus Reid Weiner and others argue that the TIPH should be evaluated based on its mandate, namely, to promote a feeling of security among Palestinians. According to them, the TIPH was a unique mission because its “civil confidence-building mandate” was significantly different from the type of mandate envisaged for peacekeeping forces intended to fulfill a certain security role. Based on their argument, they concluded that the TIPH met with a significant measure of success in carrying out its mandate because a majority of the residents in Hebron were aware that reporting an incident to TIPH would improve the situation, although, at the same time, the majority felt less secure (Weiner et al. 2010, 16).

Statistical data also confirm that the TIPH played a significant role in deterring violence and harassment caused by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers against Palestinian residents. The figure shows numbers of Palestinians who were injured by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers in Area H-2 in Hebron from 2008 to 2020. The number of Palestinian injuries in 2019 was 1322, the highest since 2008 when data became available. In summer 2014, a large-scale military confrontation took place between Israel and Gaza for fifty days. In addition, in the latter half of 2015 and the first half of 2016, there was a wave of violence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which was called the “stabbing intifada” or “knife intifada.” During these events, the situation in the entire occupied territories was very tense. Compared to these years, the situation in the West Bank in 2019 was relatively calm. Nevertheless, the number of Palestinian injuries in 2019 in Area H-2 was exceptionally high. The OCHA data set recorded 3592 Palestinian injuries in total in the entire West Bank in 2019, of which 37% were concentrated in Area H-2 (Fig. 6.2).

Fig. 6.2

Palestinian injuries caused by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers in H-2. (Source: Author, based on data from OCHA-occupied Palestinian territory, data on causalities (https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties))

Local Palestinian officials in Hebron affirmed that violent incidents and harassment against Palestinians occurred almost every day after the TIPH’s withdrawal.¹² A Palestinian human rights activist based in Hebron also affirmed that the situation after its withdrawal deteriorated very much due to increasing harassment and violence against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers.¹³ A headmistress of a school in the city also said that staff and students felt exposed and vulnerable without TIPH members accompanying the children (Oxfam International 2019).

How Could the TIPH Deter Violence

The observers are supposed to protect 170,000 Palestinians from 500 settlers, without weapons and without the authority to separate the sides. They do not even have the authority to prevent violent incidents (Eldar 2008).

The first half of Eldar’s comment above is not correct because the TIHP was not missioned to protect 170,000 Palestinians from 500 settlers. But the second half is correct. As stipulated by the 1997 Agreement, the TIPH’s mandate was only to “assist in monitoring and reporting the efforts to maintain life in the city of Hebron, thus creating a feeling of security among Palestinians” in Hebron. It was not allowed to interfere in disputes or incidents. Furthermore, TIPH members were equipped only with uniforms carrying a special emblem, vehicles marked with the same emblem, and photo and video cameras. They were authorized to carry pistols for self-defense purposes, but they did not actually carry such pistols.¹⁴

Under these circumstances and with a very limited mandate and authority, the TIPH took two approaches to the fulfillment of its mission to create “a feeling of security among Palestinians.” Firstly, they showed their physical presence as much as possible and produced incident reports of what they monitored. Secondly, they tried to build friendly relations and confidence with Palestinian residents.

Regarding their presence as a means for deterrence, Arthur G. Gish, who was an American human rights activist and lived in Hebron from 1995 to 2001, reported his experience in his memoirs. In February 1999, Gish watched an Israeli soldier appearing to harass a young Palestinian passerby by trying to coerce the Palestinian into doing something. But when a TIPH member came to the spot and stood with his camera ready, the Israeli soldier ended his harassment. According to Gish, Israeli soldiers behaved with a certain discretion when TIPH members showed their presence, while Palestinians were more likely to be abused without their presence (Gish 2001, 141–42).

As described in the previous section, the Israeli security forces set many obstacles in Area H2, which seriously hinder the freedom of movement of Palestinians. Particularly, checkpoints often became a spot of search, detention, or harassment by Israeli soldiers, keeping Palestinian residents waiting for an excessively long time. Even schoolchildren can be stopped for a long time on their way to or from school. According to a survey conducted by OCHA in August 2018, 88% of the school children in Area H-2 had to cross a checkpoint to reach their school, and around 90% of households with school-age children reported at least one incident of delay, harassment, physical search, or detention on their way to school in the first half of 2018 (OCHA 2019a, 3). Therefore, TIPH members tried to show their presence as much as possible at certain checkpoints to deter unjustifiable incidents caused by Israeli soldiers and sometimes produced reports when Israeli soldiers stopped school children for a long time.¹⁵ As a result, their presence was considered to be particularly helpful for school children on their way to and from school (Berger 2019).

To improve the human rights situation, the TIPH conducted a campaign to promote public awareness of their legal rights. It emphasized that all Palestinians in the occupied territories had the right to complain to the police and encouraged Palestinians to contact them when their human rights were violated, saying, “if you report to TIPH, it could make a difference for others in the future” (TIPH 2009). And indeed, Palestinians themselves requested the TIPH to show its presence when they felt it necessary (Kullab 2016; Excellence Center In Palestine 2018). Palestinians were able to feel a sense of security because of the presence of the TIPH, which independently observed and recorded violations of human rights.¹⁶

As described in section “The TIPH Mandate, Tasks, and Operations,” the TIPH produced more than 40,000 incident reports between 1997 to 2017. Reports recorded various incidents, such as prolonged ID checks, harassment, and human rights violations. As the TIPH considered report writing a “cornerstone” of its work, reports were expected to serve as a witness and archive of the events taking place in Hebron. TIPH members showed their physical presence as much as possible, sometimes as requested by Palestinians, documenting incidents by camera and produced incident reports.

The second approach taken by the TIPH was to build friendly relationships and confidence with Palestinians. To this end, the TIPH initiated various small-scale projects, which were in line with tasks given by the 1997 Agreement to enhance the well-being of Palestinians. These small-scale initiatives were called “the community relations support projects” (TIPH 2010, 2016a), but were often “soft security projects” because they were also aimed at ensuring the safety of its members.¹⁷

Table 6.1 gives some examples. In addition to those in the table, a very wide range of other projects were implemented, including vocational training for young men and women, first aid training programs for volunteers, and arts and theater activities for children. The legal awareness campaigns were also implemented as part of the community relations support projects (TIPH 2010). It is noteworthy that the TIPH funded the construction of a new staircase and a tiled path to a school to enhance the safety and security of schoolchildren and teachers on their way to and from that school. According to the TIPH, the school was located only twenty meters from an Israeli settlement, and the main staircase of the school had been closed with barbed wire by the Israeli forces (TIPH 2006). The project was a good example of an attempt conducted by the TIPH to promote a feeling of security among Palestinians not only by showing the presence of TIPH members but also by implementing community relations support projects.

Table 6.1 Selected Cases of TIPH’s Community Relations Support Projects

Many projects were implemented in cooperation with local actors, such as the Hebron municipality, schools, and Palestinian NGOs. Different types of projects were also conducted for children, such as distributing footballs, running a pottery school, and playing puppet shows. According to an account by a former TIPH member, projects for children were meaningful and important because they provided children with something else to do rather than stone-throwing. In addition, due to its strict mandate, TIPH members could not stop stone-throwing by children, but they were able to talk to children on the spot and calm them down because children knew who the TIPH members were.¹⁸ Thus, the community relations support projects were certainly useful and helpful for the TIPH to contribute to creating an environment with less violence.

Impartiality and Adaptive Peacebuilding

Impartiality and TIPH

Yousef Tabari, deputy mayor of Hebron, said that local Palestinians in Hebron accepted and appreciated the TIPH because, as the weaker side in the conflict, Palestinians needed certain international protection, although the TIPH’s mandate was limited.¹⁹ As his statement suggests, it can be argued that the TIPH played a role as an impartial international presence since it provided a sort of protection to the victims or weaker side in Hebron, namely the Palestinians, based on internationally recognized human rights standards in structural asymmetry.

According to Daniel Levine, “neutrality” and “impartiality” tended to be used interchangeably until post-Cold War peacekeeping operations began to put neutral peacekeepers in tight spots, but the post-Cold War has seen increasing pressure for peacekeepers to take more robust action to resolve conflicts. Therefore, a notion of “impartiality” that favors principle over noninterference has gained favor (Levine 2010, 3). The UN Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, or the Brahimi Report, makes a clear argument on the necessity of impartiality for the UN peacekeeping missions. It argues that impartiality is “not the same as neutrality or equal treatment of all parties in all cases for all time, which can amount to a policy of appeasement,” because, in some cases, “local parties consist not of moral equals but of obvious aggressors and victims, and peacekeepers may not only be operationally justified in using force but morally compelled to do so” (Panel on United Nations Peace Operations 2000, para.50).

Along the same line, the UN document on principles and guidelines of peacekeeping operations of 2008 stresses that “the need for even-handedness towards the parties should not become an excuse for inaction in the face of behavior that clearly works against the peace process.” Therefore, the document argues that a peacekeeping operation “should not condone actions by the parties that violate the undertakings of the peace process or the international norms and principles that a UN peacekeeping operation upholds” (UN DPKO 2008, 33).

Through their research on UN peacekeeping missions, Victoria Holt, Glyn Taylor, and Max Kelly conclude that successful UN peacekeeping missions are those that address the protection of civilians as an inherent part of their aims and emphasize the importance of the mission’s ability to understand the threats and vulnerabilities facing the civilian population for delivering on its mandated tasks. Holt and others further argue that actions taken by peacekeeping missions to protect civilians based on their determination to use impartiality against those who challenge its efforts will help deter violence against the most vulnerable (Holt et al. 2009, 239–40).

The TIPH’s mission was completely different from UN peacekeeping missions because the former was not mandated to physically protect civilians by force and had no authority to interfere in disputes or incidents. As discussed in the previous sections, what they could do to deter violence caused by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers was to show their presence as much as possible, to produce incident reports, and to build friendly relations and confidence with local Palestinians. It was obvious that the TIPH was not expected to promote a feeling of security to Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers because they were well protected by their own or the Israeli military. In addition, the TIPH emphasized on many occasions that its operations were based on international humanitarian law and human rights standards and agreements.

As Karin Aggestam argues, the role given to the TIPH was to compensate for the existing asymmetry between the Israelis and Palestinians (Aggestam 2001, 64). Therefore, it can be argued that, while it adhered to the noninterference mandate, the TIPH tried to adopt the principle of impartiality by deterring violence or harassment against the Palestinians, not because it took sides in a conflict politically but because it acted to help the most vulnerable to human rights abuses in an asymmetric conflict.

TIPH as a Deterministic or Top-Down Peacebuilding Approach

In the following subsections, the TIPH’s operations are analyzed from the viewpoint of adaptive peacebuilding. In this regard, de Coning (2018) presents the concept of adaptive peacebuilding as a counter approach to the liberal peacebuilding approach, which is characterized by a deterministic nature and, because of this, has experienced many failures since the beginning of the 1990s. According to de Coning, the adaptive peacebuilding approach is characterized by complexity, resilience, and local ownership. Complexity systems cope with challenges posed by changes in their environment through co-evolving together with their environment in a never-ending interactive process of adaptation. And in the adaptive peacebuilding approach, the core activity of a peacebuilding intervention is one of process facilitation, and by stimulating processes, a society would enable self-organization and strengthen the resilience of the social institutions that manage internal and external stressors and shocks. Therefore, it is crucial, in the adaptive peacebuilding approach, that the societies and communities that are intended to benefit from a peacebuilding intervention are fully involved in all aspects of the peacebuilding initiative. Thus, in the adaptive peacebuilding approach, the interlinkages with resilience and local ownership are essential, and these should be further developed in the process (de Coning 2018, 304–9, 2019).

As Toufic Haddad argues, intervention by the international community, particularly the major donors led by the USA, after the Oslo accord was signed in 1993, has been based on a theoretical and ideological understanding of development/peacebuilding/state-building tactics and strategies as a linear process (Haddad 2016, 2). In the 1990s, the international community provided a huge amount of assistance to build an economic foundation to establish an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories and to expand peace dividends on the assumption that the interim autonomy period would end five years after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 as stated by the Oslo accord.

In the late 1990s, however, the peace process stagnated, and the autonomy period, which was supposed to be five years, has been prolonged without any clear idea of the outcome of the process. The Second Intifada, or the al-Aqsa Intifada, between 2000 and 2005, made the situation even worse. While major donors have continued their assistance, the primary purpose of their assistance has changed from establishing an independent Palestinian state to preventing the disruption of the peace process itself or, more precisely, preventing the collapse of the Palestinian National Authority. Nevertheless, major donors and the international community have never exerted strong pressure on both parties, particularly on Israel, the occupying power, to advance the peace talks. Furthermore, no significant adaptive approach has been initiated, mainly because the international community led by the USA has stuck to the deterministic approach that any agreement should be reached through direct peace talks between the two parties.

Despite this stalemate in the peace process, the TIPH continued its operations. Although it was clear that the TIPH’s mandate and authority were not sufficient, and therefore, local Palestinians called for widening them, the 1997 Agreement was never amended or revised for the twenty-two years of its presence,

A major reason why the TIPH’s mandate was very limited, and the 1997 Agreement was never amended or revised, can be attributed to Israel’s unique national security ethos. As discussed in section “Hebron and the establishment of the TIPH,” to “defend itself by itself” has been Israel’s national security ethos, and international forces were considered as unreliable. The 1997 Agreement was produced against the background of Israel’s unique security notion, particularly its strong distrust of international presence. While it reluctantly accepted the TIPH due to the strong pressure put by the Palestinian side and the international community after the 1994 massacre, Israel made, in practice, no compromise on maintaining the maximum operational freedom of Israeli forces to protect Israel’s interests and Jewish settlers. Thus, there was no room for the TIPH to take any adaptive approach or action in terms of its mandate and tasks, which were strictly predetermined by the 1997 Agreement. In this sense, the TIPH should be categorized as a deterministic or top-down approach.

TIPH as an Adaptive Peacebuilding Approach and Impartiality

The environment where the TIPH operated, however, constantly changed during the twenty-two years of its existence. The situation in Hebron is particularly vulnerable not only because of its unique character but also because of the harsh situation in the occupied territories outside Hebron that resulted in such events as the Second Intifada, the three large-scale military confrontations between Israel and Gaza, and the so-called stabbing intifada or knife intifada between 2015 to 2016. As the OCHA data indicate, however, the TIPH succeeded in deterring many of the violent incidents and harassment caused by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers. Thus, it contributed to the safety of Palestinians with the limited mandate to a certain extent.

To achieve its mission, as discussed in section “TIPH’s Contribution to Promoting ‘a feeling of security’ Among Palestinians,” the TIPH took two approaches. Firstly, it showed its physical presence as much as possible, cameras ready, and created an average of 2000 reports on various incidents per year. The TIPH showed its presence not only routinely but also in context, such as at locations as requested by Palestinian residents and checkpoints where tensions tended to increase. It also conducted a campaign to promote public awareness of their legal rights and encouraged Palestinians to inform it of legal rights violations and other incidents. Secondly, they implemented various types of community relations support projects to build friendly relations and confidence with local Palestinian people. These projects contributed to enhancing the security of Palestinians, such as funding for constructing a staircase and tiled path to a school and providing children with something else to do than stone-throwing.

Through such efforts, the TIPH tried to adapt its operations to a specific context informed by a constantly changing environment. An adaptation was made possible by involving local Palestinian communities and societies. They were active in cooperating with the TIPH’s activities and operations. After the TIPH’s withdrawal, a local Palestinian activist established a patrolling team composed of eighteen Palestinian volunteers to prevent violence caused by Jewish settlers against Palestinians (Holmes 2019). This is a strong indication that, through the adaptation process in the period of the TIPH’s presence, the Palestinian society had developed its ability to enable self-organization and strengthen the resilience to cope with a new situation caused by the withdrawal of the TIPH.

As discussed above, the TIPH tried to realize the principle of impartiality based on international humanitarian law and human rights standards. Due to its very strict and limited mandate, however, the TIPH itself could not provide physical protection. Therefore, the TIPH took various adaptive measures through involving local Palestinians in deterring violence against the most vulnerable, and it produced a certain level of results. In other words, through an adaptive approach, the TIPH was able to make the principle of impartiality operational in the context of Hebron.

Conclusions

As shown in this chapter, it can be concluded that the TIPH succeeded in accomplishing its mission in the light of its mandate. That is not to say that the TIPH provided sufficient protection to Palestinians, but at least it deterred violence caused by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers against Palestinians to a certain extent. Thus, the TIPH was successful in promoting “a sense of security” among Palestinians as was mandated.

The main reason for its success was that the TIPH constantly adapted its operations to changing contexts by developing broad interactions with local Palestinian communities and societies. It was true that what its members could do was to show their presence as much as possible, document incidents on camera, and produce reports. But Palestinian residents came to know that the presence of TIPH would reduce their exposure to violent risk and cooperated with it in various ways. And the TIPH’s operations were made successful with the involvement of and cooperation with Palestinian residents. In order to realize the principle of impartiality, the TIPH took an adaptive peacebuilding approach by “employing an interactive process of experimentation, learning and adaptation with local Palestinians communities and societies”(de Coning 2019, 37), and thus it succeeded in making the principle of impartiality operational.

The TIPH’s area of responsibility was only Areas H-1 and H-2, and the number of its members was also limited, starting with 180 at the beginning and finishing with only 64. Not surprisingly, it did not have a significant impact on the Oslo peace process. Rather, the peace process itself has almost collapsed. Many factors have caused a complete stagnation in the process, such as never-ending new settlement activities, mutual distrust, repeated waves of violence, and the factional rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. The most decisive factor though is the structural asymmetry in the relationship between Israel and Palestinians. While Israel is a state actor with sovereignty and the occupying power, Palestinians are the occupied and non-state actor with limited autonomy. As a result, Israel has been able to maintain strong power over almost all issues. The mandate and authority given to the TIPH precisely reflected this structural asymmetry. Israel maintained the maximum operational freedom of Israeli forces in Hebron and never accepted requests to revise the 1997 Agreement.

Therefore, as argued in the previous sections, the TIPH should be categorized as an international actor which implemented deterministic or top-down approach in terms of mandate and authority stipulated by the 1997 Agreement. Practically, however, to achieve its mission, the TIPH took an adaptive approach and tried to reach out to as many Palestinian residents as possible. In particular, the TIPH invented various types of small-scale initiatives called “community relations support projects,” and implemented these in cooperation with local actors. By doing so, the TIPH succeeded in involving local actors and transferring impartiality into an operational principle. Thus, in the case of the TIPH, the two approaches, context-specific and adaptive, to peacebuilding are inseparably interlinked and significantly contributed to the TIPH’s achievement of its mission.

The TIPH is the only international peacebuilding intervention that has operated inside the occupied territories with Israel’s (however reluctant) consent, and it proved to be effective to a certain extent under the conditions of structural asymmetry. Many meaningful lessons can be drawn from the TIPH’s experience for future civil peacebuilding interventions, particularly on impartiality and adaptive peacebuilding. In March 2021, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the initiation of an investigation regarding the situation in Palestine (ICC 2021). The investigation is expected to deal with alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Hebron, since June 2014. The numerous reports produced by the TIPH, which have been closed to the public, could be strong evidence for the investigations and for the court once indictments are secured.