The ‘London Agreements’ – The Failure of the Back-Channel Negotiation in Unifying the Zionist Movement
Abstract
The political conflict between the Labor and Revisionist movements has occupied the agenda of the Zionist movement since the 1930s and is still relevant. Since the beginning of the conflict, negotiations were held between the two movements in order to resolve it. A back-channel negotiation took place at the end of 1934 between the leaders of the two movements, David Ben-Gurion and Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and resulted in the signing of three agreements, known as the “London Agreements”, aiming at resolving the conflict.
This article examines both the factors that led to the success of the negotiation between Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky, and the factors that led to the failure in implementing the agreements and achieving a resolution of the political conflict. The results of the negotiation should be examined from two contradicting aspects: one is the negotiation itself, which succeeded – three agreements that could have been considered as the heralding of a new era in the Zionist movement were signed; the second is the rejection of these agreements by the Labor movement, which led to failure in resolving the political conflict.
The importance of this article derives from the explanations it provides for one of the most important events in the history of the political conflict within the Zionist movement. It is innovative in the way it examines the 1934 negotiation, through conflict-resolution and negotiation theoretical instruments, and offers explanations of these events.
The research method I have used in order to implement the conflict resolution theories in the case-study was qualitative content analysis, alongside using archives, biographies, and historical sources. The memories of the two leaders were the basis for the comparison of facts.
