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YAACOV BAR-SIMAN-TOV
which can be seen as the product of learning that led to a policy that
failed and caused severe damage to both sides. Past failure, then, can
be a major inhibitor on the road to effecting change in the violent
confrontation.
The disagreements between central actors in the internal environment
can manifest themselves over a range of issues, including the
very attempt to moderate the violent confrontation with the other
side; the need to moderate the conflict even before significant military
and political gains have been achieved; the method and the means
chosen to bring about moderation; the timing and pace of the moderation
process; the price and risks entailed by the change; and the
relation between moderating and terminating the violent confrontation
and the renewal, type and expectancy latent in the political
process. Domestic actors are liable to oppose an attempt to moderate
and terminate the violent confrontation, whether for ideological
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reasons, such as unwillingness to reach a settlement that is not a total
military and political victory, or for fear that their status in the internal
political environment will be adversely affected, especially if it is
they who will pay the concrete price for the change (for example, the
setders in Israel).
In the non-state entity, where the violent confrontation constitutes
a paramount rationale for the political existence of some of the
domestic actors, its termination is liable to put their status at risk. 29
They may therefore try to sabotage efforts to reduce or end the
violent confrontation, compelling the leaders who seek this goal to
obtain broad public legitimization for the move, whether by persuading
the opponents or neutralizing them in some way. 30
Another key source for bringing about a change in the violent confrontation
can be changes in the internal environment of one or both of
the parties to the conflict. A new leadership, which was not direcdy
involved in the failure of the political process and the deterioration into
violence, might become a source for possible change. The fact that the
new leadership is neither responsible for nor committed to the policy of
its predecessor can encourage conciliatory initiatives both on its side
and on the other side, which may view these developments as having
the potential to modify the confrontation. A change of government
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can be brought about by internal pressures stemming from the public's
unwillingness to continue to endure the conditions of a protracted confrontation
entailing very high costs to life and property. The public may
gradually come to feel that a change in the conflict can be possible, but
only by means of a change in the political leadership. The background
to the election of Yitzhak Rabin as prime minister in 1992 and of Ehud