Mitchell Report

Summary: An international committee of prominent political figures headed by former US Senator George Mitchell issued a report in May 2001 proposing steps to halt a new round of violence between Israel and Palestinians, which came to be known as the Al Aqsa Intifada. Known as the "Mitchell Report," the group urged both sides to observe a cease-fire, followed by a prolonged "cooling off" period in advance of renewed peace negotiations. The Mitchell Report was publicly accepted in part by both sides but failed to have a significant impact on the violence, in part because a significant segment of Palestinians-led by the Islamist group Hamas-rejected negotiations with Israel as a means of resolving the prolonged Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Nevertheless, the report was widely viewed as a milestone in the conflict, partly because all parties used the report and its recommendations as political debating points.

At the end of September 2000, a renewed wave of violence, which came to be known as the Al Aqsa Intifada, enveloped both the areas of the Palestine Authority (Gaza Strip and West Bank) and Israel. The violence started as rioting by Palestinians protesting a visit to Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif (also called Temple Mount), the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, by Israeli right-wing politician Ariel Sharon. The death of a twelve-year-old demonstrator, killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) trying to curb demonstrations, led to a tit-for-tat exchange of attacks and retaliation that threatened to derail the long-stalled effort to negotiate a long-term peace agreement to end the half-century of conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

In an effort to avoid a complete breakdown of peace talks, which he had championed, President Bill Clinton, in October 2000, organized a committee of prominent international politicians to study the situation and to make recommendations to restore peace. The committee met at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and issued its report in Spring 2001. The "Mitchell Report" was named after its chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who was widely credited with helping broker a cease-fire and peace settlement in Northern Ireland. Other members of the committee included Turkey's President Suleyman Demirel, Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland, former US Sen. Warren B. Rudman, and Javier Solana of the European Union.

The Mitchell Report was a milestone in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though it did not succeed in halting or even slowing the violence linked to the Al Aqsa Intifada. It was submitted to President George W. Bush three months into his administration and represented his administration's first opportunity to make an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It represented the first international effort to restore peace talks after the inauguration of a new Israeli government under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the leader of the Likud Party that had won a parliamentary majority just weeks after the initial violence. Sharon's reputation was as a hard-liner.

The Mitchell Report had three main recommendations:

• It urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to call an immediate cessation of violence on both sides.
• It recommended a prolonged "cooling-off period" during which the two sides would renew their commitment to a negotiated settlement. In the case of the Palestinian Authority, this would mean renouncing violence and terrorism and renewing its cooperation with the IDF. In the case of Israel, it would mean halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in territory claimed by the PA and adopting "non-lethal" responses to Palestinian offenses, notably demonstrations.
• It called for the renewal of negotiations, which, by 2001, had been stalled for eight years since the Oslo Peace Agreement of 1993, with the two sides unable to agree on borders for an independent Palestinian state.

The Mitchell report invited both sides to respond. The responses underscored the difficulties that had long blocked a final peace settlement.

• The Israeli government under Sharon accepted most of the commission's recommendations with two notable exceptions: the recommended freeze of new Jewish settlements in Gaza or the West Bank or expansion of existing settlements.
• The Palestinian Authority nominally accepted the recommendations but said the timetable should be changed so that a cease-fire, a freeze of settlements, and renewed negotiations would take place simultaneously.

In practice, the Mitchell Report was largely a political document used by both Palestinians and Israelis to argue their positions in the court of international opinion. On the same day the report was made public, Israelis used a car bomb to kill two Hamas leaders in Gaza City. Violence continued on both sides, often led by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On June 1, 2001, a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, for which the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, killed twenty-one and injured sixty. CIA Director George Tenet was sent to the region and, after a week of talks, produced a "Palestinian-Israeli Security Work Plan.

Neither Tenet's plan nor the Mitchell Report had a meaningful impact on the Al Aqsa Intifada, which included a rash of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks on Israel. Similarly, neither plan halted efforts by the IDF to target Palestinian leaders for assassination or to modify the IDF's muscular military response to civilian demonstrations. IDF continued the usage of both aerial and ground bombs designed to kill leaders of Hamas in particular.

The Al Aqsa Intifada is considered to have ended with the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit of 2005 when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to scale back aggressions. Still, the conflict between Israel and Palestine continued into the twenty-first century.

Although a significant diplomatic achievement at the time, any pretense of the durability of the Mitchell Report ended on October 7, 2023, when Hamas, an internationally recognized terror organization, launched a surprise attack on Israeli settlements and military installations in Gaza, killing 1300 Israelis, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251. Israel responded by launching air and ground operations in Gaza that killed over 40,000 people, again primarily civilians, in the first year of the war. In retrospect the conditions for the collapse of the Mitchell plan emerged at the very beginning, primarily with Sharon's refusal to cease Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, internationally recognized as Palestinian territory. Sharon's eventual successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, strongly supported continued settlement of Gaza and the West Bank.  

Despite broad international support, dating back to 1947, Israel historically balked at a two-state solution that would include a Palestinian state. Thus, as the war in Gaza continued into its second year, the concept of how the region would emerge after the conclusion of the hostilities in Gaza remained as murky as ever. The costs to both sides had been astronomical. In addition to the casualties Israel sustained at the initiation of Hamas's cross-border attacks, Israel's standing and support around the world significantly dimished as a result of the sheer volume of destruction levied against Gaza and the resulting famine. Hamas' moral standing was likewise tarnished with the atrocities its members committed on Israeli captives. Thus, radicalized sentiments on both sides made conciliatory efforts appear impossible with the only positive near-term outcome appearing to be a simple respite in the mayhem.  

In the latter half of 2024, hostilities in the region appeared to escalate rather than to diminish. Beginning in September 2024, Israel and the non-state actor Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, began to trade blows. Hezbollah's actions consisted of drone and missile attacks while Israel relied on aerial and non-conventional attacks such as the remote detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies carried by members of Hezbollah.  

Thus, more than two decades after its emergence, the Mitchell Report has faded into both irrelevance and obscurity, joining a long line of diplomatic efforts that arrived at the same fate.  

Bibliography

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"Mitchell Report." Center for Israel Education, 8 May 2001, israeled.org/resources/documents/mitchell-report. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

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