Simulating the Camp David Negotiations

Solving Problems and Being Critical

Critical pedagogy is founded on, or rooted in, critical theory, or more accurately critical theories (Kincheloe, 2008). International relations theorist Robert Cox offers one such critical theory. Given that ours is an international relations simulation, his conceptualization of critical (theory) is most appropriate to the present discussion.

In his seminal article Social forces, state, and world orders: beyond international relations theory, Cox (1996) distinguishes between problem-solving theory and critical theory. Problem-solving theory

takes the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organized, as the given framework for action. The general aim of problem-solving is to make these relationships and institutions work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble. (Cox, 1996, p. 88)

Ultimately, this approach assumes and accepts, rather than attempts to violate or transcend, institutional and relational delimitations.

Critical theory, on the other hand,

stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about. Critical theory, unlike problem-solving theory, does not take institutions and social power relations for granted, but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how and whether they might be in the process of changing. (Cox, 1996, pp. 88-89)

Critical theory interrogates the “problematic which problem-solving theory accepts as its parameters” (Cox, 1996, pp. 88-89).

Problem-solving theory, according to Cox (1996), is ahistorical, politically interested, conservative in nature, and value-bound. Problem-solving theory assumes fixity. It posits “a fixed order as its point of reference” (p. 89). This approach assumes and accepts institutional and relational delimitations and then perpetuates this order. In place of historical dynamism, problem-solving theory introduces “a continuing present” (p. 89). The assumption of fixity also means that problem-solving theory has an ideological bias. According to Cox, problem-solving theory serves “particular national, sectional, or class interests, which are comfortable within the given order” (p. 89). Problem-solving theory is interested in perpetuating the present order into the future. Obviously, those class, race, gender, and sexuality interests which dominate in, and benefit from, the present order, want the(ir) order perpetuated. It is to this end that this approach seeks to solve problems. Says Cox,

The purpose served by problem-solving theory is conservative, since it aims to solve the problems arising in various parts of a complex whole in order to smooth the functioning of the whole. (p. 89)

Rather than be value-free, problem-solving theory’s acceptance of the prevailing order, with its power asymmetries and inequalities, marks it as value-bound. The approach’s unarticulated, or unacknowledged, values are the values of the order that it accepts. Ultimately, problem-solving theory serves the interests of power as it functions as a “guide to tactical actions which, intended or unintended, sustain the existing order” (p. 90).

Cox’s notion of critical (theory) informs the course in which the Camp David negotiations have been simulated. The course does not ask students to accept the Palestinian-Israeli status quo. In fact, it demands that they understand how the current Palestinian-Israeli order came to be and to think about alternative orders. To this end, the course is anchored in Said’s (1979) The Question of Palestine and Hirst’s (2003) The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East. The tactical decision making of problem solving dehistoricizes orders. A prerequisite of being critical is to historicize precisely. In The Politics of Palestinian-Israeli Relations Walid Khalidi, Pappe, and Shlaim historicize Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine; Finkelstein historicizes its wars of choice, including the War of 1967 which produced Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and Eyal Weizman, Roy, Reinhart, and Massad, among others, historicize the now 44-year old occupation. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, no pedagogy is value-free. A pedagogy rooted in problem-solving theory perpetuates the current Palestinian-Israeli order, in part, because it allows for the articulation of ahistorical claims. The instructor of the course home to the Camp David simulation explicitly assumes the normative position of wanting to realize a different order in which both Palestinian and Israeli rights and interests are realized and to this end deploys a critical pedagogy with the express intent of historicizing profoundly politicized claims, relations, and institutions.

Simulating Camp David

As Smith and Boyer (1996) famously observed,

[S]imulations have the power to recreate complex, dynamic political processes in the classroom, allowing students to examine the motivations, behavioral constraints, resources and interactions among institutional actors. (p. 690)

Given the violent nature of Palestinian-Israeli relations, as well as their regional and global significance, there are surprisingly few recreations of their dynamics and processes in the classroom. Over the course of a semester, Dougherty (2003) has her students perform five simulations:

a PLO meeting, circa 1972, . . . a conference to assess the Camp David Accords 20 years on and another to discuss the Oslo Accord; and a meeting of Israeli foreign policy advisors to discuss Israel’s current relations with its neighbor states; [and a] week-long simulation of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. (p. 239)

In what Dougherty calls the heart of her course, students are divided

into two delegations, with each student responsible for writing a 12-page research paper on the position of their delegation on one of the final status issues: statehood/borders, Jerusalem, water, settlements, and refugees. (p. 239)

Flibbert (2003) has students “write comprehensive peace agreements tackling Palestinian-Israeli relations” (p. 765). In so doing, students

learn about a host of related political concepts, ranging from the traditional (sovereignty, the security dilemma, nationalism, party politics) to more cutting-edge concerns (human security, refugee rights, terrorism, the revolution in military affairs). (p. 766)

The writing of peace agreements also “offers a much-needed antidote to the pessimistic primordialism that tempts newcomers and non-specialists in Middle East politics” (Flibbert, 2003, p. 766). Finally, Baylouny (2009) runs simulations including

the Lebanese civil war, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in general, water conflicts in the Levant, the Israeli-Lebanon war of 2006, the Hamas-Fatah conflict, and tailored Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. (p. 217)

Our simulation recreates the 2000 Camp David negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, mediated by the United States. It shares with Dougherty and Flibbert’s simulations an interest in producing a peace agreement between Palestinian representatives and Israel based on the final status issues, namely, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, security arrangements, borders, and relations with neighboring states. It must be noted, however, that ours is a tripartite, rather than bilateral, negotiation. We feel this better represents the active role played by the United States in the negotiations. Ours also explicitly recreates the Camp David negotiations, as opposed to some fictional peace talks, because this simulation provides the students with the best sense of the constraints and limitations faced by the negotiators. Admittedly, the Camp David negotiations of 2000 are somewhat dated, but we simulate them because they represent the culmination of the most institutionalized contacts between Palestinian representatives and the state of Israel and because they are best documented in the literature.

Students are instructed that the exercise is a simulation, not a reenactment. They are also told to ignore the events that followed the end of the summit and the Oslo Process. In other words, students are instructed to locate themselves historically and deny themselves what would amount to clairvoyance. Students are encouraged to think creatively, within historical parameters, and explore if the negotiations could have produced different results. It must be emphasized, as it is in the course, that failing to produce a peace agreement is not failure in the exercise.

Our simulation consists of one 2½-hour seminar, late in the semester. Following each iteration, students have recommended that two classes be dedicated to the exercise. Consensus feedback has been that agreement would be struck if only there was more time. Three reasons are available for limiting the simulation to one seminar.

To that end, in the lead up to the simulation, students read all of or excerpts from, inter alia, Shlaim’s (1994) The Oslo Accord, Qurei’s (2006) From Oslo to Jerusalem: The Palestinian Story of the Secret Negotiations, Savir’s (1999) The Process: 1,100 Days That Changed the Middle East, Andoni’s (1997) Redefining Oslo: Negotiating the Hebron Protocol, Ross’ (2004) The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, Malley and Agha’s (2001) The Palestinian-Israeli Camp David Negotiations and Beyond, and Haniyah’s (2001) The Camp David Papers. Students are also encouraged to, and scheduling the simulation later in the semester affords them the time to, read additional sources, including Former Israeli Foreign MinisterShlomo Ben-Ami’s Interview on the Camp David and Taba Talks (originally published in the Ha’aretz supplement of September 14, 2001); Uri Avnery, Response to Shlomo Ben-Ami’s Interview on the Camp David and Taba Talks (originally published by Jewish Peace News on September 15, 2001); Ehud Barak on Camp David: “I Did Not Give Away a Thing” (translated in Mideast Mirror August 29, 2003); Pressman’s (2003) Visions in Collision: What Happened at Camp David and Taba; Sher’s (2006) The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations, 1999-2001: Within Reach; and Swisher’s (2004) The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story About Arafat, Barak, Clinton, and the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process.

Several weeks in advance of the simulation, students are randomly assigned to one of three delegations: the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israel, or the United States. Occasionally, modifications are made to the random distribution, graduate students in a cross-listed course have been reassigned, for example, in order to better balance the delegations. Of course, enrollment numbers dictate the composition of each delegation. We have found that the simulation works best when each delegation has a minimum of four student participants. The U.S. delegation, because it has tended to govern the simulation and record positions and proposals, should be the largest. Once the student participants have been assigned, they are left largely to their own devices. It is within the delegations that students divide the labor, deciding who will perform the roles of Arafat, Barak, and Clinton and assuming responsibility for issues/portfolios and drafting position papers. While students in previous iterations of the simulation have produced positions papers of their own volition, the instructor, following Dougherty’s (2003) suggestion will make advance research/position papers on a final status issue a requirement in the future.

Wakelee (2008) notes that one way to shorten the time required for in-class simulations is “shifting some work to groups that meet outside of class” (p. 72). We have used Blackboard, the university’s learning management system, to accomplish this redistribution of work. Delegate groups are constituted in a dedicated section of the course website. The content of these sections can only be accessed by members of the delegation. This allows for the quick and easy exchange of documents, maps for example, and email. Blackboard was introduced after the first iteration, and greatly improved the quality of the simulation. At the end of the second iteration, the PLO delegation ingeniously used it to issue a press release outlining its position on the collapsed negotiations.

Other productive modalities of the simulation include dedicated spatial and temporal organization and use of technology. The simulation functions most effectively and efficiently when a committee structure is used and the committees meet in different rooms. In the third iteration, the American delegation made itself responsible for organizing committees in different rooms with dedicated committee chairs who temporally disciplined the proceedings. Toward the end of the simulation, the American delegation, as a whole, sought to bring the parties together in one large meeting in the hopes of arriving at some final agreement. If the available infrastructure does not allow for such individuated committees, they can be organized in the same room, preferably a lecture theatre. The first iteration of the simulation was structured around sequential meetings and while this did serve the intended purpose of giving the lead delegates considerable control over the negotiations, it severely curtailed the breadth and depth of the overall discussions.

It was in the context of the smaller committee meetings that the value of the technology available in smart classrooms was also made apparent. Naturally, the different delegations accessed different maps online. As each delegation sought to establish its own maps as the foundation for negotiations, all of the students received a lesson in the politicized nature of cartography. More specifically, the technological ability to access maps, and other resources, from the classroom provided students with an immediate sense of exactly what was being negotiated and why. Students saw the regulative/control function of Israel’s matrix of settlements and by-pass roads, and why, politically, it had to be maintained or dismantled. Digital maps depicting the proposed land swaps, West Bank topography—Israeli settlement on the high ground—and the location of the West Bank aquifers are particularly instructive for students, and were used to good effect in negotiations. Ultimately, the technological immediacy of online maps undermines the manner in which the Palestinian-Israeli relationship, while about territory, is intentionally denied mapping. Through the deployment of maps, and because of the ability to move quickly between different spatial representations, students in the simulations have been made acutely aware of the profound inequality of the relationship. They literally see that the parties are not negotiating over Palestine, but rather what remains of Palestine. The Palestinian delegation in particular negotiates tenaciously because its members know they are talking about the 22% of mandate Palestine not yet ceded to Israel. We have found the Foundation for Middle East Peace to be an invaluable online resource, particularly for maps.

It is essential to provide students detailed written feedback after the simulation (Flibbert 2003, p. 767). In our simulation, the week following the simulation, the instructor provides students with delegation-wide, rather than participant specific, feedback. Grades are assigned to the delegation at the same time; all student participants in the delegation receive the same grade for their performances. The feedback speaks to, inter alia, delegation coordination, fealty to negotiating positions—representativeness, creativity (particularly on issues of sovereignty and territorial or transportation contiguity), use of supporting documents (UN resolutions, official statements, maps) and the politicized nature of language (ensuring the Israeli delegation uses term such as “Temple Mount” and “Judea and Samaria” to reference the Al-Aqsa grounds and the occupied West Bank, for example). The delegate-wide feedback may not be as specific as some students would like, but it is the only feasible way of providing comments. Far too much is going on in each negotiation, and the instructor inevitably must move between negotiations, for one to make detailed notes on the performance of each participant. The advance research/position papers that will be required in the future could go some way in producing a student-specific grading matrix. Also, of course, where institutional resources permit, graduate students could be used as rapporteurs in order to provide detailed delegate-specific feedback.

Constructivism and Experiential Learning

Brown and King (2008) use a composite definition to explain that constructivism is “meaning making, rooted in the context of the situation, whereby individuals construct their knowledge of, and give meaning, to the external world” (p. 245). In the constructivist paradigm, the learner is not a passive, listening object who acquires knowledge nor an empty vessel to be filled. Instead, according to this framework, the learner constructs knowledge and makes meaning for himself or herself through active engagement with other learners in a communal context.

“[O]ne of the best exemplars of a constructivist learning environment” is problem-based learning (Brown & King, 2008, p. 246), or what Cox would call problem solving. An essential component of problem-based learning is collaboration. No single individual possesses knowledge and meaning, so learners must work together, and through conversation draw on their respective resources and understandings to manufacture their knowledge and meaning (Brown & King, 2008). Learners are best able to construct their own knowledge and make their own meaning when provided an environment in which they have to solve collaboratively, inter alia, political, economic, and social problems. In our experience, simulating Camp David succeeds in creating a constructivist-learning environment.

In our simulation(s) peer teaching and collaborative problem-solving have involved, inter alia, the communication of culturally/nationally specific information and occurred both within and between delegations. Like other simulations, students are instructed to attire themselves appropriately for our Camp David simulation. In one iteration, the Palestinian delegation came attired in kufiyyah. When an American student asked how to properly tie his scarf, it was explained to him by a fellow member of his delegation that Arafat wore his kufiyyah draped over his shoulder in the shape of mandate Palestine. This national symbolism was news to the American student, who was subsequently shown how to tie his scarf accordingly. Moving beyond the symbolic, students who have lived in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have explained to fellow students how Israel’s illegal settlements command the hilltops and control the aquifers of the West Bank; the manner in which Abu Dis’ distance from occupied Jerusalem disqualifies it as an acceptable capital for a future Palestinian state; and the right and necessity of repatriating Palestinian refugees, particularly from overcrowded and underresourced Gaza.

Preparing for the simulation also produces opportunities for intradelegation peer teaching and collaborative problem-solving. In the case of the simulation’s most recent iteration, the American delegation, in good Fordist fashion, divided the labor between three subcommittees. The first subcommittee was responsible for territory, it researched and tried to anticipate Palestinian and Israeli negotiating positions, and was ultimately responsible for generating proposals intended to bridge these positions; the second was responsible for the refugee file; and the third, Jerusalem. The delegation divided the labor in this manner in accordance with the idea that it would afford the members of the different subcommittees a more thoroughgoing understanding of their specific file. This division of labor, in turn, necessitated that the thoroughgoing understanding be communicated to the other members of the delegation to ensure the delegation’s positions were politically informed, accurate, and consistent. Periodic, presimulation meetings provided members of the different subcommittees opportunities to review relevant material, discuss possible American proposals, and anticipate Palestinian and Israeli responses. Within delegations, the desire to perform well in the simulation demands that students familiarize themselves with hotly contested histories. This, in turn, demands a specialization of knowledge that can only follow from a division of labor. It is imperative that this specialized knowledge be communicated to and internalized by the rest of the delegation or the delegation, specifically, and the simulation, more generally, will suffer.

Interdelegation peer teaching and collaborative problem-solving similarly stems from a delegation’s desire to perform well in the simulation. In this case, however, the performance is in negotiating a mutually satisfactory accord. In the most recent iteration, during a meeting between the leaders of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations, an argument ensued about the boundaries of Jerusalem. In this case, it was incumbent on the student participants to clarify for one another the history of the changing boundaries of what has been considered metropolitan and greater Jerusalem. This was an instance in which students could rationalize or contest Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem and explain the manner in which greater Jerusalem destroys the territorial contiguity of the occupied West Bank. Parenthetically, it should also be noted that this provided the instructor with a “teachable moment.” It had to be explained to the Palestinian delegation that acceptance of the greater Jerusalem paradigm allowed Israel to posit Abu Dis as part of Jerusalem and a symbolically acceptable capital for the Palestinian state.

Not all instances of meaning making and knowledge construction in simulated attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have been accurate. For example, in the most recent iteration, the lead member of the American delegation chairing the refugee subcommittee characterized the Israeli negotiating position as “outrageous” and threatened a revocation of American material support lest the position be revised. It was obvious that the student’s own politics prompted her statements and equally obvious that this misrepresentation had to be corrected by the instructor with an intervention noting that while the United States might think an Israeli position “outrageous,” it would never communicate this assessment publicly or threaten the Israeli delegation, but instead seek to induce a policy change by offering more material resources. It is interesting that a constant across all three iterations has been the simulated Palestinian delegation being more ardent nationalists than Arafat and actual Palestinian officials have been. In the simulations, delegate adherence to the internationally recognized rights of Palestinians has been tenacious and demands for equity in land swaps have been very forceful. Presumably, this misrepresentation is indicative of the fact that the simulated Palestinian delegation is not accountable to other nonnationalistic, extrasummit interests.

Simulating the Camp David negotiations of 2000 makes for a productive constructivist-learning environment. Through peer teaching and collaborative problem-solving, students make their own meanings and knowledge of the politics of Palestinian-Israeli relations. Students develop an appreciation of the intricacies of issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, and Palestine’s (non)militarized status, as well as the difficulties that attend maneuvering within the parameters of the negotiations. Unfortunately, while the simulation does make meaning and knowledge for students, these constructs are morally and paradigmatically limited within a context that recreates the profoundly unequal power relations between the Palestinians, Israel, and the United States.

Supporting Dominant Power

Simulating the Camp David summit of 2000 promotes constructivist learning in the classroom. It, like most simulations, does not encourage critical thinking however. Recall here that according to Cox (1996), problem solving

takes the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organized, as the given framework for action. The general aim of problem-solving is to make these relationships and institutions work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble (p. 88).

Thinking critically, on the other hand, means that one

stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how that order came about;” that one “does not take institutions and social power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning [him/herself] with their origins and how and whether they might be in the process of changing (Cox, 1996, pp. 88-89).

Our claim that in-class simulation does not encourage critical thinking is heterodox. The literature is replete with assertions that in-class simulation develops so-called critical thinking skills. Smith and Boyer (1996) assert that simulations enable students to “develop critical thinking and analytical skills through collaborative efforts” (p. 691). Dougherty (2003) similarly contends that one of the pedagogical goals served by simulations is to “develop critical thinking skills” (p. 240). According to Loggins (2009),

problem-based learning . . . improves critical thinking and analytical skills in a way that can and will be used later in classroom and non-classroom settings, truly educating students (p. 402).

Ellington, Grillo, and Shaw (2006) assert that “[s]imulation learning enhances students’ research, writing, analytical and critical thinking skills” (p. 542). Kille (2002) argues that an in-class simulation “encourages students to build up their critical and analytical thinking, as well as writing, skills” (p. 273). Simulating complex political processes in the classroom, according to Shellman and Turan (2006), “facilitates the development of critical and analytical thinking and problem-solving skills” (p. 21). Citing, among others Smith and Boyer, Wheeler (2006) asserts that

[r]ole-playing, simulations and other active learning approaches are often credited with helping students retain information for longer periods of time, thereby giving them a deeper level of insight and developing critical thinking skills. (p. 334)

The orthodoxy is that simulations in the classroom encourage critical thinking; they are instruments of critical pedagogy.

Despite the myriad claims in the literature, critical thinking is not defined by the orthodoxy. Dougherty is representative of this practice in the literature. Contrasting simulations with more traditional passive learning environments such as lectures, Dougherty says exercises that encourage students to learn by doing “push students to think critically, creatively, and synthetically.” From this assertion, she moves on to explain that hands-on experiences, such as simulations, provide learning environments preferred by female students. She does not, however, specify what she means by critical thinking.

We cite Dougherty specifically because she uses a term that more accurately characterizes the thinking conducted in the problem-solving environment of a simulation, namely, creative. To solve problems within an order, students can and must be imaginative, they can even be ingenious. They do not, however, challenge the premises of that order. Students, for example, may balance a budget through an elaborate committee process, but they do not interrogate how the committee came to be constituted or why the budget must be balanced. Using Cox’s notions, the students take for granted prevailing relations and institutions and try to make the whole function as smoothly as possible.

Simulations are a subset of problem-solving learning (Brown & King, 2008). It should come as no surprise then that simulations do not encourage critical thinking. This has been our experience simulating the Camp David negotiations. In fact, simulating the Camp David negotiations manifests all of the elements that Cox associates with problem solving: acceptance of extant power relations and institutions, ahistoricity, ideological bias, conservatism, and value privileging. Students accept the tripartite talks as structured by the Oslo Process. Mediated bilateral talks that favor the more powerful party are reproduced rather than talks under international auspices or those that would include a wider range of interested regional players. While in each iteration of the simulation the Palestinian delegation has raised the issue of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the refugees’ right of return, it, as Flibbert observes, is quickly reduced to a bargaining chip. The refugees’ histories matter not at all. Instead, their number and place of “repatriation” are used instrumentally to procure trade-offs regarding the status of Jerusalem, for example. The ideologically biased nature of the simulation becomes readily apparent when, for example, the interests of landless and stateless refugees are bargained away in exchange for larger percentages of land transfer. The simulation itself is conservative and the effects of its nature are omnipresent. Throughout the exercise, student participants negotiate not a change to the asymmetrical relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, but rather how the relationship can be made to work smoothly. This was evident, for example, each time student participants negotiated a link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the number of early warning stations intended to assuage Israeli security concerns. Finally, the value-bound nature of the simulation is apparent from its inception—the goal is to produce a peace agreement. This end, as E. H. Carr (2001) explains, is the value of the satisfied power.

This problem-solving bias is inherent to simulations. Simulating a radically different status quo with an empowered Palestine emboldened by the Arab Spring, a disempowered and increasingly isolated Israel and an overextended United States, for example, would no more succeed in realizing critical thinking than does simulating Camp David. This is not to say that different outcomes might not follow from a changing of parameters. Certainly they would. Rather, it is to say that critical thinking would not be promoted through a changing of parameters. While students would see and simulate the protagonists differently, they would still do so within the limits established by the simulation. Simulating a different status quo would promote problem solving and constructivist learning within different parameters. Most simulations are executed such that the status quo is set for students and they must operate within the rules established beforehand rather than question those confines and (try to) create a reality outside or even contrary to them. Simulations are fundamentally problem-solving exercises, which privilege given power relations and institutions and try to make them work more smoothly. This has been our experience in simulating the Camp David negotiations. It is also a characterization we extend to all simulations regardless of how radically different are the posited, given power relations and institutions, precisely because they are established a priori by the instructor. In order to perform, all participants must play by the rules of the game set by the instructor. This quality of simulations precludes the possibility of students thinking critically in the sense that they would call into question, and rewrite, the rules governing their behavior.

In our experience, the Camp David simulation subordinates “the normative framework of rights to the arbitrary and capricious one of ‘needs’” (Finkelstein, 2003, p. 39). More specifically, the asymmetrical power relations that characterize Palestinian-Israeli relations in the Camp David summit necessitate that Palestinians sacrifice their basic rights for the sake of Israeli needs (Finkelstein, 2003). The manner in which needs come to dominate over rights in the simulation has a distressing effect—student participant resignation. In more than one of the simulations, students who found the Israeli negotiating positions untenable on moral and legal grounds argued in the debriefing that maybe the Palestinians should have taken what was on offer. The students did not contend that the Palestinian delegation was negligent or culpable in any way, but rather that it was not going to strike a better arrangement.

It seems logical that this resignation would, in turn, produce a pessimism on the part of the student participants. This has not been the case, however. While student participants have expressed little faith in the ability of the United States to serve as an honest broker in any future negotiations, they have not surrendered to their negative view of the situation. Instead, they have taken to speculating about alternative formulas for peace negotiations, specifically those that would include the international community and/or more elements of civil society. This kind of speculation, a Gramscian pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will if you will, needs to be encouraged in the simulation feedback and postsummit debriefings.

Reconciling a Problem-Solving Tool With Critical Pedagogy

Using a problem-solving tool such as simulating the 2000 Camp David negotiations in a course on Palestinian-Israeli political relations rooted in critical pedagogy poses some challenging contradictions. On one hand, the constructivist learning done through the exercise is appreciated by students, undergraduate and graduate alike. Feedback on the simulation has included comments such as, “the Camp David simulation was my best college experience;”

the Camp David summit was the highlight of the course. As a member of my delegation I felt I was part of something real and I learned more from this than any other practice;

and “the Camp David simulation was indeed a very useful method of learning.” On the other hand, simulating Camp David means making students accept the prevailing asymmetrical power relations between Palestinians and Israelis and their institutionalization, and trying to make them work more smoothly in the interest of perpetuating a deeply unequal relationship in which Israel dominates. On this second point, creating a different status quo in an attempt to mitigate against the uncritical acceptance of such power relations will do little to foster critical engagement as students will abide by the different rules and parameters established, a priori, by the instructor so as to perform well in the exercise.

Ultimately, we see the value of simulating the Camp David negotiations of 2000 in the mechanism’s ability to reconcile a problem-solving tool with a critical pedagogy. The preparations for the simulation allow for the assigning of texts that would otherwise not fit a course syllabus that excavates the discourse of Palestinian-Israeli relations. The simulation also enables students to move below critical concerns—asking how Palestinian-Israeli relations and institutions came to be and how they might be changed—to pursue more practical purposes. The simulation addresses student concerns that a course informed by critical theory is too, well, theoretical.

Debriefing

This reconciliation is best achieved after the constructivist learning has been done, during the debriefing. While challenging the orthodoxy’s claim that simulations promote critical thinking, we accept that postsimulation debriefing presents the greatest opportunity to maximize the pedagogical value of a simulation. It is in a carefully constructed debriefing that critical thinking can most productively be combined with a simulation exercise. After the simulation, students need to reflect critically on what they did, why they did it, and how they did it. To this end, students need to be asked (some of) the following questions:

Reconciling the problem solving inherent in simulations with critical pedagogy depends on the proper devotion of time and resources to consideration of these questions. A postsimulation paper addressing one or several of these queries is the best means of ensuring students move beyond thinking creatively to think critically. An advance research/position paper helps students prepare for the simulation and ensure the requisite background understanding of the issues to be negotiated. In addition to helping to individualize instructor feedback, a postsimulation assignment would compliment the exercise’s constructivist learning by requiring students to critically consider the rules and structure of the simulation, and how they circumscribe the range of potential outcomes. Having students interrogate the simulation mechanism itself, and the negotiations it (re)produces, will bring this problem-solving tool into better alignment with the overall goals of critical pedagogy.