Mitchell Report (Arab–Israeli Conflict)

The committee was established following the October 17, 2000 Middle East Peace Summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, whose participants included Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union.[2] At the summit’s close, the U.S. president announced that a fact-finding body would examine the events of the preceding weeks and how to prevent their recurrence. On November 7, 2000, following consultations with the participants, the committee members were asked to serve; the completed report was dated April 30, 2001.[1]

The committee’s five members were George J. Mitchell, former U.S. senator and Senate majority leader, who served as chairman; Suleyman Demirel, former president of Turkey; Thorbjoern Jagland, Norway’s minister of foreign affairs; Warren B. Rudman, former U.S. senator; and Javier Solana, the European Union’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.[2] The committee stated that it had received information and advice from a wide range of individuals, organizations, and governments, but emphasized that its conclusions and recommendations were entirely its own.[1]

The committee’s remit was deliberately limited: to determine what had happened, why it had happened, and how a recurrence of violence could be prevented. The December 6 presidential guidance instructed the committee to avoid intensifying mutual blame and to refrain from becoming a tribunal or focal point for recrimination, directing it instead toward providing lessons for the future.[1] Consistent with that direction, the report expressly declared, “We are not a tribunal.” It had no power to compel testimony or the production of documents, and most of the information it received came from the parties themselves — and, the committee observed, largely supported their respective arguments.[2] It did not attempt to chronicle every event since late September 2000, but focused on events it considered relevant to the underlying causes of the violence and to the prospects for ending it.[2]

The report’s account of the crisis opened with the September 28, 2000 visit by Ariel Sharon, then a member of the Knesset, to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian and U.S. officials had urged Prime Minister Ehud Barak to prohibit the visit; Barak regarded it as an internal political act by a political opponent and did not do so. Sharon arrived accompanied by more than 1,000 Israeli police officers.[1] Israelis viewed the visit in an internal political context; Palestinians regarded it as highly provocative.[1]

The following day, Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police confronted one another at the site. A U.S. State Department account cited in the report stated that police used rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition, killing four people and injuring approximately 200; the Israeli government reported 14 police officers injured, while B’Tselem reported 70.[1] The committee concluded that Sharon’s visit “did not cause the ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada,’” but was poorly timed and that its provocative effect should have been foreseen. The committee identified as more significant the Israeli police decision on September 29 to use lethal means against Palestinian demonstrators, followed by the subsequent failure of both parties to exercise restraint.[2]

The report traced the roots of the violence well beyond the immediate events of September 2000. It described the Oslo process as one that had deferred permanent-status issues while relying on the implementation of interim commitments — a structure that worked only if both parties fulfilled their obligations and refrained from actions perceived as prejudging the final outcome.[2]

The committee described mutual disillusionment and a crisis of confidence. Palestinians cited continued settlement growth, delays in Israeli withdrawals and prisoner releases, the refugee impasse, and worsening economic conditions, all of which they argued had prolonged and entrenched the occupation rather than ending it within Oslo’s five-year transitional period. Israel emphasized security concerns and alleged Palestinian failures to prevent incitement, control illegal weapons, stop attacks, and maintain the renunciation of terrorism and violence.[1] Both sides, the committee found, treated perceived failures to comply with agreements as evidence of bad faith, steadily eroding trust.[1]

The parties offered sharply different accounts of the crisis’s immediate trigger. The Israeli government argued that Palestinian Authority leaders had planned and directed violence after the Camp David negotiations broke down in July 2000, deliberately provoking Israeli forces to generate casualties and international sympathy. The PLO denied that the uprising was planned and argued that the summit’s failure and subsequent international attempts to assign blame to Palestinians had increased tensions.[1]

On these competing explanations, the committee said it had found no persuasive evidence that Sharon’s visit was anything other than an internal political act and no persuasive evidence that the PA had planned the uprising. It therefore found no basis to conclude that either a deliberate PA plan to initiate violence or a deliberate Israeli government plan to respond with lethal force existed.[2] At the same time, the committee found no evidence of a consistent PA effort to contain demonstrations and control violence, and no consistent Israeli government effort to use non-lethal means against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.[1] Its characterization was stark: “Amid rising anger, fear, and mistrust, each side assumed the worst about the other and acted accordingly.”[2]

The report also noted that the parties offered sharply different interpretations of specific incidents during the violence, including the killing of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durra and the October 12 lynching of two Israeli military reservists in Ramallah — events that intensified emotion and hardened positions on both sides.[1]

The committee described the violence as having expanded far beyond initial confrontations between demonstrators and Israeli security forces. By the time the report was written, it encompassed exchanges of fire, sniping, clashes between settlers and Palestinians, terrorist attacks and Israeli responses, killings, property destruction, economic restrictions, mortar attacks, and Israeli military incursions into Palestinian areas.[2] The committee warned that “the culture of peace, nurtured over the previous decade,” was being shattered, and that violence was deepening fear, anger, hatred, and mistrust on both sides.[2]

By the report’s date, nearly 500 people had been killed and more than 10,000 injured, with Palestinians comprising the overwhelming majority in both categories; the committee also stated that many deaths — including many Israeli deaths — were avoidable.[1] The report recorded the Israeli government’s estimate of approximately 9,000 Palestinian “attacks,” of which about 2,700 — roughly 30 percent — involved firearms, grenades, or other explosives.[1] Separately, it cited B’Tselem’s account, based on IDF figures, that 73 percent of incidents from September 29 to December 2, 2000 did not include Palestinian gunfire, and that most Palestinians were killed and injured in those incidents.[1]

The committee called Israel’s blanket characterization of the crisis as “an armed conflict short of war” overly broad for the wide variety of incidents that had occurred.[2] It also addressed Palestinian gunfire from populated areas, condemning the positioning of gunmen in or near civilian dwellings as a practice that endangered civilians, and noting that IDF responses with heavy-caliber weapons sometimes killed or injured uninvolved Palestinians.[1]

The report described the human dimension of the crisis with particular force. The committee said it had met families of Israeli and Palestinian victims who used “virtually the same words” to describe their grief — contrasting the widow of an Israeli physician whose practice had included Arab patients with parents whose Palestinian child had been killed in his bed by an errant .50-caliber bullet. Both families, the report noted, drew anguished conclusions about how the other side regarded their people.[1]

The Israeli government separately estimated that violence in the last quarter of 2000 alone cost the Israeli economy $1.2 billion, with losses continuing at approximately $150 million per month.[6]

The committee devoted significant attention to the economic impact of Israeli closures and movement restrictions on the Palestinian population. It reported that closures restricted Palestinian movement between Palestinian areas and Israel, within Palestinian areas, and to foreign countries.[1] The estimated effects included Palestinian unemployment rising to approximately 40 percent, approximately 140,000 Palestinians prevented from working inside Israel, and the loss of roughly one-third of Palestinian gross domestic product.[1]

Beyond those headline figures, the report documented a Palestinian Authority fiscal crisis arising from Israel’s suspension of the transfer of tax and customs revenues owed to the PA. It also recorded blocked access to urgent medical treatment and schooling, and the destruction of tens of thousands of olive and fruit trees and other agricultural property.[2] The Israeli government described the measures as security-driven and intended to prevent or minimize terrorist attacks, while Palestinians characterized them as collective punishment. The committee acknowledged Israel’s security concerns but recommended lifting closures, transferring the revenues owed to the PA, and permitting Palestinians previously employed in Israel to return to their jobs.[1]

The report also noted the wider economic damage to both sides caused by sustained violence. “Death and destruction will not bring peace, but will deepen the hatred and harden the resolve on both sides,” the committee wrote, underscoring the urgency of its recommendations.[1]

The committee organized its recommendations around three sequential objectives: end the violence, rebuild confidence, and resume negotiations. It identified these three aims as the measures by which its proposals should be judged.[1]

On ending violence, the report called for an immediate, unconditional cessation of violence and the immediate resumption of Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation, which it described as essential to preventing further bloodshed.[1] It called on the Palestinian Authority to make a “100 percent effort” to prevent terrorist operations, apprehend and incarcerate terrorists operating within its jurisdiction, punish perpetrators, and make clear through concrete action that terrorism was “reprehensible and unacceptable.”[2] Specifically, the PA was urged to prevent gunmen from using Palestinian populated areas to fire on Israeli communities and IDF positions — a tactic the report said placed civilians on both sides at unnecessary risk.[2] The committee recommended that the PA establish a clear chain of command and effective accountability for all armed personnel operating under its authority.[1]

For Israeli forces, the committee recommended that the IDF adopt and enforce policies favoring non-lethal responses to unarmed demonstrators, withdraw metal-cored rubber rounds from general use, and ensure that experienced personnel were present at known friction points.[1] It also called for routine military-police investigations into Palestinian deaths resulting from IDF action in incidents not involving terrorism, and urged the IDF to abandon the blanket “armed conflict short of war” characterization in favor of distinctions between terrorism and protest.[1]

The confidence-building phase included several interlocking steps. The committee recommended a meaningful cooling-off period and renewed efforts by both parties to identify, condemn, and discourage incitement.[2] On settlements, it recommended that the Israeli government freeze all settlement activity, including what the report called the “natural growth” of existing settlements, stating that a cessation of violence would be particularly difficult to sustain without such a freeze.[2] It described settlements as a major source of mistrust and friction and observed that the kind of security cooperation Israel desired “cannot for long co-exist with settlement activity.”[2] The report recorded the Israeli government’s position that settlement expansion for natural growth did not prejudge permanent-status negotiations, while nonetheless recommending a freeze that included such growth.[1]

Additional confidence-building steps included lifting closures, transferring tax and customs revenues owed to the PA, permitting Palestinians previously employed in Israel to return to their jobs, and preventing Israeli security forces and settlers from destroying Palestinian homes, roads, trees, and other agricultural property.[1] The committee also recommended possible Israeli military redeployment to positions held before September 28, 2000, joint initiatives to protect Muslim, Jewish, and Christian holy places, and support for Israeli-Palestinian nongovernmental organizations working on cross-community initiatives.[1]

On international forces, the committee noted a sharp disagreement: the Palestinian Authority supported an international protection force for Palestinian civilians and property, while the Israeli government opposed one on security grounds and out of concern for its effect on bilateral negotiations. The committee concluded that such a force would require the support of both parties and pointed to the existing Temporary International Presence in Hebron — a mechanism both parties had agreed to — as a possible model for assistance at other friction points if the parties consented.[1]

For negotiations, the report called on both parties to resume full and meaningful negotiations without unreasonable delay, grounded in compromise, reconciliation, and partnership. It linked sustained security cooperation and confidence-building explicitly to a serious political process, cautioning that neither would endure for long without movement toward negotiations.[2] The committee did not prescribe a specific venue, basis, or agenda for those talks. Its closing conviction was clear: “There is only one way to peace, justice, and security in the Middle East, and that is through negotiation.”[1]

On May 21, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly endorsed the report and said both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority had expressed support for it. He quoted the Israeli response describing it as a constructive attempt to break the cycle of violence and the Palestinian response describing it as a sensible foundation for addressing the crisis and returning to negotiations.[3] Powell emphasized the sequence of an unconditional end to violence, confidence-building measures, and movement toward negotiations. He assigned Ambassador Martin Indyk, Consul General Ron Schlicher, and Ambassador William Burns to assist implementation; Burns was to serve as Powell’s special assistant and coordinate reporting on a timetable and sequence for the confidence-building measures.[3]

Implementation was immediately complicated by disagreements over sequencing. A June 28, 2001 report stated that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wanted a 10-day trial period of total ceasefire followed by a six-week cooling-off period before implementation of the recommendations. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel was committed to the report “in its entirety,” while Palestinian representatives expressed dissatisfaction with Powell’s support for a total ceasefire before the cooling-off period.[7] The U.S. State Department’s human-rights report for 2001 later stated that Israel and the Palestinian Authority had agreed in principle to implement the Mitchell Report recommendations alongside the Tenet Plan, but that none of the provisions of either document had been implemented by the end of 2001.[4]

The report’s language nevertheless had continuing diplomatic influence. The Quartet — comprising the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia — incorporated its settlement-freeze standard into Phase I of the 2003 Roadmap to a permanent two-state solution. The Roadmap called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity “consistent with the Mitchell report,” including natural growth, and to dismantle settlement outposts erected after March 2001.[5] The direct incorporation of that standard demonstrated the report’s influence beyond the immediate crisis for which it had been commissioned.

Several of the report’s core findings and recommendations generated substantial political and interpretive controversy.

Responsibility for the outbreak of violence remained disputed. The Israeli government maintained that Palestinian leaders had deliberately planned and directed the violence after the Camp David negotiations, while the PLO denied that the uprising had been planned and characterized Israel’s use of force as excessive and unlawful. The committee declined to adopt either claim as an established explanation, finding no persuasive evidence of a deliberate PA plan to initiate the uprising or an Israeli government plan to respond with lethal force.[1] It also cautioned that it was not a tribunal, lacked the power to compel testimony or documents, and had received most of its evidence from the parties themselves.[2]

Dore Gold, writing for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, argues that the committee accepted the PLO’s framing of settlement growth as a root of Palestinian anger and created an unwarranted linkage between a settlement freeze and the cessation of Palestinian violence. In Gold’s interpretation, the linkage sought a new Israeli concession on an issue reserved for permanent-status negotiations in exchange for Palestinian compliance with an existing obligation to renounce violence.[8] A separate JCFA critique argues that the report distributed responsibility too evenly, insufficiently accounted for Palestinian incitement, and applied a symmetrical negotiating framework to an asymmetrical conflict.[9] These are the authors’ interpretations, distinct from the committee’s stated findings.

The report’s casualty figures, incident counts, and economic data also require careful attribution. Its figures included the Israeli government’s count of approximately 9,000 Palestinian attacks, B’Tselem’s incident breakdown based on IDF figures, and estimates concerning Palestinian unemployment and gross domestic product. The report identified the parties or organizations supplying those figures rather than presenting all of them as independently verified committee findings.[1]