This report attempts to identify critical Israel-related trends that might affect the course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the next five to ten years. To the extent that this endeavor is successful, its fruits might be useful to Israeli as well as to U.S., European, and Arab policymakers and planners as they strive to understand the dynamics that could reduce tensions and generate greater stability and eventually peace.The following discussion draws on recent strategic thinking and critical developments in Israel and extrapolates with regard to future trends. Most of these trends reflect modes of addressing the conflict inside Israel. These internal Israeli trends can be divided into the geographic/demographic (i.e., changing attitudes toward the strategic uses and advantages of populated and nonpopulated territories) and the political (i.e., the capac- ity of the Israeli political system to deal with the conflict and the role of the conflict and conflict fatigue in determining the strategies and the stability or lack thereof of Israeli governments). An additional set of trends is external and involves Israeli perceptions of and responses to developments in the region and to international involvement.The trends noted here are only probabilities, of course. They could conceivably be obviated by major external events such as war or radical regime change in the region, major changes in energy prices, a Sadat-like initiative on the part of an Arab leader, and superpower intervention. Conceivably, too, they could be mitigated by alternative, hith- erto unnoticed countertrends. These and similar possibilities are valid topics of analysis that go beyond the scope of this report.All in all, the trends discussed hereunder point to the possibility of progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace in the next few years. But that progress will be limited and will fall short of the goal of ending the conflict.
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