Israel's mired peace talks, expanding settlements and renewed violence have become all too familiar. Despite the rise and fall of many Jewish and Arab leaders, dramatic changes in official policies, swings in the political will of the citizenry, and perpetual waves of pressure from the international community, these conditions have remained the status quo. This pattern has developed into a state that conflict scholars label intractable and that mathematicians call an attractor: the Israel-Palestinian conflict has thus become an intractable attractor.
Experts estimate that about five percent of international conflicts become intractable: highly destructive, enduring and resistant to multiple good-faith attempts at resolution. These conflicts seem to develop a power of their own that is inexplicable and total, driving groups to act in ways that go against their best interests and sow the seeds of their own ruin. And although uncommon, they last an average of 36 years and have accounted for 49% of international wars (including two world wars) since 1816, 76% of civil wars since 1946, and evoke disproportionate levels of expense, misery, hopelessness and instability.
A branch of applied mathematics called complexity science provides a basic platform for understanding how intractable conflicts assemble themselves into attractors; these are tightly-coupled systems that resist change. Think of how a person's heart rate stabilizes around a certain beat pattern, or how one's blood pressure seeks a particular level, or how bodyweight seems to have a specific set point. These are attractors. And even though they may change temporarily (we may lose seven pounds on a crash diet), odds are they will soon return to their attractor. The five percent of intractable social conflicts evidence the same rules: no matter what we do they always return.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an immensely complicated hundred-year-old conflict that today operates and is reinforced across a multitude of issues, time periods, stakeholders and lands. It has become what Stephen Cohen, founder of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development describes as "the crucible of multiple conflicts in the region and multiple grievances that feed upon one another and that produce reoccurring eruptions of violence." Unfortunately, every large-scale effort at peacemaking to date -- at Oslo, Wye, Camp David, Taba, Geneva, all twenty-six proposals and counting -- have been co-opted by the conflict and seem to have only contributed to peace fatigue. In fact, there is some evidence that such efforts only make matters worse with the five percent.
However, given that the broad parameters of a permanent two-state settlement are clear, for the most part, it seems that something more basic is contributing to the continued intractability of the conflict. Namely, the tightly-coupled nature of the conflict's many dimensions (psychological, political, communal, structural, religious, regional, and international), the accumulation of negativity and dissipation of positivity over decades, the disproportional influence of small groups of extremists, and the resulting closed, non-adaptive, self-organizing system. In other words, we are confronted with an intractable conflict attractor.
What does the Five Percent perspective recommend for the Israel-Palestinian conflict? Here are a few thoughts.
Capitalize on current regional instability. In studies by Paul Diehl and Gary Goetz of the approximately 850 enduring conflicts that occurred throughout the world between 1816 to 1992, over three-quarters of them were found to have ended within ten years of a major political shock (world wars, civil wars, significant changes in territory and power relations, regime change, independence movements, or transitions to democracy). Events such as those erupting in the Middle East region today promote optimal conditions for dramatic realignment of sociopolitical systems. However, the effects of such destabilization are often not immediately apparent and do not ensure radical change; it is therefore only a necessary but insufficient condition for peace.
Decouple the conflict. Most enduring conflicts require a period in which they de-link from other, more distant conflicts, before peace can emerge. The fate of Israel-Palestine would improve considerably were it to de-link from the many other regional and international conflicts with which it is associated. In the 1970s and 1980s, in fact, the Arab-Israeli conflict became less severe as Jordan chose not to take part in the 1973 war and Egypt made peace with Israel.
Work from the bottom up. Shifting focus from big-picture ideas to achievable, on-the-ground goals can loosen the conflict's stranglehold on the peace process and ignite it from the bottom up. During round-table negotiations, focus first on moving the practical aspects of the society forward (functional health care, agriculture, transportation, tourism, etc.). Working at this lower level, while temporarily circumventing the global issues of power, control and identity, can help to initiate an altogether new emergent dynamic.
Stop making peace. It may seem counterintuitive, but is probably best for some peacemakers to not work directly on increasing the peace. While it is critical that members of NGOs and community-based organizations do whatever possible to increase intercommunal positivity and decrease negativity and suffering, it may be best to do so in a manner divorced from the "peace process," so as to avoid the polarization that can result from falling prey to the politics of the attractor.
Identify and support indigenous repellers for violence. Communities around the world -- indeed, most especially the major religions present in the Israel-Palestine region -- have well-established taboos against committing particular forms of violence and aggression. To varying degrees, they all emphasize impulse control, tolerance, nonviolence, and concern for the welfare of others. These values, when extended to members of other groups, hold great potential for the prevention of violence and the peaceful resolution of conflict.
The five percent of intractable conflicts are different. They follow a unique set of rules and dynamics that make them particularly damaging and unresponsive to standard forms of diplomacy. Middle East peace may at last erupt when we learn to understand this.
Peter T. Coleman, PhD is on faculty at Teachers College and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Director of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, and author of The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts.
Why can't peace be achieved in the Middle East?
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The Palestinians would stop hating if they were to get back the stolen land and houses and were to become an independent state. So simple. No?
Netanyahu said for a long time that the Arab and Muslim dictatorships fuel the conflict. He suggested that instead of a dictatorship ruled UN, democracies should set up a "United Democracies" to removing the dictators from influencing the world.
Elected leaders can't say whatever they want without considering the consequences.
That's why Netanyahu can speak on dictatorships in general, but not name the neighboring countries, cuz it will create diplomatic problems.
Even the bloggers here on HP would criticize him if he said that the dictator of Jordan should step down.
I believe Israel will disengage from PA areas, and the Palis will look to Jordan for a state.
What drugs are you on??? You are re-writing history. There is no such thing as a "Palestinian people." The conflict started the moment the United Nations accepted Israel as an sovereign State and came under attack from Egypt, Jordan and Syria with financial backing from the Saudis and most of the other oil-rich emirates. This war continued on and off since then despite one Arab military defeat after another, the greatest one being the Six-Day War of 1967. This same war continues to this day because Israel has always stopped short of destroying her enemies' respective capacities to launch repeated terrorist attacks. Therefore, the only way to peace is for the IDF to destroy the attacking capabilities of both Hamas and Hezbollah and any other faction of Arab state that launches another unprovoked attack. You can't negotiate with murderers who want you dead.
But, F and F.
It reminds me a little bit of my nephews expecting something from Santa Claus, but what?
Nothing could be further from the truth - the simple plan facts are that Israel is decades-long violation of every UN Resolution, Geneva Convention, and International Law known to man and has nearly completely ethnically cleansed Palestine - is continuing to try to finish the job.
Now that wasn't so difficult, complex, or intractable, was it?
The solution is forced Israeli compliance with all of the above and intensive South African anti-Aparthied style sanctioning until there is such compliance
Thank you
It is in the Hasbara manuals: detract from the essence.
And, indeed: the terms everybody knows peace will have to be established on are very clear: the pre 1967 borders.
In that regard, it is worth taking a look at the debate (democracynow, youtube) between Norman Finkelstein and Shlomo ben Ami, former Israeli Cabinet Minister. It is remarkable how much they agree on this subject.
Sanctions never really made any difference in south africa. They were partial, and some commodities from south africa were uniquely sourced from there.
The end of apartheid came from an internal realization that there was no future in it.
It is a mistake to assert, however, that a rigorous mathematical approach to questions of state identity and nationalism is, in itself, a solution. It pays scant regard to the power of the nation-state. Israel, as a case study, is noteworthy as it has relied on a fervent assertion of itself against the Other as a basis for its very existence. Inclusionary politics are objected to under the rationale that it weakens the case for the nation-state as, historically, the land was granted as a 'homeland for the Jewish people' as part of the distribution of Palestine by Britain. Attempting to undermine the historical, entrenched validity of this apposition is fundamental to any effort to reconciliation of any sort.
'Decoupling the conflict from other conflicts' seems glib and simplistic when viewed in the historical light of the creation of Israel and the current, pervasive fear of the Muslim world which underlies mainstream Israeli Government policy. It is not simply the previous conflicts with Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, but a broader threat perceived as encompassing the nations of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps even Egypt and Turkey, that will be the most difficult issue to address.
It should be the lot of the rest of the world to assert that Israel has a right to exist, and also a duty to honour the agreement as laid out in 1949 that also made provision for a Palestinian homeland. All land subsequently annexed should be returned to the control of the nations from which they were appropriated. Only then can Israel assert its universally accepted right to exist. Those on the political fringe who espouse their desire to wipe Israel off the map will lose the element of credibility they once had with those who saw Israel as the intransigent aggressor commit a criminal act - a group composed of many moderate and rational people.
I know people like readers of the HP would like to forget the fact that Islam in the name of Allah killed, tortured and exiled Jews form their lands in the Past but I guess that doesn't count.
Keep on "beating". See if it gets you, those you support, and the world in general, any closer to the peace that you claim to be seeking. It certainly won't get you any closer to the goals that the people of Israel ascribe as your true objective.
2) How do you see a final "peace"? If you tell the Palestinians to simply sod off, you prove the initial post (land and water) to be correct.
In an article where you are talking about mathmatics and war statistics, you really shouldn't get that wrong
But no the conflict is not insolvable at all. Infact its one of the easier conflicts in the world to solve. If the United States simply needs to pressure Israel and cut off funding. The Palestinian side has been ready for quite some time, if we stopped supporting the fanatics on Israel's side there would have been a peace deal 20 years ago
That is 95% of the conflict, as it would be in any other nation or region on earth.
What do you suppose the Palestinians expect to happen? What are they holding out for? What's the game plan here? Is there even one?
The solution is simple. The U.S. should dump Israel and become neutral in the argument. The U.S. should stop fighting Muslims on behalf of Israel. Save American lives and money!
The slanted propaganda we are fed not only keeps out facts, but prevents discussion and debate.
When intractable is created by design as it favors one side in this conflict, I doubt the ideas presented are sufficient.
Israel delegitimizing itself while most of the world cries foul at their expansionism is the single source of pressure towards a just peace.
Swallowing the notion that an occupying democracy that refuses to fix its borders can still be a democracy is getting harder and harder with ostensible supporters flailing to spin it.
A democracy where half the population is denied is no democracy.
An ally that thumbs their noses at us is no ally either.
...including reconciliation between zebras and lions living in African savanna, that may prove to be less intractable than ME conflict as it usually resolved naturally without 3rd party intervention.