A Roadmap to Resolving Middle East Conflicts: Peeling Away Non-negotiable Elements

Continuing my last post, which I just finished, I wanted to finish this train of thoughts to move on to the next.

A solution to Middle East conflicts needs to have the following characteristics:

• Basic equity between ethnic and religious groups considering economic, political, cultural and historical factors
• Separate irrationalist beliefs where possible (millenarianism chief among them) from negotiable political and economic concerns.
• Create environment where advocates of violence and annihilation become isolated from popular support.
• Minimize armed conflict and military solutions to political and economic problems.
• Move retaliation and revenge based “honor culture” both within and between ethnic groups towards a “law culture” where an impartial third party (the law) can mete out justice.

These desiderata are directed as much at the United States, Israel and their allies as they are at the Arab states, Iran and para-statal and non-state entities like Hezbollah or terrorist groups.

A condensed version of the general problems that need to be addressed are:

• Tribalism and ethnic Hatred
• Political and Economic Imbalances and Disputes
• Millenarianism/Religious Chauvinism
• Political and Economic Role of Middle East in World

What continues to be bemoaned in the West and in Israel, is that within the Arab states and of course in Iran, there are very weak “middle” or moderate forces. Emergence of radical Islam or what I call violent anti-Western Islamic millenarianism has been a source of concern. Additionally, What Arab populations are angry about are the United States’s ham-handed attempts to control political actors and alliances with corrupt regimes and favoritism towards Israel. The invasion of Iraq was a case in point for what the “Arab Street” believes about the US’s attitude towards the Middle East. In addition, Israel’s military dominance in the Levant, close alliance with the US and to a lesser degree European powers, relative economic success, and treatment of the Palestinians continues to rankle.

Given the difficulty and intransigence of these issues, it will help to be able to break down the problems as much as possible while at the same time being able to group like problems together. I believe a first step will be to attempt to capture and put into words as much as possible the main dividing issues that overlay the nuts and bolts political and economic issues which will be the subject of more conventional diplomacy. I will assume that traditional assumptions that have blocked previous efforts can be pushed aside given the bewildering intractability of the conflicts and the rising violence. This assumption may be naive but without this faith in a future, I don’t think there can be a peaceful solution.

Step 1:

International conference on “Military Conflict, Millenarianism and Tribalism in the Middle East: Divorcing Religious Extremism, Ethnic and Religious Hatred from Local and National Interest”.

Sponsoring body: Coalition of religious and political groups, UN.

Location: Geneva or Cyprus

Participants:

• Leading academics on Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Middle East ethnography, political science, military strategy, millenialism.
• Representatives of major religions involved, preferably high ranking bishops, imams, rabbis and their intellectual advisors.
• Representatives of governments, political movements and parties in the Middle East
• Representatives of UN and NGOs

Agenda:

1. Millenarianism and Religious Extremism in the Middle East, Past and Present – historical overview and present situation

2. Survey of Inter-religious and Ethnic conflicts in the Middle East. Overview of flashpoints

3. Compile list of territorial and economic claims from all sides. Distinguish whether claim has non-negotiable religious or ethnocentric component. If has these components hold it out of consideration or modify claim to remove non-negotiable religious or ethnocentric component.

4. Create map of conflicts between negotiable claims. Create another map with conflicts between claims that have elements that are beyond negotiation (religious or identity issues).

5. Create outline of conferences to settle claims – who, where and what would be the agenda.

An ambitious plan but we need to start somewhere. Working out the details would be itself the product of much negotiation.

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