Millennium
Project home page Note: This page presents an executive summary of the analysis of the results of Round 1 and 2 of the first year of the sudy -- 2002-2003. The final version of the three normative scenarios are available at: http://www.acunu.org/millennium/ME-Peace-Scenarios.html
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(analysis of the results of Round 1 and 2 of the first year of the sudy -- 2002-2003)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be the hottest issue for debate, studies, and suggestions for peace in the world today. Surprisingly, there are no well-researched, objective, plausible peace scenarios—not frameworks, objectives, analysis, proposals, accords, treaties, or road maps, but scenarios—stories with causal links connecting the future and present for the Middle East. Why should people cooperate if no plausible peace scenario could be imagined? The Cairo Node of the Millennium Project at Cairo University in Egypt suggested this void had to be filled by taking a futurist “backcasting” approach to the problem: imagine peace is achieved, how did we get there?
The study is now half completed. Thus far more than 180 futurists, social scientists, representatives of involved institutions, and decisionmakers in the Middle East and elsewhere have participated. This chapter reports on progress to date. More complete details on both the results and methods are in the attached CD. The full scenarios are expected to be completed next year.
The study began by identifying seven preconditions to achieving peace in the Middle East. They are:
The draft scenarios will be the basis for interviews with relevant decisionmakers, policy advisors, and opinion leaders to improve the plausibility of the draft scenarios. Re-writing based on these interviews is expected to produce peace scenarios with the ability to show how peace is possible, recognizing the evolving needs and positions of parties to the issue. These revised scenarios would then be sent for final critical review to the participants prior to publication in the 2004 State of the Future and possibly used as the basis for discussions in various settings.
Through this scenario study process, previous peace plans were reviewed, literature and the Internet were searched, input from the Cairo Node’s advisor team and individual advisors in Israel was received, discussions via the Millennium Project listserves were held, and the Millennium Project Planning Committee and interested outside experts provided feedback. In addition to participants selected through these processes, Millennium Project Nodes also invited experts from their regions to participate in the two-round questionnaire. No attributions are made, but participant demographics and details are available in the following sections of this chapter.
A total of 108 actions were rated by the international panel. The complete results are in the following sections. The top five actions rated the most important for each of the seven preconditions for peace were:
Secure borders for Israel
To establish a viable and independent Palestinian state, both the Israeli and Arab groups saw recognizing Palestine as a sovereign UN member state as most important and most likely. The Arab group considered this to be of highest backfire potential. The Israeli group added as important “enact a UN General Assembly resolution that clearly defines the borders and is enforced by a Security Council resolution.”
One important observation was the suggestion to “negotiate long-term water sharing agreements.” This had the highest combination rating of importance, likelihood, and low backfire potential. Hence, efforts to create regional water long-term agreements could provide the basis to build confidence in other areas. Significant investment of time, talent, and resources on this action should bear more fruit than any other single activity on the list. Hence, it should be a core activity in a Middle East Peace Scenario.
Many of the most important actions involved the UN.
In general, the politics of the respondents could not be determined from their answers to a questionnaire, since differences in opinion about what is important were small. On average, most actions that we asked about were seen to be important and about as likely as not. The backfire potential was, on average, lower than 50/50. It is interesting and hopeful that the actions judged to be more important were also seen as most likely and that the more important actions also had the least backfire potential.
Normative scenarios have been used before occasionally in conflict resolution, most notably in the “Mont Fleur scenarios” used in South Africa to help smooth political differences at the time of transition from the apartheid government. Normative scenarios have been used in conflict resolution in only several other applications. So the present study represents a relatively rare application of normative scenarios in the conflict resolution process.
The action rated to have the greatest potential to make matters worse is what appears to be happening today: “build a new geopolitical order in the Middle East—that is, temporary western dominance aimed at a prolonged process of democracy-building (more possible after the war in Iraq).”
Respondents provided many valuable and detailed comments and suggestions—about
100 pages worth—about the preconditions, actions, strategies, and even
strategies for forming strategies. These were reviewed, grouped, and edited.
Comments that were essentially duplicates were consolidated. The comments
will be invaluable in constructing normative scenarios in the next phase
of this work. A few of these comments are presented here:
There will be no peace until both nations are internationally recognized.In order to improve the chances of success, the regular evaluations (of the peace process) should be made public, a summary of the evaluation published in newspapers would attest the efficiency of the action. There ought to be a public “box score” that makes commitments widely known and keeps the world up to date on the plan vs. the accomplishments.
Once the Israelis have the will to make peace, then no problem would be insurmountable.
If the Arabs stop violence, there is peace in no time. The Arab violence started in 1948 (not 1967) and has continued since then. It is time for the Arabs to start thinking of a nonviolent option.
Both sides have come to view violence as their primary modality… An imbalance in coercive capabilities and international recognition allows the state of Israel to use force with a sense of entitlement and increases the desperation of Palestinians. Increased restraint on the part of the Israeli government can help to decrease this desperation and give Palestinian reform/ reconstruction efforts a chance. This will have to start with tough-minded reappraisals of the effectiveness of targeted killings and collective punishments, which cannot be empirically demonstrated to increase Israeli security.
Independent peace-making groups consisting of a few experts…might (enhance the) peace-making process much more than all governments taken together. It can be done now by involving explanatory and organizational work in the United Nations and in the Middle East among the governments and among ordinary people.
Plans for peacefully sharing holy sites have been developed before, e.g. by the Jerusalem Institute for the Study of Israel, but the catch is that they all assume peace and trust, which is exactly what is missing.
Jerusalem should be declared an international city by the UN and placed under its trusteeship to form a government, and enforce UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.
Treat Jerusalem as a separate independent holy city just like Vatican, ruled by a religious head.
The control of the holy sites should not be exercised by the political authorities. Instead, it should be exercised by religious authorities—as is the case today regarding the Haram ash Sharif.
Pick a common need and a commodity that would give both sides exports or at least minimize imports. Advanced water purification or electrical energy production come to mind. Provide development aid to establish jointly managed and owned large-scale projects in these areas. This gives tech transfer to Palestinians, useful products in the interest of both sides. If possible, this might be a private enterprise.
Establishing a “Marshall Plan” under international control for impoverished Palestinian areas is a wonderful idea. It would help to focus international attention on the…situation of the Palestinians, creating hope among Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims that the Palestinian people have a future. Active international involvement in promoting Palestinian well-being would restore hope where there is despair, address crucial unmet needs, improve Palestinian civil life, and decrease reliance on Hamas and other organizations for economic support and social services. It could start with a UN resolution or an international conference. There could be a special fund dedicated specifically for the purpose of helping restore dignity and (in the long term) self-reliance to the Palestinians.
If we want the peace agreement to be sustainable and last for decades, it needs to be 1) drafted by people who work rationally and are not motivated mainly or solely by political reasons, and 2) make the agreement the product of shared effort, e.g. include women in the decisionmaking. On the Israeli side there are women in the parliament (though not enough) but the military approach of the whole society makes it all the more important to ensure that the agreement is not made only by politicians who are former army career men.
One of the key problems is that there is now a generation who have been brought under Israeli occupation/oppression and whose hatred of Israel is core to their identity and sense of who they are.
Many Arab states believe that until there is a positive move toward resolution of the Palestinian need for a homeland, they cannot deal politically or economically with the refugee ghettoes, once established as temporary havens and for (failed) political pressure. These communities have become eyesores of squalor and poverty and have led to disrespect for and a shaming of the refugees among the host societies. Since the host states cannot afford the necessary rebuilding or resettlement, the international community should shoulder the economic burden of rebuilding the settlements into permanent communities, and/or in relocating refugees to a new homeland. I suggest that in Syria, for example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs be approached with a plan for “normalization” of community and legal status, underwritten by the international community. As is it an issue of concern for the host countries, this must be done in the early stages to gain their support of any peace plan, and not left to an afterthought.
Mutual respect must be the goal. There are already several large and established organizations that attempt dialogue and bridge building between young people of both sides, but they are limited by their inability to continue and follow up their original programs and the pressures to show…results. I suggest that funds be channeled into practical projects in which young people participate and that will benefit communities, along the lines of Habitat for Humanity or Job Corps. If children of both sides are shown how to work alongside each other to correct the damage of past generations, their own self-respect may return at the same time their respect for others grows.
There is a need for a profound conceptual and practical shift on both sides toward a “human security” paradigm. The traditional, “national security” framework that has dominated the conflict is rooted in concepts of competitive/power politics. Security is understood to be a scarce commodity secured through military dominance or deterrence, which leads to a zero-sum attitude. A human security approach, in contrast, places the emphasis on human well-being—safety from threats to life or livelihood, protection from major disruptions, etc. A human security approach recognizes that neither Israelis nor Palestinians can become secure through reliance on strategies that threaten the other. Security must be built from the bottom up, through attentiveness to the ways that policies affect people in their everyday lives. Closures, intimidation and checkpoints, and “targeted killings” by Israelis undermine human security among Palestinians, and thereby feed the conflict. Likewise, Palestinian reliance on terrorist and guerrilla tactics is also escalatory.
If we take a look at the Holy Quran regarding the concept of the Promised Land for Jews, we find that the Holy Quran actually acknowledges that God had promised the holy land to Moses and his followers on their way out of Egypt (The Holy Quran 5:20-21).…So Muslims cannot casually dismiss the concept of the Promised Land. Muslims need to…develop methods to attract (Jews) to come back in a way that is not threatening to Arabs and Muslims. Imagine if Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan can develop policies and provisions that say “we would welcome any Jew who wants to come to this part of the world, being part of the promised land, to come and live, we’ll give you citizenship; you want to buy a house, buy land—fine; you want to have your relatives come live or visit, fine; do your work, live with your community, build your synagogue, have your own laws to govern your family and community life. But do not threaten a national entity. And come to any part, come to Syria, come to Egypt, come to Iraq, and come to Jordan, whatever you believe the Promised Land to be.”...Such a solution would be based on a religious understanding of God’s promises to Jews and Muslims alike.
If Jews too can accept that the way to fulfilling the Promise of God does not include depriving others of their homes; and if Muslims and Arabs recognize the sincere attachment of Jews to the Promised Land and make serious efforts to accommodate that Promise…we are in for a “deep peace,” not a superficial one that has been broken, stepped upon, and tarnished, for 55 years.
Suggestions for Strategies
Several years ago, all of the actions and policies suggested by the Millennium Project’s Global Lookout Panels were reviewed in an attempt to group them into categories of action and to see if meta-strategies would emerge. Twelve categories were found. These meta-strategies seemed to cover proposed actions for almost all of the issues under study by the Millennium Project and therefore were proposed as a checklist to help develop a more complete list of strategies for use in other situations.
The checklist was applied to the more highly rated actions from the Middle East study. Two or more actions could be placed under 11 of the 12 meta-strategy headings (see pages 86–87). The exception was “Creating Standards and Permits.” Of course there is no rule that requires that all meta-strategies be used, but this does raise the question of whether there are approaches involving standards or permits that could be helpful—such as the possibility of harmonizing laws between Israel and a new Palestinian state so that penalties for various crimes would be similar, or establishing some standards that would facilitate the import and export of electronic or mechanical components between the countries. In any case, the following analysis can be extended by using the full list from the following sections of this chapter.
Establishing New Alliances, Agreements, and Treaties
Note: The full study is available in the 2004
State of the Future.
Middle
East Peace Scenarios
Middle
East Peace Scenarios - Questionnaire Round 1
Middle
East Peace Scenarios - Questionnaire Round 2
Middle
East Peace Scenarios - Questionnaire Round 3