Small States and Conflict Mediation: A Comparative Analysis of Norway’s Role in the Israeli–Palestinian Peace Process (1993) and Pakistan's Role in the US–Israel–Iran War (2026)

Abstract

This article explores the nature of small and middle state mediation in asymmetric international conflicts—with a focus on the comparison of two cases more than three decades apart: Norway’s mediation of the secret Israeli–Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) back channel that achieved the 1993 Declaration of Principles, and Pakistan's involvement in mediation between the United States and Iran during the 2026 US–Israel–Iran war. The article underlines that Norway and Pakistan sought to make up for this material lack by capitalizing on relational dynamics (access to the mediators), perceived neutrality, and low liability (low risk to the parties).).  All of which falls under the scope of mediation theory, as advanced by Saadia Touval and I. William Zartman (1985), Bercovitch (1997), and small state international relations literature associated with Keohane (1969) and Ingebritsen et al. (2006). But there's significant difference in mediation type – Norway adopted a civilian, academically-mediated, non-housing hard-power mediated back channel and for Pakistan it was militarized, state-centric with very direct security interests at its boundaries. In light of Kleiboer’s (1996) contingency model of mediation success, the paper concludes that the durability of any agreement achieved through small-state mediation will be determined by the nature of the power imbalance between the primary parties in conflict rather than that of the mediator's skills and intentions at mediation.