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Edited by Rami G.

Khouri,
Karim Makdisi, and Martin Wählisch

Interventions
in Conflict
International Peacemaking
in the Middle East
INTERVENTIONS IN CONFLICT
This page intentionally left blank
Interventions in Conflict
International Peacemaking in
the Middle East

Edited by
Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, and
Martin Wählisch

Palgrave
macmillan
INTERVENTIONS IN CONFLICT
Selection and editorial content © Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, and
Martin Wählisch 2016
Individual chapters © their respective contributors 2016
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ISBN 978-1-137-56467-2
E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–53082–0
DOI: 10.1057/9781137530820

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Names: Khouri, Rami G., 1948– editor of compilation. | Makdisi, Karim,
1970– editor of compilation | Wählisch, Martin, 1982– editor of
compilation.
Title: Interventions in conflict : international peacemaking in the Middle
East / edited by Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, Martin Wählisch.
Description: New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015032080|

Subjects: LCSH: Peace-building—Middle East. | Arab-Israeli conflict—


Peace. | United Nations—Middle East. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE /
International Relations / General. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / International
Relations / Diplomacy. | POLITICAL SCIENCE / Peace.
Classification: LCC JZ5584. M628 I67 2016 | DDC 327.1/720956—dc23 LC
record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015032080
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
Contents

Introduction
Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, and Martin Wählisch 1

Part I Peacemaking and the United Nations


Introduction
Karim Makdisi 13
Chapter 1
Making and Keeping the Peace: Reflections on UN
Experiences in the Middle East and Afghanistan 23
Lakhdar Brahimi
Chapter 2
Peacemaking under the United Nations Flag: Reflections
on a Quarter Century of Mediations 37
Jan Eliasson
Chapter 3
Lessons Learned from a Quarter Century of Peacemaking 53
Álvaro de Soto
Chapter 4
Crossroads of Crisis: Yarmouk, Syria, and the Predicament of
the Palestinian Refugees 65
Filippo Grandi
Chapter 5
The UN in the Middle East and the Arab Awakening 77
Richard Falk

Part II The Arab-Israeli Conflict


Introduction
Rami G. Khouri 91
vi CONT ENT S

Chapter 6
Thirty Years after Camp David: A Memo to the
Arab World, Israel, and the Quartet 99
Jimmy Carter
Chapter 7
The Situation in the Middle East: A Vision for the Future 109
Amr Moussa
Chapter 8
Talking with Islamists: The Need for Mutual Dignity and
Respect 119
Alastair Crooke
Chapter 9
Supervising a Temporary Truce, Working for a Permanent
Peace: UNTSO’s Mission in the Middle East 135
Robert Mood

Part III Paths in Conflict Resolution


Introduction
Martin Wählisch 149
Chapter 10
Beyond Mediation: Promoting Change and Resolving
Conflict through Authentic National Dialogues 153
Hannes Siebert
Chapter 11
Preventing and Resolving Deadly Conflict: What Have
We Learned? 163
Gareth Evans
Chapter 12
The Public as Peacemaker: How Polling in Divided
Societies Can Promote Negotiated Agreements 179
Colin Irwin
Chapter 13
Fostering Power-sharing and Governance in Pluralistic
Societies: Lessons from Canada’s Experience 189
Bob Rae

Notes on Contributors 197


Index 203
Introduction

Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, and


Martin Wählisch

T he Middle East is a region shaken by conflict. Stability and peace


remain elusive, while prospects for social justice and freedom are
still limited. The European colonial project—including the parti-
tion of Palestine, the exploitation of Gulf oil resources and protec-
tion of supply lines, and the thwarting of popular movements—has
long sown the seeds of the instability and division that remain in this
region to this day. Repeated Western military, political, and economic
interventions, along with unfettered support for Israel and various
Arab authoritarian leaders during the postcolonial period, have exac-
erbated these divisions, fueled further conflict, and pushed the region
into division along ethnic and sectarian lines. The 2003 US-led inva-
sion of Iraq and the break up and reengineering of the Iraqi state and
its army continue to reverberate across the region, including in the
Syrian civil war a decade later.
Since the initial euphoria of the Arab uprisings, the aspirations
of ordinary Arab citizens and social movements for change have
only marginally materialized. Meanwhile, the primacy of geopolitics
is keeping the whole region in flux. Within this larger framework,
the prospects for a just solution to the Question of Palestine remain
negligible within a US-led Arab-Israeli peace process. Meanwhile,
the increasingly violent Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry, feuds among Gulf
states sponsoring various Islamist groups, growing Turkish interven-
tion, and rapid rise of jihadi groups such as ISIS have fueled civil
wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. This in turn has led to an
unprecedented refugee crisis with over 4 million from Syria alone,
leading to further instability in neighboring countries like Lebanon,
hosting refugees who comprise a third of its population. The Iran
nuclear agreement with the West has added an additional dimension
to the peace and security infrastructure of the Middle East, though
2 R A M I G . K H O U R I , K A R I M M A K D I S I , A N D M A R T I N WÄ H L I S C H

its consequences are as yet unclear. All these conflicts have been keep-
ing the region in the international spotlight. The region is blessed and
cursed by oil and gas resources. It is also increasingly vulnerable to
the impact of climate change, conflict over the unequal distribution
of water, and cross-border migration, all of which hurt the poorer seg-
ments of the population, while the rich get richer.
Despite all this, international peacemaking efforts on both the
micro and macro levels remain a visible feature in the region. The
Good Offices of the United Nations and Arab League have been
used, special envoys have been repeatedly deployed, and committed
humanitarian and development agencies and individuals serve the
region. The very institutions of UN mediation, traditional observer
missions and peacekeeping forces, were created in the Middle East.
The fact that the first UN mediator in Palestine, Folke Bernadotte,
was assassinated on a peace mission in 1947 and also that the first
Security Council-authorized military observers force remains active
since 1948 in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Southern Lebanon, and
the Sinai reveals how protracted peacemaking and peacekeeping are in
the Mashriq (Levant) region alone.
Overall, UN and non-UN peacemaking efforts have faced huge
challenges but also some opportunities. Shuttle diplomacy between
rival factions, multilateral negotiations, and quiet back-door media-
tion efforts often failed to achieve sustainable solutions, though they
sometimes created momentum toward some form of reprieve, par-
ticularly through what has been termed “humanitarian diplomacy.”
International attention on the Middle East is high, and stability
should now, more than ever, be a primary objective of peacemaking
efforts in countries like Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The prominent con-
tributors to this book, we suggest, point to some ways in which such
peacemaking efforts may be deployed more positively.

About This Book


This book brings together the experiences of international peace-
makers who have worked in or on the Middle East, from former US
President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary-General of the Arab
League Amr Moussa, to UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, cur-
rent UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, and many others.
It is based on lectures they gave within the Bill and Sally Hambrecht
Distinguished Peacemakers Lecture Series at the American University
of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International
Affairs. In their reflections these peacemakers share lessons learned
INTRODUCTION 3

and compelling stories about peacemaking in some of the world’s


most intractable conflicts.
This lecture series started in October 2007 with Á lvaro de Soto,
who reflected on three decades of peacemaking under the banner of
the UN. Lectures by many other eminent speakers followed, end-
ing with those of Richard Falk in April 2013 on the UN after the
Arab uprisings and Filippo Grandi in February 2014 on the Palestine
refugee predicament. Their personal experiences in peacemaking are
compiled in this book. Some of the lecturers are individuals who have
mediated conflicts, others are practitioners in international organiza-
tions who have dealt with conflict resolution on a local or interna-
tional level. What they have in common is that they are all presenting
various perspectives about peacemaking, while having directly par-
ticipated in, mediated, or facilitated peace negotiations. The diversity
of how peace is sought or made by people shows that there is no
one-size-fits-all solution to overcoming conflict, although there are
general patterns and common systemic challenges.
The book highlights that mediators have at their disposal an array
of tools and techniques. Regional expertise, personal skills, and
analytical understanding are essential in conflict resolution. At the
same time, it is crucial to acknowledge that each conflict is unique
and the style of peacemaking differs according to the personality of
the peacemaker. Lakhdar Brahimi, for example, notably emphasized
in his lecture that “navigation by sight” is needed in peace processes,
which requires cultural sensitivity and diplomatic fingertip sensitiv-
ity for local sentiments. Á lvaro de Soto shared as a lesson learnt that
a “stage by stage” approach has proven to be successful in order to
seize opportunities. Explaining the complexity of proxy conflicts and
international relations, Jimmy Carter emphasized in his contribution
once more that the Arab-Israeli peace process is not only relevant for
the region, but for “the entire world.” Filippo Grandi explained how,
given the deeply divided nature of the international community, the
battle over the Yarmouk district in Damascus in 2014 represented a
“crossroads of crisis in peacemaking” in the region. While each lec-
ture provides insights into specific experiences and lessons, their sum
total provides a better understanding of the various available paths to
peacemaking in international practice.
This book, of course, does not claim to tell only success sto-
ries, but equally, or even more, includes lessons learned from failed
attempts to reach political settlements. The chapters reveal how dif-
ficult it is for high-level international mediators to have an effective
impact on achieving peace on the ground. There have been only a
4 R A M I G . K H O U R I , K A R I M M A K D I S I , A N D M A R T I N WÄ H L I S C H

few successes in the Middle East through external third-party inter-


ventions that moved conflicting parties to the negotiation table,
kept them there, and helped them transform their commitment
to peace into actions. In many cases, negotiated peace agreements
could only achieve a temporary end of hostilities, but not bring last-
ing change. Often enough, conflicts relapsed into violence because
the moment for peace negotiations was not ripe, spoilers exploited
fragile attempts to achieve a ceasefire, or international attention
waned because of more pressing conflict hotspots elsewhere. It is
important to shed light on those imperfect attempts of peacemak-
ing, as they reveal that international conflict resolution is a continu-
ing learning process.
The chapters in this book provide unique insights into the think-
ing of peacemakers and their strategies in trying to end wars and
sustain peace. In this regard, it is equally useful for scholars and prac-
titioners in international organizations, the diplomatic service, and
nongovernmental organizations. The book reaches out to experts and
professionals interested in international peacemaking in the Middle
East and elsewhere but can also be useful for graduate and under-
graduate students to deepen their knowledge of contemporary inter-
national relations, peacemaking practices, and Middle East affairs.
General readers will find that the book offers a glimpse behind the
scenes of international peace processes and the thinking of leading
international peacemakers.

Structure of the Book


The book is divided into three parts, each beginning with a syn-
thesis of the texts and key themes or lessons learned. The first part
explores peacemaking and the United Nations and includes chapters
by Lakhdar Brahimi (Making and Keeping the Peace: Reflections on
UN Experiences in the Middle East and Afghanistan), Jan Eliasson
(Peacemaking under the United Nations Flag), Á lvaro de Soto (Lessons
Learned from a Quarter Century of Peacemaking), Filippo Grandi
(Crossroads of Crisis: Yarmouk, Syria, and the Predicament of the
Palestinian Refugees), and Richard Falk (The UN in the Middle East
and the Arab Awakening).
The second part focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict, comprising
talks by Jimmy Carter (Thirty Years After Camp David: A Memo to
the Arab World, Israel, and the Quartet), Amr Moussa (The Situation
in the Middle East: A Vision for the Future), Alastair Crooke (Talking
with Islamists: The Need for Mutual Dignity and Respect), and Robert
INTRODUCTION 5

Mood (Supervising a Temporary Truce, Working for Permanent Peace:


UNTSO’s Ongoing Mission in the Middle East).
The third part of the book comprises chapters of nonformal peace
envoys and practitioners who have been working on the edge between
conflict resolution theory and peacemaking practice. It looks at dif-
ferent paths in conflict resolution methodology, including reflec-
tions by Hannes Siebert (Beyond Mediation: Promoting Change and
Resolving Conflicts Through Authentic National Dialogues), Gareth
Evans (Preventing and Resolving Deadly Conflict: What Have We
Learned?), Colin Irwin (The Public as Peacemaker: How Polling in
Divided Societies Can Promote Negotiated Agreements), and Bob
Rae (Fostering Power-sharing and Governance in Pluralistic Societies:
Lessons from Canada’s Experience).
This book, we should note, focuses mostly on contributions from
international peacemakers originating from outside the Middle East.
As such, it does not in any way claim to represent the full spectrum
of peacemaking efforts. The book lacks considerable peacemaking
voices from within the region and, though less prominent perhaps,
from those on a more local level who mediate everyday conflicts and
who unfortunately often go unrecognized. It also lacks accounts of
female peacemakers, which is because most of the high-level envoys
mandated by the UN or the Arab League in the region have been
male. As such, further volumes on peacemaking would be valuable
and cover these gaps that are beyond the scope of this particular pro-
ject. These, for instance, could include efforts during the sanctions
regime in Iraq or those aimed at fostering national dialogue in Yemen
and Libya.
An idea for an additional volume is to have more space to contextu-
alize, structurally and historically, the many conflicts in the region in
need of peacemaking. Even the best peacemakers, after all, can only
work within the structural confines they operate in. How can one
successfully mediate in Palestine when the international will is weak?
How can one bring about peace in Syria within an unresolved geo-
political struggle and rise of apparently unresponsive nonstate actors
such as ISIS? How can climate change-related conflicts within and
between states be resolved on local levels? These again are topics for a
much-needed future project.

Interventions in Conflict
Interventions in conflict areas are often, as the term suggests, a
double-edged sword, liberating for some and oppressive or violent for
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others. In particular, peacemaking becomes a delicate endeavor when


third parties engage in local conflict settings. Their role as outsid-
ers can, in principle, help to disentangle or ideally prevent conflicts
because of their potentially “fresh view” of the problems at stake.
Moreover, their role as outsiders would be considerably easier if there
is broad international consensus to back them up, such as in the case
of dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons program. At the same time,
the presence of such outsiders is often met with skepticism and reluc-
tance by the conflict parties, especially when mediators try to align a
peace process with their own or their country’s national agenda. As
the Arab-Israeli peace process exemplifies, putative efforts to make
things better have often actually made the outcome worse, largely
because of the existing structures of power that favor one side and the
fact that the main mediators were not impartial. The experience of
the Middle East, as with other regions, demonstrates that peacemak-
ing is contingent on one’s place within the existing power structures,
one’s role within the peace process, interests to mitigate conflict, and
the dominant discourse that defines what an otherwise heavily dis-
puted term like “peace process” actually means.
The term “intervention” carries multifaceted connotations.
Interventions have the tendency, quite deservedly in this region, to
be understood in external military or coercive terms. As indicated
at the beginning of this introduction, foreign intrusions have a long
history and a lasting impact on all facets of political and social life in
the Middle East. They include not just direct interventions (such as
in Iraq in 2003, Lebanon in 2006, and the multiple Gaza wars of
the past decade) but also those under the cover of Chapter VII of
the UN Charter (from the invasion of Iraq in 1990 and subsequent
sanctions regime to the attacks on Libya and peacebuilding schemes
during the Arab uprisings). There is a rich literature on such coer-
cive interventions, including those under the controversial banner of
humanitarianism.
However, as the chapters in this book demonstrate, the scope of
interventions can be much wider. In this sense, interventions can
occur on different levels and in phases, can be carried out jointly in
alliances or independently, and can be based on different arguments
of legitimacy and responsibility. Interventions are rarely uniform and
have evolved over time. Whereas in the past economic sanctions and
facilitated peace talks by eminent envoys were predominant tools,
interventions now also include global media shaming, public pres-
sure through polls, or mediation from the inside through national
dialogues. It is this broad array of ways of trying to pursue change in
INTRODUCTION 7

conflict situations that makes peacemaking more than the dispatch of


a special representative of the UN Secretary-General or the holding
of a peace conference.
Eventually, the concept of “intervention” depends on one’s under-
standing of the equally disputed concept of “peacemaking.” In
mainstream, positivist conflict resolution terms, it can be conflict-
managerial, resolution-oriented, or transformative. In more critical
frameworks of understanding, peacemaking may be seen as part of
a larger structure of power, domination, and pacification. This book
does not aim at providing a specific theoretical model for peacemak-
ing: there is ample literature for both the positivist and critical views.
Rather, this volume shares different practitioners’ personal and pro-
fessional perspectives that reflect on larger themes of international
peacemaking, and allows readers to draw what theoretical conclu-
sions they choose. The contributors’ sometimes differing views on
very similar issues related to Middle East conflicts and peace empha-
size that historical, structural, and institutional context, personality,
available international support, and political calculations provide dif-
ferent means by which peacemaking efforts and agreements can be
crafted. In any case, peacemaking is not a mechanical exercise or a
theory-driven discipline but rather it is framed by practice and real-
world constraints.
The experiences compiled in this book make clear that there are
commonalities in how peacemakers address conflicts’ root causes, but
equally show that each conflict has its own specificities. The book
invites readers to critically reflect about the mandate, motivation,
values, and personal style of those who are involved in peace pro-
cesses, as a combination of those factors always has, and continues
today, to shape the field of peacemaking.

The Future of Peacemaking in the Middle East


Comparing peacemaking in the Middle East 50 years ago to today,
there have been changes in terms of the types of actors involved, the
linkages among the various state and nonstate actors within a more
dynamic regional order, and the nature of external intervention.
Still, the parameters of peace and conflict in the Middle East will of
course remain rooted in its historical context, including the successive
waves of foreign interventions in this strategic crossroad between the
East and the West. Moreover, peace and security in the region will
remain closely linked to the success or, far more likely, failure of a
just Palestinian-Israeli “peace process,” as well as the related conflicts
8 R A M I G . K H O U R I , K A R I M M A K D I S I , A N D M A R T I N WÄ H L I S C H

with Israel in Southern Lebanon and Syria. In Egypt an increasingly


violent conflict in the Sinai between insurgents and the army may
have significant repercussions on Egyptian-Israeli relations.
Nonetheless, during the immediate post-Arab uprisings environ-
ment, the international focus on relations between Palestine and
Israel seems to have shifted for the time being to include new peace-
making priorities. In the last few years, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Bahrain,
and Yemen have become the main tinderboxes in the region. With
the recent spread of the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS), the
tactics and strategies of how and with whom to make peace seem
to have dramatically changed. The emergence of powerful nonstate
actors, such as Hizbullah or the Muslim Brothers, is not new for the
Middle East. However, the scale of violence driven by new forms of
sectarian vitriol rooted in the break up of Iraq in 2003, combined
with Gulf financial power and the global recruitment of foreign fight-
ers streaming into the Middle East, have been unprecedented. Few of
the authors in this book had assumed or anticipated that such a break
in the traditional conflict patterns of the region could be possible,
though nearly all call for mediators in general to engage with all par-
ties to a conflict. Whether they meant parties such as ISIS were to be
included in such an engagement poses an interesting and important
conundrum.
It is too early to say what direction the fallout of the current
armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq will take in the long term, though
it is likely to be dramatic and significant. Borders may be redrawn, or
large areas, for instance in Kurdish-majority or rebel-held territory,
may simply de facto be run autonomously outside of state-centred
control. It is also difficult to foresee if the violent eruptions in coun-
tries like Yemen, Bahrain, or increasingly Egypt are temporary or
will become chronic, or whether the situations in Gaza, Southern
Lebanon, and the Golan Heights will remain stable given, in partic-
ular, the latter’s dramatic transformation during the Syrian war lead-
ing to new “rules of the game” being created. It is equally unclear if
Western, Gulf, and other external interventions, so damaging in the
past, will become more or less frequent, or if international organiza-
tions such as the UN can play a more proactive role in mediation
and humanitarian diplomacy, particularly given the huge migration
and refugee flows. But the clear trend seems to be that achieving
peace has certainly become more complex and challenging in the
region. Peacemakers, it seems, are more needed than ever before, and
yet their traditional frameworks and ideas will need to adapt to the
changing realities.
INTRODUCTION 9

Over the last decade, the United Nations has attempted to advance
its approach to peacemaking by trying to professionalize mediation
support services to special envoys and strengthen the institutional
knowledge about best practices and lessons learned. While the UN
Charter has been untouched since the end of the Cold War, the UN
has altered its general approach to peacemaking, most prominently
through the Agenda for Peace in 1992 and the Brahimi Report in
2000. There have also been, in the new array of tools and techniques,
nuances in how peace processes are designed and implemented.
A technique tested out in the Middle East has utilized synergies of
hybrid peace mediation efforts together with the Arab League or the
Gulf Cooperation Council, and through national dialogues, which
builds on the awareness that peace needs to be grown locally and
supported on the regional level. Social media have also created a
new paradigm that, on the one hand, is exploited by parties engaged
in conflicts to exaggerate fears or attract followers. On the other
hand, peace mediators now use such media to break the authority
of monopolized information and encourage participatory processes.
While the twentieth century witnessed two world wars and the revi-
sion of peace architecture based on the UN Charter as a result, the
twenty-first century needs to prove whether international organiza-
tions, states, communities, and individuals are actually advancing in
terms of equipping themselves with better methods to tackle conflicts
peacefully and settle them more effectively. The jury, certainly in the
Middle East, is still very much out.
The annual Global Peace Index regularly rates numerous countries
of the Middle East among the world’s least peaceful states. There
is not much hope in sight that the long-standing conflict factors in
the region will change any time soon. The region will most likely
remain a conflict-ridden place. Indeed, this will likely get worse with
the increasing gap between rich and poor, between those plugged
into global networks and those excluded from them, and those living
happily within gated communities and those living in misery outside
these fences and walls. The question is what peacemakers can do about
this, and whether or not powerful states and non-state actors support
their efforts. In the meantime, as Lakhdar Brahimi points out in his
contribution to this book, the key problem for peacemakers is not
so much to avoid repeating mistakes but to avoid repeating the same
mistakes. In the spirit of this book, these questions make studying
the personal experiences of peacemakers all the more essential.
Part I

Peacemaking and the


United Nations
Introduction

Karim Makdisi

T he five eminent practitioners in this section of the book draw on


their rich experiences as peacemakers, largely within the context of
the United Nations (UN), over the past three to four decades. This
section of the book, like the book itself, does not delve deeply into
the history of the UN.1 However, it would be difficult to properly
appreciate the significance of these experiences without first contex-
tualizing, albeit very briefly, the values, principles, and norms that
collectively frame our understanding of the UN.
Commonly understood, the UN was born out of a failed global
governance system, the horrors of two world wars, as well as politi-
cal, economic, and social crises that produced both the great depres-
sion and fascism. In this understanding, the UN is a Western, and
more particularly American, project to stabilize world order by, as
the UN Charter proclaims, saving “succeeding generations from the
scourge of war” and maintaining “international peace and security.”
The Charter’s preamble makes clear this can only be done through
reaffirming and spreading core liberal values such as “faith in funda-
mental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person,
[and] in the equal rights of men and women” and respecting inter-
national treaties and law. As the seminal 1992 UN Agenda for Peace
that establishes the basic tenants of the UN role in the post Cold
War period suggests, the Cold War muzzled the UN Charter’s lib-
eral mission, and the organization was now free to pursue this global
objective as various proxy wars fizzle out into weak states in need of
rebuilding.
Most of the observations by, and indeed the assumptions of, the
contributors to this section can clearly be read within this common
understanding of the UN’s mission: to stop conflict, promote dia-
logue, and create conditions for a democratic, liberal peace. Á lvaro
de Soto worries that the post-September 11, 2001, environment in
14 K ARIM MAKDISI

the West has limited the UN’s potential to solve conflict by talk-
ing to all parties, after it produced a “stigma” associated with cer-
tain groups or organizations in the Middle East, such as Hamas,
after it won the internationally certified 2006 national elections in
Palestine. Filippo Grandi demonstrates how UNRWA, the agency
responsible for Palestine refugees, supported them through educa-
tion and health programs but also as “being part of the glue” that
allowed the refugees to develop their human capital and build for
a “positive and peaceful future.” Jan Eliasson, for his part, feels an
unofficial responsibility, or at least moral inclination, to support the
weaker side that lacks resources or expertise during negotiations or
peace talks, for example, by training rebels in Sudan on wealth and
power-sharing.
However, viewed from the peripheries of the global South, the
idea of the UN was a product of a larger, collapsing Western colonial
project aimed at preserving Western “civilizational” primacy in the
emerging world order. From this perspective, the Security Council
represents less a stabilizing East-West partnership required to achieve
international peace and security than a Northern great power col-
lusion, evidenced by the fundamentally undemocratic veto powers
that ensure their continued economic and geopolitical domination
of the Third World. At the same time, the UN was, crucially, also a
site for the anti-colonial struggles that dominated the agenda of the
peoples of the global South. Reflecting this, the Charter’s preamble
thus calls for “justice,” the “promotion of the economic and social
advancement of all peoples,” and the “equal rights” of “nations large
and small.” The Charter is also unequivocal in calling for the “self-
determination of peoples,” and stating that the UN is based on the
principle of the “sovereign equality of all its Members,” in part to pre-
empt the temptation of the big powers to continue meddling within
their old colonial stomping grounds.
The contributors in this section acknowledge the latter understand-
ing of the UN, in some cases implicitly and in others more explic-
itly. Richard Falk, for example, argues forcefully that the geopolitical
order dominated by the north limits UN possibilities while simulta-
neously keeping challenges to this order alive through a battle over
legitimacy. Jan Eliasson astutely observes that Africa and Asia dis-
missed the Western notion of humanitarian intervention as a “Trojan
horse” to be used by bigger powers to erode their hard earned sover-
eignty. Lakhdar Brahimi shows how Western-based UN agendas are
imposed on states like Afghanistan, which are trying to rebuild them-
selves in the aftermath of devastating wars. Filippo Grandi asserts
P E A C E M A K I N G A N D T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 15

that the Palestine refugee problem cannot be resolved outside of a


larger, just solution that acknowledges the Palestinian right of self-
determination.
Lakhdar Brahimi is arguably the most prominent and respected
international peacemaker from the Arab region. His chapter reflects
on his vast experience in mediation with the UN, often at hugely
important junctures of its post-Cold War history, such as when he
chaired the Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations that pro-
duced the seminal 2000 “Brahimi Report,” or when he served as a
special representative in post-September 11, 2001, Afghanistan, and
Iraq.2 But it undoubtedly also draws from previous roles as a leading
member of the Algerian liberation movement, as Under-Secretary-
General of the Arab League, and as Algerian Foreign Minister; as
well as his role since 2007 as a member of the Elders group that com-
prises eminent, independent peacemakers.
Considering this experience, his advice, expressed in his text’s
opening lines, though modest, is also profound: peacemakers make
mistakes, and the best they can aim for is “to avoid making the same
mistakes again” and “learn from each one.” Indeed, perhaps only the
sheer depth and complexity of his UN peacemaking mediation roles
allows Brahimi to distill the lessons he has learned in such appar-
ently simple terms. These include, first, the lesson that mediators can
“never know enough” about a country and culture they are working
in, let alone about the specific conflict that is by definition always
dynamic and ever changing. Second, Brahimi warns mediators not
to “underestimate others” but also not to “overestimate your own
capacity, skills or wisdom.” In this sense, identifying what is miss-
ing, or reading between the lines, is as important as what the parties
to a conflict reveal to you. Finally, the UN footprint, under which a
mediator works, is often heavy and its resources are usually used inef-
ficiently. He recounts the Western and UN penchant in places such as
Afghanistan and Iraq for organizing immediate elections and fixing
constitutions—outside of a proper national context and timetable—
so as to “exit,” having certified the creation of a “democracy” and
“declare victory.”
Brahimi concludes his talk with a sober warning that UN credibil-
ity is “not only at risk, but more or less absent” in the Middle East,
largely because of the UN’s “total inability” to “do anything for the
people of Palestine”—UNRWA’s work being the main exception. He
cites the UN’s dismal political failure in advancing a just peace for
Palestinians as a member of the Middle East Quartet (along with the
United States, Russia, and European Union) as symptomatic of an
16 K ARIM MAKDISI

organization that has bowed to US pressure and thus emasculated its


own raison d’être. Outside of this, the UN is, for Brahimi, the “indis-
pensible” organization that continues to learn and grow.
Jan Eliasson, like Brahimi, is the quintessential peacemaker, active
for nearly four decades as both a senior official within the Swedish
government—including serving as its Foreign Minister—and the UN.
He was appointed as UN Deputy Secretary-General in 2012 after
having served in numerous capacities such as the Secretary-General’s
envoy in Darfur, the first Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs, and President of the General Assembly.
In his chapter, Eliasson showcases his peacemaking role in three
main ways: direct mediation (particularly for nearly a decade dur-
ing the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s); “humanitarian diplomacy/
corridors” (a term he helped coin during his negotiations in Sudan
to save thousands of civilians trapped when a ceasefire was not forth-
coming); and multilateral diplomacy (as during his pivotal role in
ending the Darfur War). Eliasson uses his experience with the latter
case to generalize that multilateral settlements require a high degree
of UN Security Council unity, cooperating among the neighbors
to a conflict, a unified government able to speak with one voice,
and cohesion among various rebel movements that strengthens their
collective voice. Eliasson, moreover, argues that the innovative idea
of “humanitarian corridors,” which has since become an established
part of peacemaking, is related to the more recent concept of the
“Responsibility to Protect” (R2P): both are rooted in the question
of “how we can accept that solidarity often stops at a border and not
at human beings in need.” Indeed, both of these terms (humanitar-
ian corridors and R2P) are opposed to Bernard Kushner’s idea of the
more militaristic “humanitarian intervention,” popular during the
late 1990s and later controversially implemented and manipulated
by Tony Blair.
The bulk of Eliasson’s rich piece deals with the core matters of
what he calls “who,” “when,” and “how” mediation. He shows that
conflicts require different types of mediators depending on their
specificities—the “muscular” one if power and influence are needed
to reach a settlement; the “impartial” one drawn from nations that
have no national interest in the conflict and with a tradition of respect
for international law and human rights (such as Sweden); or the
“Jimmy Carter’s,” in other words an independent international per-
sonality who does not bring his country’s baggage with him and who
is particularly relevant during civil wars. This mediator could also be
an NGO. Eliasson makes it clear that, once a mediator is selected,
P E A C E M A K I N G A N D T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 17

preventing a conflict is the best answer to the “when” question, but


once a conflict starts it remains imperative to reach an agreement as
soon as possible, before it escalates. Finally, Eliasson reveals the intri-
cacies of “how” to mediate a conflict through a series of fascinating
stories: visiting the carpet museum in Tehran to show the importance
of understanding cultural factors; reading the UN Charter to prop-
erly value language and words; and visiting an orphanage to build
personal relations and empathy.
Á lvaro de Soto served for a quarter of a century in three continents
as a peacemaker under three successive United Nations Secretaries
General (Javier Pérez de Cuéller, Boutros Boutros Ghali, and Kofi
Annan). He worked extensively in the field, starting as a special repre-
sentative to the Central American peace process and heading the UN
negotiations team that ended the Salvadoran War, but also in UN
headquarters in New York, most prominently as the Assistant SG for
Political Affairs. In the Middle East, de Soto is probably best known
for his role as Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process
from 2005 to 2007, a period that included Israel’s unilateral with-
drawal from Gaza outside of a UN or international agreement and
the subsequent Israeli re-invasion of Gaza and war against Lebanon
during the summer of 2006. It also coincided with the crucial January
2006 Palestinian legislative elections, internationally certified as free
and fair, in which Hamas won a clear majority but which prompted
the European Union and the United States to unilaterally reject them
and cut off aid. The Saudi-brokered power-sharing agreement that
led to a national unity government in March 2007 was similarly not
legitimized, and de Soto famously resigned his post and wrote a hard-
hitting end of mission report.
De Soto starts off his chapter by a warning that one early lesson
peacemakers learn is that “not all conflicts lend themselves to medi-
ation or third-party intervention.” Curiously, based on his experi-
ences, he candidly claims that once international peacemaking does
begin (in cases where the levels of mistrust are high), he finds that,
on the whole, wartime negotiations are more productive than those
conducted during peacetime: “As long as the bullets are fired and
people are being killed,” you can get the attention of the UN Security
Council, and just as importantly the international media, which helps
mobilize negotiation efforts. As with the other contributors in this
section of our book, de Soto makes clear that impartiality is fun-
damental, though in the case of the Middle East peace process this
was absent. The UN, he says, was reduced to a “peripheral shepherd-
herding” role.
18 K ARIM MAKDISI

De Soto shows how the transformation of the UN from the Cold


War to the post-Cold War period—which he witnessed firsthand—
resulted in a shift in peacemaking tools and techniques, as for example
the “post-conflict peacebuilding” concept was created to go beyond
traditional UN activities. He demonstrates what is arguably the
most challenging aspect of peacemaking, the relative importance of
achieving peace through a political settlement and maintain basic
human rights and humanitarian norms. De Soto stresses that it is
the Secretary-General, and his representatives and envoys, who have
the moral and political standing to resolve this tension and maintain
standards, but that this can only be done if the SG actually main-
tains his independence in the face of big power influence.
Filippo Grandi delivered the lecture that is the basis of his paper a
day after witnessing firsthand the horrors of the besieged Damascus
district of- Yarmouk (home to the largest Palestinian refugee com-
munity in Syria) in the midst of the Syrian civil war. He was then
completing his five-year term as Commissioner-General of the UN
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(UNRWA) that is charged with maximizing the human development
of Palestine refugees scattered since their 1948 nakba (catastrophe)
across the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
The starting point of his chapter is that the international com-
munity had failed Syria in both humanitarian and political terms: the
“all-pervading” violence there—“brutal, physical, destructive”—had
created enormous trauma and poverty and an unprecedented refu-
gee and displaced population. It had destroyed the Syrian economy
and infrastructure. The “Somalization” of Syria was a “daily reality.”
Within this larger catastrophe and disorder, Grandi focused on the
unfolding of “another crisis,” namely the situation of the nearly
600,000 Palestinians who had been largely integrated and equal resi-
dents in Syria; and in particular Yarmouk, the center of Palestinian
life in Syria and recognized as the embodiment of diaspora life and
coexistence.
Grandi’s empathy toward the refugees as individuals is palpable,
and his bearing witness to their double collective tragedy during
Syria’s war and their original expulsion from Palestine is compelling.
We can infer from his chapter that possessing empathy and the dedi-
cation to record suffering are core lessons for humanitarian peace-
makers. Grandi argues that, given the deeply divided nature of the
international community, Yarmouk represents a “crossroads of cri-
sis in peacemaking” in the region. In the absence of the required
P E A C E M A K I N G A N D T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 19

political settlement, Grandi shows that “extremely complex” nego-


tiations allowed for a welcome humanitarian pause in Yarmouk.
Like Eliasson, he summons his nearly three-decade experience as a
humanitarian worker across Africa and Asia to argue passionately that
peacemakers must push for more systematic, predicable “good will”
among the parties, in the form of precedent-creating localized agree-
ments that at least alleviate civilian suffering. In so doing, Grandi
shows how humanitarians, as peacemakers, can “create a break in the
dynamic of violence” that in turn opens space to explore political
solutions.
Finally, Richard Falk’s piece differs from the others in this sec-
tion, and fits perfectly as the final chapter in this section as it
eschews purely personal reflections in favor of a sweeping, structural
approach to peacemaking. Falk is a scholar-activist who has engaged
deeply in the practice of peacemaking, not as a professional bureau-
crat or government official, but within his own self-understanding
of a “citizen-pilgrim” who seeks above all else the abolition of war
and aggression as social institutions and the construction of a new
world order based on justice, human rights, and the protection of
the environment and diversity. As an eminent professor of inter-
national law and practice for five decades, he has written or edited
over 40 books, but he has long actively lobbied for such core peace-
making activities as the prohibition of nuclear weapons, immediate
action on climate change, decolonization, and the just solution of
the Palestine Question.
As such, Falk is in a unique position to employ his consider-
able experience as a peacemaker—including serving on a 2001 UN
Office of Human Rights inquiry commission for the Palestinian ter-
ritories, Independent Commission on Kosovo (that coined the now
famous “illegal but legitimate” term with reference to NATO’s inter-
vention), and most recently concluding a six-year term as the UN
Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian
territories—to contextualize the theoretical, historical, and political
context within the UN in which state and nonstate actors operate.
Taking as his starting point the Arab uprisings of 2010–2011, Falk
explores the competing political, moral, and legal pressures for the
UN to actively engage in or refrain settling disputes. He convinc-
ingly argues that it is the primacy of geopolitics—hardwired into
the UN compact—rather than principles of international law or the
UN Charter that explains the UN’s “uneven and controversial” role
in the Middle East and North Africa. He shows, for example, that
20 K ARIM MAKDISI

those who advocated for the UN-authorized military intervention in


Libya—only for it to become an expanded NATO regime change
operation—had the effect of discrediting the emerging Responsibility
to Protect norm in a changing world order. Despite such political
realism, Falk keeps the door open for those actors struggling for a
more just world order by reaffirming that the UN also serves as a
site of struggle in what he has referred to as “legitimacy wars,” which
could change an otherwise unequal power equation.
All in all, these chapters by influential and prominent peacemakers
reveal a clear picture of the importance, and challenges, of peacemak-
ing within the UN framework. Structures of power and geopolitics
obviously limit the role of any individual in a given conflict: there
needs to be the will to reach a settlement not just by those parties
directly involved, but also the external powers and interests fueling
the conflict. Within this structure, the authors suggest that a peace-
maker’s ability to innovate and empathize, while remaining modest,
impartial, independent, and flexible, can play a role in finding some
space for dialogue or at least help alleviate the suffering of civilians
trapped in unremitting violence.
The UN’s political peacemaking role in the post-Cold War Middle
East, it is clear, has largely been either ineffective as it has been most
recently in Syria or Yemen or, in the cases of Palestine, Libya, and Iraq,
arguably negligent and violent. During much of this time, the UN
Secretaries General have not acted with the requisite independence
mandated by the UN Charter, and all too often bowed to political
pressure by the big powers. As Lakhdar Brahimi and Richard Falk
suggest in this section, the UN’s credibility and legitimacy in the
Arab world has suffered considerably as a result.
Yet it is also clear that when the international political will exists,
UN peacemaking becomes significantly easier, as was the case (belat-
edly) in ending Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon or in the 2014 disman-
tling of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile in the midst of a civil war.
In the absence of such international will to effectively end conflict,
much depends on the ability of humanitarian peacemakers to create a
break in the violence to bring relief to exhausted civilians trapped in
war zones or stuck in refugee camps. The hope is that the UN, whom
all the contributors here agree is indispensible—and the Secretary-
General in particular—can show more determination and indepen-
dence to carve out the needed political space in which to support
these humanitarian peacemakers. This, in turn, can help restore the
credibility and legitimacy of the UN in the region that would surely
then make it a more effective peacemaker.
P E A C E M A K I N G A N D T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 21

Notes
1. For more historically oriented works, see, for example, Dan Plesch
and Thomas G. Weiss’ edited volume Wartime Origins and the
Future United Nations (Routledge Press, 2015); Mark Mazower’s No
Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the
United Nations (Princeton University Press, 2009); and the forthcom-
ing edited volume by Makdisi and Prashad Blue Helmets: The United
Nations in the Arab World (University of California Press, 2016).
2. The lecture upon which this chapter is based was delivered before
Brahimi’s appointment as joint UN-Arab League special envoy to
Syria from 2012 to 2014.
Chapter 1

Making and Keeping the Peace:


Reflections on UN Experiences in
the Middle East and Afghanistan

Lakhdar Brahimi1

P eacemaking and mediation have been at the center of my activities,


and indeed of my life, for the last 20 years at least. When people ask
me what lessons I have learned, I generally say, “When one is engaged
in a complicated mediation, making mistakes is unavoidable, but one
can avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Better make
new ones each time . . . and learn from each one.”
There are many important tools that one needs as a mediator.
Some of those tools are less obvious, and more difficult, than they
sound: patience, respect for others, and constantly trying to find
ways to move the political process forward, step-by-step, until as solid
a base as possible is established to make the mediation meaningful
and, ultimately, effective. Mediators keep reminding themselves, and
their staff, that in these situations nothing is finished until everything
is finished.
With this in mind, allow me to zero in on two or three essential
lessons I have learned about peacemaking and mediation over the
years.

We Never Know Enough and Must Learn to Adapt


The first lesson is what I call, for want of a better word, knowledge.
When you go somewhere, you naturally try to learn as much as you
can about the country, the culture, the political system, and so on.
You read a lot of reports and books. To do a good job mediating a
conflict, you need to remind yourself, almost every minute of every
24 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

day, that you do not know enough and that you need to keep finding
out more.
You need also to understand, and accept, that the political and
on-the-ground conditions are always evolving, and that conflict and
postconflict situations are very dynamic and change all the time. The
military, as a matter of fact, teach us that “the best battle plan does
not survive the first bullet.” This makes perfect sense. You prepare a
very good battle plan safely inside the equivalent of the US Pentagon.
But when you actually land in a war zone, as soon as you start fight-
ing, the situation will have already changed. It will keep changing
every hour, every day, every week, and you have to adapt to that ever-
changing situation.
When I was helping to mediate what came to be the “Taif Accords,”
which ended the civil war in Lebanon in 1990, I used for the first,
but certainly not the last, time another useful metaphor to explain the
need for adaptation: You need to do a lot of navigation by sight. As
the captain of your ship, in other words, of course you equip yourself
with the best available instruments and the best maps, but again you
must keep reminding yourself that something may go wrong. Maybe
there is a rock somewhere in the sea that does not appear on your
map, and you will hit it unless your eyes are constantly wide open.
The weather, too, may change, and so the forecasts given to you ear-
lier may no longer be accurate enough. In both cases, you need to
navigate your path by sight and without the aid of other equipment.
This is part of the peacemaker’s job.
No matter how hard a mediator tries, he or she simply does not
know enough. One must, in particular, be careful with what is
assumed to be “common knowledge” about a particular country or
conflict. For example, when I was appointed as UN Special Envoy
to Afghanistan for the first time in 1997, I read everything I could
find and talked to my UN colleagues who had worked in Afghanistan
before me. I also arranged to meet with four notable, but very differ-
ent, Afghanistan experts: one Afghan, one Pakistani, one Australian,
and one American. A fifth expert, a Frenchman, could not join us in
New York, but I talked to him later in Paris. I asked these experts an
obvious question: “Is Afghanistan really the tribal society everyone
says it is?” Its recent political history was so rich; there were so many
internal and external players on the scene, so could the conflict—and
thus the solution—be reduced, as many had assumed, to only the
issue of the relationship between the tribes? This is, after all, a country
that had lived under a modern constitution introduced in 1964 by its
monarch, Zahir Shah. Then, in 1973, Prime Minister Sardar Daoud
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 25

Khan staged a coup d’état against the king, his cousin. Five years
later, the communists staged a coup d’état against Daoud Khan, and
this was followed by several other coups d’état by communist rivals
against one another. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979
but was pushed out ten years later after a relentless struggle waged
against them by the US-backed Mujahideen. In 1994, the Taliban
appeared on the scene, capturing the capital Kabul two years later. By
around the year 2000, the Taliban controlled more than 90 percent
of Afghanistan.
By the time I arrived in 1997, could it be assumed, as “common
knowledge” would have it, that Afghanistan was still the tribal soci-
ety that we read about in nineteenth-century travel books, in spite
of all these momentous developments? Of course not! But how had
it changed? Who were the actors a peacemaker should deal with?
These five experts, and many other people I consulted, all agreed
that Afghan society had changed, but they did not fully agree with
one another on how that society actually looked today. How was I, as
a mediator, supposed to assess this?
Other examples illustrate the pitfalls of inaccurate information—
or even worse, misinformation—on the conduct of a particular medi-
ation effort. When I eventually went to Afghanistan, I realized just
how complicated the situation was. During my first tenure there, from
1997 to 1999, Afghanistan was engulfed in a complicated and debili-
tating civil war: the very factions that were fighting against Soviet
occupation had turned against one another almost as soon as Soviet
troops had left the country. I had to ask myself a very simple ques-
tion: how many fighters were actually involved in this war? I asked
around and, on the basis of what I was told, made several statements
in 1997/98 saying that the people of Afghanistan, all 25 million of
them, were hostage to a maximum of 50,000 fighters. But, in 2001,
when the Taliban were routed following US military intervention,
we discovered that during the fighting season, the Taliban alone
could count on well over 120,000 fighters, and some, in fact, claimed
200,000. A mediation effort cannot but suffer from being so far off
the mark in its estimate!
Similarly, we greatly underestimated the number of so-called Arab-
Afghans who started joining the ranks of the Mujahideen immedi-
ately after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The estimates of
the grand total of those who joined the fight over the ten years of
Soviet occupation went from 10,000 to 20,000. We are now told that
over the ten years of Soviet occupation, the total number was much
closer to 100,000. But how many had stayed on, to form the core of
26 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, or to serve in the ranks of the Taliban


or with Pakistani jihadi organizations? There again, the highest esti-
mate I was given at the time was 3,000, including (as I heard from
Egyptian officials) a maximum of 700 Egyptians. After 9/11, we dis-
covered that the number of Egyptians alone still in Afghanistan and
Pakistan was more than 3,000!
One of the main warring parties, the Northern Alliance, claimed
they were losing to the Taliban because there were large numbers
of Pakistani soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and even officers
fighting in the ranks of the Taliban. Pakistani officials vehemently
denied that there were any Pakistanis at all fighting with the Taliban.
Independent estimates, however, spoke of roughly, 4,000 Pakistanis,
including, perhaps, a few retired soldiers. It turned out that in 2001,
there were still at least 10,000 Pakistani volunteers of one kind or
another fighting alongside the Taliban! There were also more than
2,000 fighters from Central Asia and Chechnya. You see there again, if
you do not know these basic facts and are misinformed about such key
issues, your work as a mediator will definitely be negatively affected.

Do Not Underestimate Others and


Do Not Overestimate Yourself
A second lesson that one learns as a mediator or peacemaker is not
to underestimate others and not to overestimate your own capacity,
skills, or wisdom.” My time in Afghanistan afforded me plenty of
examples of this. For example, a friend of mine warned me to be very
careful of the fact that Afghans looked simple, naive, and unsophisti-
cated. They give the impression that they can easily be manipulated.
But, “while you may pride yourself on manipulating them,” a friend
told me, “they are actually manipulating you all the time.”
One has also to keep learning how to read facts, how to understand
what you are told, and how to figure out what you see. The following
story illustrates this point well. It takes place in the old days when
there were borders in Europe and customs duties to be paid for goods
imported. There was this man riding his bicycle from France into
Spain. When Spanish customs officials asked him if he had anything
to declare, he responded in the negative. The officials then pointed
to a bag on the back of the man’s bicycle and inquired what was in
it. “Sand only,” the man said. “Sand, did you say? And why on earth
are you bringing sand from France into Spain? Open it.” The bag was
opened and examined only to reveal that it was indeed only sand. The
bicycle rider was waved on.
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 27

The next day, the same man arrived on the same bicycle, with
another bag of sand. This goes on for perhaps one week or ten days:
the same man presenting himself each day at roughly the same time,
at the Spanish border, with his bicycle and bag of sand. One day,
a young, bright customs officer tells his colleagues that there must be
something wrong with this, especially that the man does not look stu-
pid or eccentric. So, they confiscate the man’s sand bag, assuming it
must be mixed with some precious substance like gold or drugs. The
bag was sent to Madrid for thorough inspection. When the results
came back to the border, it was confirmed that there was nothing
in that bag but ordinary sand. But that young, bright customs offi-
cial was still not satisfied. He finally took the bicycle-rider aside and
begged him: “Please tell me why you are taking this sand across the
border? I promise there will be no consequences if you tell me the
truth!” The man replied, “I am smuggling bicycles.”
This is a favorite story of mine. I tell it to every audience I address,
especially to young diplomats. The lesson here being that if you see a
bicycle and a bag of sand, do not keep looking at the sand alone: Look
at the bicycle too! In other words, whether you are a customs official
or a mediator, when you look at a picture do not stop at the things
you are shown by others but try to look beyond that as well.

International Intervention: Use Resources


Efficiently and Use a Light Footprint
A third important lesson for peacemakers, at least since the end of the
Cold War, is that distribution of aid should be better used. Despite the
international community’s commendable desire to intervene to help
solve all the various conflicts that exist in the Third World, the overall
resources committed are both insufficient and inefficiently utilized.
Some of the interventions are, furthermore, not “light” enough in
terms of their footprint.
For peacekeeping alone, the UN spends about 6 billion dollars
annually and deploys around 100,000 people globally, including sol-
diers, policemen, and civilian staff. Only the Americans have more
soldiers spread all around the world than the UN. Overall, many rich
countries, especially the Scandinavians, are incredibly generous in
terms of the financial resources they commit. I think that the donor
community is giving now US$120–130 billion a year for all sorts of
development projects, not just peace operations. However, are these
resources used efficiently? Observers are unanimous: traveling around
through the countries that are supposed to be the recipient of this
28 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

aid, they simply do not see the equivalent of $120 million, let alone
$120 billion, worth of development projects.
So, how are these funds being used? A report by Oxfam about aid
to Afghanistan may give us a hint.2 The report says that 40 percent
of bilateral aid given to Afghanistan actually returns to the donor
country in the form of salaries and payment for the so-called consul-
tants and experts. That is simply too much. Moreover, we know that
the remaining 60 percent does not entirely go to the people they are
intended to help, either. As a matter of fact, even the UN is not very
transparent in terms of how they use their funds. Some critics claim
that only 10 percent of aid money given to Afghanistan, whether
managed by the UN or others, actually filters down to the Afghans
themselves. This is probably an exaggeration. The UN, if you push
them, will tell you that as much as 70 percent of this money actually
goes down to the right people, and the remaining 30 percent is over-
head. Other analysts consider that not much more than 50 percent of
aid money reaches its intended beneficiaries. In some cases it is only
40 percent and in the best scenario cases, the figure is 60 percent.
This inefficiency in aid distribution is why we recommended in
the “Brahimi Report”3 that the international community, when they
go somewhere like Afghanistan, should have a “light footprint.”
However, all sorts of people in all sorts of ways immediately misused
our suggestion. For example, when the United States was accused of
not helping Afghanistan as much as they had promised they would,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “Well that’s because of
the Brahimi concept of light footprint.” But, we did not make that
report for the US Department of Defense, and I actually doubt that
Mr. Rumsfeld even read our report. At any rate, the light footprint
concept was our way of saying that the UN should not throw money
at problems, whether political, social, or economic. As the French
would say, we have too many “Budgetivores,” people who eat bud-
gets without doing much or producing much. What we mean by light
footprint, in other words, is that the resources that we have should be
used a little bit more efficiently than we are currently using them.

What Exactly Are We Doing? Using Liberal Terms like


Women’s Rights, Elections, and Constitutions
out of Context Can Cause Harm
Aside from misusing aid, the more important and immediately rel-
evant question in the areas of peacekeeping and peacemaking is what
are we actually doing? We want to end conflict, which is good. We
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 29

want to help the country stand on its own two feet. That is also very
good. But, how do we do this? We speak of democracy, human rights,
constitutions, and elections. I suggest to you that these words are very
much used out of context.
You observe this better than anywhere else in the issue of
women. When we were preparing for the Bonn peace conference on
Afghanistan, women’s rights activists from the West were demanding
that we ensure a fair representation of women in each of the three
delegations that were to participate. But how can the UN do that? An
Afghan woman who had participated actively in the struggle against
Soviet occupation came to see me to discuss this very issue. I told
her, “Look, these are Afghan organizations that are coming and they
choose their representatives. We will certainly advise them, plead with
them to have as many women as possible. But, it is their decision at
the end of the day, not ours.”
You know what that woman told me? “I understand that perfectly
well. Just help us make peace so that we can go back home to our
country and fight for our rights.”
We want women to be equal, we want women to have rights, and
we want women to participate in political life. But this cannot be
done by foreigners, be they the UN, foreign NGOs, or Western gov-
ernments. Change is actually happening in a remarkable way. If I am
not mistaken, there are more women in the Afghan Parliament than
there are in the US Congress, in France’s Assemblée Nationale, or
Britain’s Parliament. But let us not kid ourselves: girls are still mar-
ried at the age of 12, and some set themselves on fire to protest such
forced marriages. Foreigners can help if they know how to do it. In
Afghanistan, again in 2002, a high-ranking Afghani official came
to me one day and said: “I desperately need your help.” “What can
I do for you?” I asked. She said, “Each of the foreign delegations
that come here tell me they have brought with them an advisor on
women’s affairs they wanted to leave behind. So, our small ministry
is full of foreign advisers. We do need advisors, but not that many.
Can you please help us so that some of these advisers go back to their
home countries?”
You see, this is again a manner in which we do not use our
resources properly and try to impose an agenda on the people we say
we want to help. The situation of women in Afghanistan is deplorable,
and we should pay attention to that and see how much we can help
change that situation, but we have to realize that that situation will
change thanks to the Afghans themselves, and the Afghan women in
particular.
30 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

In terms of elections, in the years following the end of the Cold


War, practically all our peace operations appeared to consider that the
ultimate objective, after putting an end to the fighting, is to organize
an election. They called it the “exit strategy par excellence.” If you
organize an election, then democracy has come; you declare victory,
and you leave. There again, I think that while elections are obviously
very important, indeed indispensable, they will only be good if they
happen in the proper context, at the appropriate time, and in the
right sequence of developments that constitute a peace process. If
they come too early, or at the wrong time, they may even do more
harm than good. Remember the 1992 election in Angola. It was cer-
tified as free and fair by the Carter Center, the European Union, and
the Organization of African Unity, but all it did was restart a civil
war that went on for another ten years. Look as well at the elections
in Afghanistan on August 20, 2010: they did not do much to endear
democracy in the heart of the Afghan masses. The election cost well
over 200 million dollars, perhaps as much as 300 million. It came at
the expense of the lives of several dozen Afghans, and it has produced
the mess that we see today. I mean, was it necessary to organize an
election to get to this result?
Pressure to make or amend constitutions, when done out of con-
text, produces similar problem. Yes, countries may need new consti-
tutions or amendments to the existing constitutions. But remember
that in the immediate postconflict period, people would have just
stopped fighting, and trust between them would be at a minimum:
they still disagree on just about everything. Drafting a constitution is
about agreeing on the fundamental principles and ideals that will be
the basis on which people shall live together in peace and harmony
for a long time. How can this be agreed upon during a period of clear
mistrust? The South Africans wisely postponed constitution making
until after the elections, and gave themselves sufficient time to draft
it. It is a good example to follow.
We also pay lip service to the principle of local ownership of all
aspects of the peace process. But far too often, foreigners cannot
resist the temptation of trying to influence, if not impose, decisions
that should be taken by the local parties. I am sure you must have
heard the story about Ayatollah Al-Ozma Ali Al-Sistani, who is the
highest religious authority for the Shias in Iraq. The Americans actu-
ally brought a bright young professor from New York University to
write a constitution for Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion. It is
said that Ayatollah Al-Sistani sent a message to Paul Bremer, the US
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 31

diplomat who was effectively running Iraq at the time, saying, “You
are an American and I am an Iranian. How about the two of us let-
ting the Iraqis write their own constitution?” Ultimately, the Iraqis
did write their constitution, but with a lot of interference, from the
Americans in particular.
Much of what happened in Iraq at that time was based on the
needs of the US electoral agenda; it was not an agenda that primarily
responded to the needs of the people of Iraq. The result is that the
Iraqi constitution is an unworkable document that does not seem to
have contributed much to peace and stability in Iraq. And it is signifi-
cant that before the drafting of the constitution was even completed,
an announcement was made that “It shall be amended soon!” What
kind of constitution is this that you ask people: please ratify it and we
promise we will amend it as soon as you have finished ratifying it?
And, as you will recall, there was at least one American who was
very proud of the role he played in the drafting of the Iraqi constitu-
tion. He is Mr. Peter Galbraith, a retired US diplomat advising the
Kurds. The constitution was supposed to aim at least at maintaining
some sort of unity of Iraq. Yet, when he testified in front of the US
Congress, Mr. Galbraith said something to the effect that the new
constitution (that he helped draft, remember!) was unworkable and
that the solution in Iraq was the partition of the country. So, if this
is the manner in which we help countries solve their problems, I sup-
pose, you will agree, that they will probably be better off if we refrain
from helping them.
As we are speaking about Iraq, there is one point I feel I must make.
In a recent conference in London, somebody said to me, “Look, at
what’s happening now: Iraq is more peaceful now and people seem to
be slowly coming together. If democracy is established in Iraq, would
you then agree that the US invasion of Iraq was a good thing?” I very,
very much hope that Iraq will become a vibrant democracy, and the
earlier the better; we will be very happy to celebrate this with the
people of Iraq. But, this will never change the fact that the US-led
invasion was an aggression that destroyed Iraq and that the invasion
was unjustified. It was illegal and unjust. Frankly, until now I do not
fully understand what the real motives of the Americans were. I very
much hope that Iraq will do much better than it has done in the
recent past, but this does not change the fact that the invasion was
condemnable, and I am glad that the British people at least are try-
ing to ask themselves how their prime minister took them into that
terrible war of aggression.
32 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

The Security Council Must Listen More Closely to


a More Independent Secretary-General and
Cooperate with Troop-Contributing Countries
There are two other lessons one learns when we consider how the UN
itself organizes its peace operations. First, as we stated in our Report
on UN Peace Operations, “the UN Secretary-General must tell the
Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear.”
I consider this to be one of the key recommendations in that report,
because, unfortunately, what we saw was that the Secretary-General
is put under real pressure in the Security Council by the big powers.
For instance, normally, if the Secretary-General has requested in a
report, say, 5,000 troops to establish a particular peace mission here
or there, the big powers will tell him, “Do not ask for more than
3,000 troops.” If the SG says, “But, we need 5,000,” they reply, “We
will not give you this many. So, you better ask for 3,000.” So, the
SG will go and ask for only 3,000, whereas he knows, and the big
powers know, that what is needed is 5,000, not 3,000 troops.
We have seen the result of such pressure in, for example, Rwanda
during the 1990s. I think if you can look at the records, you will
see that then Secretary-General Boutros Ghali said more than once
that the situation there was not stable enough, and that more UN
troops needed to be deployed. The big powers told him, “Do not
ask for more troops, we will not give you any.” The same happened
in the case of Srebrenica during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. The
Security Council had adopted a resolution designating Srebrenica,
and other places, as safe havens, which means that the Security
Council was solemnly promising to protect all civilians who sought
refuge there. And again, Boutros Ghali said that with the meager
number of troops made available, the UN could not really effectively
offer such a safe haven to protect the people in need. We all know of
the tragedy that ensued.
Evidently, the Secretary-General should not give in to such pressure.
If he thinks that it is not possible to have a safe haven in Srebrenica at
all, he should say so. After the Brahimi Report of 2000, then Secretary-
General Kofi Annan firmly resisted Security Council pressure in one
particular instance relating to the wars in the Congo, when, in 2002
or 2003, practically all the neighbors invaded the Congo. These
same neighbors met in Osaka, Japan, and adopted some vague reso-
lution that was brought to the Security Council. The Council, in
turn, wanted the Secretary-General to lead the implementation of
that resolution, but Kofi Annan showed them that this resolution was
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 33

not implementable. And those countries were now under pressure to


come up with a better agreement, which they subsequently did, and
on that basis the UN has been able to do a reasonably good job. This
is really vital. Since the end of the Cold War, the Security Council has
been behaving, as someone said, like a Fabian society: Its members
just sit down and adopt resolutions even more lightly than students
sometimes do. The former Yugoslavia is a particularly good example
to illustrate this: countless resolutions were adopted, day after day,
including the resolution establishing the Safe Zone in Srebrenica.
This deeply and lastingly affected the very credibility of the Security
Council and the United Nations as a whole.
The second lesson we can learn from looking at the internal UN
processes is that the Security Council cooperation and consultations
with troop-contributing countries to peace operations need to be
improved considerably. In spite of all the experience gained from so
many missions established since the end of the Cold War, the Security
Council still adopts a resolution and then expects the Secretary-
General to go around to various member states and request their par-
ticipation in providing the needed troops, be they 5,000, 10,000, or
15,000. It would be far better if this request for troops takes place
before the resolution is adopted, to ensure that the mission would
have the troops it needs. In Darfur, four of five years ago, the UN
made it clear to the Africans that 7,000 troops would not be enough
to fulfill its protection mandate there, and as such requested the more
realistic number of 26,000 troops. By 2010, I do not think they had
reached the level of 26,000 troops. The mission also needs, I think,
about 12 combat helicopters, and until now they have not been able
to get them. So, what is the point of this kind of UN resolution? Here
again, the Security Council does not help its own reputation and
credibility when it adopts resolutions that are clearly not going to be
properly implemented.
Also important, in my view, is the fact that now UN peace opera-
tions are manned almost exclusively from third world countries. Rich
countries do not send their soldiers anymore to keep the peace. So,
I say, very bluntly at the Security Council and elsewhere, this is not
the kind of division of labor that we want to see: The rich contribute
money, and the poor contribute blood. I think we should be a little
bit more just in sharing the cost of international solidarity and inter-
national responsibility.
Furthermore, I think that there are now countries whose economic
situation has improved significantly, and they can certainly increase
their assessed contribution to the UN budgets. I do not see why
34 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

China continues to pay only something like 2 or 3 percent of the UN


budget; they can pay much more than that. India can also increase its
contribution. However, the United States, France, Britain, Sweden,
and other developed countries should also send their young men and
women to wear the blue helmet among these 100,000 soldiers and
policemen that are keeping the peace in many places in the world.

Concluding Thoughts: The UN as the Indispensible


Organization but Low Credibility in the Middle East
The UN is definitely the indispensable organization. I do not think
the world can do without it. I think that it has lost a great deal of its
credibility recently, and not only under Ban Ki Moon. Kofi Annan
said in one of his last speeches to the General Assembly something
to the effect that “We need all of us to work together to restore the
credibility and respectability of the UN.” I think everybody should
participate in restoring that credibility.
There is no part of the world where that credibility is not only at
risk, but more or less gone, than the Middle East. This dramatic loss
of credibility is largely because the UN has not been allowed to do
anything for the people of Palestine, except in the modest terms of
the work done by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East, one the best organizations of the
UN system. Politically, however, the UN has totally failed in Palestine.
For example, the Secretary-General is a member of the Middle East
Quartet. My personal opinion is that he should have left the Quartet
a long time ago. The UN has absolutely no role there. They are being
compromised, and this is one of the things that contributes to their
loss of credibility in the region and in the world more generally.
The Middle East is not treated like other parts of the world. An
essential part of the UN’s job is to meet everybody, all factions. That
is what makes it so unique: it is the universal organization. Where
the UN goes, its doors are open to all comers. When its officials go
somewhere, and especially if the aim is to make peace, those officials
must be ready to talk to everyone, even those whose moral standing
is questionable and those whose actions are condemnable. The UN
simply cannot close its doors in the face of anybody. In the Middle
East however, there’s no doubt that the United States has managed to
pressure the Secretary-General and some other countries into adopt-
ing their own national parameters and refusing to meet, for example,
Hamas or Hizbullah. To his credit, Kofi Annan, when he came to
Lebanon in 2006, during the Israeli war on Lebanon, met with
MAK ING AND K EEPING T HE PE AC E 35

Hizbullah senior officials, although supporters of Hizbullah demon-


strated against him and were rude to him.
The United States is not alone in encouraging the UN to be selec-
tive in whom to meet or not, whom to talk to or not. This is also
the attitude of many extremely good people acting with the best of
intentions and admirable idealism. They would tell you, for example,
that the UN must not speak to the Taliban, because of, among other
reasons, their attitude to women. I think that this is wrong. How are
you going to make peace in Afghanistan if you do not talk to the most
important organization in the country? You have to talk to them!
And naturally talking to them does not mean in the least adopting
their views or condoning their actions.
Having said that, I think that the UN has acquired valuable expe-
rience along the years and is, overall, doing a much better job than
it used to in the field of peacemaking and peacekeeping. They are a
much more cost-effective organization than any other government
or organization attempting any form of peacemaking or peacekeep-
ing, with the exception of the African Union. Jim Dobbins, a US
diplomat and scholar, has written at length on the subject and has
shown that the UN, unlike the United States, for example, usually
intervenes in a benevolent manner and does a much better job at an
infinitely smaller cost.
The United Nations, then, is the universal organization: its mem-
bership was expanded a few years ago to include all states in the
world, down to the tiniest islands and city states, from Micronesia to
Andorra. The organization has some form of a presence in practically
every single one of its members. The UN can be at its best when it is
mandated to help prevent or solve a conflict or assist a country rebuild
after conflict, on condition, naturally that it is effectively supported
politically and materially by its members. In some instances, however,
the United Nations has not done well, to put it mildly: Nobody con-
nected to the organization can forget Rwanda or Srebrenica.
Some critics say that when they move in to deal with a conflict, the
United Nations tend to raise expectations so high that they actually
set themselves up for failure or, at the very least, create the condi-
tions for disappointment, if not strong anger and rejection among the
people they have come to help. I think that lesson is being learned,
and United Nations Peace Missions go out of their way to explain the
limits of their possibilities. But those efforts do not succeed easily.
Be that as it may, at the end of the day, the United Nations is
neither its Secretary-General nor its mediators or peacekeeping mis-
sions. The UN is its member states. The Charter says these members
36 L AKHDAR BR AHIMI

are equal, but of course, some of those members are more equal than
others. The Security Council bears primary responsibility for the
maintenance of peace and security. And, in the Security Council,
the five permanent members bear more responsibility than the other
ten. Some will tell you that even among the five, equality is more
theoretical than real. This, in turn, would bring up the subject of
the much talked about and much delayed reform of the Security
Council. But that would lead us into a discussion that is better left
for another day.

Notes
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on January
21, 2010, and edited in July 2015.
2. Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan, Oxfarm 2008, online:
https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/ACBAR _aid
_effectiveness_paper_0803.pdf (accessed on July 1, 2015).
3. Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Doc.
A/55/305, August 21, 2000, online: http://www.un.org/en/events
/pastevents/brahimi_report.shtml (accessed on July 1, 2015).
Chapter 2

Peacemaking under the United Nations


Flag: Reflections on a Quarter
Century of Mediations

Jan Eliasson1

T his lecture is on peacemaking under the UN flag and reflections


of a quarter century of mediation. I will first clarify the three main
areas of my peacemaking experiences: direct mediation, humanitarian
diplomacy, and multilateral negotiations. Then, during the main part
of my presentation, I will explore core questions asked of peacemakers:
who negotiates, who mediates, when do you mediate and how. Finally,
I will offer some final concluding thoughts.

On Direct Mediation, Humanitarian Diplomacy, and


Multilateral Diplomacy
I have engaged in conflict resolution and direct mediation in three
clear instances. The first one began in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq
War where I first worked for six years helping the former Swedish
Prime Minister Olof Palme who was then serving as the UN special
mediator. After his assassination in 1986, I took over as personal rep-
resentative of the Secretary-General from 1988 to 1992. So, in total,
I dealt with Iran-Iraq for about 12 years. Then, my second experience
spanned 1993–1994 when I mediated on behalf of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation Europe during the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict—precipitated by the break up of the Soviet Union—between
Azerbaijan and Armenia. The mostly ethnic Armenian population
had declared their intention to secede from the area inside Azerbaijan
called Nagorno-Karabakh in order to unite with Armenia. My third
major mediation task was in Darfur, which totally consumed me
between January 1,2007, and mid 2008.
38 JAN ELIASSON

I was also very much involved in the area of humanitarian diplo-


macy. I want to bring in that term because I think this could be an
interesting area of diplomacy that could be further developed. One
example was in Sudan in 1993 when the Norwegian Church warned
us about a southern area was completely closed off from the outside
world, threatening 50,000 to 60,000 civilians with starvation. I was
sent to Khartoum and contacted John Garang, the head of the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that had rebelled against the
Sudanese government, as well as the leader of another faction of the
SPLM, to try and arrange a local ceasefire so that we could save these
people who were locked up. We failed to reach an agreement, so we
changed the concept and decided instead to push for “humanitarian
corridors,” a term we coined but now is established.
The beauty of the humanitarian diplomacy formula was that you
did not have to reach an agreement between the warring parties. The
government of Sudan, at that time, did not want to lend legitimacy to
groups such as SPLM whom they called terrorist, secessionist move-
ments. In this case, the parties granted me assurances as a representa-
tive of the United Nations at the time. We stated clearly, in the name
of good humanitarianism, that we would help everybody inside this
humanitarian corridor be they in government or rebel-controlled vil-
lages, no matter what. This was going to be a positive, if time-limited
value to all the people that would make the world of difference: a shift
away from running into the wall of local ceasefires to the more flex-
ible space afforded by humanitarian corridors. Such a shift disproves
Shakespeare’s famous quip, “word, words, words,” as though there is
a contradiction between words and action. Words, in this case, trans-
lated into effective action. My further experiences working in this gray
zone between humanitarian work and diplomacy in countries such as
Somalia and Burma positively reinforced my belief in this concept.
By the way, at around the same time, there was a lot of discussion
about humanitarian intervention, the term originally used by Bernard
Kushner when he was president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
However, this did not fly, not only among various Security Council
members but also among most developing countries. Africa and Asia
felt that such intervention risked being a political Trojan horse that
would be used as a pretext by the bigger powers to get involved in
their internal affairs at the expense of their hard fought sovereignty.
Responsibility to protect (R2P) is yet another completely different
but, in my view, much accepted term currently being used to address,
the same subject, namely “how can we accept that solidarity often
stops at a border and not at human beings in need?”
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 39

The third main area of my experience is my deep engagement


in multilateral negotiations, particularly as a president of UN
General Assembly 2005–2006. During this time we negotiated the
Peacebuilding Commission, the Human Rights Council, the counter
terrorism strategy, and also R2P. I think you have the ideal world,
and you have the real world. In the ideal world, you have a strong
Security Ccouncil, which is fair, which takes steps preventively, and
where the Vito veto is not used irresponsibly. That is how all of us
want this world to be. If that is not the case, then you have to push
and find other actors to do the job. You have the possibility of a
regional organization, African Union (AU), or European Union, or
I do not know if the league of Arab states could do something, and
you have some actors who actually could make a difference. My mul-
tilateral approach is based on a combination of idealism and also on
the principle of enlightened self-interest. We need the international
solutions, the multilateral solutions. The going alone solutions do
not work, as we have seen in both in the political realm and economic
realm all over the place. I am worried now about protectionism, look-
ing at the outside world as a problem and building up walls. It is a big
danger. I saw that spirit develop, and I am very fearful that we may see
this financial, economic crisis develop such thinking.
But let me focus for a moment on Sudan, where I will draw on my
experience as UN Special Envoy in Darfur (2007–2008) to make a
few points about how multilateral diplomacy may help to achieve a
peace settlement. On my way here from my hotel I heard a reporter
saying that there might be an agreement between JEM (Justice
and Equality Movement) and the government that I hope is a step
toward a peaceful solution in Darfur. The question mark is whether
the other rebel groups, particularly the Al-Salam led by Abdul Fayed
in Paris, will be included in this agreement. When Salim Salim,
my co-negotiator from the AU and I reported to the UN Security
Council (SC) and the AU in June 2008, we came to a rather somber
conclusion about the possibilities for peace at that time. We made it
clear that there had to be a positive development on four different
fronts in order to reach a settlement, and I think this goes for practi-
cally all conflicts.

1. There should be a relatively high degree of UN SC unity. That was


certainly not the case during the Darfur crisis between 2003 and
2005, a period of great atrocities that did not lead to any muscular
action by the SC. In fact, the dossier was more or less handed over
to the much-criticized AU force operating there. I defended this
40 JAN ELIASSON

force because they stepped up to the plate: they were there though
they did not have the training and definitely not the finance for it.
Following the waves of atrocities, SC diplomacy started to work
as its members adopted Resolution 1769 in the summer of 2007,
and this represented great progress as it reflected some consensus
among key Council members even if the resolution is not imple-
mented to the degree you would want. Still, the differences among
the permanent members particularly on Darfur were clearly pres-
ent. I can say openly, if you compare the Chinese and US positions,
you can clearly see how difficult it is to get the unity needed. This
resolution authorized a joint, “hybrid” AU-UN peacekeeping force
(UNAMID) to increase from 7,000 to a maximum of 20,000.
Clearly, the degree of unity in the Council will very much decide
the strength of the UN role in resolving a particular conflict.
2. Ensuring cooperation among the neighbors to a conflict. The
Lebanese have experience of living in a rough neighbourhood,
while I come from a region where neighbors are on good terms
and crossing a border is a positive and routine thing. When I was
in the Balkans or in the Horn of Africa, I had sometimes to make
big detours by traveling far up into Europe to cross into an area
that was much closer to the other side. This was also true along
the Chad-Sudan border that was borderlands drawn arbitrarily,
using a ruler straight down, by the colonial powers during the
1885 Berlin conference. The Baggara tribe, which is the more
militant one and plays a key role in the conflict, is strong on both
the Darfur and Chad sides of the border. We disrupted diplomatic
relations between Chad and Sudan during this period, and given
the tribal configurations along the borders, this undermines the
possibility of finding a solution in Darfur.
3. The importance of a unified government. In the case of Sudan, on
the surface they were unified but just below there are high tensions
that go back to the old North-South conflict because the two par-
ties in power today represent both the unified central authority
but also the southern parties in conflict with the North.
4. Unity among the rebel movements themselves. This was difficult
in Sudan. When Salim Salim and I arrived, there were twenty
such groups, but when we had worked for about half a year, they
were eight, and when we left in May last year, they were only five
remaining. Now, to go back to the news report I heard on my way
here, there is an agreement with only one rebel group, the most
militant one, and we will see whether the others will join in.
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 41

The Darfurian movements are all still working on the premise


that Darfur’s rights will be preserved through staying inside Sudan,
both in wealth sharing and power sharing. But the dilemma might
be when we get closer to an agreement is that the 2004 North-South
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is such a backbone of secu-
rity in Sudan and that any Darfur agreement that affects it will be
very difficult to achieve because if the CPA unravels then Sudan is in
very serious trouble. There has already been fighting between units
of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the main South
Sudanese rebel group that signed the CPA, and the government:
There was a city almost erased, 50,000 refugees outside, and hun-
dreds of people killed going on right now. If there were an opinion
poll today, what would the outcome be? There would be a majority
for succession for an independent South Sudan. What South Sudan’s
leader John Garang originally wanted when he signed the CPA was
to have a democratic Sudan where he probably hoped he would be
the president through democratic choice in all regions including in
Darfur. But from the government’s perspective, going in the direc-
tion of a peaceful solution in Darfur will help them in the elections,
but the question is whether the SPLM will not accept it, because
there are two groups inside the party: one which is strongly going for
independence and then the Garang people who are not as strong as
they used to be.
So the sadness and the tragedy of the Darfur situation was that
when these four issues—UN Security Council unity, cooperative
neighbors, and government and rebel movement cohesion—were not
present, a peace settlement wouldn’t work. The structure was so weak
that peace was elusive in Darfur.

The “Who” and “When” in Mediation


In thinking about mediation, the “who” is very important, and
I think not enough attention is given to the choice of mediators.
I would divide them into three main categories:

1. The muscular mediator, and there I would put the role that the
United States should play—and I underline should—in the Israel-
Palestine problem. Unless the United States is involved, it is dif-
ficult to imagine great momentum in any “peace process” during
which they would use their power and influence on both sides and
also afford to be partial in certain situations.
42 JAN ELIASSON

2. The mediators from nations and nationalities with a tradition for


impartiality, adherence to international law, and hopefully also
human rights and some basic values that we all believe in. These
mediators above all should have no national interest in the crisis
at stake. Such mediators include those from my fellow country-
men, Norwegian and Finnish friends, and other nationalities that
often represent the UN or other international organizations such
as the OSCE and Europe Union. In Sweden, we have mediation
traditions in the Middle East going back to the first ever UN
mediator in 1947, Count Folke Bernadotte, who was assassinated
in Palestine; Gunner Jarring as UN Special Envoy charged with
implemented Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-
Israeli War; Olof Palme who mediated the Iran-Iraq War during
the 1980s; Hans Blix who headed the disarmament monitoring
and verification UN team before the 2003 Iraq War; myself;
and others. I could also enumerate equally long numbers of the
Norwegians and Finns: Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace
Prize (2008), and Norway took care of the Middle East “peace
process” dossier during the 1990s although it is a difficult one
to manage.
3. The “Jimmy Carters,” namely the international personality who
does not represent a particular government or an international
organization. This type of mediator is especially useful to have
during civil war-like situations because the government is usu-
ally in a crisis that does not want to accord a rebel or secessionist
movement’s legitimacy that an official international or national
mediator representing a government de facto would do. The con-
clusion to many skeptical governments would make in such cases
is that official mediation would mean that they accept that the
conflict is an international crisis and that the rebel movement has
a case for secession. There are many examples of asking outside
actors and also using Track II diplomacy where there is a role and
opportunity for civil society actors, NGOs, and others to play
a part.

But NGOs also play a crucial function. One of the important aspects
of bringing in such organizations and personalities is that, first, you
would avoid this problem of giving reasons for the government to
refuse to talk, but second, you would also bring in the public opinion
aspect, which I think in today’s conflicts are much more important
than in the past. You have to really make sure that the parties in
conflict do not monopolize the definitions of the problems’ issues.
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 43

I think the civil society actors could be much stronger in bringing out
what is going on, be more open, and affect public opinion. Sometimes
by that, they can damage themselves. As you know in several cases,
you rightly take side with one of the parties for humanitarian reasons
but very often, however, the information comes out. So I do not see a
contradiction between an international organization’s role or govern-
ment’s role and Track II diplomacy; they can in fact play together in
parallel, and I do not mind sometimes to work in parallel with the
track II side. On Darfur, we went to see the women’s group and the
civil society, and to use that quotation mark as a pressure on the par-
ties to bring about the political talks.
When you have a conflict, you need to ask who the best type of
mediator is: the muscular one, the one that is impartial, or someone
who is completely outside? I think there is not enough analysis on the
three categories of mediators that I have discussed here.
The second question is the “when” in mediation. I will use the
Iran-Iraq case to make my first point, namely the importance of reach-
ing an agreement as soon as possible. During the first two years of the
war (1980–1982), the Iraqis had the upper hand and took over lots
of territory in the Khuzestan province that they called Arabistan. The
Iraqis very much felt that they were on the road to military victory.
The situation changed two years later, and the Iranians pushed back
the Iraqis, and so on. To ask for a political settlement or a ceasefire at a
stage when one side felt superior was very difficult; while they believe
there is still a chance for military victory, the other side will feel that
they are being humiliated, that they will be punished by the people
or suffer even worse consequences. By 1982 the situation was pretty
balanced in military terms, but then the Iranians in my view made
the mistake of advancing into Iraq, and eventually, of course, there
was another change in the end. But when we saw the situation was
relatively balanced, both sides equally strong, we sent out an informal
proposal to the parties, Iran and Iraq, but it was rejected. We, or
rather they, missed that opportunity. When I then saw the ceasefire
resolution adopted six years later, I felt very sad, because it was almost
identical to the ideas that we presented in 1982. The difference over
these six years, however, was 700,000 people killed, three million
refugees, and rising sectarian tensions between the Shiites and the
Sunnis in the Arab and Islamic world. Instead of making a deal when
they were relatively strong, Iraq and Iran made a deal when they were
both exhausted and war weary. This shows the importance of trying
to get an agreement as soon as possible; in the best of cases, before
you go to the war.
44 JAN ELIASSON

My second point on the “when” of mediation deals with timing.


Normally I find that both the parties to a conflict and the outside
world react too late. I think the SC does not quite live up to the
responsibility to defend and protect international peace and security.
Its member states should act quickly when there is a threat. What is a
threat? It is before the conflict erupts. Normally the SC works like a
fire brigade: the houses are burning, they get in there to try to limit
the damage, often sending peacekeepers and mediators. But to act
early is very difficult as the debate on the concept “the responsibil-
ity to protect” shows. The problem is to act early means that you
have to tell parties, and governments that something is going to go
very wrong in your country, but that is considered interference. There
should be some type of early warning system in my view to deal with
conflicts early because waiting for the disaster to occur means we pay
an enormous price in terms of human lives, money, and the reputa-
tion of organizations like the UN. We would also save lot of good
nights’ sleep I think if we were to act earlier.
But give me please a recipe of good prevention and how to make
prevention more attractive and rewarded. If there is any journalist
around, you can accept this challenge from me. Can you try to make
sure that you have a headline in the press about good prevention
saying “the disaster did not occur”? I think it would be difficult
to get that headline, although it we really deserves such a headline
when we sometimes succeed. But one can also act too late. As a
sort of technician on mediation, I certainly made mistakes myself
and have also seen others make mistakes. You have to make sure
that you make your arguments, and deal your different negotia-
tion cards, at the right moment. The timing of peace proposals is
extremely important, but we should also analyze this much more.
What is the fall back position and when do you come to that? If you
come out with a fall back position too early, you may ruin the whole
negotiation. Similarly, if you come out with a proposal that is not
well prepared with the parties, and its rejection is revealed to the
public, then you can’t come back to the same wonderful ideas you
may have had.
So any of you who get involved in mediation, think about how
important it is not to choose the wrong time to present your ideas.
You should also decide who else you will get involved and who are the
most important actors who can influence the parties: should they be
informed about what is going on so that they could exert their influ-
ence to reach a settlement?
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 45

The “How” in Mediation: Timing, Cultural


Understanding, Language, and
Personal Relationships
I now come to the “how” question in mediation. I will be a little
more personal here because when I became visiting professor at
Uppsala University last year, I went through my mediation experi-
ences and tried to be systematic about the many times I succeeded
and failed. Leaving aside the question of political will and influence
of outside actors—which I will get to later—I came to the conclusion
that failure or success in mediation falls into four categories. One is
the question of timing that I just discussed. The three others that
I will elaborate on here are: cultural understanding in the wider sense
of the meaning, language and the importance of the word, and per-
sonal relationships. Of course there are other factors that I can blame
on others like the parties to the conflict or the United Nations.

1. Cultural understanding. I think understanding cultural factors


is very important when you are involved in mediation, includ-
ing those aiming at creating internal peace inside a country like
Lebanon. Such understanding has to do with creating the basis
for trust. If you come, like I do, from a region near the Arctic
Circle, with very little experience and without learning about the
relevant cultural factors, the religion, history, and traditions, it
means that you come to negotiation situations cold. You will not
be taken seriously if you do not dig deeper. If you think that you
can achieve results simply by analyzing and making rational argu-
ments, you would be wrong.

Cultural understanding is not only important to achieve results


and to be successful in mediating, but, to put it very simply, you have
fun because you gain a much richer experience in the environment in
which you live. Visiting the church, synagogue, or mosque or inquir-
ing about the patterns of the embroidery makes your life very interest-
ing. I drove my budget and the Foreign Ministry crazy because when
I went out on my missions, I always added four or five days to the
trip: the budget man would say, “You’re crazy! You don’t know how
much the Rotana Hotel costs in Khartoum or wherever!” I would
say, “I would rather do that so they are taken seriously than having
them back in two months having sold out all their good arguments
and best proposals. No, let them stay! They should go there, get to
46 JAN ELIASSON

know the culture, have lunch, talk to people and warm up.” I think
we Arctics need to do more of that.
Also I can give you a pretty funny example. In 1988, I was negoti-
ating the implementation of Resolution 598, which finally ended the
Iraq-Iran fighting after eight years and was supposed to have started
a peace agreement between the countries. I was shuttling between
Tehran and Baghdad for the whole of 1989 and 1990 to get the dif-
ferent elements of that resolution through and stabilize the peace
between Iran and Iraq. Both sides were very tenacious, very persis-
tent, but I think the Iranians take the prize: they are extremely skilled
negotiators. I spent a lot of time on one particular point in the resolu-
tion, which I thought was an interesting and positive point, namely,
paragraph eight, which dealt with regional stability and an arrange-
ment for regional security. But they remained very suspicious and did
not accept my views.
For me, it was a pretty innocent thing, something that could bring
the negotiation forward. For once, I began to lose my patience and
felt very tired after the third day of hearing the same thing, so I used
a word that I shouldn’t have used. I was negotiating in English,
and I said “let us break up,” meaning “let us have a break for me to
go to the hotel, drink coffee, or sleep for a while” and come back
at 7:00 p.m. But evidently that translated into Farsi as, “It is over.
I don’t want to see you. I will go to the airport. It is over and no more
negotiation.” This caused a very strange atmosphere, and the head of
the Iranian negotiation delegation looked at me and said, correctly,
“Listen, this is a very important issue; it is a matter of national secu-
rity for us.” I felt very guilty and thought this is the end of my diplo-
matic career. Then he really twisted the knife in me, saying, “And, by
the way, what do you want to do instead of negotiating?” He really
put me on the spot.
But since I felt that my diplomatic career was over, I leaned back
and said to myself: “What is it that I really want to do?,” and then
I thought for about 20 seconds and said to him, “Well, I will tell
you what I really want to do. I have now been to Tehran 25 times if
I include the times I have been here with Prime Minister Palmer in
the early 1980s. I have never left these rooms except for one trip we
made to the Esfahan, which is a great place by the way. Apart from
that I have been sitting with you here, and you are very good nego-
tiators, but you take a lot of time to convince. What I really want to
do is something I have heard about for so long but I’ve never been
able to do, and that is I would like to go to see your carpet museum.”
So they looked at me and said this guy is crazy; that is what my
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 47

interpreter said. But then, luckily one of the guys on the Iranian
side who was from Tabriz said, “If he wants to go to the museum,
I can show him the Tabriz room.” Then there was another one from
Esfahan, I think, and he said, “Listen, we have an Esfahan room,
I will go along too.”
In the end, I went to the museum with three different guides
from the Iranian delegation and spent three wonderful hours at this
fantastic museum, a beauty, which you should visit if you go to Iran.
They explained the patterns and colors and how long they have had
this tradition. They talked about their grandmothers and grandfa-
thers who worked there as child laborers, at nine or ten years old,
but they were very proud of this carpet tradition. I am a curious
person and asked many questions. In the end, they almost inun-
dated me with explanations, and, in the car going back, they were
like children talking to me in a wonderful, warm way. When I came
back to the Foreign Ministry, the head of delegation and others sit-
ting there said, “Here is our friend.” It was a completely different
atmosphere, and I didn’t realize what had happened: I had simply
pushed the cultural understanding button. They thought what this
UN guy from the Arctic Circle really wants to do, is to see what our
grandparents did. And I didn’t know it; there was no manipulation
or intention on my part, but I just give you the example of how
important it is that you really try to get into that cultural under-
standing. That evening, we had fun, and we made progress on the
discussions. They had very great ambitions to play a role for regional
security; and they really wanted to come out of the isolation that
I saw during the Iran-Iraq War. Ultimately, it failed because the
whole process was ended by the Iraqi invasion into Kuwait, and it
took some time to open up again.

2. The language. I think we should really try to revive the importance


of words, and thus the importance of political solutions. There
is a beautiful heading in the UN Charter’s chapter six, which is
the best chapter in the book. We need the coercive language of
chapter seven also—you need to have muscles—but chapter six
is my job, it’s my trade, it’s Christmas Eve for a Swedish diplo-
mat. The chapter heading reads, “Pacific Settlement to Disputes.”
Isn’t that beautiful? Not even “peaceful,” but “pacific” settlement
of disputes. Its core is Article 33, which I will read out to you
what we should do, and what we are not doing: “[T]he parties
to any dispute . . . shall, first of all, seek a solution by”—count
on your fingers—“negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation,
48 JAN ELIASSON

arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or


arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.” How
much of these do we actually do? We rush into so-called military
solutions. Peaceful settlement of conflicts is diplomacy. This is the
word. We need to do much more on this.

I saw a recent report in the Herald Tribune that claimed that the
US Armed Forces employ more people in military bands and orches-
tras than there are American diplomats. In that case, it says a lot
about chapter six of the UN Charter, about the way to convince, the
need to communicate and even talk to Iranians. I would say that there
must be a diplomatic solution to the nuclear situation in Iran because
the scenario with the military is to me a disastrous way, and I do
not think we can even comprehend the effects of a so-called military
solution on that issue. I think there is a tremendous burden both on
the Iranians, and the European powers, together with the United
States. I hope there is a good cooperation. I would also bring in the
Russians, I think Russia could be a very important actor also. This
I think should be the number one diplomatic priority now to get that
dialogue going. I think there is a solution.
The written word and the spoken word will be your most powerful
ways of influencing others, and I think you should consider words
like tools, like craftsmen having a good toolbox. The words are your
tool, and correct words enable you to end a negotiation quickly in
English, French, Arabic, or whatever language you may know, also
quickly reword, come up with a couple of synonyms, change the sen-
tence or order of things of the way you describe the issue, and then
find a solution. These words are also your tools to break up a difficult
mediation situation. I gave an example of this earlier when I discussed
humanitarian diplomacy: how changing the words from local “cease-
fire” to “humanitarian corridors” in fact saved lives. As a mediator, if
you do not have those correct words you are stuck.

3. Personal relations. I probably wouldn’t have said this ten or fif-


teen years ago, but the extent to which you come to trust in, even
sympathize with, the people that you negotiate with is absolutely
crucial. That sometimes can be difficult if you look at the human
rights records of some of the people you are negotiating with.
But there has to be an element of trust and that means that you
yourself have to dare to be personal. For instance, I often brought
into my mediations examples from discussions I have had with
displaced people in refugee camps: what this woman said, what
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 49

these children from an orphanage hanging around you looked


like. You describe that to the negotiation leaders and give them
the sense that, yes, let us care also about your people. Let them
feel a little bit of the burden that they should not only fight for
power among themselves but also think about the future of their
own people. As a mediator, this personal investment that you do
in something is extremely important. In the end, when you are
in difficult conflicts, you are sitting in front of someone who is
extremely scared, and they are making a concession, making a
move, and accepting a compromise; this is extremely difficult and
very risky politically, even in some cases physically. So, for them
then to give in and accept the peace process requires a sense of
trust and even sympathy.

Concluding Thoughts
In general, in mediation, you need both carrots and sticks, and you
need to distribute them fairly. Sometimes even if I feel that I could
close a deal and find a solution, but it is done on the conditions of the
stronger party, I say to myself: this is not a healthy deal; I wish I could
help that weaker party because otherwise this will explode again in a
year or two or three, or four, five years. In Sudan, I recall, we offered
training courses for the rebel movements on wealth sharing, power
sharing, and security so that they would be better prepared when
they sat down with the government. It was a way of very gently trying
to make sure that they had at least the same database and the same
language so that they could help in achieving a better result. But that
is a very touchy thing for negotiators to get involved in, the desire to
want to help the weaker party.
My life as a mediator is very much carrots on the surface. But I do
not mind saying to the parties in Darfur or Iran-Iraq, for example,
that when they are making impossible demands and making life mis-
erable for me, I will report this to the UN Secretary-General and
the SC, or sometimes even worse for them, I will expose this in my
next press conference. It probably depends on where they feel the fear
factor is strongest. The Aesop fables are great about the competition
between the wind and the sun on how to get a man to take his coat
off. The wind blows and the man just keeps the coat closer to the
body, and then comes the sun, which shines so much that the person
takes the coat off entirely without directly influencing him. I am a
friend of the sun message, but I must admit that it did not quite work
50 JAN ELIASSON

on the Burmese generals or on Saddam Hussein and a few others.


I think very often, the UN representative is the carrot representative,
but I do not mind having some sticks around. There is one use of the
force that I think is a good one and that is the credible threat of the
use of force. If there is a credible threat to the use of force, that’s good
and that presupposes unity inside the SC.
Sometimes it is difficult to balance seeking political solutions
and ensuring criminal accountability. Sweden was behind the
International Criminal Court (ICC), and the majority of the world
finds it important to deal with war crimes and crimes against human-
ity and other atrocities also during a conflict and not leave it to be
discussed after the conflict. The Nuremburg principles were guiding
very much the issues of accountability and responsibility in the past.
So basically, the ICC role is very important and I commend it, but
I would not be honest with you if I would not say that sometimes
this can be difficult. For instance in the Uganda situation, you have
the leader of the LR A, Kony, evading and signing on to the agree-
ment the others have been negotiating, and the reason evidently
being that he is up for ICC processes. In the case of Sudan, if you
allow the expression, “The jury’s out.” There were many who feared
that there would be an immediate effect on the situation for the UN
staff and personnel, and even the whole peacekeeping operation. But
I would say that there were also very many signs that there were
attempts from the Bashir government to get closer to a political pro-
cess. Bashir went to Darfur, he wanted to have more contacts, and
I think our successor had an easier dialogue than Salem Salem and
I had. I do not know now what is the latest; whether the judges of
the panel have decided, and I have not seen that yet come out. So, we
will see if they will also determine whether he should be charged for
war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide as the head of the
ICC, Luis Ocampo, wants. I think the reason why this process has
lasted so long is the difficulty of defining genocide, because you have
to prove intention. So we will see; it is very interesting, but I hope it
is not a negative factor. It would be rather sad too if this good thing
about ending impunity and bringing responsibility did not material-
ize, but it is difficult to combine it with the political process. It is a
dilemma that is really hard to analyze and draw conclusions from.
Both things are equally important so to speak.
Of course, in the end you have the factor of political will: the par-
ties to a conflict have to have a minimum of political will. A media-
tor is like a person who brings the horses to the water hole, a very
difficult task, but once they are there you cannot force the horses to
P E A C E M A K I N G U N D E R T H E U N I T E D N AT I O N S 51

drink. There are those who blame mediators for not having a polit-
ical solution, but it is the parties to the conflict that mainly have
that responsibility, and one should not let them get away when they
escape, blame, and return to the mediator. It is they who have in the
end to make the crucial moves. Very often you go into a negotiation
and find that, in fact, there is little to no political will to move on, and
that is a very frustrating part of a mediator’s work.
There is also a very legitimate concern about the absurd division
of resources to war making and peacemaking. I was making the case
earlier of budgets for military bands versus diplomats in the United
States. But I think it can also be said that generally the US defense
budget is $420 billion, while the Afghanistan and Iraq budgetscol-
lectively, come up to $580 billion. It is an incredible and absurd sum
if you understand what is needed in this world in fighting poverty,
ensuring clean water, and getting diseases under control. Also, what
is scary about the arms trade is that so much of it is illegal. Sweden has
an arms industry going back to our policy on neutrality and defending
our country, but there are very strict restrictions about where weap-
ons go. But the illegal arms traders certainly do not have those inhi-
bitions and restrictions, and I would think that somewhere between
$150–200 billion of arms are sold around the world, which in turn
feeds the criminal syndicates that certainly are not with black shirts
and yellow ties and shaded glasses. If you add to that the $200–300
billion in the turnover in narcotics and $100 billion on prostitution,
with 1.2 million children and women sold as merchandise around the
world, and see where that money is in the international system and its
relationship to undermining public sectors in societies, then you see
how scary the developments are.
My very last point is that for the future, I think that mediation
should not be seen in the limited sense that I have described in this
chapter. You should also make sure that you have a number of factors
that contribute to lasting solutions and deal with the long-term effects.
This means, in my view, that you have to try to integrate the efforts
of peace and security with those of development, achieving human
rights, and I would add good governance. When I was president of UN
General Assembly, I worked very closely with then Secretary-General
Kofi Annan to advance these goals. During the 2005 World Summit
meeting held to discuss the SG’s seminal “In Larger Freedom” report,
I recall a key sentence in the beginning of this document that I think
summarizes what I mean on this point: we will not enjoy develop-
ment without security or peace, but there is no security or peace with-
out development, and none of this unless you have respect of human
52 JAN ELIASSON

rights. This is, in fact, the core agenda for the United Nations, but it
should also be the framework in which you must see the possibility of
having a lasting settlement, lasting solutions.
All these core issues—development, peace, and human rights—are
interconnected, and the absence of any of them—such as in Darfur—
makes the conflict so difficult to solve. If the continued conflict
undermines development and poverty seems almost to be structural,
then you have the reasons for conflicts to some degree. And of course
if you have a lack of human rights, you don’t have a really sound soci-
ety where you can have good debate and have dialogue without any
inhibitions and create the best possible solutions. To this I would add
good governance, where you need to have governments that accept
responsibility for the welfare of their people. There are so many risks
now, particularly with the financial economic crisis and the resulting
boom in unemployment, that governments will not be able to deliver
for good reasons. But if there are also failures of management, cor-
ruption, or even criminal syndicates influencing governments, then
you may have many more explosions around the world, and therefore
good governance is also an important factor in making sure that you
have lasting solutions.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on February
17, 2009, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 3

Lessons Learned from a Quarter


Century of Peacemaking

Álvaro de Soto1

I n our line of work as peacemakers, the success rate is measured not


in the numbers of issues that are in conflict or actually solved: You
sometimes get kudos at the end of the road just for trying. Of course,
part of the work of a peacemaker involves knowing whether or when
to blame the parties to the conflict who are ultimately responsible
for solving the problem. An important lesson that one can draw very
quickly is that not all conflicts lend themselves to mediation or third-
party intervention; many times the parties to a conflict or dispute
can, and should, sort out things among themselves, which is the ideal
scenario, if they can do it. However, third-party mediation in broader
terms, often represented by the United Nations (UN), is usually
required when the degree of suspicion, and mistrust is very high.
From my experience, and cynical as this may sound, I have found
that wartime negotiations have a lot of advantages over those held
during peace. El Salvador, where I led the negotiations on behalf of
the UN to end the civil war, is a good example of this. As long as
the bullets are being fired and people are being killed, particularly
when you have egregious acts of violence, you can get the attention
of the 15 members of the UN Security Council, 16 if you include
CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, and other major news broadcast-
ers. Public opinion plays an important role in mobilizing negotiation
efforts and drawing attention to a conflict. It is more difficult to get
the attention of the international community to solve a peacetime dis-
pute such as that in Cyprus, where it is possible to manage it. I think
it is worthwhile for serious scholars of conflict resolution to further
study this comparison of the dynamics between wartime negotiations
and peacetime negotiations.
54 Á LVA R O D E S O T O

The Impartiality Rule in Peacemaking


I hope soon to take time to reflect more systematically, and scientifi-
cally, on my UN experiences. So here I am only beginning to draw
lessons that I hope will be better rounded and more nuanced later.
There are certain basic rules that are applicable to almost any media-
tor or peacemaker. The most important of these rules is impartiality,
and the need for acceptance by the parties, not just of the concept of
third-party involvement but also of the specific individual organiza-
tion, institution, or person that is carrying out that exercise.
Of course, like any rule worthy of its name, there are exceptions
to the impartiality rule in mediation. I can immediately point to the
ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where you have a phenomenon
of Israel preferring to deal directly, face-to-face, with the weaker side,
the Palestinians, when they deal with them at all. But Israel will tol-
erate one particular mediator, the United States, for a reason well
known to us all, namely the very close links between these two coun-
tries. Israel will be comfortable that it will not be sold down the river
by the United States but rather will get the support that a strong ally
provides to another. The Palestinians are perfectly well aware that
the United States has some bias against them, but they accept the
United States, and even now still encourage their involvement out of
the conviction that if any third party can ever deliver Israel, it has to
be the Americans.
But Palestine not withstanding, impartiality—the acceptance of
the institution and the person that is conducting the mediation—is
critical. We needed this when I was the special coordinator for the
Middle East peace process, even though I do not think that it can
be said that in any way, shape, or form the United Nations was actu-
ally a mediator. During my role in El Salvador and in Cyprus, the
United Nations was clearly in the lead of the negotiations, and this
was accepted by all; there were mandates from the Security Council,
explicit or implicit. In the Middle East that is not the case at all; the
United Nations does not play such a role, it plays more of a peripheral
shepherding role, which has been sustained in the past few years by
the Quartet.

The UN and its Secretary-General as Default


Global Peacemakers
The United Nations Secretary-General, in the last few years, has
come to be seen as the world’s default peacemaker. The world’s chief
A Q UA R T E R C E N T U R Y O F P E A C E M A K I N G 55

diplomat, through his direct involvement and/or through his envoy,


seems to be involved in trying to solve a number of disputes in various
parts of the world. But if you actually backtrack only a few years, you
will come to realize the United Nations essentially did not do this
kind of thing until recently, and that what we are seeing represents
a revival in UN peacemaking. In fact, if you look at the UN’s first
40 years, you will find only one case where it actually played a role in
directly brokering an armistice to a conflict: Ralph Bunche’s media-
tion on Rhodes to end the first Arab-Israeli War through a formula
of shuttling between the parties. The armistice ended the 1948 Arab-
Israeli War and led to setting up one of the UN’s oldest observation
missions under the broad category of peacemaking/peacekeeping:
UNTSO, headquartered in Jerusalem.
The Cold War, however, basically froze any potential capacity of the
Secretary-General to carry out peacemaking activities, and for decades
very little activity in this realm occurred. There were some episodes
where miracles seemingly were performed. Dag Hammarskjöld, for
instance, flew to China in 1955 to negotiate the release of a num-
ber of US pilots who had been captured during the Korean War. He
took that personal initiative at a time when the Beijing government
was not recognized by much of the West, and Taiwan was holding
the Chinese seat as a permanent member of the Security Council.
Hammarskjöld also took personal initiatives during the Congo crisis
that ultimately claimed his life. But other than that, the UN played
no significant role for the obvious reasons, including outright com-
petition between major powers in Africa. One manifestation of this
external competition was to prop up individual African leaders as part
of an effort to gain or maintain primacy in competition over spheres
of influence. Strong men remained in power for long periods of time
during which, by and large, stability was maintained and no one chal-
lenged the arbitrary colonial divisions across ethnic and tribal lines.
Ethnic problems in the Soviet Union, including Yugoslavia, were kept
below the surface in part by the same Cold War dynamic.
The end of the Cold War was celebrated by all of us. Everyone was
relieved that the threat of our collective death as a result of a nuclear
war between two superpowers receded. But it has not been without
its drawbacks. The breakup of the Soviet Union, and of Yugoslavia,
involved the violent resurgence of many conflicts, which had been
previously hidden under the carpet by the superpowers. The UN
found itself drawn into a series of situations that it was at pains to
handle, bringing a certain nostalgia for the relative stability and pre-
dictability of the Cold War.
56 Á LVA R O D E S O T O

During the past quarter century, I worked with three Secretaries


General: almost intimately with one (Pérez de Cuéllar), closely for
a few years with another (Boutros Ghali), and hand in glove with a
third on specific issues (Kofi Annan). You can see certain historical
moments that were identified with each one of them. Javier Pérez
de Cuéllar was handling the period of transition into the post-Cold
War. He began his UN stewardship in 1982, and ended it in 1991
having played an important role in brokering the removal of Soviet
troops from Afghanistan and the ending of the Iran-Iraq war and
playing a key part in the United States’ back yard, helping to solve the
Central American set of crises starting with Nicaragua and eventu-
ally with Guatemala. The peace accord, which ended the 12-year war
in El Salvador, the UN’s first mediation of an internal conflict, was
initialed at midnight of Pérez de Cuéllar’s final day in office.
One month later, with a new Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros
Ghali of Egypt, in place, the Security Council met for the first time
at the heads of government level and, in an atmosphere bordering on
hubris, asked him to make recommendations on how to strengthen
the capacity of the UN in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and
peacekeeping.

The Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Innovation and


Its Challenges
The result was Boutros Ghali’s ambitious yet realistic, 1992 “Agenda
for Peace” report that had considerable impact at the time. In this
report, the SG added a very important concept that was at least in
part inspired by the El Salvador success story: “Post-conflict peace-
building.”
We all know what peacemaking is, what preventative action/
diplomacy is, and what the traditional peacekeeping is. We are all
accustomed to the “blue helmets,” including, of course, in Lebanon.
But what is post-conflict peace-building? It refers to the aftermath of
wars and the ethos that has developed since the early 1990s to the
effect that it should be part of the SG’s duty (or that of his envoy who
is handling the dispute for him) to ensure not just that guns are silent,
or a patchwork agreement will be reached but rather to make sure
that it will be durable, pass the test of time, and last. To do this, one
must analyze what led to the conflict and make sure that in the future
such problems can be tackled without violence such that the proper
institutional framework to deal with them is put in place.
A Q UA R T E R C E N T U R Y O F P E A C E M A K I N G 57

From my experience in El Salvador, for instance, I can think of


three challenges or problems we faced when thinking about peace-
building. The first problem was the exclusionary policy whereby
certain sectors of society were essentially either repressed or refused
representation through an institutional framework. An enormous
role was played by the armed forces who saw themselves as the
ultimate arbiter of political life, and there was no real framework in
order to ensure respect for human rights. Those were the things that
need to be addressed, which we did successfully in a rather compre-
hensive form. New institutions were created, such as the national
civilian police, while other institutions were profoundly reformed,
such as the armed forces. The traditional system was also reformed,
as well as the electoral system, in order to broaden and open it
up. Today, it is possible to see in the parliament former negotia-
tors from the guerrillas who had gained power through the use of
force, and in fact they have almost a majority within the parliament.
There is a rational and civilized discourse between them and the
opposing political party that actually controls the executive branch.
So this is the philosophy of post-conflict situations: Ensuring that
the guns remain silent, that the conflict will not recur, and hop-
ing that the process can also evolve toward intensified activities of
cooperation.
The second problem posed during peacebuilding revolves around
dealing with the past. Winston Churchill used to say that the prob-
lem with the Balkans is that there is “too much history and too little
geography.” This is a profound observation, since it is also applicable
certainly to Cyprus and definitely to the Middle East: Too much
history and too little geography. Sometimes in the past, generally
speaking, serious misdeeds have occurred frequently on all sides.
What do you do in such cases? Just turn the page and move on,
and is it possible to do so? Can a peaceful solution to a conflict be
achieved if it does not address these problems of the past? Those are
questions, which I would like to reflect on further. My sense is that
one has to provide some sort of outlet, and at the minimum, there
should be some sort of agreed upon or tolerated mechanism or pro-
cess, to have all sides accept an official version of what actually hap-
pened. Whether we proceed to attributing responsibility to a certain
person or party, or whether we have to judge these things, is another
matter. I think this must be decided on a case-by-case basis. The case
that is most often quoted is that of South Africa and its truth and
reconciliation commission, which included public truth telling that
58 Á LVA R O D E S O T O

got people to actually confess publicly to what they had done. Will
it work in other cases? I am not sure; each case has to be tailored to
its particular needs.
A third problem that arises, particularly for envoys, is the ques-
tion of peace versus human rights violations during a conflict, and
also the violations of the laws of war. This is very difficult one. The
inclination of most people who are involved in such “trade-offs”
which I have been involved in for a few decades now is to say that
peace is an overriding goal that supersedes any other. The only thing
that is important, and should have the highest priority, is to stop the
fighting which itself is seen as the main cause of human rights viola-
tions. But for the UN Secretary-General, this is more complicated,
because he is the personification of the UN and has a responsibility to
uphold all international principles. Strictly speaking, the same is true
for any government that is involved in negotiations, because they are
all bound by the UN Charter, the framework of human rights and
humanitarian law. In the case of the SG, however, obligations are
even higher.
Therefore, we deliberated internally on this matter for some time
during the mid-1990s, and the SG issued guidelines to all UN envoys
under which the UN cannot be associated with deals, either open or
backroom, that provide a shield to war crimes, crimes against human-
ity, or genocide. In these cases, in effect, we have to walk away. The
moment of issuing the threat of walking away is left to the discre-
tion of the particular envoy to deal with at the time of his or her
choosing.
The credibility of the SG is among his comparative advantages, as
is the convening power he enjoys within the United Nations system:
he can actually convene in order to influence the kind of assistance
that is required not only for implementation of agreements but also to
ensure the aim that the implementation is adhered to.
The peace did not solve every problem that the people of El
Salvador faced, such as grinding poverty, persistent injustice, and
the unequal distribution of wealth. Certainly not, but the United
Nations helped them agree on a framework within which those goals
could be brought about, without having to resort to death squads
or bombs. How you measure success is a very difficult question to
answer. I believe in most cases you can reconcile between having
peace and justice. But if you do not have at least a framework, if not
specific provisions, to ensure justice as part of a peace agreement,
then the chances of renewability and sustainability of that peace
agreement may diminish.
A Q UA R T E R C E N T U R Y O F P E A C E M A K I N G 59

The UN Secretary-General and the


Independence of Peacemakers
For the United Nations, it is always difficult to become involved in
internal conflict, in particular when it involves negotiations between
a government and nonstate actors. I can tell you based on experience
these situations are very delicate. We have dozens of rules regard-
ing international conflict, but the first one is the most obvious: that
the UN, as any other mediator, has to be accepted by the parties
concerned as a mediator or a third party; that is a good officer. This
implies that the government of the state concerned has to agree to the
UN presence; that is number one. There are, after all, pitfalls involved
in accepting the UN role, such as for example the political legitimiza-
tion of an insurgent group. But the Secretary-General, as any media-
tor, should be perfectly impartial. Indeed, he would be wise to go to
the Security Council to get some sort of blessing to intervene, or at
least inform them of what he is doing, so that they do not object.
However, the flip side of this impartiality coin is the nonsuscepti-
bility of third-party peacemakers to external influence. The question
of a mediator’s independence is very important, and certainly it has
to apply to the UN Secretary-General. I think this is fundamental for
the SG and his envoys. Under Article 100 of the UN Charter, there is
an injunction on the SG and his staff to not “seek or receive instruc-
tions from any government or any other authority external to the
Organization.” But there is also an obligation on member states “to
respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of
the Secretary-General and the staff and not to seek to influence them
in the discharge of their responsibilities.”
There is also the Charter’s more famous Article 99, which allows
the SG to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter
that he believes may threaten international peace and security. This
is indeed a very important article, not because of the formal act of
bringing a matter to the attention of the Security Council (which
is not frequently done, because the council already has on its menu
most issues imaginable), but more because it implies that he has to
have the necessary resources and ability to form an opinion on whether
something may threaten international peace and security.
However, I think that Article 100 is actually more important than
Article 99 in many ways because it provides legal protection for the
SG and his staff against receiving instructions from, or straying in
the direction of, one state or another. There is also a very practical
reason. These days, in particular, every one can see whether the SG
60 Á LVA R O D E S O T O

or his envoy is tilting to one side of a conflict or another. Such third-


party interventions are all transparent and available for all to see. But
this is not something entirely new. In late 1989, for example, we were
approached in parallel by both the government of El Salvador and the
insurrectionist movement, the FMLN, about the possibility of the
UN playing a third-party role. At that point and all other mediators
or would-be mediators had either stood aside or had fallen by the
wayside. The FMLN asked me some very prying and detailed ques-
tions about the Secretary-General’s handling of the initial stages of
the UN mediation process that eventually lead to the independence
of Namibia. So you have here an insurrectionist movement in a small
country in Central America actually inquiring how the SG behaves
in the handling of a dispute in a place that is very far away (before
the Internet and Google). For what purpose? In order to ensure that
the SG was actually impartial and could hold out against external
pressure, when they were about to go into a negotiation with a gov-
ernment whose army was equipped, trained, and financed by a per-
manent member of the Security Council.

The UN, Peacemaking, and the Question of Palestine


More negatively for the UN as an independent peacemaker, people will
be asking questions about the attitude of the international community
regarding the internationally certified victory of Hamas in the January
2006 Palestinian legislative elections, and the overall governance of
the Palestinian Authority. The Middle East Quartet, composed of the
United States, the UN, Russia and the EU, created in 2002 with
the presentation of a Road Map for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations,
backed the strategy of PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority presi-
dent, to co-opt Hamas into the system by inviting them to partici-
pate in the elections. They mistakenly thought that Fatah would win,
but Hamas roundly defeated them. The Quartet, led by the United
States, immediately laid down stringent conditions—recognition of
Israel, end of violence, acceptance of all previous Israeli-Palestinian
agreements—pending agreement to which assistance to the Palestinian
Authority would be withheld. Given the movement in the right direc-
tion that Hamas had been making, I thought this was a counterpro-
ductive approach. It put me in a difficult position because I was then
the UNSG’s Envoy to the Quartet and also his representative to the
Palestinian Authority, meant to be the embryo of a future Palestinian
State. Under the cover of the Quartet position, Israel withheld clear-
ance taxes collected from Palestinian importers and exporters under
A Q UA R T E R C E N T U R Y O F P E A C E M A K I N G 61

the Oslo Accords and effectively blockaded the Gaza Strip by land,
sea, and air. One of the first casualties were the salaries of Palestinian
doctors, nurses, and teachers.
The Quartet position put the UN in an awkward spot as coordina-
tor of assistance to the Palestinians. The humanitarian agencies, the
main one by far being UNRWA, found themselves having to shift
from institutional support in preparation of statehood and develop-
ment assistance to humanitarian assistance and found themselves
striving to alleviate the damage wrought to the Palestinians as a result
of policies with which the UNSG was associated by virtue of his asso-
ciation with the Quartet.
The question of whether and how to deal with organizations that
find themselves on “terrorist” lists has become particularly fraught
in light of the reaction to the events of 9/11. The United Nations
has traditionally talked to everybody as a practical matter. We need
to be inclusive and gather around the same table all those who need
to agree to the solution of a particular conflict if we wish to solve
it. But since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States,
particularly, dealing with such groups has risked putting those
who do so in a difficult situation. This boycott may seem to con-
stitute a punishment but is in fact self-defeating and misguided. It
has complicated the UN’s task in trying to be a helpful part of the
Quartet, and because of its inherited responsibility in the question of
Palestine, it brings about some sort of a solution. However, how can
you bring about such a solution if you are not dealing with all par-
ties or meeting personally with them? Despite my title at the time—
Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestinian
Authority—I was prevented from meeting with important members
of the new government because the Quartet allegedly did not allow
it. This lack of independence in such a situation is a problem, and a
serious drawback for peacemakers.
You can argue that if you exclude a group that represents a large
bulk of the population that is involved in a conflict, any agreement
that is reached would be short lived. In the case of Hamas, I believe
that an opportunity was missed. I do not know really what Hamas is
pursuing, and I take no comfort from looking at their covenant. But
I note that in Hamas’ campaign leading up to the 2006 elections,
nobody mentioned the covenant except their domestic opponents,
and they had a different campaign platform. I note also that shortly
after his election to the Palestinian Authority presidency, the rival
leader from the Fatah political party, Mahmoud Abbas, reached an
agreement with the main political factions, including Hamas, which
62 Á LVA R O D E S O T O

encompasses several elements already agreed to prior to the parlia-


mentary elections. These included Hamas’ agreement to participate
in a national unity government, and a statement that there would con-
tinue to be a hudna (a pause in military action and resistance against
Israel) that it had wisely respected in the months before the election.
It is under these circumstances, and armed with support from the
Quartet, that Hamas participated in the elections.
I saw that these concessions were at least signs that they were mov-
ing in a direction in which it would be possible to deal with them and
to actually forge some sort of agreement with Israel that might have
to be done in stages, starting with a mutual cease-fire. So perhaps we
all missed an opportunity that at some point we should have found
a way to pursue. I believe the UN could have played a useful role in
any negotiations that involved Hamas and the other main parties, and
certainly there was no legal objection to doing so, since they were
elected democratically to the Legislative Assembly and the Palestinian
Authority. Important elements of the international community took a
different track, and they may have missed an opportunity there. I do
not know whether it is reversible or not.

Concluding Thoughts
The United Nations is a creation of people, and therefore surely per-
fectible. Many people criticize the UN—such as certain built-in fea-
tures and biased members of the Security Council—but ultimately
it is still better than not having the UN at all. As former Secretary-
General Kofi Annan once said, there are simply certain fields in
which it is very difficult for the UN to play a constructive role if
there is no consensus among the member states. The theory from the
start was that beyond the actual signing and entry into force of the
UN Charter, the founding members of the Security Council, both
permanent and nonpermanent, would all cooperate to make sure that
things do not get out of hand so as to maintain international peace
and security.
Collegiality among the P5 soon collapsed. If you look closely at the
Charter it says that the membership assumes that the Security Council
is acting on behalf of all the member states and the organization as
a whole. This strikes me as the neglected article of the Charter: that
members of the Security Council, whether permanent or nonperma-
nent, should not be acting solely to promote their national interests.
They should be able to rise above national interests. Is that Utopia?
Possibly, but we have to try to recover that spirit and see the members
A Q UA R T E R C E N T U R Y O F P E A C E M A K I N G 63

of the Security Council try to rise above narrow national aims and
discharges its responsibility, making it a more flexible body in order
to bring about the desired international consensus called for by the
UN Charter as it began.
Having said that, in my view, it is the UN Secretary-General in
particular who has the responsibility to uphold certain standards,
such as impartiality and independence, that must be met by all media-
tors and peacemakers. There are some specific standards and duties
that individual mediators, governments (the “Norways” and the
“Switzerlands” of this world), and even, for me, some NGOs involved
in mediation (such as this Community of Sant’Egidio that helped
broker the Mozambique peace accords, and Humanitarian Dialogue)
must have. But the SG shoulders most of the main burden.
I also believe that it is particularly important for the SG to follow,
and to stand by, what has been achieved by his predecessors. If you
look carefully at the UN Charter or its bylaws, you will find that it
does not state anywhere that the SG in fact has a default role as the
world’s chief diplomat. In fact, while the SG does not actually have
such a specified role, it is a very valuable activity because the SG
has an obvious comparative advantage that does not last indefinitely.
I do not think it is desirable that the international community should
be deprived of a potentially very important tool in the peacemaking
toolbox.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on October
22, 2007, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 4

Crossroads of Crisis: Yarmouk,


Syria, and the Predicament of
the Palestinian Refugees

Filippo Grandi1

I n February 2014, I visited the Yarmouk District in Damascus,


which is largely populated by Palestinians. I met the Palestinian refu-
gee Um Ahmed at a food distribution center. She and others were
receiving food parcels from UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) after months
of extreme deprivation in the midst of the Syrian War. She was asking
questions: “I am a Palestinian refugee,” she said. “What is our fate?”
she demanded, and then added: “What are we supposed to do, where
are we supposed to go? What is the solution for us Palestinians?”
These are simple, straightforward questions that may be asked by
anyone who has been living in a devastating conflict for three years
and has seen her home and community destroyed. You can dismiss
them as generic, trivial, irrelevant—the kind of questions that disap-
pear once urgent needs are met. However, we must look at what she is
really saying, really asking. Hers are indeed questions of a woman, of
a mother, of a wife in distress. But they are also questions about the
safety, rights, livelihood, and future prospects of a dispersed popula-
tion that is increasingly losing its political and existential bearings;
about the destiny of a people whose predicament has been central to
the recent history of this region; and, without wishing to overstate her
case, about the manner in which the current plight of Palestinians in
Syria, at the crossroads between the prolonged predicament of their
exile and the recent, unfolding tragedy of the Syrian War, risks affect-
ing the region as a whole.
The drama of Yarmouk and Um Ahmed’s words resonate in my
head as holding some very critical questions that must be asked of us
66 FILIPPO GRANDI

as the international community, of us as the United Nations, of us as


policymakers, journalists, activists, and of us as human beings. And
for that we must be held to account.
This is one of the last public talks in my tenure as Commissioner-
General of UNRWA, and I am very honored to be part of this
Distinguished Peacemakers Lecture Series. I am a humanitarian
worker, who, it is true (with the passage of time) has been exposed to
many different challenges, in war and in peace, but basically a practi-
tioner in the field of helping those in most distress. But I value being
part of a series of “peacemaker” lecturers, as I strongly believe that
helping people in distress does contribute to the efforts of those who
pursue peace in more established ways, through politics, and in the
institutions. I am also very happy to be able to speak here, once again,
at this great university, and especially as a guest of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, because your
cooperation with UNRWA, particularly in recent years, has been of
huge value to us.
My thoughts this evening are the result of much reflection by my
UNRWA colleagues and myself, and I would like them to be spelled
out with precision and in a manner that will last. And I wish to dedi-
cate this speech to the memory of the 12 UNRWA staff members who
have lost their lives in Syria because of the war, as well as to the many
UNRWA school children who have been killed in Syria since 2011,
including five near Dera’a last week.

The Syrian Catastrophe and the Crisis of


the Palestinians
The international community has been unable to help the people of
Syria, and I do not mean simply through humanitarian action, essen-
tial as this has become in the descent into chaos that we are witnessing
throughout the country. Unfortunately, it may not be until the guns
fall silent, and we fully realize the price paid by the ordinary people,
that we will also realize the extent of our shared loss and the magni-
tude of our shared shame.
The UN’s Lakhdar Brahimi’s recent warning about the
“Somalization” of Syria is not simply a shocking political observation,
it is also a daily reality. That violence is all-pervading in Syria—brutal,
physical, destructive violence—is a fact that has become so visible that
it passes almost unobserved in the news. But there is more. The econ-
omy is imploding; the infrastructure is collapsing. The speed of the
decline has been phenomenal—this is a country that has been living
CROSSROA DS OF CRISIS 67

in conflict not for 25 years like Somalia, but 3. The Syrian Center for
Policy Research, commissioned by UNRWA and UNDP to do peri-
odic economic analysis, found that by the first half of 2013, Syria’s
economy had lost an equivalent of 174% of its 2010 GDP. Already
over half the population now lives in poverty. The result is the emer-
gence of an economy essentially based on violence that exploits an
already vulnerable citizenry.
It was inevitable that the combined factors of violence and eco-
nomic collapse would not be contained to Syria, but would have
profound consequences for the countries in the region. The effects
are most acutely felt here in Lebanon, and because of this country’s
political fragility, they pose a great source of stress and concern.
Within this catastrophe of extraordinary magnitude, another cri-
sis, growing from the larger ones, but with features and consequences
of its own, has been unfolding. It is on this crisis that I will focus
tonight. The situation of the 570,000 Palestinians who have been
resident in Syria is a humanitarian disaster but also a political chal-
lenge that will have reverberations after the conflict has stopped.
In Syria, Palestinians found secure, sympathetic refuge in 1948.
For over six decades they nurtured families and communities, inte-
grated economically, and formed a subset of the cultural and intel-
lectual fabric of a vibrant and proud Syrian society. The Palestinian
camps, and UNRWA services in them, formed the locus of their com-
munity. They were places where UNRWA was at its best in support-
ing Palestine refugees. Lifetime bonds were nurtured in our schools.
Women shared problems while waiting in the clinics. Community
centers helped families cope with stress and provided space to orga-
nize events. Youth clubs provided teenagers with safe creative space
where they developed skills.
UNRWA could carry out in an optimal way its role of visible com-
mitment of the international community to support Palestine refu-
gees, by providing them with assistance, but also by being part of the
glue—a glue holding them together and contributing to the resilience
that has allowed them to develop human capital, sustain communi-
ties, and build for a positive and peaceful future. This was made pos-
sible by the hospitality extended to Palestine refugees.

Yarmouk as the Symbol of the Suffering of


Palestine Refugees in Syria
Then came this cruel war in Syria. We retained hope that Palestinians
and their camps might be spared. The turning point was in
68 FILIPPO GRANDI

December 2012, when Yarmouk—a Damascus suburb hosting one


of the largest Palestinian communities in exile—was overwhelmed
by fighting. It suddenly seemed that the deliberate wish of the vast
majority of Palestinians to stay out of the conflict was simply not
enough to protect them, and this was made worse by the military
involvement of some Palestinians—though a small minority—on
both sides of the conflict.
Many of the 12 Palestinian camps, because they are mostly located
in contested areas, are now overwhelmed by fighting and insecu-
rity. In some cases, Palestinians (and indeed other civilians) have left
en masse, either fleeing from fighting or forced away at gunpoint.
The dynamics shift along with the geography of the conflict, each
camp experiencing it in different, but equally devastating, ways. Even
Palestinian camps that have been relatively safe and are housing many
displaced refugees, like in Homs, or in Jaramaneh near Damascus, sit
precariously adjacent to battle zones. In the space of a few months,
between the end of 2012 and the first months of 2013, life suddenly
became very precarious for thousands of Palestinians in Syria. Just a
week ago—in one more example of the blatant disregard for the laws
of war that has characterized this conflict—an explosion close to an
UNRWA school near Dera’a, left 18 dead, including five UNRWA
school children and one staff member.
But it is Yarmouk that has come to symbolize the suffering of
Palestine refugees in Syria in the course of the war. Yarmouk was a
large, vibrant, urban melting pot of Palestinians and Syrians. It owes
its current fate purely to its location: a triangular slice pointing straight
into central Damascus, a strategic last piece in the puzzle required to
make a strong advance on the capital. Its relative isolation from the
conflict was shattered in mid-December 2012. This is when armed
groups came into the camp, the government surrounded the area,
and clashes ensued. UNRWA’s 28 schools and three clinics ceased
operation. Armed groups also occupied houses, looted hospitals, and
stores. Those inside Yarmouk who did not manage or did not want to
flee got caught in a tight stranglehold by the parties to the conflict.
And this is a pattern that repeated itself in other Palestinian camps,
including Qabr Essit, Ein El-Tal, and Sbeineh.
Throughout part of last year, entry and exit were tightly controlled
by the warring parties, but residents continued to receive some assis-
tance. Access became tighter until it was all but sealed in September.
For several months, and until a fragile agreement between the par-
ties allowed us to distribute some food, we were unable to provide
CROSSROA DS OF CRISIS 69

any assistance. Residents whom I saw yesterday emerging like ghosts


from the depths of Yarmouk, as in a medieval siege, reported that
they subsisted on grass, spices mixed in water, and animal feed. They
burned furniture on their balconies to keep warm; they suffered
severe malnutrition and dehydration. Many died from readily treat-
able conditions.
Of course, all civilians suffer in Syria. But Palestinians, unlike many
Syrians, do not have support networks beyond where they live. They
have been buffeted from camp to camp in search of safety. Vastly
compounding their plight is the fact that options for external flight
are extremely limited. About 53,000 have approached UNRWA in
Lebanon, a country hosting also hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees, and where the situation of close to 300,000 Palestinians in
existing camps is already dire and inhospitable—with limited or no
access to jobs, property, and services.
Jordan has an explicit no-entry policy for Palestinians from Syria.
Approximately 11,000 have sought assistance from UNRWA there.
Throughout the region, in support of Palestinians fleeing Syria, we
promote humanitarian principles of nonrefoulement and equal treat-
ment of refugees but to little avail in the case of Jordan. Palestinians
are also no longer granted visas to Egypt. Some 5,000 fled the Syria
conflict there and are in need of assistance. Making it possible has
been a complex exercise in a country undergoing its own, difficult
transition.
Palestinians from Syria are reportedly seeking safety further afield,
including in Turkey, in Gaza, even in Asia. Last fall, we saw them
board boats by the hundreds toward Europe, and sometimes, tragi-
cally, lose their lives at sea. This matches the sad and resigned expla-
nations we are now hearing from Palestinians in Syria and those who
have fled to neighboring countries: “We are not wanted here, we can-
not manage any longer, I want my children to have a new life, away
from this region, which for us is only trouble.”
We estimate that at least 70 percent of the Palestine refugee popu-
lation in Syria have been displaced, whether inside the country or
beyond its borders. It is in fact the largest displacement of Palestinians
since 1967, although—one should say—displacement and insecurity
have been main characteristics of the Palestinian condition, including
the expulsions from Kuwait and Libya, the destruction of camps in
the Lebanese civil war and more recently of Nahr el-Bared, and the
grave violations of human rights against Palestinians that occurred a
few years ago in Iraq.
70 FILIPPO GRANDI

Yarmouk Revives Memories of the


Palestinian Nakba of 1948
And look carefully at pictures of Yarmouk—of the distribution of
small parcels of food to thousands of desperate women, men, chil-
dren coming out of the besieged area. The stark grayness of the
people and the rubble remind me of the black-and-white archive
pictures from the Palestinian diaspora in 1948: children in tattered
clothes and unkempt hair warming themselves on small fires, old
people looking into the camera, their lined and leathered faces deep
with concern.
Um Ahmad and many others told me that what is happening to
them is as bad as the Nakba of 1948, and in some ways even worse.
I first heard this in December 2012, and it has taken me some time
to process. How can it be as bad as the seminal story of expulsion and
flight from cities and villages, worse than the original forced exile
from the homeland?
Then, of course, I understood. In 1948, Palestinians fleeing their
land were welcomed throughout the region in solidarity. In 2014,
there is simply no more welcome. Hence Um Ahmed’s question:
Where do we go? In 1948, they fled with families and neighbors
and then set up camps with UNRWA’s help that maintained familial
and community networks and support systems. Now—in the much
more complex patterns of forced displacement that have emerged in
the global age—they are often compelled to flee individually, while
those networks, built over many years of exile, quickly disintegrate.
Economics and logistics dictate that families are separated; young
people go alone using the family assets to pay smugglers. Cohesion is
lost, solidarity is weakened, hope is threatened. This is a major crisis
affecting the scattered Palestinian nation.
One must understand the special significance that Yarmouk has
played in the Palestinian conscience in preserving the precious notions
of identity, culture, and belonging throughout the exile. Yarmouk
was the center of Palestinian life in Syria and recognized region-wide
as a positive embodiment of diaspora life. An economic and cultural
centre, where Palestinian identity was nurtured. It was the example of
how Palestinians, though refugees, could thrive on the many oppor-
tunities provided by stability, peace, official hospitality, and UNRWA
services. It was a relative oasis of prosperity in a long and difficult
journey. It made the absence of a just solution to the question of
Palestine refugees less unbearable. It enabled people to be patient, as
they waited for that solution to be found.
CROSSROA DS OF CRISIS 71

The unfolding tragedy of Yarmouk is therefore devastating to


the psyche of every Palestinian refugee in more ways than the sheer
suffering of those directly affected by it. There is a ripple effect of
anxiety and fear emanating from the Yarmouk experience. Yarmouk
has defined Palestinian solidarity and hope, and it now defines the
loss and uncertainty not only for its residents but also for Palestinians
all over Syria, and of the wider community.
Yarmouk has come to represent all places where—for Palestinians
and especially refugees—control over one’s life is an illusion, where
the safety of decades can disappear overnight, where land is confis-
cated, homes are demolished, rights are denied, travel is restricted,
jobs are lost, resentments and prejudices prevail. Yarmouk is Gaza,
the open-air prison. Yarmouk is Nahr el-Bared, destroyed by bombs.
Yarmouk is Jenin, it is Sabra and Shatila, it is Tel az-Zaatar. Yarmouk
is the expulsion from Kuwait, it is 1967, all the way back to the Nakba.
It was a beacon of resilience. Unless we act quickly, it risks becoming
a symbol of dispossession and of a history of repeated dispossessions.

UNRWA Trapped between Relief, Development,


and Political Instability
The international community, recognizing the complexity of the
Palestinian refugee question in this volatile region, has of course
continued to support refugees through UNRWA. This, to use the
words in our name, takes the form of “relief” during times of crisis
and “works”—a more developmental approach, including education,
health, microfinance—when and where stability permits. I always
strongly emphasize that UNRWA’s mission is really to maximize the
human development, the human capital and potential of the Palestine
refugees to ensure a better future after peace is negotiated.
But Yarmouk and Syria also prove that our ability to do this well
is constantly compromised by conflict and instability. The contin-
ued disenfranchisement of Palestinians from rights and livelihoods
in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been the
main impediment to serving Palestine refugees to the benefit of their
future and that of the region. The Syria conflict, in a dramatic way,
compromises the efforts of the international community, through
UNRWA, to continue to provide some continuity while awaiting
a political solution. This also has repercussions in Lebanon. The
arrival of Palestinians from Syria has compounded the problems
affecting existing camps. And this while we are still grappling with
the re-housing of refugees displaced from Nahr el-Bared in 2007—a
72 FILIPPO GRANDI

huge project assigned to us by the international community but for


which international resources are running out. Much progress is also
still necessary to expand the employment rights of Palestinians in
Lebanon, but this is proving more challenging (although not less
needed) in the current circumstances. Crises chase opportunities
away for Palestine refugees.
The Syria conflict is also shifting the Palestinian refugee geogra-
phy, upsetting a long-term status quo. Since 1948, countries of the
region have maintained their understanding of the original burden-
sharing. The conflict in Syria is disrupting this balance and creating
anxiety among other host countries.
And finally, by destabilizing their current existence and forcing
them out of six decades of security, for Palestinians in Syria it brings
into stark relief their relationship with Palestine itself. The fact that
they are increasingly looking outside the region, further away from
the homeland is significant. They are a transformed constituency, with
different expectations, with much more urgent demands of their lead-
ership, and with a different relationship to the overall Palestinian body
politic. For both the leadership and the people, there is simultaneous
pain, shared anxiety and worry about their status in the region, at a
time when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process generates both hopes
of eventual and just resolution, and anxiety of renewed failure; and at
a time when strong and clear leadership is more needed than ever.
By putting into question long-standing shared assumptions and
understandings, the crisis of Palestinians in Syria is starting to threaten
some elements of the geopolitical framework of the modern Middle
East. In this respect, last but not least, a negotiated solution of the
question of Palestine refugees might also become more complicated
because of the changing refugee geography possibly emerging from
the war in Syria.

Yarmouk as a Crossroads of Crisis in Peacemaking


I have tried to explain how Yarmouk represents the overlap of various
crises: the situation of Palestine refugees within the broader Syria war;
their plight within the predicament of Palestine refugees at large; the
intersection of these crises with the painful transitions in the region.
Most strikingly, Yarmouk is a crossroads of crisis in peacemaking,
both for Syria and for Israelis and Palestinians.
A crossroads, however, is also a time of critical choice, of need for
thoughtful and deliberate action. If there were ever a need for nego-
tiation and peacemaking, it is now.
CROSSROA DS OF CRISIS 73

In Syria, pursuing a political solution to the conflict has proven


monumentally difficult, because the international community has
not been so deeply divided on making peace since the Cold War,
when conflicts were never solved and the world lived on a precarious
balance of lethal force.
But there are some small signs of hope. Even in Yarmouk. An
extremely complex negotiation between the parties, involving armed
opposition groups, Palestinian factions, and the Syrian government,
resulted in an initial agreement to allow UNRWA to resume distri-
butions of food and medicines to the desperate Palestine refugees
still trapped inside Yarmouk. We have been able to operate only
on 13 days. But we have distributed over 7,000 parcels of food and
10,000 doses of urgently needed polio vaccines as well as vitamins
and other supplements.
This must become much more regular, predictable, and secure. But
it is an example of how good will can bring about the conditions to
at least alleviate the suffering of civilians, while broader negotiations
go on. We also understand that in other Palestinian camps, efforts
to reach limited ceasefires are yielding some results. This is already
having some impact in pursuing another important first step toward
peace: rebuilding trust. In Jaramaneh, last Saturday, many displaced
Palestinians told me that they wanted to return to their homes in
some of the camps. It is the first time I have heard this in years of
conflict in Syria. I am cautious in assessing it: I do not know whether
it is yet a trend, nor whether returns will already be possible, but it
is a start, which will require the parties to the conflict to create the
conditions for returns to be safe and sustainable.
I began my remarks by suggesting that the work of humanitarians
in conflict can help create a break in the dynamic of violence, and give
space to the efforts by other actors to explore solutions. This, within
the conflict in Syria, is a very challenging task, with violence raging
unabated in many parts of the country, and fraught with risks, as
attested by the tragic deaths of humanitarian personnel. It is not, how-
ever, an impossible one. Yesterday—I witnessed it myself—Yarmouk
was the scene of a collective effort to establish humanitarian space—
though certainly determined by a variety of different factors, never-
theless one of the first such efforts in Syria thus far.
There is some positive irony in this. Palestine refugees and the
camps in which they live have long been perceived as sources of insta-
bility in the Middle East; in Syria, in the bloodiest conflict to grip the
Middle East in decades, perceptions may be reversed as Yarmouk, and
perhaps other Palestinian enclaves, become places in which an array
74 FILIPPO GRANDI

of warring parties consent to humanitarian access, introducing a new


and positive dynamic into the conflict at large.
We should not, of course, be naive. Small local successes will not
be durable unless a comprehensive political solution is found to the
conflict, and there is a reversal in the logic of militarization, which
dictates that even determining where hungry people receive food
depends on military logic. We know the challenges of replacing the
current, failed attempts to win the war militarily with the pursuit of
mutually acceptable political solutions: they are immense. But do not
discount the power of precedence that localized agreements, such in
Yarmouk, can provide. If nothing else, they may be the sign that an
exhausted country is becoming ready for peace. It is perhaps not by
chance that at the broader level, last Saturday, the Security Council
finally found unity in calling for access to be given to the United
Nations agencies and their partners so that urgent humanitarian assis-
tance can be provided to those suffering in Syria, and in so doing,
provided a valuable framework for us, humanitarians, to carry out
our work.
I therefore appeal to you, tonight, not to lose hope—not to lose it,
yet. Further, I want to reiterate my call that as efforts to pursue peace
in Syria continue, the Palestinian dimension of the crisis not be for-
gotten. Whatever future dispensation will oversee Syria’s future, it is
indispensable—for the stability of the region—that Syria resumes its
role of good host to Palestine refugees, until their question is resolved
in the context of the Middle East peace process. Palestinians must be
able to return to Syria when conditions will allow, and the rehabili-
tation of their homes and camps will have to be part of the broader
reconstruction effort, without prejudice to their rights as refugees.
All Palestinians, on their side, must heed the call of their own leader-
ship and indeed their own people and refrain from involving them-
selves in fighting, either alongside the government or the opposition.
The militarization of some Palestinian groups is the greatest risk to
the present and future of Palestinians in Syria.
However, the renewed regional perception that Palestinians are
troublemakers, and the ensuing trends to exclude, constrain, or
limit them, must be replaced by a practical approach to their vulner-
ability and the instability that this vulnerability can feed. For this,
of course, it is essential that the current, US-led efforts to broker
peace between Israelis and Palestinians be pursued not only with the
admirable determination displayed by Secretary Kerry, and not only
in a spirit of greater fairness and impartiality, but also that they be
aimed at redressing injustice, be in line with UN principles, and have
CROSSROA DS OF CRISIS 75

resolution of the refugee issue as an articulated priority. The clear fact


is, that without peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and a just
resolution to the question of refugees, Palestinians will continue to
find themselves trapped in other people’s crises, and their history will
remain one of protracted and multiple exile.
It is not surprising that Um Ahmed’s questions are not only
poignant but also piercing in their prescience. “Where do we go?
What is our future?”
What then is our answer to Um Ahmed and the hundreds of thou-
sands asking the same questions? How can we secure the future for
Palestinian refugees that they deserve, that has been promised?
Yarmouk is also a symbol of Palestinian insistence: insistence that
the right of return be addressed, insistence that their narrative be
recognized, that their need for safety be respected, that their rights
be upheld, that they live in dignity.
We must hear this insistence. It is crucial to building a stable
Middle East.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on February
25, 2014, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 5

The UN in the Middle East and


the Arab Awakening

Richard Falk1

S ince the end of World War II, no region on this planet has been
the scene of such intense encounters between rival visions of world
order than the Middle East. It is a part of the world where geography,
ideology, and energy resources interact in lethal ways that threaten to
make the entire region a war zone. This chapter addresses the role the
UN has played in the Middle East during the recent Arab uprisings
and contextualizes this within a much larger historical context that
reveals the clear primacy of geopolitics in explaining this role.

Geopolitics and the UN Challenge in the Middle East


There are several extremely dangerous flashpoints. Prolonged and
deadly civil strife in Syria is also the occasion of proxy warfare between
both regional and extra-regional rivals. There remain persistent and
periodic threats of an Israeli attack, with or without US participa-
tion, on Iran to force Iran to disable its nuclear program alleged
to be on the verge of a weapons capability. Much of Iraq remains
in turmoil, after more than a decade of American occupation and
Iraqi resistance leaving behind a legacy of fragmentation and sec-
tarian conflict. Meanwhile, the persisting ordeal of the Palestinian
people that shows no signs of respite should not be overlooked.
The Palestinians are caught ever more tragically in the whirlwind
of Israeli expansionism by way of annexation and apartheid in the
West Bank, ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, and the collective punish-
ment of the blockaded and periodically attacked population of the
impoverished and ever vulnerable Gaza Strip. These situations are
apart from concerns about growing disorder, unresolved tensions,
78 R I C H A R D FA L K

and rising political violence and oppressive circumstances during the


period of uprisings throughout the Arab world, especially in Egypt,
Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain.
In many ways it is somewhat surprising to paint such a gloomy
picture of the Middle East. Only two years ago the mood was defi-
nitely upbeat and hopeful. The 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt
had excited the political imagination of the entire world, and populist
challenges to cruel and corrupt authoritarian leadership were spread-
ing throughout the region, and even inspired the Occupy Movement
in the West that mounted a brief populist challenge of its own directed
mainly at the failures and injustices of world capitalism. At the time
these regional development received such a strongly positive reception
as to be called “the Arab Spring,” giving rise to a series of expec-
tations: the birth of a new political era that would be respectful of
human rights, a commitment to human rights and democratic gover-
nance, and a program of drastic economic reform that benefitted the
whole population, especially the jobless and poor.
As this regional process unfolded the UN at first stayed on the
sidelines, but as large-scale political violence erupted in Libya and
Syria during the early months of 2011, pressures mounted for a more
engaged UN role. It is against such a background that we can assess
the competing moral, political, and legal pressures exerted at the
UN either to act or to refrain from acting. This pattern of conflict
within the Middle East is embedded in a set of global concerns that
link the Middle East to the wider framework of world politics. These
include the presence of oil reserves still vital for the efficient working
of the world economy, the security linkage between the United States
and Israel and the Gulf, and the counterterrorist context since 9/11
that is, in turn, closely connected with Western opposition to radical
Islamic regimes and the spread of nuclear weaponry. Such a geopo-
litical agenda conveys some sense of the complexity of the challenge
confronting the United Nations even in the more moderate atmo-
sphere of great power rivalry that has prevailed since the collapse of
the Soviet Union.
A bit of historical perspective seems relevant at this point. Ever
since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, there have been multiple
fault lines operative in the region. After World War I, it was the preda-
tory colonialism of Britain and France that imparted to the region a
legacy of conflict and ethnic/religious strife and was brazenly indif-
ferent to the preferences or well-being of the peoples inhabiting the
region. During the Cold War, the Middle East became a major site
THE UN IN THE MIDDLE EAST 79

of struggle in the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and


the Soviet Union periodically generating serious worries about the
possible outbreak of World War III but also having the effect of sup-
pressing many of the indigenous and regional tensions that emerged
so strongly during the past 20 years when the discipline of Cold War
restraints was no longer operative. As of 2013, the Cold War ideologi-
cal confrontations between East and West in the Middle East seems
a distant memory and has been supplanted by challenges posed by a
resurgent Islam that has become an ambiguous democratic political
force, by a resulting polarization between bitter Islamic and secular
rivalries unfolding within several national settings, as abetted by chal-
lenges to the territorial boundaries of several states in the region. As
well, there are several deadly sectarian struggles that pit Sunni Islam
against Shi’ia Islam, engaging regional governments on one side or
the other of this sectarian divide.
It is also important to appreciate the depth of opposition and sus-
picion associated with the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood
during the last few years. This pattern was most vividly present in
Egypt where the Brotherhood raised its status from that of a sup-
pressed minority to become the most active and effective force in
Egyptian politics, prevailing in a series of parliamentary and presi-
dential elections, culminating in the election of Mohamed Morsi
as president of Egypt in mid-2012. The instability of the Egyptian
situation was disclosed by the coup against the Morsi government
carried out in June of the following year and resulting in a bloody
crackdown against the elected government and its followers, includ-
ing the criminalization of the Muslim Brotherhood. What was sur-
prising in some respects was the extensive material support given
by wealthy conservative Arab Gulf monarchies to Egypt after the
coup, presumably exhibiting deep hostility to any political phenom-
enon that seemed to join Islamic values with an electoral democracy.
What was unexpected to many observers was the degree to which
these anti-Morsi governments were comfortable with the authori-
tarian regime in Egypt during the Mubarak era despite its suppres-
sion of Muslim leanings. Despite the atrocities committed by the
interim government in Egypt, controlled by General Sisi, the UN
watched from the sidelines, as did the liberal democracies of the
West. Obviously, both the regional and extra-regional priorities were
such as to be more comfortable with authoritarian rule that is linked
to the West than it is to accept a more democratic governing process
if it also possesses a Muslim face.
80 R I C H A R D FA L K

The Shrinking Space for the UN: Geopolitical Primacy


Trumps Humanitarianism and R2P in Libya and Syria
Against such a background, it might have seemed likely to expect
that the United Nations would have its hands full with peacekeeping
missions, being assigned various roles to avoid strife within countries
and warfare in the region, and generally reinforce the shared inter-
est of major states to maintain stability throughout the Middle East.
At all stages of recent history, there seems to be little political space
available to permit the UN to play the sort of constructive role that
popular expectations often project onto the organization. During the
current period, UN behavior has been particularly uneven and con-
troversial in the Middle East and North Africa with some commenta-
tors complaining that it is doing too much, and others not enough.
A major dimension of this complexity surrounding any assessment
of the UN in the Middle East can be explained by the primacy of
geopolitics both in determining what the UN should and can do and
what it should not do and is unable to do effectively. For instance, in
March 2011, the UN controversially mandated a limited humanitar-
ian use of force in Libya that was supposed to protect the civilian
population of the city of Benghazi from a massacre by the approach-
ing armies of the Tripoli regime under the dictatorial control of
Muammar Qaddafi. The UN Security Council authorized the use of
force by NATO despite severe reservations of five important members
(China, Russia, Germany, India, and Brazil) expressing their ambiva-
lence by casting abstaining votes in the Security Council. What trans-
pired after the authorization deeply eroded trust within the Security
Council. The humanitarian mission delegated to NATO was almost
immediately transformed without any effort to obtain a further
authorization into a regime-changing military intervention. In effect,
the UN was used by the West to lend an initial legitimacy to what
was always conceived to be a nondefensive use of force, which without
a UN mandate would violate international law as well as exceed the
formal authorization that had been so reluctantly given. Of course,
the abstaining countries also bear some responsibility, having failed
in the course of the intervention to question formally the NATO
expansion of the humanitarian mission, and only after regime change
had been achieved, were their criticisms forthcoming.
The supporters of the Libyan mission claimed a certain legal status
for the proposed operation by an insistence that what was at stake
involved the urgent application of the so-called Responsibility to
Protect or R2P norm, and that such protection could not be achieved
THE UN IN THE MIDDLE EAST 81

under the circumstances by adhering to the limitations of the autho-


rizing resolution. The blood curdling language and tactics of Qaddafi
in response to the uprising made it seem reasonable to many observ-
ers to view the protective objectives to be responsibly achieved only
if Qaddafi and his entourage was removed from power. Yet this is
not what was requested and authorized by the Security Council, and
without such an authorization, it involved both a breach of trust and
a course of action that seemed inconsistent with the framework gov-
erning the use of force embedded in the UN Charter and designed,
above all, to limit both war and military interventions.
Evaluating the overall results in relation to Libya and the UN is
difficult and confusing. There is little doubt that a substantial major-
ity of the Libyan people seemed at the time to welcome the NATO
intervention and the political outcome, and to hold the view that
without such an intervention, the Qaddafi leadership would have
crushed the insurgent challenge. The postintervention effort to install
a constitutional government in Libya has not been a success. The level
of human security in the country is very low, with militias and local
ethnic communities holding much of the power, and the restoration
of economic normalcy stymied by a series of problems, including cor-
ruption and foreign manipulation.
The impact on the UN is difficult to assess. There is little doubt
that the NATO expansion of the Security Council authorization has
had the effect of discrediting the R2P norm as a contribution to world
order. The debate in the Security Council had featured the advo-
cates of intervention relying on the language and reasoning of R2P
to induce the skeptical governments to abstain rather than oppose.
Given that China and Russia possessed a right of veto this line of
argument seemed crucial at the time. There is little doubt if the real
nature of the intervention had been disclosed rather than wrapped up
in the R2P package, it would have led the opponents to vote against,
thereby withholding authorization. In this event, NATO would have
had to choose between inaction, allowing the humanitarian catas-
trophe to unfold, or act on the dubious and contested premise of
“a coalition of the willing” as in Kosovo and Iraq (2003). It is further
significant that the Iraq precedent, set during the neoconservative
presidency of George W. Bush, was indirectly and partially endorsed
by the Obama presidency, which did not act without UN authoriza-
tion but supported its unreasonably expanded interpretation.
Have Libyan memories acted to inhibit a robust UN response to
the atrocities of the Assad regime in Syria and precluded the applica-
tion of R2P reasoning in a call for intervention to stop the bloodshed
82 R I C H A R D FA L K

or do to Assad what was done to Qaddafi? Certainly, Russia and


China have indicated that the breach of trust in Libya affected their
approach to the Syrian crisis. Also, of course, the Russian alignment
with the Syrian government would have likely led Russia to cast a
veto for geopolitical reasons, and what the other Libyan abstainers
would have done remains rather obscure because it is untested. It is
also true that the prospects of achieving Libyan results in Syria are
not present. Assad has far greater internal, regional, and global sup-
port than did Qaddafi, and there is no comparable resource base to
Libyan oil that could have overcome a reluctance to undertake the
difficulties of a regime-changing intervention in Syria. Further, in
Syria during the first two years of the struggle, there was a belief in
the West that covert modes of intervention would do the job without
requiring the UN to act. In this regard, both the United States and
Turkey, principal advocates of regime change and supporters of the
insurgency, miscalculated. The Assad regime was effective in mount-
ing a counterinsurgency campaign, the insurgency lacked unity and
leadership, and eventually induced political radicalization on both
sides that meant that support for the insurgency was at odds with
counterterrorist American and Turkish foreign policy.

Learning Lessons: Hard Power Diplomacy Trumps UN


Authority and Rules of International
Law in the Middle East
Looking at this series of developments from the perspective of the
UN role in the region, it is nearly impossible to predict the future.
Memories tend to be short at the UN. Each situation is approached
by most influential governments with a political realist perspective
that calculates interests at stake, paying scant attention to the legal
implications of the political option that is chosen. World order impli-
cations are taken seriously. In this regard, the West is more inclined to
support an interventionist approach when intervention accords with
its interests and seems feasible at acceptable costs, whereas China and
Russia, although usually interested in maintaining a façade of coop-
eration, are inclined to oppose intervention, whether or not presented
in a R2P guise. Recalling the Libyan experience, and also a similar
dynamic in the first Iraq War (1991), might strengthen their anti-
intervention disposition.
What can we learn? First, when geopolitical actors are divided
in their interpretation of how to address a conflict, attempts to use
the UN will either be blocked altogether or the situation will be
THE UN IN THE MIDDLE EAST 83

manipulated by the geopolitical side with upper hand so as to cir-


cumvent the disagreement about the proper UN response. Second,
if authorization for action is expanded beyond reasonable expecta-
tions, it is likely to cause a backlash on the part of those governments
that were misled, at least temporarily, making it less likely that the
UN will be entrusted with any peacekeeping role. Third, geopoliti-
cal priorities, more than the framework of the UN Charter, interna-
tional law, and international morality indicates what the UN is able
to do in the peacekeeping domain, but not entirely. There are also
significant operational problems of intervention that make it an unat-
tractive political option if mobilized national resistance is anticipated
or if the theater of operations is in a country with a large popula-
tion. The experiences of intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq have
made Washington much more hesitant to support new interventions
whether under UN auspices or independently.
There is also considerable skepticism associated with what might
be called geopolitical opportunism. Is there any doubt that if the
UN was evenhanded in the administration of R2P diplomacy, the
entrapped population of Gaza would be prime candidates for protec-
tion, and yet given the realities of Western alignment with Israel, such
an undertaking is not even discussed, much less seriously advocated.
In this regard, the sovereign state as a political community remains
generally unaccountable to the world community or the UN. It can
safely maintain a slaughterhouse in relation to oppressed minorities,
and only face serious adverse consequences only if it faces a united
geopolitical front, lacks resistance capabilities, possesses a resource of
great importance to the world as a whole. In these respects, the UN
and the organized international community are ineffectual in pro-
tecting people under most conditions from the abuses of state power.
This ineffectuality is heightened in the Middle East due to the role
of Israel, disunity among the permanent members of the Security
Council as to priorities, disappointing results of prior interventions,
and the hegemonic claims of the United States to provide regional
governance in de facto alliance with the co-dependence of many of
the more powerful political actors in the region.
Should this primacy of geopolitics within the UN occasion surprise
or dismay? I think not, although its impacts can be deeply disappoint-
ing from the perspectives of serving human interests in particular
circumstances. We must remember that the UN was constitution-
ally structured to give geopolitical actors, identified as the winners
in World War II, a decisive say in the use of the UN for peacekeeping
purposes. This was, of course, expressed most openly by conferring
84 R I C H A R D FA L K

a right of veto on the five permanent members of the UN Security


Council, and more subtly, by allocating financial dues by reference to
national income. The significance of this vertical side of world order
was further confirmed geopolitically, by the first five states to acquire
nuclear weapons being identical with the states designated to be the
five permanent members of the Security Council. It should also be
appreciated that the state to state or horizontal side of world order
was constitutionally acknowledged in the UN Charter, Article 2(7),
that prohibits any UN intervention in matters essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of member states unless it raises issues of inter-
national peace and security under Chapter VII.
What is being expressed here is the precept of “political realism”
(the architects of the UN were firmly associated with the realist and
statist camp of international relations thought rather than aligned to
the global idealists and cosmopolitans, most prominently, Woodrow
Wilson, who had designed the League of Nations after World War I),
which makes the major claim that hard power diplomacy, rather than
deference to the rules of international law and the authority of the
UN, is what possesses the agency to shape global history. In effect,
realists did not want to shackle the leading states with expectations
about adherence to international law and a dysfunctional respect for
the horizontality of a state-centric system of world order rather institu-
tionalizing a hierarchical structure of world order that is protective of
the national interests of the leading states, as well as being potentially
capable of managing conflict in accord with global public interests.
This idea of leading states was based on 1945 realities dominated
by privileging the victors in World War II. The retention of this
ordering of power in the twenty-first century is anachronistic as a
reflection of the current geopolitical landscape even if relying on hard
power yardsticks as a measure of relative power. If soft power capa-
bilities are considered, then the UN two-tier hierarchy of influence
is even more out of touch with a changing global setting. However
this world order hierarchy is conceived in relation to the UN, the
Middle East as a region is not directly represented on this upper level
of authority and operations.

American Cold War Attempt to Use Legitimating


Impact of UN Authorization in the Middle East
Quickly Abandoned
Renowned realists such as Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan
believed that the future of world peace and international stability
THE UN IN THE MIDDLE EAST 85

depended on countervailing hard power and the credibility of its use


and treated international law as a convenience and the UN as mar-
ginally useful so long as it did not weaken the political realization
that security for the kind of world order that exists is dependent on
hard power capabilities. The avoidance of World War III during the
Cold War was attributed by realists to the doctrine of deterrence,
especially a mutual fear of nuclear war, and by the credibility of the
Western reliance on generally defensive ideas of “containment” rather
than on the more provocative ideas of “roll back” and “victory” that
were embraced by the right wing. From a realist perspective alliances
were treated as far more significant for policy and security than were
the constraints on uses of force associated with international law or
expectations that the UN would protect states that were the targets of
aggression. During the Cold War, the Atlantic Alliance, giving rise to
NATO, was the centerpiece in American grand strategy and affected
the approach taken to developments in the Middle East.
To be sure there were some early tensions between adherence to
a law-governed world order as expressed by the UN Charter and an
alliance-oriented geopolitics. Memories of the use of UN authority
to oppose North Korean “aggression” in 1950 may have given a tem-
porary support to the nongeopolitical view that adherence to interna-
tional law made a valuable contribution to security in the nuclear age.
Perhaps, the high point of these tensions arose in 1956 in relation
to the Suez War initiated by Britain, France, and Israel without the
overt backing of the United States. Here, aside from the breach of the
fundamental prohibition of international law relating to the use of
nondefensive force, there was a lingering split in the American foreign
policy establishment between those seeking to maintain good rela-
tion with the Arab oil-producing countries and Eurocentric factions.
US support for withdrawal of Western forces in 1956 was the first,
last, and only time that Washington had strongly opposed either
European or Israeli actions in the region. It was seen by realists as an
unfortunate regression to Wilsonianism, and widely criticized in the
mainstream media. With the Israeli victory in the 1967 War, the ten-
sions were resolved in favor of alliance geopolitics without seeming to
suffer serious setbacks in relation to resource geopolitics.
At one early stage, the United States entertained the idea of a
greater reliance on the UN General Assembly in peace and security
settings. The motivation was to take advantage of the more majori-
tarian procedures in the General Assembly that would overcome
gridlock in the Security Council resulting from Soviet veto power.
The concern arose because a UN response in Korea was only possible
86 R I C H A R D FA L K

because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the
time due to its refusal to designate the Beijing government as the
representative of China. Correctly supposing that the USSR would
not repeat this tactical mistake, the United States briefly flirted with
the idea of endowing the General Assembly with predominant influ-
ence even if it meant giving up its own veto power. It was in this
atmosphere that the UN General Assembly was persuaded to adopt
the Uniting for Peace Resolution confirming the residual responsibil-
ity of the GA in the event that the Security Council failed to act in a
peace and security crisis. Such a purported shift suggested the desire
of the American-led West to be able to use the legitimating impact of
UN authorization for its controversial undertakings, and more cyni-
cally, that it could reinforce American foreign policy with assured UN
backing in most situations.
Before this new approach was ever tested it was rejected. The
United States quickly realized that the UN membership in the after-
math of colonialism would no longer be easy to bring into line with
American foreign policy. In effect, the US government preferred to
live with a gridlocked UN rather than lend greater influence to a UN
majority intent on pushing a militant Third World agenda of global
reform, especially in the context of trade and investment. This turn
away from the General Assembly gained intense and urgent support
in the West when in the 1970s, the countries of the South banded
together, issuing their call for a New International Economic Order
based on demands for North/South equality and mutuality, along
an expectation of respect for permanent sovereignty over natural
resources and foreign investment.
What these UN developments meant for the Middle East is rather
clear.
First of all, it meant that with the retreat of the European powers
from the region after 1956, the United States and to a lesser extent
the Soviet Union, filled this geopolitical vacuum, basically sidelining
the UN except when the superpowers found it convenient to make
use of the organization, for example, in providing peacekeepers to
police the southern border of Lebanon with Israel. This meant the
complete takeover of the region by the two rival superpower alliance
relations, with a special added dimension relating to an American
commitment to protect Israel in the event that it needed assistance
to uphold its security. This alignment with Israel, accompanied by
a series of wars between Israel and its neighbors, most recently with
Lebanon in 2006 and with Gaza in 2008–2009 and 2012, exhibited
a dramatic disregard of the Charter conception of legitimate force on
THE UN IN THE MIDDLE EAST 87

the part of the United States. Washington’s attitude toward Israeli


threats of launching an unprovoked military attack against Iran pro-
vides further evidence that the UN model of security will be sus-
pended in deference to the Israeli model, which rests on reviving
discretionary rights to use international force without accountability
under international law.

Concluding Thoughts on the UN in the Middle East:


A Site for Legitimacy Struggle?
In conclusion, then, the UN’s role in the Middle East can be increased
or decreased in response to shifts in geopolitical patterns. Soon after the
end of the Cold War there seemed to be a brief experience of the “new
world order” in the Security Council response to the Iraqi conquest and
annexation of Kuwait in 1990; the restoration of Kuwaiti sovereignty
and the punitive regime of postwar sanctions imposed on Iraq was seen
as a vindication of this approach. Subsequent regional developments
were dominated by American maneuvers outside the UN, and by its
unconditional support for Israel. At the same time, there were roles
that the UN could play to a limited extent: the Security Council was
persuaded to support the imposition of sanctions on Iran and to autho-
rize, although with misgivings by principal members, the intervention
in Libya, which increased after the fact. In effect, the UN as a source
of order in the Middle East is clearly subordinate to the priorities of
American foreign policy and to Israeli behavior. To the extent these pri-
orities are consistent with the views of Russia and China, the UN can
be a major player in relation to conflicts throughout the Middle East.
Where, as most notably in Syria, the region and the external actors
are split, the UN is reduced to facilitating negotiations between the
antagonists in the civil war or providing humanitarian services. This
overall picture is not likely to change in the near future.
Finally, it should be observed, that Israel and the West are not alto-
gether successful in getting their way within the UN. The Goldstone
Report issued after the Israeli attack on Gaza at the end of 2008
alleged the commission of war crimes by Israel (and by Hamas), an
outcome deeply resented by Israel and its American supporters. The
United States used its influence to block the recommendations of
the report that called for implementation via imposing individual
accountability for war crimes but could not block the report itself
(or such others like it as the fact-finding mission of the UN Human
Rights Council on the Israeli settlements in the West Bank), nor
could it block recognition of Palestine as a state by the UN General
88 R I C H A R D FA L K

Assembly or its membership in UNESCO and accession to a series


of international treaties. What its geopolitical leverage could achieve
was exclusion from full membership in the UN, which requires an
affirmative vote in the Security Council.
In effect, the UN role in the Middle East has been a reflection of
changing tides of geopolitics, and this is likely to continue. As such,
it would be mistaken to expect too much or, in contrast, to expect
nothing. The UN remains for the Palestinians and for other regional
governments a site of struggle in which crucial issues of legitimacy
are often resolved. Legitimacy is a slippery concept, but the essential
idea that I think gives it a certain attraction and importance is the
struggle to get the high legal and moral grounds in a conflict regard-
less of the context within these different levels of normativity that are
engaged. One way of thinking about legitimacy is as the domain of
soft power. Legitimacy is the soft power alternative to military ways
of resolving conflict. I think an interesting element of a recent inter-
national history is that soft power victories have more often resulted
in the control of the political outcome of conflict than have hard
power superiority. This is a trend that has not been absorbed by gov-
ernments that are dominated by the realpolitik way of conceiving of
conflict and conflict resolution. I sometimes illustrate this point by a
conversation between counterinsurgency American colonel after the
Vietnam War and his Vietnamese counterpart. The American colonel
said to the Vietnamese: “You know, you never defeated us on the
battlefield,” and the Vietnamese responded, “Yes, you are correct,
but it is irrelevant.” The Afghans have another expression that helps
explain this irrelevance: “You have the watches, we have the time.”
The notion of legitimacy is very important in the politics of resis-
tance. Feeling that one has the claims of legitimacy changes the equa-
tions of power and gives the militarily inferior side the resolve needed
to persevere in the face of devastation and prolonged suffering.
Overall then, it is important to be attentive to what can be achieved
within the UN but also to be sensitive to its limits and obstacles to
effectiveness. Of course, the fulfilment of UN potential has lagged
because of the failure by geopolitical leaders to be willing to live
themselves within the framework of constraints established by the
UN Charter.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on April 29,
2013, and edited in July 2015.
Part II

The Arab-Israeli Conflict


Introduction

Rami G. Khouri

T he contributions in this section of the book, by four experienced


practitioners across three continents in the fields of politics, leader-
ship, mediation, and diplomacy, are uniquely placed to help us under-
stand the pivotal role of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict within
the last century of political tensions and military conflicts across much
of the Middle East. The experiences they recount touch on different
aspects of the region’s diplomacy and politics, but collectively they
help us appreciate important aspects of the reasons for the proclivity
of conflict in the Middle East over such a long period of time. Those
three are, in their historical sequence of appearance in the region: anti-
imperial struggles against foreign powers, the Arab-Israeli conflict,
and domestic strife in a context of weak and erratic state-building.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is the common thread that runs through
all three of these dimensions in different ways. Despite numerous
attempts by many mediators and facilitators to try and achieve a per-
manent, negotiated resolution to the conflict, a comprehensive peace
accord has never been achieved. Only partial or piecemeal agreements
have been reached between Israel and each of Jordan and Egypt, while
partial troop disengagements were agreed between Israel and Syria.
The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians never
achieved their anticipated promise—or perhaps, as many in the Arab
world feel, their promise was always an illusion designed to give the
impression of movement toward a Palestinian state, while all the time
the Israeli settlements and colonies on occupied Palestinian land kept
expanding. Rarely have conflicts around the world elicited so many
attempts at a negotiated peace, with so little success. Scholars and
activists debate the reasons for this, but one aspect of the situation
is clear: a quarter century of almost exclusively American-mediated
bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have failed, year after year,
to achieve a permanent peace agreement. This was not due primar-
ily to the Israeli or Palestinian people’s reluctance to live in peace
92 RAMI G. KHOURI

in adjacent states, for repeated polls show both sides willing to do


just that, and even to make serious mutual concessions to reach that
goal. It would appear that something was terribly deficient in the
negotiating mechanism or principles, or the conduct of the American
mediators who monopolized “the peace process,” as they called it.
The United States’ immense powers of enticement, pressure, and
persuasion seemed unable to reach the goal of a permanent negoti-
ated peace agreement that, for example, several unofficial negotia-
tors from civil society on both sides had done to a large extent in
track II forums such as the Geneva Accords and others. The seem-
ingly intractable nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict has duped all the
formal negotiations and mediations that have taken place in the past
half a century and more. The persistence of the conflict plagues the
two peoples involved, but it also impacts negatively on other com-
munities and relationships across the Middle East, both within Arab
states and between Arabs, Israelis, Turks, and Iranians. Resolving the
Arab-Israeli conflict, especially its core Palestinian-Israeli conflict,
would have a major positive impact on moderating other tense situ-
ations across the region, which is why it remains the clear priority
issue for conflict resolution specialists and practitioners in the Middle
East. A permanent, comprehensive and just Arab-Israeli peace agree-
ment, for example, would allow Hizbollah and Hamas to reconfigure
their roles within their societies and across the region, remake Israeli-
Iranian relations, and open up significant opportunities for mutually
beneficial regional cooperation among all concerned.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the chapters by Jimmy Carter, Amr
Moussa, Robert Mood, and Alastair Crooke all touch on aspects of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, as they also provide political mediation expe-
riences that suggest some of the pivotal elements needed for success
in a conflict resolution endeavor. These include logistical issues such
as timing, preparation, perseverance, trust, crafting mutually benefi-
cial, and win-win scenarios, the promise of pain in case of failure, and
the personal emotions of individual leaders. Equally important are
political issues such as respect, the role of domestic public opinion in
the region and abroad, the important role of historical memory and
lingering resentments, the central importance of legitimacy and law,
and the role of resistance within wider political engagements.
Amr Moussa’s chapter in particular captures the very wide context
of conditions across the Middle East that determine if conflicts expand
or diminish, and he notes that his vision of a more developed and dem-
ocratic Arab world can only materialize in the wake of a permanent,
comprehensive and just Arab-Israeli peace accord. He emphasizes that
T HE A R AB - ISR A ELI CONFLIC T 93

the Arab world in its Arab Peace Plan has clearly expressed its willing-
ness to live in peace with Israel, and has made all the concessions that
Israel and the world have asked from it, and it is high time that Israel
responds positively to this initiative that remains on the table.
The broad range of issues he mentions that shape Arab and wider
Middle Eastern societies remind us that citizens who live in countries
that are politically pluralistic, democratic and stable, and economi-
cally dynamic are more likely to live in peace with each other and
their neighbors than citizens who suffer autocracy, foreign occupa-
tion and colonization, poverty, and poor education and health stan-
dards. Resolving political conflicts also requires paying attention to
issues such as environmental conditions, cultural norms, the role of
the UN, Arab-Israeli-Iranian-Turkish relations, social and economic
conditions, political governance, the quality or lack thereof of foreign
mediation, and inter-Arab cooperation through the Arab League.
Few people in the Middle East can match Amr Moussa’s breadth
of experience and personal interactions with the issues and actors that
shape the Middle East and its interactions with the world. His career
as an Egyptian diplomat included serving as foreign minister, before
being appointed as Secretary-General of the League of Arab States
(2001–2011). He was also a member of the United Nations High
Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change for International
Peace and Security.
President Jimmy Carter analyzes his significant experiences in the
United States’ efforts at mediating Arab-Israeli peace agreements,
with very mixed results. He casts important light on both the qual-
ity and actions of the mediator, as well as the behavior of the war-
ring parties themselves. His reflections provide insightful hints about
some of the critical attributes of successful mediators and also of the
antagonists themselves who seek to end their wars.
Jimmy Carter served as the thirty-ninth president of the United
States from 1977 to 1981 and was recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace
Prize. During his presidency he concluded the Camp David Accords
and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which were as historic
as they were controversial across the Arab region.
Lieutenant General Robert Mood delivered his lecture in his capac-
ity then as chief of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO),
the very first UN and oldest peacekeeping mission, established follow-
ing the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948 (to monitor the cessation of
hostilities and the subsequent 1949 armistice lines) and with offices in
Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, and Amman. His text also reflects
his 30 years experience in the Norwegian army that exposed him to
94 RAMI G. KHOURI

both the military and civilian sides of peacemaking; this included vari-
ous international appointments such as in Southern Lebanon, Sudan,
Afghanistan, and Kosovo, before his UNTSO appointment.
Mood first reflects on the particular case of UNTSO, suggest-
ing that to survive, such peacekeeping operations must be flexible
enough to withstand changes in context, scope, and time. Part of this
flexibility involved accommodating and adapting to two other inde-
pendent peacekeeping missions operating in its area of operations,
UNDOF in the Golan Heights and UNIFIL in Southern Lebanon,
occupied respectively by Israel in 1973 and 1978. Moreover, when
Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994,
respectively, they both insisted UNTSO not end its mission, given
its political connection to the resolution of the larger Arab-Israeli
conflict. From this, Mood draws the most important lesson from
UNTSO: it has been bearing witness since 1949 and representing
the UN’s determination to respect the armistice lines, regardless of
Israeli annexation claims in, for instance, the occupied Golan.
In general terms, as a military man involved in peacemaking, Mood
leaves us with no doubt about his core lesson from his experiences:
“[D]ialog is always a better option” than militaristic interventions
that rarely produce the desired political outcome. Military means,
sometimes unavoidable, can “easily cause more harm than good” by
stimulating more violence, unpredictability, and extremism. As with
Brahimi and Eliasson in the first part of this book, Mood shows that
cultural and contextual knowledge of the conflict and its parties, as
well as building trust between them and the peacemakers, is another
key lesson. Impartiality and human relations, he concludes, are what
peacemaking is all about.
Alastair Crooke touches on two important dynamics that have
hovered over many aspects of modern Middle East history and poli-
tics: the growth and substantive arguments of mainstream and legiti-
mate Islamist mass movements in Arab countries, Iran, and other
Muslim-majority lands and the often confrontational and distrustful
relationships between Islamists and Western parties. As Islamist ideas
and sentiments continue to spread across the region in many differ-
ent forms—Muslim Brotherhood parties, Hamas, Hizbollah, ISIS,
Al-Qaeda, and dozens of other groups—understanding the issues and
mindsets at play in this world becomes absolutely critical to any hopes
of reducing or resolving conflicts across the Middle East. Not surpris-
ingly, he often discusses Hamas and Hizbollah in tackling the tense
or forbidden relationships between Western governments and Islamist
movements in the Middle East. Hamas in Palestine and Hizbollah in
T HE A R AB - ISR A ELI CONFLIC T 95

Lebanon both came into being in the early 1980s largely as a con-
sequence of Israeli military occupations of Palestinian and Lebanese
territory. They grew stronger and eventually fought several wars with
Israel—which usually ended with a United Nations-brokered cease-
fire—because of the popular support they garnered in their and other
countries. This in turn reflected the powerful commitments among
Arab public opinion to resisting the Israeli occupation of Arab lands
and subjugation and exile of the Palestinian people. Secular move-
ments carried this torch in the 1960s and 70s in many Arab lands,
and by the 1980s, Islamist movements had emerged as the strongest
manifestations of the determination in the Arab world to continue to
struggle against the ravages of repeated Israeli attacks, occupations,
and colonization of Arab lands.
Crooke is one of the world’s leading experts and practitioners in
interactions among Islamists and Western organizations, states, and
individuals. He is founder and co-director of Conflicts Forum, which
works on ending the isolation of mainstream Islamists (Hamas,
Hizbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, but not groups like Al-Qaeda or
ISIS) by promoting dialogue and challenging entrenched views in
both the Western and Arab media. His 30 years of experience in
conflict resolution include working with the European Union and
the British government in the Middle East, Ireland, South Africa,
Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Colombia, advising the
European Union High Representative to the Arab-Israeli negotia-
tions and the Quartet, and mediating several inter-Palestinian and
Palestinian-Israeli cease-fires.
Running through the four authors’ accounts of their experiences
with various conflicts across the Middle East are the strains of the
three overarching and underlying factors that explain much about
this war-scarred region. The three are: anti-imperial struggles against
foreign powers, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and domestic strife in a
context of weak and erratic state-building. If these factors are better
appreciated and politically addressed, the prospects for our region
would improve dramatically and quickly. If they are ignored—as has
been the case predominantly to date—the Middle East will continue
to stumble through modern history with the structural handicaps of
its own wounds and fractures. Some of these are self-inflicted, but
many are caused or exacerbated by foreign elements.
1. The historical struggle between indigenous polities and actors,
and foreign—mostly Western—powers has included over a century
and a half of colonial rule over much of the Arab world, and con-
tinued postindependence tensions in many cases. The continuing
96 RAMI G. KHOURI

tensions often have been directly linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict,


and state-building and political governance issues within individual
Arab states. An important sign of the lingering tensions between
native and foreign forces is the fact that various (mostly Western)
powers have remained militarily active in Arab lands well past the
postindependence period in the middle of the last century and until
today. Foreign support for autocratic Arab governments and regimes
for the past century, by both East and West during the Cold War,
stoked further anti-foreign sentiments among popular opinion across
the region. Iran’s support today for Syria, which many Arabs resent,
is only the latest example of new indigenous/external tensions that
shape and underpin some of the oldest conflicts in the region.
2. The seeds of the Arab-Israeli conflict were sown in late nine-
teenth-century Europe with the birth of the Zionist movement that
sought to create a Jewish homeland through a settler-colonial project
in a Muslim/Christian Arab-majority Palestine. This movement accel-
erated in the 1930s and 1940s under the British mandate that helped
create a Jewish proto-state, while crushing the subsequent Arab revolt
of 1936–1939. Increasingly losing control, the British abandoned
Palestine, handing it over to the newly created United Nations that
voted for partition. This, in turn, led to the 1947–1948 large-scale
Palestinian-Zionist and subsequent Arab-Israeli Wars. Countries in
the region and abroad often took sides with one or the other war-
ring parties, and those political linkages and strategic alliances with
foreign actors have continued for decades to send ripples of political
tensions throughout the region. For example, imbalanced support for
Israel explains widespread anti-American political sentiments among
Arab public opinion, the 1973 oil boycott of the United States by
many Arab governments, or long-running commercial boycotts of
some foreign corporations that are deemed to strategically assist the
Israeli economy. In recent years, Iranian-Israeli and Turkish-Israeli
tensions, or Western governments’ boycotts of legitimate and often
popular Arab movements like Hizbollah or Hamas, are direct con-
sequences of the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts’ ripples
that reach more distant capitals.
3. The past 75 years or so have witnessed repeated linkages between
developments within individual Arab states and the ongoing Arab-
Israeli conflict. A significant dimension of this was the advent of mili-
tary rule in key Arab states (like Egypt, Syria, Iraq) from the 1950s,
often justified by the need to fight against Israel and its threats to
the Arab world. Military rule across the Arab world has remained a
constant since then, leading to autocratic governance systems that ulti-
mately generated widespread corruption, mismanagement, distortions,
T HE A R AB - ISR A ELI CONFLIC T 97

tensions, and open conflicts within Arab countries. Conflicts inside


individual Arab countries are now the fastest growing sector of political
violence across the region, and their lineage and linkages to the Arab-
Israeli conflict from the 1950s cannot be ignored. Tensions inherent
in weak state-building processes, due to domestic as well as regional
factors, started to appear in the Arab world in the 1950s, in the form of
coups by colonels and generals who replaced ruling monarchs or other
officers. In the 1970s and 80s, erratic state-building and the abuse of
power by centralized security states eventually led to socioeconomic
disparities due to a brutal combination of incompetent management,
corruption, nepotism, and lack of any domestic checks and balances on
the exercise of power. Governments that were not able in the 1980s to
maintain the nationalist developmental momentum that had defined
state-building in the previous four decades contracted and withdrew
from some quarters of society; they were replaced by powerful nonstate
actors that drew on proven older group identities like religion, ethnic-
ity, regionalism, and tribalism. Among the most significant examples
are tribal and religious organizations (Muslim Brothers) in countries
like Jordan, Yemen, Somalia, and Egypt and resistance movements
like Hizbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Palestine. These have
expanded the most rapidly in recent years, especially since the end of
the Cold War in 1990 removed the Soviet-American mutual deter-
rence constraints that had limited violent confrontations in the region.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the subsequent American-led
war in Iraq the same year, the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in
2003, and the NATO-led campaign in Libya in 2011 were examples
of post-Cold War militarism that always resulted in weakening internal
national structures within Arab states. This in turn accelerated the
birth and expansion of nonstate actors and organizations that filled
in the voids left by contracting, weakened, or virtually nonexistent
central states, and that often fought one another in order to dominate
state power (i.e., Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen).
The authors of the four chapters in this section collectively capture
the complexities, linkages, and dogged longevity of these three main
sources of conflicts in the Middle East. This is depressing in clarify-
ing the difficulty of the hard work that must be done to reduce and
resolve conflicts by cutting out their underlying drivers and causes. It
is also heartening in that it allows us to know precisely those domes-
tic, regional, and global issues and dynamics that must be addressed
constructively to stop the strife and suffering across the Middle East
that has held three generations of its citizens hostage.
Chapter 6

Thirty Years after Camp David:


A Memo to the Arab World,
Israel, and the Quartet

Jimmy Carter 1

W hen I was elected President in 1976, there had been four major
wars in the Middle East in the previous 25 years. The US had faced
the challenge of an Arab oil embargo in 1973 and 1974, and contin-
ued to face a secondary boycott against any corporation in my nation
that did business with Israel. I had resolved even before I was elected
president that I would do what I could to bring peace to Israel and
its Arab neighbors with a comprehensive agreement that also would
secure the rights of the Palestinian people. I began my efforts by
meeting with the leaders of this region as quickly as I could after
I was inaugurated.
I had a wide range of meetings and discussed the various aspects
of the peace process, primarily the obstacles to be overcome, with the
leaders who were involved. I was very distressed when a May 1977
Israeli election brought a change in government and Menachem Begin
as prime minister, because it seemed to me from his statements before
the election that he would not be amenable to a peace negotiation.
However, when I met with him I changed my mind. I found that the
American president has great influence with the leaders of Israel. In
my opinion this still holds great potential for progress in the future.

Camp David Diplomacy


The first breakthrough in peace negotiations came when Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat made an unprecedented visit to Jerusalem
in November 1977. No Arab leader had been willing to take such
a chance for peace. Nevertheless, subsequent negotiations stalled.
100 JIMMY CART ER

I took the initiative and invited Sadat and Begin to Camp David in
September 1978. We spent 13 days in isolation. I was determined to
resolve the differences on Israeli security, land, and Palestinian rights.
In the first three days, I met in a small room with only Begin and
Sadat. They were so completely incompatible and never could get
beyond arguing about the past, that for the last ten days at Camp
David I never let them see each other. Begin stayed in his cabin and
Sadat stayed in his cabin, and I went back and forth between the two
to negotiate. We got to the final day, and we thought we had failed,
because there was an insuperable difference between them. President
Sadat insisted that all Israeli settlers had to be removed from Egyptian
territory. On the other hand, Prime Minister Begin had taken an oath
before God that he would never dismantle an Israeli settlement, so
that seemed impossible to resolve.
On the last day, Begin, Sadat, and I were packing to go back home
in defeat, and Begin asked me if I would sign some photographs
of me with him and Sadat, for his grandchildren. By calling Israel,
my secretary discovered the names of his grandchildren. Instead of
signing just “best wishes,” I signed “best wishes to . . .” and I wrote
the name of each of his grandchildren, and took them over to his
cabin. He was quite angry with me at that time. He said, “Thank
you, Mr. President.” He was very proper. Then he turned around
and began to read the names of his grandchildren, one by one, and
tears ran down his cheeks, and mine. He had realized that if we did
not succeed, his grandchildren would face sustained conflict. I went
back to my cabin and in a few minutes his attorney general, Aharon
Barak, who later was chief justice of the Supreme Court, came and
said, “Let us try one more time,” and we did. So the way we resolved
it was that Begin withdrew himself from the decision concerning the
settlements and let the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, decide; they
voted 85 percent affirmatively to dismantle the settlements. They also
voted overwhelmingly for the commitments that Begin had made
concerning the Palestinians—that they would have full autonomy and
that all Israeli military and political forces would be withdrawn from
the West Bank and Gaza. That was the agreement. Six months later a
treaty of peace between Israel and Egypt was signed.

Implementing the Camp David Accords


I thought that all the Camp David terms would be implemented, but
they were not. Repeated public opinion polls in Israel have shown
that roughly 60 percent of the Israeli public is consistently in favor of
T H I R T Y Y E A R S A F T E R C A M P D AV I D 101

exchanging “land for peace,” that is withdrawing from the occupied


territories in exchange for the kind of peace that was offered to Israel
by Egypt. There have been some fluctuations up and down, depending
on the level of violence, but if we ever see an Israeli leader negotiate and
reach an agreement with the Palestinians assuring that Israel’s public
can be protected, I am sure the Israeli people would support it.
After the Camp David Accords were signed, I tried very hard to
get Arab leaders to participate and support the negotiations regard-
ing the Palestinians. At that time King Hussein of Jordan was under
great pressure from other Arabs not to participate, and President
Hafez Assad of Syria was not friendly with President Sadat. Privately,
a number of Arab leaders said to me, “We cannot support you pub-
licly but go ahead with the effort.” This included Arab leaders who
publicly condemned Sadat.
When I later became acquainted with Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, he told me that the
worst political mistake he made in his life was not supporting the
Camp David Accords, because they gave his people everything they
could have wanted at that time: full autonomy, control of their own
affairs, and complete withdrawal by Israel from the occupied terri-
tories. More than 30 years later not a word of the Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty has been violated. Tragically, the opportunity to secure
Palestinian rights was missed.

Disappointment, Progress, and More Disappointment


During the 1980s, the Middle East suffered considerable violence
and made little progress toward peace. The situation improved in
the early 1990s, and in 1993, Norwegian negotiators brought Israeli
and Palestinian leaders together for what was known as the Oslo
Agreement. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres, and Chairman Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize for their
effort. A Palestinian National Authority was established in 1994,
and in January 1996, Palestinians elected 88 members of a legislative
council and Arafat as president. The Carter Center monitored this
election and I served as head of our delegation.
President Bill Clinton made a number of efforts to bring Israeli
and Palestinian negotiators together. In 2000, he brought Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat to Camp David to negotiate a
final status agreement, but this proved unsuccessful. Although nego-
tiators continued to try to resolve the differences, they were unable
to succeed before both Clinton and Barak left office in 2001. In the
102 JIMMY CART ER

years following, there were peace initiatives proposed, but no official


negotiations. In 2003, the US, the UN, the European Union, and
the Russian Federation came together as the Quartet and drew up
a Roadmap for Peace. The same year former Israel and Palestinian
negotiators drew up an unofficial peace agreement that was known
as the Geneva Initiative. I gave the keynote speech at the launching
ceremony in Switzerland.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid


In 2006, I decided to write a book advocating peace for Palestine,
based on about as much intimate knowledge as any outsider could
accrue of the relationship of the Israelis and Palestinians. Since the
establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, three elections
have been conducted, all monitored by The Carter Center. The first
was when Arafat was elected president in 1996. The second, after
Arafat’s death, resulted in the election of President Mahmoud Abbas
(Abu Mazen) in 2005, and a third one a year later elected a new
Palestinian Authority leadership and parliament, with Hamas par-
ticipating for the first time. Hamas won that election in an open and
fair contest. The Carter Center has monitored 73 elections around
the world, and the Palestinian elections compared favorably to any
of these. The Palestinian Election Commission that supervised all
aspects of the process comprises distinguished leaders who have
been former judges and college presidents, and whose reputations
are beyond question. I stayed for a day or two after the last election
because I had heard that Abu Mazen was going to resign, since his
party Fatah had lost the election. I talked to him and to some of
Hamas’ elected parliamentarians in Ramallah, and he decided to stay
on as president, while attempts were made to form a National Unity
Government. Palestinian unity deteriorated in June 2007, leaving
Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank.
In the meantime, through The Carter Center and my writings,
I was trying to advance the prospects for peace. Six years had passed
without any serious peace negotiations between the Israelis and
Palestinians. My book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, was intended
to make a provocative case for the resumption of negotiations. The
definition of apartheid is when two peoples occupy the same land and
they are forcibly separated one from another, and one dominates the
other. That will certainly be the situation in the Palestinian territories
if a separate Palestinian state is not created. Recently, I went to Israel
and the West Bank, met with the Gaza-Hamas leaders in Cairo, and
T H I R T Y Y E A R S A F T E R C A M P D AV I D 103

then went to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad and with
Hamas leaders in Damascus. While we were in Jerusalem, we met
with the leaders of a hundred peace organizations and also with their
counterpart Palestinian leaders, on a smaller scale, in the West Bank.
That was a good learning experience for me, and it has contributed
to my forthcoming book, We Can Bring Peace to the Holy Land. My
hope is that we will see a new movement toward a comprehensive
peace in this entire region, including Lebanon and Syria, along with
Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinians and the Israelis. Such a comprehen-
sive approach is the only way that the people in this region ultimately
can live in peace, security, progress, and harmony.

Factors for Peace in the Holy Land


Why do I say we can bring peace to the Holy Land? The framework
for what needs to be accomplished has already been determined. First
are the United Nations resolutions that established the framework of
what people are bound to do to achieve peace. UN Security Council
Resolution 242 has been accepted by Israel and all the Arab states.
It emphasizes the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war
and says that Israeli armed forces shall withdraw from the occupied
territories and that every state in the area has a right to live in peace
within secure and recognized boundaries.
The International Quartet, which comprises the United States,
Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, has produced
a very clear Roadmap for Peace. It reaffirms the relevant UN resolu-
tions and explicitly says that a settlement will result in “an indepen-
dent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in
peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.” The final
status agreement is to include a resolution of the status of Jerusalem
and a solution to the refugee issue.
The Geneva Initiative, or Geneva Accords, drafted by both Israeli
and Palestinian citizens, presents a detailed unofficial plan. It built on
negotiations that took place at Taba at the end of the Barak govern-
ment. A draft peace agreement was presented in Geneva, Switzerland
in October 2003, in the presence of some 200 Palestinians and 200
Israelis. I was there and made a keynote address. The agreement was
endorsed publicly by President Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair
from Great Britain, President Jacques Chirac from France, and about
200 other leaders from around the world. It was later approved in a
public opinion poll by both Palestinians and Israelis. It is a framework
that is very specific on how a peace agreement can be consummated.
104 JIMMY CART ER

It includes our suggestion that a small portion of the West Bank


adjacent to Jerusalem can be deeded to Israel, in return for an equal
amount of land given to the Palestinians just east of Gaza. It also
includes the idea that Jerusalem would be shared, and other basic ele-
ments from previous resolutions or discussions.
The Geneva Accords recommend that Palestinians be allowed to
return to the West Bank and Gaza freely, but those choosing to return
to Israel may do so only if individual family applications are approved
by Israel. The Accords stipulate that any Palestinians denied the right
to come back to their ancestral homes and lands in Palestine, today
in Israel, would be compensated fully, according to the procedures of
the International Court of Claims. The Accords recommend that a
large sum of money, maybe several billion dollars, would be obtained
from Arab nations, Japan, Europe, and the United States and placed
in this fund. I am familiar with this Court of Claims, which works
beautifully, on the basis of my own experience with it. During my
presidency, when American hostages were taken by Iran, I froze
$12 billion of Iranian money that had been deposited in parts of the
world that I could influence, including $2 billion in gold in the Bank
of England. We ultimately agreed that legitimate American claims
would be paid through the International Court of Claims. Within
seven years, every claim that had been filed against Iran was paid.
I think that this would be one way to address that unresolved ques-
tion of the rights and compensation of Palestinians who might not be
granted their full rights back in Israel. Some of them might be allowed
to go back into Israel, and others would be fully compensated.
In 2002 an Arab Peace Plan was put forth and supported by all
22 Arab countries, with no exception, offering Israel full diplomatic
recognition within its pre-1967 borders, the so-called Green Line.
When King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was questioned about how they
would deal with Israel on trade and commerce, he said: “The same as
we deal with each other, among our Arab brothers.” That was charac-
terized by many people as a basis for peace, and it is still on the table.
All of the legal and political frameworks I suggest are predicated on
willingness of the leaders of Israel and Palestine to negotiate in good
faith and to reach a conclusion that results in Israel withdrawing from
occupied territories and recognizing a Palestinian state.

One or Two State Solution?


The nation of Israel was established as a Jewish state under a plan
of partition developed by the United Nations (with which some
T H I R T Y Y E A R S A F T E R C A M P D AV I D 105

disagreed from the beginning). The adjacent area would be occu-


pied by Muslim and Christian Arabs. After the 1967 War, the Israelis
occupied Arab lands and achieved the possibility of exchanging land
for peace. Within its pre-1967 borders, Israel could remain a predom-
inantly Jewish nation and be accepted by its Arab neighbors. That
was a dream and still is the hope. Another option though has been
the development of a single nation between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea. The demographic trends are that within some
years, perhaps less than 20, the majority of the total population in
that area would be non-Jewish Arab and other people. So if Arabs are
given equal voting rights the government’s decisions would be made
by those who are not Jewish. This option was condemned by every
responsible Israeli leader.
However, the one-state solution, in my opinion, is what is being
evolved now, because the Israelis do not appear willing to give up the
occupied territories. For Israel to remain Jewish, the Arab population
could not be given equal voting rights, although they would be citi-
zens of the one state. I think that with the establishment of the nation
of Israel in 1948–49, the vision was for there to be a single Jewish
state living in harmony with the Arabs and others around them. The
constant expansion of settlements under Israeli control created the
current situation. We would like to see Israel living side by side with
a free, independent, contiguous, and prosperous Palestinian state,
where Palestinians, many of whom are still in refugee camps, includ-
ing in neighboring countries, could move back home or be compen-
sated fully for the property that was taken from them.
The offer made by Arab countries to Israel, first in 2002 and
repeated since then, to have full diplomatic relations and full trade
and commerce, is a contribution to peace. Shortly after that offer was
made in 2002, at a gathering of all 52 Islamic countries, including
those like Indonesia that are Islamic but not Arab, they also voted
unanimously to recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace within the
1967 borders. It is interesting to note that the one who made the
motion for that vote was the president of Iran at the time, Mohammad
Khatami. So not only do you have the 22 Arab countries but also
about 30 other Islamic countries that all said to Israel, “If you want
to live within your legal borders we will have full diplomatic rela-
tions with you, complete friendship with you, and complete trade and
commerce with you.” I think that offer is a very generous one, if dif-
ficult for some. With some modifications of the exact 1967 borders,
I think that would be something that could be acceptable and would
be approved by a substantial majority of Israeli citizens.
106 JIMMY CART ER

Need for Political Courage


A problem is obviously the militant Israeli settlers who believe that
the covenant between God and Abraham and his descendants gives
them a right to all of the land between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea. The other problem is political leaders in Israel
who do not want to confront that militant group and their supporters.
The international community considers these settlements on occu-
pied territory to be illegal. American presidents, including me, have
characterized Israeli settlements on Palestinian soil as illegal and an
obstacle to peace.
The problem of Israel annexing Palestinian land has been exacer-
bated by what the Israelis call their security barrier. This is based on
a distortion of a decision that the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin made. He decided that in order to protect the Israeli public
a wall should be built along the Green Line, the pre-1967 border.
When Ariel Sharon became prime minister, he began to move the wall
eastward deep into the West Bank, sometimes 20 km deep. This wall
goes into the West Bank to encompass strategic parts of the occupied
territories and to surround illegal Israeli settlements that are already
there. This project that winds around East Jerusalem and the West
Bank like a snake is still ongoing.
What happens will depend substantially on the attitude and deep
commitment, maybe the political courage, of the president of the
United States. I know of the tremendous political pressures that
exist in my nation among elected office holders to comply with the
policies of the Israeli government. The United States possibly can
bring to the Israelis and to their neighbors a solution to the problem
that will be beneficial to Israelis and their neighbors. I have hopes
and expectations that the American president will take a strong
stand in favor of forceful American influence to bring about peace in
accordance with the existing American policy, the Quartet’s policy,
and the UN Resolutions, and take advantage of the Arab offer of
peace. That is my hope and my dream and I might say the subject
of my prayers.

The Role of Hamas


The Israelis have a legitimate concern that negotiations with the
Palestinian Authority would not be honored by Hamas, which has
never accepted the terms of the Oslo Agreement. However, I was
encouraged when I met with Hamas leaders in Damascus recently
T H I R T Y Y E A R S A F T E R C A M P D AV I D 107

that they stated that any peace agreement negotiated between Abu
Mazen and the Israelis would be accepted by them if it was later
submitted to the Palestinian population in a referendum, even if
the Hamas leaders did not like parts of the agreement. I announced
this to the public in Jerusalem, and at the same time the leaders
of Hamas in Damascus made a public statement to that effect. So
that was a new and very encouraging development. The alternative
to holding a referendum would be to have a democratic election in
Palestine, once again as happened in January 2006, with Hamas
candidates allowed to participate. If a Palestinian unity govern-
ment that included several factions of Palestinians approved a peace
agreement, then it would be acceptable to Hamas. Public opinion
polls of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have shown an
overwhelming desire to implement the two-state solution, with the
Palestinians living in peace in an independent, contiguous, viable
nation alongside Israel.

About Love, Care, Compassion, and Forgiveness


For the last 33 years I have devoted more of my time to this particu-
lar issue than to any other matter of international consequence, and
I will continue to make a modest effort as a private citizen and leader
of The Carter Center. My hope is that in the future we will see peace
come to this region, which in my mind is holy. I teach a Bible lesson
every Sunday morning in my little church at home. I happen to be a
Christian. My hope is that these kinds of disturbances and conflicts
can be removed in the near future, and we will all see what we are
praying for, and that is peace in God’s world.
The main message that I bring is that peace is necessary, not only
for Israel and the Palestinians but for the entire Middle East and
the entire region, indeed the entire world. If the Palestinian issue
was resolved peacefully, and with justice and human rights for all,
I feel that a great deal of animosity against my country and Western
nations would be alleviated. So I look on the possibility and the need
for peace not just for Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinians, but
for the entire world. If the United States should default on a position
of leadership, my hope is that others would fill that vacuum and use
the full influence of the world to bring about peace. I remain hope-
ful that an American president will take that leadership role and not
disappoint any of us.
We know that in the Christian Bible it says that peacemakers shall
be called the children of God.2 I think this applies to peacemakers
108 JIMMY CART ER

who worship in other ways as well. I believe that people of all faiths,
or even no faith, would be called the children of God for promoting
peace. I hope that all of us will join together with a degree of love,
care, compassion, and forgiveness, and look into the future for a time
of peace in God’s Holy Land, which you occupy along with others.

Notes
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on December
12, 2008, and edited in July 2015.
2. Matthew 5:9.
Chapter 7

The Situation in the Middle East:


A Vision for the Future

Amr Moussa1

How do we Arabs see our present, and what kind of a plan do we


have, or need, for the future? I would first note that the Arab system
did not totally fail, but it certainly fell short of attaining several of
its essential goals. Using a university grading system, I would give
our performance between C- and D. I would also suggest that a big
portion of the blame should be put on our own shoulders in multiple
arenas: neglect in our social development, sensitivities in our relations,
misplaced priorities (education and health care, in particular), easy
and sometimes cost-free submission to foreign influence, misreading
of the new world trends and paradigms, allowing the return of past
complexes and animosities, hollow slogans, lack of transparency, lack
of progress on the path toward democracy, and, above all, confused
and confusing religious debates alongside a chaotic media scene.
This situation contributed to multiple failures in the Arab system
and has prevented our region from making a real quantum leap into
the future. Our generation feels the bitterness for the opportunities
we wasted over many decades. Let us ignore for now World War II
and its aftermath and how we handled the world of the second half
of the twentieth century; instead, let us start with the Cold War and
its aftermath. In both situations, the Arab world paid dearly in many
ways. Most of the time it was manipulated as a mere tool in the game of
nations. When the Cold War came to an end the entire world was chang-
ing, but we were not. New challenges, paradigms, and issues topped
the global agenda, such as globalization, democracy, human rights,
and liberalization. Concepts such as “the end of history,” “the clash
of civilizations,” humanitarian intervention, and the Responsibility to
Protect all formed the tenets of the new international system.
110 AMR MOUSSA

Some in our world opposed, others went along blindly, and many
others yet were not aware of the depth and implications of these
new trends. There was no adequate coordination, no consultation or
in-depth consideration of the repercussions of the changes underway.
We had no clear appreciation of the development and evolution of
many of those concepts, despite the fact that it was in our region and
countries that many of these new concepts were being formulated,
tested, and implemented.
In short, we were caught unprepared for the post-Cold War new
world. When the moment was ripe, we were also unable to field a
generation of politicians, economists, environmentalists, and intel-
lectuals who could participate as stakeholders in the world’s new sub-
stance and style. We did not put the necessary emphasis on education
as the critical tool to achieve that goal. Also, while the world was
bracing itself for the new era to come, we were shocked by Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, which confronted the Arab system with a real
and serious existential threat that kept us busy with the crisis and
its lingering implications, some of which persist today. We were also
consistently passive, only reacting to new theories about our own
region, ranging from the New Middle East and the Broader Middle
East, to initiatives about reconfiguring the Middle East—with few
of our own contributions from within the Arab world about our own
vision, for our own future.

Apparent Arab Disarray


The result is what we see today—an Arab world in apparent disar-
ray. Iraq continues to suffer from bitter divisions, instead of enjoy-
ing the fruits of reconciliation. Sudan suffers partition and continued
militarism, Yemen is in turmoil, Palestine is in distress, Lebanon is
calm and progressing on the surface yet seems like a victim in wait-
ing, Somalia is in shambles, and some Arab territories remain under
foreign occupation. At the same time, inter-Arab relations are in a
state of confusion. Internal Palestinian divisions persist in a condition
of irresponsibility that none of us in the region could have imagined
would be the case.
This is only one side of the serious challenges the Arab world cur-
rently faces, all of which require diligent action to find appropriate
remedies. The other side is existential, as many nations in our region
sit idly by watching the world rebuilding and progressing, but they
are not trying to find their rightful place under the new sun of the
twenty-first century. Recent Arab summits in Tunisia and Algeria
T H E S I T UAT I O N I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T 111

launched a process of desired change, reform, and modernization, yet


innovation and entrepreneurship are neither supported nor embraced
as they should be. The important process of democratization is slow
and hesitant, taking one step forward and another step back. We have
to acknowledge this sad reality in order for us to be able to effectively
deal with it, rise to the challenge, and prove our capacity to change,
our determination to move forward and our credentials to claim a
seat as partners on the world stage.
On the broader regional scene, the four regional players are the
Arab world, Turkey, Iran, and Israel, a situation in which we must
admit that the Arab world is currently a handicapped player. Yet
we should not negate the fact that Arabs do have several remaining
sources of strength. One is the identity they cherish, if they choose
to ensure its respect and credibility, which certainly is within their
capacity. Another is the fact that we constitute the majority in the
region, and as such we would never accept the prevalence or the hege-
mony of a non-Arab regional power. A unified Arab position on this
issue is attainable.
Turkey, on the one hand, has become an active player, a smooth
operator with an intelligent policy and cogent diplomacy. Iran, on the
other hand, is also an active player, but a rough operator with a tough
policy and sometimes intriguing diplomacy.
Israel, I would say, is bent on losing opportunity after opportunity
to make peace with us, perhaps intentionally as a policy or even a
strategy. This refusal to make peace has reached an extent that Abba
Eban, the late foreign minister of Israel who stated that Arabs never
missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, would have amended
his saying had he been living today to conclude that Israel recently has
never really missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace.
Israel is missing a valuable opportunity to join the Middle East family
of nations by its refusal to make peace on fair terms. Israel will remain
a pariah in the Middle East if it continues to obstruct and procras-
tinate and refuses to relinquish the occupied Arab territories and to
accept a viable Palestinian state. This is a simple equation: Israel either
accepts to make peace with the Arabs in accordance with internation-
ally recognized terms of reference, or it remains on the far periphery
of the Middle East, with no regional role to play or the possibility to
get a seat at the Middle Eastern table.
The historical record clearly shows that foreign military occupation
generates both the possibility and the likelihood of resistance. I have
witnessed this in this region throughout my own lifetime. Where
there is a military occupation, there is always resistance. Nobody
112 AMR MOUSSA

can say they accept occupation, or condemn resistance. Occupation


should be condemned and brought to an end, in order to achieve
calm, cooperation, and coexistence. As long as there is occupation,
there is a rejection by the occupied people, by the region, and in fact
by the world. Such a situation cannot but produce a strong reaction to
occupation. Sometimes this is through military resistance, sometimes
through political rejection, or a political boycott that rejects normal-
ization and cooperation. Nobody should deny the right of people
under occupation to reject their condition and to resist. If there is
a viable peace process, a true process of peace, we must all give it a
chance. But such a process should be really viable and honest, and not
just a tool to waste time and to dupe the Arabs into talking and talk-
ing, while the continuing occupation and expansion of settlements
make it impossible to establish a Palestinian state in lands vacated by
the occupying power.

Iran, Turkey, and the Arabs


A Turkish constructive role in the Middle East and positive relations
with the Arab world are both welcomed and should be encouraged.
We should entertain the thought that Turkey could be invited to
enjoy a special relationship with the Arab League under a new system
that could be devised in the future. Iran for its part should continue
to be given a fair chance and the benefit of the doubt in its regional
relations—not out of naivete or self-deception, but for good policy
reasons that also require a formal dialogue between the Arab League
and Iran. In such a dialogue, the Arab League would be represented
by the Secretary-General and those members most concerned because
of aspects of Iranian policy that they feel affect their interests and/
or security. We are all concerned about the nuclear situation and the
state of regional security. We are also concerned that the feud between
Shiites and Sunnis could get out of hand or be geared to attaining
dubious political goals, which would perpetuate and deepen the exist-
ing schism and lead us all into a lose-lose situation. Both Turkey and
Iran should also be positive in their approach to the Arab World.
Iran may have its concerns and also some complaints, but we Arabs
should build on the premise that Iran should not be categorically
considered as our enemy. We share a common history with Iran, our
interests meet or overlap in many ways—and we both are here to stay.
Neither of us will move out of the region. We are neighbors, and we
will remain neighbors until the end of history, which is why a dia-
logue such as I describe would be very much in order. I address this
T H E S I T UAT I O N I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T 113

call to both Iran and to my fellow Arabs as well, all of whom need to
think twice before pursuing a path that would usher in an era of chaos
and turbulence in our neighborhood.
We acknowledge the right of Iran—as a signatory of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty—to enjoy all the benefits allowed by the
treaty in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including in the
field of nuclear research. We strongly object to the development of
any and all military programs in the nuclear arena, but we also rec-
ognize that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not
confirmed the existence of such programs in Iran.
If the international community wants effectively to address the
matter of nuclear activities in the Middle East, it should treat Israel in
the same manner that it treats Iran. The most cogent approach would
be to declare the Middle East a region free from nuclear weapons
under international supervision. This should include Iran, Israel, and
all the countries of the region. The world should not focus on Iran
and tolerate Israel’s nuclear program. There is no such thing as a good
nuclear program and a bad nuclear program. We should also oppose
any military adventure against Iran, and express our concern with
sanctions that endanger the interests and the well-being of the Iranian
people. An intelligent and credible process of negotiations should
continue until fruition. This is achievable since Iran has accepted the
authority of the IAEA and the existing inspection system.

Regional Security in the Middle East


Nuclear weapons have already been introduced into the Middle East,
potentially triggering an arms race in the region, both in nuclear
weapons and also in other weapons of mass destruction and their
delivery systems. The region also suffers from military occupation,
threats of terrorism, and other risks and provocations. Given the seri-
ous lack of security in the region, we need to think of establishing a
regional security system. Arab consultations on such a system should
have started already. Such an effort to establish a regional security sys-
tem requires us to agree among ourselves on its principles, parameters,
requirements, structure, and substance. Turkey should be consulted
and involved at an early stage, followed by Iran when the moment
allows and the Arab-Iranian dialogue I am suggesting gets underway.
As for Israel, it should be involved only after a viable, serious process of
bilateral negotiations with the Arab parties concerned bears fruit and
the process of the establishment of the Palestinian state and the evac-
uation of occupied Arab territories is firmly underway. Reaching such
114 AMR MOUSSA

an outcome in a comprehensive process of negotiations should open


the door for the multilateral track. This could start with a committee
on regional security whose first item should be the establishment of
a nuclear weapons-free zone and a weapons of mass destruction-free
zone, in particular the delivery systems for such weapons.

Four Points for Regional Action


Four other points are relevant and require action on a regional level.
First is the reevaluation of the role of the Arab League. Contrary to
what some people claim, this organization has not been a failure.
The league has been very active in galvanizing Arab common efforts
in the fields of economic, social, and cultural cooperation. The first
developmental summit held in Kuwait in January 2009 succeeded in
launching several viable economic projects. The first established an
Arab fund for small- and medium-size enterprises, with $2 billion as
capital, most of which has been paid and/or committed. The second
pertains to a railway system linking all Arab countries, alongside a
network of highway systems, which is now in the consultancy studies
phase. Parts of these systems are already in place and others are under
construction in implementation of previous pan-Arab resolutions.
The third seeks to move from an Arab free trade area to an Arab cus-
toms union in the years ahead. Arab economic relations cover a wide
range of issues indeed, going well beyond trade in goods as the key
yardstick. Investment flows among Arab markets, for example, nearly
tripled in recent years, and the movement of inter-Arab tourism and
labor have also expanded consistently, alongside the growth in the
trade in services.
Social affairs activities have included efforts in the war against
poverty, activating women’s movements and rights, improving child
care, and launching numerous social development projects. The
cultural affairs sector has also seen the league reactivate projects in
book translation, publishing, competitive film making, and other
areas. We worked collectively under the banner of the Arab League
to participate in international book fairs and in academic debates
and encounters around the world, especially in rebutting accusa-
tions against Arab culture under the so-called clash of civilizations
analysis. Work is underway in these and many other areas, with ini-
tial successes and results opening the door to bigger achievements to
follow, we hope.
We are not satisfied with the little that we have achieved, but we
should not practice self-flagellation. I call instead to further deepen
T H E S I T UAT I O N I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T 115

the work on coordination and cooperation, on reform, and on mod-


ernization. We should involve Arab civil society and the private sec-
tor more vigorously in our endeavors. The Arab world is in a phase
of transition. We have to make sure that it is moving toward a more
stable and prosperous future.
The second issue we should tackle is the reorganization and revital-
ization of the Arab League. An Arab consensus feels that the league
should be revitalized, because continued business as usual will bring
the league and all of us nowhere. Many new and even revolutionary
ideas and proposals should be put before future Arab summits.

Arab-Israel Peace is Urgent


The third regional priority is resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict,
where business as usual also is not acceptable and will not work. We
should refuse to be duped endlessly and repeatedly by a so-called
peace process that has no end, or accept promises that are not serious
or credible, and are not committed to the principles and provisions of
international law. We should no longer accept the marginalization of
the United Nations, and in particular the Security Council, in the
quest for a negotiated peace. In the face of American calls for a quick
comprehensive consideration of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Arabs
should make it clear that they will not be pressured any further to
make additional concessions and participate in an unconditional peace
process, i.e., to return to the practice of managing the conflict, rather
than solving it. In particular, we cannot allow ourselves to be in a
situation where Israel goes on building more settlements and making
more unilateral changes in Jerusalem while we sit at the negotiat-
ing table under the banner of “negotiations without pre-conditions.”
Israel’s constant changing of demography and geography in the occu-
pied territories constitutes a serious negative precondition that ren-
ders negotiations utterly useless, counterproductive, demeaning, and
extremely harmful to Palestinian and Arab interests and rights, as
well as to the prospects for permanent peace in the region.
We have seen such “peace processes” before, and the result was
zero progress. Our goal should be to attain a viable Palestinian state
with East Jerusalem as its capital. If not, we should consider the one-
state solution—a state for all its citizens, without discrimination or
second-class citizenship. The occupied Arab territories of Syria and
Lebanon should be evacuated and returned to their rightful parties,
in order to achieve the comprehensive peace we long for. This is the
goal that should not be abandoned. The future of the Middle East
116 AMR MOUSSA

depends on the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a just and,


therefore, lasting way. Such a resolution should be fair and legitimate;
if achieving this is beyond our ability, we should refer the whole situ-
ation to the next generation, who perhaps would be more capable of
achieving “the peace of the brave,” as Yasser Arafat used to say.
All those who think that normalization with Israel in its current
state could be pursued at no cost are utterly mistaken. Arab countries
have promised to normalize relations with Israel, to recognize it as a
state in the region as per the Arab offer of peace commonly known as
the Arab Peace Initiative, that was adopted at the Beirut Summit in
2002. It is worth reading again. The Arab Peace Initiative is an offer
for peace. The word “initiative” should be interpreted very accurately
as an Arab offer for peace that commits all the Arab countries to
implement all the obligations included in Security Council resolu-
tions, or in the principles that we have accepted. We call on Israel to
do the same, to implement its part of the deal—if it wants the deal.
We used to say that the initiative will not stay on the table forever,
and recently one head of state used a different formulation in which
he said that it will not stay on the table for long. It is not yet our
view that we should withdraw it, because it is an offer for peace for
history. The fact is that Israel is not responding. But before with-
drawing it, we must have a different position to replace it, includ-
ing going to the Security Council and putting the whole problem
on the table of the council. I have always believed that it was one
of our major mistakes in the 1990s to allow the marginalization of
the United Nations, in particular the Security Council. An example
of why the Security Council and the entire United Nations system
have important roles to play in implementing the international rule
of law equitably among all states relates to Israel’s thousands of viola-
tions of UNSC Resolution 1706 since its adoption in 2006, always
with impunity vis-à-vis Lebanon’s rights or sovereignty. The Israelis
believe that they are above the law, because in fact they are often
treated in a different manner than all the other states in the UN. So
in reality, we cannot bring them to the Security Council and ask the
Council to adopt a resolution imposing sanctions on Israel. This is
impossible because of the aforesaid unlawful impunity. It would be
easy to do this against Iran or A, B, or C countries, but not Israel,
which knows that it can get away with anything it deems necessary.
This is the essence of the troubles in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Had
Israel been subject to the implementation of international law, like
all of us, we would have been in a different place, and perhaps peace
would have been reached by now.
T H E S I T UAT I O N I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T 117

Needed: An Israeli Peace Response


The Arab offer for peace cannot really produce anything in the absence
of a counteroffer and a clear position by Israel. What is clear for us
is that Israel does not want peace, and it has taken actions, followed
procedures, and used force in a manner that will make it very diffi-
cult to achieve peace. We have suffered much from the way we were
treated—with many promises, with an open-ended peace process and
no proper constraints to the Israeli settlement policy that continues
unhindered in the occupied territories. It would be demeaning and
harmful if a negotiating process were reinitiated while the occupied
territories are being settled further, and the geography and the demog-
raphy of Arab lands are being changed negatively by the day. We will
not accept to remain in the same vicious circle, just meeting for the
sake of meeting, negotiating for the sake of negotiating, and marking
time while Israel is doing what it wants to do. This is something that
we should not accept, and whoever accepts it is utterly mistaken, to
the point where he would harm the future of the Palestinians and the
future of stability in the Arab world and the Middle East.
The fourth issue concerns threats against Lebanon. I feel the con-
cern rampant in Lebanon and in the four corners of the Arab world
that Lebanon would fall victim to another Israeli assault. We shall
stand firm behind Lebanon and will not accept any justification for
an aggression against this country.
Let me conclude by suggesting a host of main issues that should
form the agenda for our immediate consideration and implementa-
tion, as we seek to implement my Vision for the Future of the Middle
East and the Arab World. The first priority is that we must continue
to insist on, and work for, a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Simultaneously, we should develop a clear Arab collective position
vis-à-vis trouble spots in the Arab world, including the formation of
an Arab Peace Keeping Force capable of intervention through a deci-
sion by the recently established Arab Peace and Security Council,
and in coordination with the UN Security Council. In parallel we
should establish in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass
destruction, including in particular nuclear weapons and their means
of delivery. This could be helped by our reconsidering the Arab
League structure to make it a vigorous regional organization. On
the domestic front, Arab states and their people must move steadily
toward democracy, ensuring respect and fulfilment of human rights
standards, good governance, the rule of law, and respect for the
principles of justice. Globally, we must stand firm against, but deal
118 AMR MOUSSA

intelligently with, the issue of “the clash of civilizations.” We need to


strengthen the Arab League’s Economic and Social Council in order
to be able to manage economic and social development plans, while
also pursuing the strategic goal of establishing the Arab Common
Market around the year 2020. Also at the regional level we must
pursue the reform of Arab societies through new cultural paradigms,
coupled with education reform plans and reintroducing serious pro-
grams on scientific research and Information Technology projects.
Among other things this includes taking seriously the new environ-
mental conditions and joining relevant international efforts in areas
such as climate change, water, and food security.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on February
18, 2010, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 8

Talking with Islamists: The Need for


Mutual Dignity and Respect

Alastair Crooke1

“ S
o, you spoke to the leaders of Hizbullah?” “Yes.” “And you also
speak with the leaders of Hamas?” “Yes.” “And they told you that
they support democracy?” “Yes.” “And you believe them?” With this,
the representative of a Washington think tank smiled, satisfied, to
her audience around her and sat down. The biting skepticism of her
question, “And you believe them?” was fairly clear. It implies a con-
viction that Islamists2 have nothing to say, or if they do speak, and
when they do have something to say, it is just babble of no mean-
ing and without any real sense to it. It also conveys the sense in the
West that when Islamists speak, their language is somehow shadowy,
unreachable, and coded, whereas our language—the language of the
West—is transparent, accessible, and honest. When we say we support
democracy, of course we are being serious, but when Hizbullah or
Hamas suggest that they support democracy, they are lying. This is
the implication of the way that the question above was framed.
The idea that non-Western cultures and non-Western language are
somehow ephemeral, irrational, and parochial is very deeply rooted in
colonialism and colonial thinking. In fact, it was the Greeks who orig-
inally coined the words “barbarians” and “barbarism”—meaning the
people that lived outside the bounds of civilization were barbarians.
It was from that word literally that came the concept that is implied
frequently about Islamist language today—people who stammer and
speak a language that has no meaning. That is what we call them—
barbarians—when we talk about Islamists only speaking in babble
today. In their time the Greeks used the term in particular with refer-
ence to the Persians, whom they accused of rejecting the ideas of the
120 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

Greek classical city-state. These people, the Persians, had other ideas;
they were somehow uncivilized, slaves to tyranny.
The implied sense that they are lying—the deceit that was implied
in this question about Islamist discourse, democracy, or their policy—
is also another classical inheritance that we have. This essentially came
from Plato, who argued very strongly that you simply could not trust
other city-states. Other city-states lied and used subterfuge and deceit
in order to try to deceive the Greeks of their true intentions and plans.
So nothing these people said could be taken at face value, because
they must be just lying and deceitful.

Those Beyond Civilization


In the West today we have this classical language but also a new
Orientalist language, which has taken Edward Said’s comments and
criticisms about Western language and the “other” to new peaks. We
have a language that was summed up by Ehud Barak, former defense
minister of Israel, when he described Israel as a “villa in the jungle,”
a villa of civilization. This villa was set down in the jungle, and at the
villa walls, just at the edge of the cultivated garden, you could see
the tentacles, the roots, the creepers of the jungle encroaching closer
and closer on that wall of civilization. The tentacles of the jungle
that he referred to are Gaza and Hamas. They are, in a sense, beyond
civilization in the language of the new Orientalism. We simply have
put them beyond the scope of civilization and also beyond the scope
of international law. So when Hamas or parliamentarians from the
uncivilized people beyond the villa walls are elected to parliament,
they are not part of us. They are not part of the civilized world: they
exist beyond it, these barbarians. It is no longer necessary for us to
treat parliamentarians as we would do within the civilized world. It
is permissible to arrest them. In fact, Hamas parliamentarians still
remain in prison.
In this context, violence by nation-states becomes nothing more
than the legitimate response of civilization. What these barbarians are
practicing is not resistance; they are not fighting oppression. These
are, as Tony Blair used the word, false grievances: “Muslims have false
grievances against the West and worse, they have made themselves
‘extremists’ in the world.”
So when this lady in a conference stood up and said, “ . . . and you
believe Hamas and Hizbullah when they speak to you?” clearly, in
her view, Hizbullah and Hamas are simply lying. The West has a
presumption of deceit that erodes the content and the face value of
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 121

anything these movements can say. Conservatives in the West, and


in the United States particularly, go a little further and say that you
do not even have to listen and understand, because you know that
this is essentially totalitarianism, and under this totalitarianism is
an attempt to destroy our open and cosmopolitan society—just as
the totalitarians succeeded in destroying the open and tolerant soci-
ety of the Weimar Republic. The West, in essence, has an approach
to Islamism that has emptied language of any meaning, of any
real content.
This does not only happen with Hamas and Hizbullah but the same
process also takes place elsewhere. In Iraq, for example, the Western
press frequently refers to the statements of the Shiite Islamist leader
Muqtada al-Sadr and others with the comment, “Well, of course
this is what they say, but in reality this is not what they mean. When
Muqtada al-Sadr talks about Arab nationalism, or Arab ties or com-
munity connections within Iraq, he does not mean what he says.”
The Western press often describes this simply as a struggle for
power, and at the root of this struggle is religion. Even in Iraq, the
language and statements that people make are erased of substance
and content, because in our view when they say things they do not
really mean what they say; we understand their true nature, we tell
ourselves and understand that it is simply a struggle for power.
Essentially, language is a tool of power that is being used very delib-
erately in the West, not by accident. It is a tool of power that is intended
to empty the identity of people from any real meaning. It is intended
to make Islamists superficial, to make the whole identity of Islamism
unattractive and repellent to moderates in the West, to turn people
against it. It intends essentially to try and crush alternative movements
and alternative centers of power, to prevent new power from arising
to challenge the West in the Middle East, whether in Iraq, Palestine,
or Lebanon. This reflects how the West has derived its concept of
power today. A number of political philosophers in the West believe
that there are those in the West who have an unduly optimistic view
about compromise and mediation and that somehow compromise and
mediation, and attempts to lead to an understanding of the “other,”
will achieve some success. In their view, this is appeasement. The con-
servatives’ dismissal of these humanistic views is a matter for moral
philosophers, but politicians understand that power, and the role of
power is to destroy rival contenders in the use of power.
So what can be the Islamists’ response to this attempt by the West
to destroy the substance or the content of language? What should be
the Islamists’ response? What is the Islamists’ response? Clearly, it is
122 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

simply neither appropriate nor possible to answer in the language of


mediation. When language is not being used to extend comprehen-
sion or to mediate, when language is being used to erode, undermine,
and weaken your identity, the use of proper mediating language is not
really the answer.

Resistance is the Response


In a sense, this explains why we do face resistance—because in one
way, resistance can be the way to open dialogue. But only one sort of
dialogue, because we are not talking about a simple misunderstanding
with the West that can be cleared up through a few conversations with
“the other.” That is not going to happen because this is essentially
about power—more particularly, about the West retaining power.
One person who understood this most clearly was Frantz Fanon in
the 1960s, when he wrote, particularly from his own identification,
about the feelings of inadequacy and dependency experienced by the
Negro, and from his time in colonial Algeria. Fanon describes power-
fully the impact of language and power on a colonized people: “Every
colonized people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been cre-
ated by the death and burial of its local cultural creativity ultimately
finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that
is with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated
above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother
country’s cultural standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his
blackness, his jungle.”3
The alternative to this mindset for Fanon was clear: “Those affected
must abandon their hallucinatory search after whiteness [Western
modernity] and act for change [pursue resistance] in order to compel
the ‘white man’ to acknowledge that I, a Negro, am human.”
The desire to place the human being back at the center of society,
to acknowledge Muslims as humans, and to end the demonization
of Muslims is exactly the same agenda as that of most mainstream
Islamist movements today, who are equally clear in their attempt to
put forward the virtues and historic needs of the human being as
the essence of what they are trying to do. It is also the echo of the
civil rights movement, and is still the echo when you meet Muslims
in Leicester and Bradford in the United Kingdom today, who say,
“I would like some respect—give me some respect and give me my
dignity.”
Respect is a key attribute for successful mediation or dialogue
among all parties, including mediators. Respect is more important in
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 123

negotiations and dialogue than an absolute balance of power. A cer-


tain degree of respect between the parties offers a possibility to have
a parity of esteem, despite power imbalances, which in turn makes it
possible to have a discussion that could lead to a just solution. This
is one of the reasons Hizbullah has been so successful in its negotia-
tions with Israel, because in Israel there is a quite healthy respect for
Hizbullah. This is also the criticism that Hamas often makes of the
Palestinian Authority and Fatah, whom they accuse of negotiating
from a position of weakness. Consequently, Fatah is treated by Israel
with disdain and without much seriousness or respect, because it is
seen as a weak party. Respect was always a critical element in all the
conflict negotiations that I have worked with.
Resistance, including armed resistance and armed conflict, is the
logical outcome of our emptying our language of any meaning and
substance. It is only to be expected if we treat language in that way.
It is a paradox that the West should do it, because it is a crushing of
alternative thinking and alternative values that completely contradicts
our Western claim to reflect Enlightenment values. Enlightenment
values were a sense of moving toward an attempt to think critically
about the West and move away from old thinking—a form of ijtihad
(reinterpretation and renewal) for the Christian caliphate that took
place at the Treaty of Westphalia. The present refusal to listen and
the attempt to crush alternative thinking are a weakness. Osama bin
Laden was the one who pointed out most forcefully that this need
to crush alternative thinking implies and reveals a sense of vacuity
at the center of Western life. It also promotes conflict, because it
eliminates the possibility of using language as a means of trying to
resolve conflict. By emptying language of content and by making it
no longer a tool for communication and understanding, language
becomes instead a tool of power to undermine, weaken, and destroy
your enemies.
Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who was present in Iran
at the time and wrote about the Iranian Revolution in 1979, sug-
gested that the West needed to begin a critique and questioning of
the present limits that Western thinking had reached. He described
the petrified, fossilized thinking that prevailed in the development
of Western thinking. He sought to understand how Western think-
ing has become trapped by its own narrative, trapped by passivity in
terms of its inability to accept other thinking; he thought that the
West would need to go beyond these limits before it could continue
to grow and develop further. He sought to provoke the stimulus for
continued growth and development in a passive and paralyzed society
124 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

that had become unable to think creatively or to engage in intellectual


critical thinking, and was frightened of ideas coming from elsewhere.
The only way the West could move on would be to step beyond the
limits of this thinking. The insights the Islamists offer can help the
West move beyond its petrified thinking and bring about change.

South Africa’s Historic Example


The clearest example of this was in South Africa, where the African
National Congress resistance movement was ignored by the white
elite who did not change their way of thinking. What really trans-
formed the situation in South Africa was when firms and business-
men, such as Anglo American and Oppenheimer, began to question
the limits of South African establishment thinking and the idea that
special rights for white men in South Africa was either desirable or
sustainable as a program for the future of that country. These busi-
nessmen eventually linked up with activists and other movements to
create something of an internal resistance that critiqued the elite in
South Africa. Such an internal resistance of people who were ready to
critique the language of the elite and its insistence on special rights
for white people managed to allow South Africa to step beyond
its existing limits and move to a new place. This is probably what
Foucault had in mind when he talked about the need to change when
societies get stuck, as South Africans were stuck in their discourse of
special rights for whites. How they moved on reflected the impact of
the internal critique coupled with the resistance that was taking place
within South Africa.
Such analogies can help us better understand the ideas of Islamism,
and what it says about the West. Only by appreciating the need for
change in the West will it be possible to hear what Islamists are really
saying about the West, not just in terms of language and slogans but
also the actual meaning of what they are saying. Only by the West
stepping beyond its existing limits will real dialogue become possible,
because only then, when soliciting begins, will it be possible to hear
some of the things that are being said and understand how they relate
to all of us, in both our societies.
The paradox of the current situation is that you need to refuse
dialogue to get dialogue. Only by the refusal of dialogue, which the
Islamists are doing, and by saying, “No, we’re not doing it on the
terms of the West, we’re not simply prepared to do it on your terms.
We are only going to do it on different terms,” will dialogue become
possible. When we understand why Islamists tell us, “We want to
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 125

change the rules of the game, not simply accept your rules of the
game,” will it be possible to see a dialogue that has any real mean-
ing. The Islamists do have ideas, they do have an ideology, and they
do have a potential to sever stale relationships within societies, and
stale ideas between people and between societies. They introduce a
category of rationality that people, especially young people, find both
energizing and mobilizing, as is evident in places like Gaza, South
Lebanon, or Iran.
It is very clear that among all mainstream Islamist movements,
both armed and not armed, we have witnessed in recent years a great
stirring at the grassroots and a debate that has begun. People are
looking at what happened to Hamas, to the Muslim Brothers in
Egypt, to elections in Jordan, and to Pakistan, and they come to
the conclusion that the path of the electoral process to bringing real
change in society simply has failed everywhere. There is not a case
where it has succeeded, because it has always been blocked in one
way or another.
Even worse is that those movements that have actually had people
in parliament or have had a small representation in government have
been discredited. We see this in Pakistan, Jordan and Egypt, among
other places. So a serious and ongoing debate takes place regularly
these days among Islamists about what to do now and in which direc-
tion to move. Where do we go, they ask? Do we go back to something
from our past? Perhaps people in the West immediately assume that
means that Islamists will return to the armed resistance of the 1960s
and 70s, which means more violence. I do not think that is the case
at all. I think many Islamists are leaning more toward popular mobi-
lization, which is one of the legacies of the Iranian Revolution. It is
too early to see the outcome, because the debates have just started.
What is clear is that all these movements are on the verge of moving
very much in a more radical direction. This is not surprising, because
the realities of the successes of globalization that are trumpeted on
global television have been very different when viewed from the per-
spective of ordinary people at the grassroots level—people who see
the rich getting very, very much richer, while real wages sink further
and further.
So in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, where poverty
has increased in recent years, and asset values rise steadily around the
world so that the wealthy become more wealthy, we see the middle
class and most people in the region being decimated economically
and socially. Those that can, jump to the super rich. Those that can-
not, struggle not to sink down into the great morass. The very big
126 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

social changes that are taking place in this region are forcing Islamist
groups and others to reflect deeply on their responses, which I antici-
pate will include much more radical politics in terms of economic,
social, and political changes.
As Islamist discourse develops and responds to events, it still
appears to the West as discontinuity in the Western narrative that
does not fit neatly within our description and understanding of his-
tory. A sudden development like the Iranian Revolution seems to
the West as an aberration, with little real meaning for us, and some-
thing that we can ignore, because it does not fit into our histori-
cal narrative. The West sees nothing more important for itself than
the supremacy of the rights of the individual, around whom social
processes, desires, fears, passion, reason, and propensities for good
and evil all circulate. Islamists, to the contrary, say that such Western
thinking is flawed, because these wants and needs of man that get
catered to so well in the West actually diminish man himself, and
diminish others as well. Other individuals become simply a means
to an end, be it the economic satisfaction of our individual needs,
or social, sexual or other needs. This objectifies the human being by
trying to put the individual before others in our contacts and rela-
tions with others in the world. Islamists also argue about the need to
reestablish multi-dimensional values that go beyond personal desires
and wants. Such values do not define the human being narrowly as a
rational economic actor seeking simply to maximize his or her mate-
rial welfare over time; rather, they see him or her in a multi-faceted,
multi-dimensional way that puts the human being back at the center
of society again.

The West’s Limits for Islamists


Muslims also increasingly recognize that Western modernity as I
describe it here to a certain extent has exhausted its resources. It is no
longer for many Muslims the future that beckons toward a Western
secular life, which has become an archaic vision redolent of colonial-
ism and the domination of the past to which Westerners have fallen
victim. They also believe that the pervasive power relationships that
exist within Western societies, both in government and in business,
limit, rather than increase, an individual’s well-being. They believe
that these relationships separate individuals from one another. It is
the lack of relatedness of people to each other in society—the sense of
isolation, the moral loneliness of that position—that creates a sense of
illusory freedom and anxiety in so many people in the West.
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 127

These are some of the things that Islamists are saying, and all of
them are rooted in the common human experience. None of these
concepts can be described as particularly theological issues. In short,
Islamists are offering a fundamental disagreement with us in the West
on our narrative of history and our meaning of modernity. They do
not accept the idea that the whole of history should be portrayed as a
continuum of a spectrum from backwardness to modern Western sec-
ular life. They do not accept that the West is at the extreme end of this
spectrum and is an advanced model for others, who unfortunately—
either for cultural or other reasons—are unable to cope or are resis-
tant to accept modernity. They do not accept the power relationships
of the West that exist within our societies or between our societies.
They do not accept that the success and advancement of the indi-
vidual is the litmus test of progress in life, versus their view that in
fact the cohesiveness of society and community should be the test of
progress. The worthy progress should be community progress, not
the progress of an individual.
They also question our understanding of individualism and what
it means in terms of freedom. Does individualism really mean free-
dom in the West? Questions also are being asked about the univer-
sality of Western rationality based on its foundations in empiricism,
scientific methodology, and facts. The idea that Western thinking
and ideas somehow have an objective rationality that other cultures’
thinking cannot aspire to is not accepted. Islamists reject confining
ourselves to a narrow form of thinking that excludes metaphysical
thinking, deductive thinking, and syllogistic thinking, and they see
the Western claim to universality as wrong and false.
The point of talking, negotiating, and engaging with each other is
not based on the sense that we all have to follow the recipe, which I
believe essentially goes back to the Treaty of Westphalia as a Christian
concept—that over time, as technology improves, and science and
knowledge increase, we will all share the same values and become the
same. I argue the opposite, that what we are talking about is a fight
about the emerging global order—that there are some people who
are saying that, “No, we do not think that there is just one template
for our future, or just one vision.”
There are many different ways of living, and perhaps we ought
to accept that rather than to try and impose on the global order a
particular vision. We will only start moving in this direction if people
in the West understand and accept that our Western vision for the
future, our institutions, and our way of dealing with politics are not
necessarily the most advanced, and they are not the only path that
128 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

is suitable for an emerging world order, which everyone else in the


world should emulate, particularly those that are backward. I am
talking about multiple visions, about understanding and working out
how this is going to come about in an emerging global order. If we
do not find the way of listening and giving space to people who have
other visions of how they want to live, or their own definitions of
their future, we will surely end up in a conflict.
The point I emphasize is that, surely, Islamists are saying some-
thing. It is not just “babble of barbarians,” of uncivilized people
whose language does not have any substance or meaning, and there-
fore we do not have to listen to any of what they say because they just
babble without any content to their words. Islamists are not saying
that empirical thinking is wrong. They are simply saying that it is only
one component of rational thinking.

Listening to Others Matters


We are required to actually listen to some of the insights of others.
Muslim thinkers, philosophers, and Islamists are presenting a serious
and substantive critique of Western society. It is not a critique of the
Enlightenment per se, but of what we have made of the Enlightenment
in terms of its power relationships and the concentration of power
within Western societies. They see this as far from being the model
that we all have entered into myth: that somehow we still live in the
Enlightenment, which is encouraging creative, dynamic thinking in
the West. We all know this is simply not true. We all know that the
West finds it very difficult even to hear what is coming out of this part
of the world, and when it does, they say, “And you believe them? And
you listen to this nonsense, this babble?”
The ability to actually think and look back critically at ourselves is
probably the missing element in the whole political process of talking,
and I do not see this being present today. If we want to move away
from this conflict, we need to escape from our conditioned thinking,
and from our narrative of the Enlightenment, which is no longer as
real as it was when the Enlightenment started. We need to challenge
our acquiescence to language and norms that we all submit to.
Having worked in the European Union and in the diplomatic
field, I know only too well how some things are just not possible to
say in the West anymore. If you say them, you notice the silence that
defines elements of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, such as the
siege of Gaza or the election of Hamas. Nobody remembers hearing
about this, because saying these things is unacceptable. In a recent
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 129

gathering in Washington, someone raised a question about Hamas


and the negotiating process, and everyone said, “We simply cannot
discuss that here, not in this meeting; it is not acceptable.”
Is this what we mean when we say we live in the Enlightenment
and its tolerance and freedom? For the West to be the judge and
the sole decider on these issues is a rather colonialist view of the
process. Legitimacy and authenticity are the two questions that one
must answer about issues like engaging politically with Hamas: Was
the election legitimate, and was it authentic? If it was legitimate and
authentic, then there is nothing much for the West to say about it
after the fact, unless it decides that it wants to develop the mat-
ter. But that was not the case when Hamas won the election. If the
West had said that it would keep dealing mainly with Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), despite accept-
ing that Hamas won the election, that would have been one appro-
priate view. They did not say that, however, and the West instead
went to Abu Mazen and encouraged him not to accept the outcome
of the election, by asking him to try and claw back as many of the
powers and prerogatives of the government into his own control,
in order to try and empty the government of any real substance or
ability to achieve anything. It did that in combination with impos-
ing an isolation and economic siege on Gaza at the same time. The
Americans and Europeans went further, by putting aside nearly one
billion dollars to try and build up a proxy force around the presi-
dency, quite improperly and contrary to the constitution, in order to
try and take down the government and restore Fatah to power. The
West did not simply try to fine-tune its relations with the Palestinian
leadership; it tried to undermine a legitimate elected government and
to substitute what they wanted. They tried to reengineer an outcome
that suited Western interests both economically and politically, by
trying to transfer back all the powers to the presidency that they had
taken away from Yasser Arafat some years earlier and invested in Abu
Mazen. I would simply call this an attempted “coup d’état” by the
EU and the United States.
One of the leaders of Hamas said to me once before the current
block on speaking with them, “You know? We did get invited. We
were asked to go to a conference and to talk with American leaders
and thinkers. We went, and we sat down. Well, Americans turned to
us in this gathering and said, ‘If you want us to talk to you, you have
to give up weapons, give up the resistance, and recognize Israel. Only
if you renounce resistance, disarm and recognize Israel will we talk
to you.’”
130 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

He said, “You know? I considered this and what they were saying
to us, and I thought, ‘what if I do all that? What is there left to talk
about? What are we going to discuss?’”

Shifting the Conditions of Dialogue


The point and the dilemma facing the Islamists is: How do you
change the rules of the game, if you start by accepting the rules of the
game? If the West says, “Here are the conditions on which we will
talk to you,” and you have to acknowledge the Western model as the
future model and template of the world, but this process is not going
to develop into a proper dialogue that can achieve anything of sub-
stance, how do you respond? There has to come a point at which you
do start talking to the West, but the inherent paradox is that you start
talking in order to actually shift the conditions of dialogue.
Do you accept to go and talk on the West’s terms, with precon-
ditions that raise the valid question of, “What is there left to talk
about?” Or do you have to say, “No, we will not talk to you until we
can change the rules of the game?”
Ultimately, the talking will take place, but at some point, to facili-
tate people’s sitting down and hearing what you have to say, some-
times you have to refuse it until they get the point that you are calling
for a change in the ground rules, that you are trying to change the
paradigm. Then, you can sit down, and maybe they will actually hear
what you are saying to them. It is important that the West does not
think that it simply sets the ground rules for all of these discussions,
otherwise this process is meaningless and without real value.
My experience causes me to believe that an overwhelming majority
of Islamists clearly believe that there needs to be an engagement and
a discussion with the West, based on the need to respect each other’s
way of life. By refusing to talk to those groups that are moderate
and mainstream, like Hamas and Hizbullah whom the West generally
sees as “extremists,” we only empower the actual Islamist extremists
who refuse dialogue and pursue militancy.
This is also in some ways not only a political discussion but a civil
rights discussion. It is about respect and dignity. One European once
said to me, “Why do Iranian officials want to speak to me in cosmol-
ogy when I want to talk to them about nuclear issues?” The answer
is, “Because the Iranians want to talk about respect and dignity, and
about the future as they see it.” The reaction in the West is, “How do
we negotiate respect and dignity? Come on, let us get to the bottom
line: What does Iran want from us?”
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 131

As in the civil rights movement in the United States, we are deal-


ing again with deciding how you respond to the widely held feeling
that you are not happy with the way that you are being treated. If you
do not like sitting in the back of the bus and not having a vote, you
have to be very assertive and say, “Well, I have my identity, and it is
very different from yours, and it will stay different from yours.”
Only when you get to that point do things start to change in some
ways. The history of the civil rights movement is instructive. African-
Americans got the vote and did not have to stay at the back of the bus,
but then there was a crisis after about 30 years. The crisis was when
all those liberal people who had supported the civil rights movement
suddenly said, “They now want a say in running our universities, they
want Black-African studies on the curriculum. This is intolerable!”
So another struggle ensued, and people will disagree on the extent
of its successes. But it showed that part of the process of finding that
indefinable quality of respect and dignity actually means you have to
exaggerate your own sense of identity and your own claim for that
identity in order to begin that discussion. Eventually, white people
say, “OK, we get it now. Maybe you can have a seat at the table.
Maybe there will be a Muslim in the Quartet, the international white
man’s club that defines the future of the Middle East region.”
Modern history indicates to me that it was impossible to start any
political process that I know of by demanding a renunciation of vio-
lence ahead of time. Indeed, in many ways resistance does facilitate
the ability to start a discussion with others. My own experiences sug-
gest to me that in situations of armed conflict, one should aim to
initiate a process that circumscribes the use of violence and that has
a vision of demilitarization that follows a successful resolution of the
conflict. When the Americans sat down to talk to the Vietcong, the
Vietcong did not say, “We renounce violence, we are going to stop
fighting you,” they said, “We will keep fighting you until we have
a solution.”

Pain as a Promoter of Dialogue


It is particularly important in an asymmetrical power context—such as
Palestinians who have limited strength vis-à-vis Israelis in the negoti-
ating room—that it be clear to both sides that if one or the other gets
up and walks away from the negotiating table prematurely without an
agreement, there will be pain. If there is no pain from walking away
from the negotiations, of course the stronger side has every interest in
walking away. One actually should expect armed conflict to continue
132 A L A S TA I R C R O O K E

during the negotiating process. The question is how to manage it


so that the explosion that is going to happen does not destroy the
political track as well as the security track. The process requires some
means or ways of keeping the political track going despite the inevi-
table breakdown that it is going to happen in the security track at
some time.
All negotiating processes are different, but they often provide
important lessons. Northern Ireland and South Africa proceeded
on conditions that in both cases were largely the same. The condi-
tions in Northern Ireland were that, first of all, there should be a
credible demonstration of electoral support and that there should be
an understanding that the parties would work eventually toward a
cease-fire; that was not a precondition, but all parties had to be genu-
ine in moving toward a successful outcome that would bring about an
end of violence. In that respect, Hamas has already demonstrated that
it fulfills those two criteria: it has a clear electoral mandate, and they
have said clearly that an agreed political solution could first of all end
violence, and then after a period end the conflict. They have already
fulfilled both those conditions that were imposed in South Africa and
Northern Ireland. So there is no reason for them to remain excluded
from political discussions or to remain on terrorist lists.
In a sense, I am saying that what is needed is a resistance in the
West—a resistance on the South African model, where businessmen
and critical thinkers who can see the realities of our world and look
at what is happening in Iran and in the Middle East, say: “Have we
got this right? Do you think we ought to be rethinking this? Have we
reached the limits of our thinking? Maybe we ought to step beyond
special rights for white men in the Middle East and think afresh.”
An internal critique of what is happening in the West would allow
us to step beyond the limits we have set for ourselves, and ask ques-
tions like, “What would really be achieved by bombing Iran and kill-
ing another 200,000 people? Is this really what our policy wants to
do? Is this right morally for us to do?”
Unless this questioning and awakening in the West take place—
I use the word “awakening” deliberately—the West will remain
unchanged. This is also the view of many Islamist thinkers—that the
West will remain unchanged and that talking is pointless, and so con-
flict will continue. We will have no real dialogue and will have only
process of un-meaning rather than meaning.
Talking between the West and Islamists is not overdue, because
sadly now the West cannot hear, so talking and dialogue may be
premature. The only answer at this stage is to continue the paradox
TA L K I N G W I T H I S L A M I S T S 133

of refusing to talk on the uneven terms dictated by the West, in


the hope that such refusal would provoke people eventually to think
about how they can step past the limits of their stagnant thinking,
and how they can transcend the limits of a mindset that is opposed
to listening to others.

Notes
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on January
17, 2008, and edited in July 2015.
2. In using the term “Islamists,” I am referring to groups such as the
Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, and Hizbullah, but not radi-
cal jihadist groups such as Al-Qaida.
3. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, pref. Jean-Paul Sartre, trans.
Constance Farrington (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1967).
Chapter 9

Supervising a Temporary Truce,


Working for a Permanent Peace:
UNTSO’s Mission in the Middle East

Robert Mood1

I n 2011, I participated in a discussion convened by a Vatican uni-


versity in Rome on the situation in the Middle East. As part of this
meeting, universities in the Middle East were invited to Rome to
analyze the role of educational institutions and universities in pro-
moting peace, stability, and future dialogue in that region. Building
on this, and before I go into the substance of my talk, I want to make
an important point straight away. If there is anything that I can
take away from my 33 years of experience in the army, in particular
my work on the international arena, it is that the way to a fruitful
dialogue and peaceful future goes through the hearts and stomachs
of children and women. A process strongly supported by the engage-
ment and good work of educational institutions like this one at the
American University of Beirut.
It is an honor to have the opportunity to reflect on my experi-
ences in peacekeeping in this book. I will divide my chapter into two
distinct parts. First, I will briefly address the history and importance
of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO),
the very first UN peacekeeping mission established in 1949, which
I have been leading from 2009 to 2011. Then, I will offer some
broader reflections on peacekeeping and peacemaking in the wider
region. I have traveled extensively and worked with international
deployments and engagement in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq,
Sudan, Kosovo, and, of course, Lebanon where I served in the United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping mission
in the late 1980s.
136 ROBERT MOOD

Reflecting on UNTSO as a Model UN


Peacekeeping Organization
At the risk of oversimplifying the complexity of this region, it is impor-
tant to adequately contextualize the mission to make some observa-
tions. UNTSO, after all, is the oldest peacekeeping mission in the UN,
and it has evolved over the decades without losing its roots. In 1947,
the UN put forward a partition plan for Palestine that never became
more than just a plan on paper. Following the first Arab-Israeli war
of 1947–1948, Israel unilaterally declared its independence on May
14, 1948. A day later, the British left the Government Building in
Jerusalem, and this has since served as UNTSO headquarters. When
these events unfolded, the United Nations Security Council (SC) came
together and approved Resolution 50 of May 1948 and Resolution
54 of July 1948 calling for a truce in Palestine and decided that this
truce should be supervised by a UN Mediator who would be assisted
by a group of military observers that comprise UNTSO. The UN
quickly dispatched a first group of 93 young observers. When the war
ended, the SC passed in August 1949 Resolution 73 that expanded
the role of UNTSO, which now deployed a total of 572 observers,
to, crucially, assist the parties in the supervision on the service of the
terms of the armistice agreements and the attendant cease-fire. The
dynamic of these armistice agreements is that there was one separate
armistice for each of the four neighboring Arab countries: one each
between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, Israel and Jordan, and
Israel and Egypt. These armistice lines in the regional picture are
commonly referred to today as the “green line.” The green line also
defines the Western border of the future Palestinian state when it
comes into being and serves as a point of reference when it comes
to what is occupied Palestinian Eastern Jerusalem and what is Israeli
Western Jerusalem.
During the 1967 war, Israel occupied Sinai (in Egypt), the West
Bank, Gaza, the Golan, and East Jerusalem. To this day, the UN and
indeed the international community as a whole officially designate
these territories as legally occupied regardless of what status Israel
unilaterally has given them (such as when they annexed the Golan).
The cease-fire lines of 1967 were demarcated and new observation
posts were set out. From this point on, we have the area of separa-
tion in upper occupied Syrian Golan. To demonstrate the flexibility
of UNTSO, as these circumstances changed based on the two origi-
nal Security Council resolutions, we have deployed, redeployed,
and changed our role. A year following the 1973 war, a second
SUPERVISING A T EMPOR A RY T RUC E 137

observer mission, United Nations Disengagement and Observer Force


(UNODF), was established to supervise the disengagement between
Syria and Israel on the Golan. We, as UNTSO, welcomed this other
interim UN organization inside our mission area for a very spe-
cific geographically limited purpose: to assist them and to verify the
agreements of disengagement of forces on the ground. Similarly,
after the first Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon in 1978, UNIFIL
was established to supervise Israel’s withdrawal. Once again, the
role of UNTSO, born in 1949 out of the the Arab-Israeli Wars of
1948–1949, changed and adjusted to the fact that within its mis-
sion area covering Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel, we
now had two interim missions (UNDOF and UNIFIL): Missions
with specific purposes within geographically limited areas verifying
withdrawals according to the authority of the Lebanese government
in South Lebanon and assisting in supporting the disengagement
on the Golan.
In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty at Camp David.
However, UNTSO still maintains a presence in Sinai. It would be
fair to ask why UNTSO continues to engage and maintain a presence
in Egypt following this peace treaty. There is a very simple reason for
it: Egypt insists that even if part of the Arab-Israeli problem is solved,
it remains regional and UNTSO should remain in Egypt until the
entire mandate is accomplished. In addition, Egypt today sees the
value of a peacekeeping operation being present in Egypt because
it creates a different relationship with the UN. However, the most
significant aspect seems to be that Egypt insists and sees UNTSO as
a witness to all the events from 1949 to the current time, and they
see UNTSO as a strategic choice because it can and it should be part
of the implementation of a comprehensive solution somewhere down
the road.
In 1982, after the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon and sub-
sequent siege of Beirut, we deployed UNTSO in Beirut to have an
office there. That office is still there today, monitoring, serving,
assisting in the relationship between UNTSO headquarters and the
Lebanese government and the diplomatic community in Beirut. In
1994, Jordan became the second Arab state to sign a peace treaty
with Israel. Once again, by logic, the UNTSO could have disengaged
from Jordan, but a parallel logic with Egypt exists in Jordan. The role
of UNTSO is regional, there is not a solution in the region before a
comprehensive solution is reached.
UNTSO has been a witness from 1949 to now and constitutes a
strategic tool ready for intermediation. In practical terms, this means
138 ROBERT MOOD

that since it is a very short drive from my headquarters in East Jerusalem


to Amman, only two and a half hours, there is no specific office in
Amman and the relationship remains the same. Israel withdrew uni-
laterally from Lebanon and Gaza respectively in 2000 and 2005. In
2006, as we all remember, there was renewed Israeli-Lebanon conflict
and this resulted in the loss of four unarmed UNTSO officers during
an Israeli airstrike on their observation post close to El Khiam. While
these deaths cannot be compared in any way with the suffering of the
Lebanese people and the destruction of infrastructure in Lebanon, it
is nonetheless possible to note that this is the largest loss of lives we
have had in a single incident.
By 2011, UNTSO’s strength was 150 people. Its mandate still
comprises two core elements: cease-fire observation and reporting
on the one hand, assistance to the parties in the application of the
armistice agreements on the other hand. The green line means that
today Jordan and the West Bank have an administrative boundary
that is less important. Similarly, the difference between the “Blue
line” that the UN defined in 2000 to demarcate the line of with-
drawal following Israel’s removal from occupied Southern Lebanon
and the armistice demarcation line is very small—a matter of a few
centimeters. However, to move from a withdrawal line to an inter-
nationally recognized border, in a peace treaty, would be a formally
very significant step. The green line, the armistice demarcation line,
defines where the beginning of an occupied Golan is. Many know
where occupied Golan ends, but it is less known where the beginning
of the occupation is and that is actually about 8 km south/southwest
of Kfar Chouba and running straight down south.

Why UNTSO Today?


We may ask: why is UNTSO the longest running peacekeeping opera-
tion in the UN, and why is it current still? Simply put, as long as there
is an issue of borders and discussions about the occupied territories
after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the only formal agreements defining
lines on the maps are the 1949 armistice lines that UNTSO super-
vises. Hence, we are as current as the discussion on borders.
One pillar of our mission is to provide unarmed observers who
work together with their colleagues in the other two, more narrowly
defined (in geographical terms) UN missions: UNIFIL in South
Lebanon and UNDOF in the Golan. Coordinating is important: you
do not want to see two generals leading different missions in the same
area arguing whether it is “your” crisis or “my” crisis! That would
SUPERVISING A T EMPOR A RY T RUC E 139

be a recipe for disaster. Hence, when something happens, you need


to have clear lines. What we simply have done, for example, related
to South Lebanon, is to agree between the generals that the Force
Commander of UNIFIL is in charge; he is the boss. With my people
I have a say on how they are employed and their safety. We work on
policies and the concepts, but when it comes to day-to-day activities
we need to know who is in charge. These 153 observers from 22 dif-
ferent nations, 22 member-states of the UN are on the ground every
day going back to their home nations with knowledge and insight of
the actual situation on the ground.
The second main UNTSO pillar revolves around the regional dia-
logue insisted upon by Egypt and Jordan even after they signed bilat-
eral peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively. The way
we work in regional dialogue is that we travel, myself together with
my senior political advisor and a small crew, spending a short week in
Beirut and a short week in Damascus, a short week in Amman and
a short week in Cairo. Typically, when we go on these short weeks,
I meet with Syrian military people, Ministry of Defense people,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sister agencies, sometimes we engage with
the academic community and other people that we also have as con-
tacts. Sometimes we are part of bringing impressions and conveying
positions from one capital to the other. Then, we have a third pillar
that is preparedness. As you have heard the longest lasting peacekeep-
ing operation in the UN has been very flexible over time. We have
boots on the ground, to use military terms: good knowledge and
good contacts, and we are engaged at the military level and politi-
cal level. Based on that, we keep our plans and our procedures ready
so that when the next significant change comes, or when Lebanon
and Israel, for instance, decide to change the blue line from a with-
drawal line to a border, we are there, and the tool is ready. When the
Palestinian state comes into being, whatever concept will be chosen
in the Jordan Valley, or on the Western side of the Palestinian state,
the tool is available and ready to contribute.
What makes us a success, if I may put it this way, is not the tradi-
tional role of a soldier. Politicians tell soldiers what to do and what
to achieve; success is very often defined as how many enemies you
have killed, how many villages you have liberated, how many road
junctions you have seized in the traditional military term of success:
destroying the enemy. That is absolutely not the case when you are
in UN peacekeeping. It is precisely the opposite. The three UN mis-
sions in the Middle East (UNTSO, UNDOF, UNIFIL) have not
been deployed to impose a solution on anybody but rather with the
140 ROBERT MOOD

consent of the parties in order to assist them. I will submit that every
day we contribute to the stability in South Lebanon, the Golan, and
the wider region, and every single day we contribute to deescalate
conflicts or tension is a huge success. The responsibility for keeping
the political process going, the diplomatic process going, for matur-
ing political solutions that only the involved people themselves can
define and develop is theirs. We will keep on doing our job based on
consent to assist and contribute to stability whether it takes one more
week, one more month, or 62 more years. It is up to the member-
states and the Security Council if they want to change it.

Reflections on Peacekeeping over Three Decades


Overall, I have served for over 30 years mostly as a traditional army
officer. I have traveled to and served in a number of places. Sudan,
Kosovo, Iraq, as well as Afghanistan in the last few years. Based on
that service and my interaction with politicians and other parties,
I thought I would offer some reflections and observations that might
stimulate interest.
I have already said that the military tool is traditionally designed to
destroy and defeat a military enemy. When the military start engag-
ing, there will be unintended consequences. The violence released in
military operations stimulates unpredictability and facilitates oppor-
tunistic actions. I could paraphrase Sir Rupert Smith whose book The
Utility of Force has influenced my thinking on this issue. Basically,
military means tend not to achieve the anticipated political aim.
Someone would argue that Iraq and Afghanistan serve as current
examples of that. There is a wide range of tools in the political tool-
box; the military is only one of them, and it is not the most important
one. It is overrated and overused because it is so readily available to
demonstrate political determination. The economic, the administra-
tive, the judicial, the political, and the humanitarian tools are equally
if not more important than the military, in particular during peace-
keeping missions or in crisis response operations. Dialogue is always
a better option, and when you have enemies, you also need to have
a dialogue with your enemy. Hence, no surprise to you at this stage,
military means should in my opinion not be tried before all other
possible options from the political toolbox have been exhausted.
Mind you, I do not argue against that military action are some-
times justifiable, necessary, and unavoidable. When we do use the
military tool, we need to use it with determination. But the less we
synchronize it with relevant civilian efforts in a comprehensive and
SUPERVISING A T EMPOR A RY T RUC E 141

integrated approach, military means can easily cause more harm than
good. Here are some main reasons for this:

1. Violence released in traditional military operations stimulates


more violence and unpredictability and facilitates opportunistic
action. The end state, where we want to be, what we want our
mission to have achieved after the military engagement, is almost
always a different place and a different condition than what we
aimed for.
2. Military means stimulate extremism. Killing civilians is an effec-
tive recruiting mechanism for the extremists. There are several
examples from Afghanistan where military forces had cleared a
valley, and in that process innocent civilians are killed. That is an
effective recruiting mechanism for extremist forces.
3. You cannot solve problems in one culture with solutions from
another. You cannot take solutions from the Lebanese mentality
in Beirut and bring it to the United States or France or to Brazil
or to Chile and implement solutions based on the cultural context
from Beirut. Equally relevant and equally important the other way
around. It is those who live the context, and those who have the
culture in their spine, who know what solutions will work in their
context. If anyone assisting on the ground does not recognize that
they employ a bad recipe.
4. Perceptions are increasingly more important than reality. I do not
frankly know of a place where there are not now fairly well-developed
internet connections. Perceptions are created rapidly and through
new social media mechanisms that have arrived on the scene dur-
ing the last 10–20 years. The world is interconnected in ways
that made, for example, the young lady in the dentist office in
Damascus some months ago extremely annoyed and offended by
being labeled as living in a country said to be part of the axis of
evil. There was absolutely no way in the world that she would
accept this as her reality, because it was not. Consequently, the way
perceptions are shaped and the way perceptions are shown today is
a factor that must be part of any planning.
5. Lasting peace is created through the hearts, brains, and stomachs of
children and women. Indeed, the best route can be through local
women. I might be risking offending somebody, but I will take that
risk, and I hope that you will forgive me at least in the academic set-
ting. There are quite a few research projects that have confirmed that
if you give humanitarian assistance in terms of money and funding
resources to a male in many places around the world, he will likely
142 ROBERT MOOD

spend it on himself, on his friends, and sometimes in an open bar.


If you give that same support to the women in these same places,
they start micro loan businesses, they launch small businesses, they
create working groups, and they produce something that is good for
society in the short as well as long term.

I want to tell you three more anecdotes that I find meaningful. In


1997, I was traveling to Bosnia-Herzegovina shortly after the United
States-mediated Dayton peace agreement that ended the war there.
The fighting had ended with the establishment of the Bosnian State
comprising the Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation and the Republic of
Srpska. We stopped at one point on the separation line and those of
you who have read it, or know it, would remember that the Federation
accepted the conditions from the international community, imple-
mented them, and received a lot of support such as new houses,
improved infrastructure, and new loans to support families and busi-
nesses. However, the Republic of Srpska had not then accepted these
terms and consequently did not receive this support. Thus, when the
eight-year-old girl on one side looked in the opposite direction and
saw what the other side had, and what they themselves did not have,
clearly that was not a foundation for lasting peace in the area. On the
contrary, it was a recipe for future friction and future fighting.
Cultural and contextual knowledge would be the focus of my
second story. It illustrates how we are struggling to connect politi-
cal good intentions, political plans and words on paper with coor-
dinated and integrated action on the ground, making all elements
play together. Those who suffer the consequences are the families.
If we are unable to reach them with relevant action, we will not lay
the foundation for future sustainable peace. In an African mountain
area, during a UN operation, a friend of mine was struggling to reach
the opposing tribes in a constructive way with important key mes-
sages. Writing letters, giving speeches and holding meetings did not
bring progress with implementation plans. Then, they decided to do
it differently, building on local traditions. What they did was to put
together a team with members from all the tribes, and they asked the
old chiefs how they would go about it when they wanted to send a
message within the local community. It turned out that the way they
did it was not only the African consensus democracy under a tree until
everyone stopped talking, but in that particular area they also went
to each of the villages, sharing a big meal, and then on to singing and
dancing. It was the singing and dancing that told the story, conveyed
the message, from the leadership, not a letter or a speech. The singing
SUPERVISING A T EMPOR A RY T RUC E 143

and dancing after dinner made the difference. Two months later, this
group left as heroes because the tribes in the area did not fight any
more and they had a much better developed understanding of each
other and their common challenges.
My third story is from 1999 when I deployed to Kosovo, where
I commanded a battle group. After the NATO intervention, the
situation had turned upside down, and the few remaining Serbs in
Kosovo had become the victims. It was a very challenging situation;
a revenge attitude was part of reality. Then, the job was to create a
functional municipality in Kosovo Polje, that by the way was the vil-
lage in which Milosevic stated that “[n]o one will ever again beat the
Serbs.” What we eventually managed to launch was that the Serb part
of the municipality met on the first floor, while the Kosovo Albanian
part of the municipality met on the fourth floor. On the second floor,
we had some secretaries and administration, and on the third floor,
we had the UN. We did that for a few months, and the only thing
that happened with substance in the municipality was that they saw
each other when they went in and out of the front door. After a while,
people started saying, “Isn’t it about time for the sake of our people
to decide to meet maybe on the same floor?” Then, we moved to the
same floor but with separate rooms. A few months later we were in
the same room. Two years later, the municipality was working. The
key point here is that where there is a will and where there is a good
process, reconciliation and trust can be built.
When you decide to use the military means in that context, and
use it in the traditional way to destroy the enemy, you need to have a
well-developed plan for how to move forward the minute that tradi-
tional military campaign is over. Plans must be developed for winning
the peace in parallel with plans for the destruction of the enemy. That
was lacking in Kosovo. What you bomb, how you bomb, when you
bomb, how you shape your enemy? When you plan that, you need to
have a plan for how to rebuild the society with institutions afterward.
If you do not put that planning into your decision-making before you
send your bombers out to do the job or you send your tanks or what-
ever, you create a dangerous vacuum. That vacuum will be exploited.
That happened in Kosovo. I left in May 2000 and came back again in
2002. What we saw between June 12, 1999, and one year later was
that the comprehensive effort of the international community was
not there; it was a period of vacuum. During that vacuum period, the
spoilers exploited the situation and laid the foundations for future
activities. That is part of the reasons for some of the challenges we
still have in Kosovo today.
144 ROBERT MOOD

Blurring of the Lines


It should be no secret by now that even if I am a soldier and even if
military means are sometimes necessary, I submit that military means
have very clear limitations and rarely produce the desired political
outcome. Based on my experience I want to argue very strongly that
classic peacekeeping—including the use of unarmed observers such as
in UNTSO—serves its political purpose better than intervention or
so-called peacemaking that relies on military enforcement.
But lines may be blurred between peacekeeping—where you come
by invitation and accept that you are the weaker part and that the
parties to the conflicts have ownership of the problem—and mili-
tary intervention, where you go in to a place by force and tell the
players what to do. My key observation and argument is that when
you put unarmed observers in limited number on the ground in what-
ever context, they should report to the parties to the conflict: they
should avoid going public in order to preserve the trust of the parties
and stay effective to their mandate. Another mechanism is whether
the parties talk with each other through someone else or they talk
directly. They own the problem, they address the challenge and they
find a solution. That puts the responsibility and the incentive for
working the situation on the ground in a specific direction between
the parties. Simplifying again, if you put in a big military organiza-
tion of 20,000 people with 120 tanks and airplanes and all the rest
of the military gear, the dynamics on the ground will change. In this
case, the parties—sometimes deliberately, other times by accident or
because of the context of the situation—will project that responsibil-
ity onto this large military organization and will thus be less inclined
to take the responsibility themselves in order to move the situation in
a good direction.
There is another blurring of lines that is important to be aware of
within the area of peacekeeping: humanitarian activities versus mili-
tary activities. It is a very tough discussion where the argument by
some military people is that we need to have funding and money to
conduct humanitarian activities where we are because it serves force
protection. It also serves the initial and immediate kick starting of
the nation building process and empowering of local communities.
On the other side, you have the ICRC, the Doctors without Borders,
and the other NGOs arguing that “if you do this then you are com-
promising our security, you are meddling in long-term plans and you
are ruining the long-term development in the area.” Right now, we
can see an American concept and practice that is on one end of the
SUPERVISING A T EMPOR A RY T RUC E 145

spectrum: the USAID is working very closely with the soldiers on the
ground. On the other side, you have some European countries, espe-
cially Scandinavian countries, which simply refuse to allow a com-
promising of the humanitarian space. You are not allowed to build a
school in a particular area to keep your soldiers safe in a compound
nearby, and three years down the road you find out that there was no
money or plans for the teachers or a long-term plan for sustainable
development.
It is not necessarily a black-and-white issue. I have been in situa-
tions in Kosovo and I saw situations in Afghanistan where I would
argue that whatever we are doing as soldiers, we cannot do anything
that compromises the NGOs: that is a red line. But I also strongly
believe that there has to be extensive dialogue between the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) level and the politi-
cal leadership on the ground. Let me put it his way; if the military in a
specific area of, say, Congo, Somalia, or Afghanistan, are developing
a major military action plan, there needs to be a mechanism whereby
Doctors without Borders, the ICRC, and other agencies can achieve
enough insight to have an opinion. To assess, and if necessary, warn
the civilian leadership that “if you allow this military campaign to
happen you are going to set the development that we have been work-
ing on in this area back 10 years.” This mechanism is lacking. This
logic also has to work the other way around. Sometimes the conclu-
sion by the civilian leadership is that we have to go again and clean
these two villages or capture these two people. When they approve
and decide they also need to think about what comes next, since
those who want to break the cohesion of the international commu-
nity would stand ready to move in with criticism. Hence, there needs
to be some kind of follow-up also from the NGOs in such a situation.
That mechanism, that sort of dialogue with trust, should be created
since it is lacking today.

Conclusion
To conclude, let me go back to UNTSO. In 1949, it was a tough
job to negotiate the armistices between Israel and its four neighbors.
A gentleman whose name was Ralph Bunche, who won a Nobel Peace
prize for his mediation efforts with the armistice deals, took a very
different approach. He decided that we cannot sit around the table
with papers exchanging thoughts, arguing with each other that this
is wrong and this is right; this is not a fact, and this is a different
fact. Bunche did not want to negotiate facts in that way in a hall, so
146 ROBERT MOOD

he brought in a pool table and spent the first days creating an atmo-
sphere of trust among the players, the representatives of the govern-
ments. This is an oversimplification, but the fact of the matter is that
the way he worked relationships and dialogue resulted in trust and
contact that the truces possible. Before they went down to talking
business they managed to see each other as human beings with things
in common. Formalities did not start the process but rather concluded
the process. The beginning of the process was human relations, trust,
and confidence.
It is a political dance, and my own credibility as a peacekeeper
is absolutely dependent on my impartiality, which is why I say the
same thing to the people I meet in all of the five countries that host
UNTSO.
I would argue, based on what the countries in which we as
UNTSO serve today tell us, we enjoy trust and confidence in Beirut,
Damascus, Amman, and Cairo. As you by now have well understood,
we are working in the regional context and not specifically on the
Palestinian-Israeli issue or other such local situations elsewhere.
Whether the host nations will ask us to employ or adjust a part of
the implementation for a comprehensive solution in the future, this is
entirely up to them. I do believe that we are ready.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on January
18, 2011, and edited in July 2015.
Part III

Paths in Conflict Resolution


Introduction

Martin Wählisch

C onflict resolution is a profession that lives between art, craft, and


science. The art of peacemaking relies on the subtle behavior, style,
and charisma of a peacemaker. The technical side focuses on the engi-
neering of peace processes, the conceptualization of dialogue agen-
das, and the strategy of interventions. The science part keeps a sharp
eye on the history of war and peace, studies the success and failure of
peace mediators, looks at transferability of knowledge, and assesses
models for making peace more sustainable. Beyond anecdotal stories
of peacemakers about what they did, and when and how they did so,
it has been conflict resolution theory that has helped to dissect the
causes of political crises, the conditions for postwar change, elements
for the balance of power among countries and within a society, and
factors for lasting nation-building processes.
The speakers in this third part of the book are not all scholars, but
show in their chapters the great capacity for bridging both worlds
of theory and practice. All of them merge critical reflection about
their own work with the necessary analytical depth of trying to detect
patterns and frameworks that could be implemented in comparative
peace processes.
Resolving conflicts by transforming relationships and reconfigur-
ing the environment for peace requires the ability to constantly gen-
erate new ideas and outside-the-box solutions. The four talks in this
part of the book display that there are various paths in conflict reso-
lution besides mandating high-level envoys and conducting closed-
door peace negotiations. Peacemaking requires multiple avenues to
overcome deadlocks and nurture peace at different levels of society.
There is no single, ultimate recipe for solving conflicts, but as this
chapter shows it is the wide range of different types of interventions
that contributes to a continuously evolving formula pushing the lim-
its of peacemaking.
150 M A R T I N WÄ H L I S C H

The chapters of Hannes Siebert, Gareth Evans, Colin Irwin, and


Bob Rae cover aspects ranging from catalyzing change from within a
society, supporting peace processes through independent research and
polling, and utilizing lessons learnt from federal systems to achieve
greater stability in conflict-ridden countries. Hannes Siebert highlights
in his chapter (Beyond Mediation: Promoting Change and Resolving
Conflicts Through Authentic National Dialogues) the role of national
dialogue. Siebert, who previously worked on the peace process in his
own country, South Africa, is advising conflict parties and govern-
ments all around the world on dialogue processes. Together with five
Nobel Peace Laureates, he founded the Peace Appeal Foundation,
which assists peace processes globally and develops innovative tools in
support of conflict resolution efforts. In his chapter, Siebert explains
the advantages of national dialogues, which he promotes as a valuable
alternative to international third-party mediation. He advocates that
peace processes need to be driven and shaped by the conflict parties
“from within.” Siebert upholds that those “self-mediation” processes
between state, community, and nonstate actors result in more lasting
solutions as they aim at establishing an environment for long-term sta-
bility. He claims as the advantage of well-composed national dialogues
that they are not predominantly directed toward the conclusion of an
agreement, as is often the main aim of processes steered by interna-
tional peace mediators. His experiences, particularly in South Africa
and Nepal, have been that national dialogues work best when they
enable the creation of shared knowledge and a language of mutual
understanding among stakeholders. He concludes that national dia-
logues, as a community-based approach of consensus building, can
facilitate the communication of interests and perspectives as well as
the framing of a common agenda on national needs, which makes the
outcome of those processes more sustainable.
Gareth Evans, who initially spent two decades in Australian poli-
tics including as Foreign Minister, talks in his chapter about his sub-
sequent experience as President of the International Crisis Group.
The International Crisis Group is an independent, nonprofit, and
nongovernmental organization that seeks to prevent and resolve
deadly conflicts by providing field-based analysis and practical policy
advice. It was founded in 1995 by a group transatlantic figures who
despaired at the international community’s failure to anticipate and
respond effectively to the tragedies in the early 1990s of Somalia,
Rwanda, and Bosnia. In his chapter (Preventing and Resolving Deadly
Conflict: What Have We Learned?), Evans reflects about peacemak-
ing from a conceptual and practical perspective, sharing lessons learnt
PAT H S I N C O N F L I C T R E S O L U T I O N 151

about how to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. He emphasizes as


a positive development that an upsurge in conflict prevention, con-
flict management, and postconflict peacebuilding under the banner
of the UN has occurred since the end of the Cold War. At the same
time, according to Evans, most of the negotiated peace settlements
break down in under five years. Those realities have created a “cyclical
process,” he notes, in which each postconflict environment contains
the potential seeds of the next round of destruction. Similar to the
remarks by Hannes Siebert, Evans promotes the notion that sustain-
able peace cannot be guaranteed just because a diplomatic peacemak-
ing initiative has apparently been successful or because a clear-cut
military victory has apparently been won, but needs structural change
to prevent the recurrence of violence.
Colin Irwin, who has been a pioneer in using opinion polls for
peace processes, explains in his chapter (The Public as Peacemaker:
How Polling in Divided Societies Can Promote Negotiated Agreements)
how “peace polling” can build confidence among conflict parties and
give the public a sense of ownership in the peace process. Irwin suc-
cessfully tested his method of public surveys in Northern Ireland and
the Balkans, where they were used to promote negotiated agreement.
Irwin flags that timing is crucial for peace polls, underlining that
results should be published parallel to critical decision-making events
in peace negotiations. Public polls can indicate what may be feasible
to achieve in peace talks and provide instant feedback about what is
impossible. Irwin believes that cross-community statistics can over-
come disconnected public dialogue by informing the conflict parties
about each other’s views. Polling can help prepare for peace, says Irwin,
while building confidence among the main conflict parties and giving
the public a sense of ownership in the peace process. A core principle
Irwin underlines is that all key stakeholders need to participate in the
designing of the polls and in the assessment of the results. In line with
Siebert’s concept of national dialogues and Evans’ belief in structural
change, Irwin feels that the views of all affected communities and
people in conflict should be included and carefully assessed.
Bob Rae, who served as the twenty-first premier of Ontario and
member of the Canadian Parliament, provides in his chapter (Fostering
Power-sharing and Governance in Pluralistic Societies: Lessons from
Canada’s Experience) a thorough overview of the Canadian way of
political power-sharing. Rae has been the founding chairman of
the Forum of Federations, which has been providing expertise in
Canada and around the world on promoting federalism and other
power-sharing constitutional arrangements in pluralistic societies.
152 M A R T I N WÄ H L I S C H

The Forum provides practical support to governments, political par-


ties, and civil society entities that want to make democracy work
more effectively, inspired by the idea of federalism. In his chapter,
Rae looks at the role of federal power-sharing and good governance
in federal systems, which he sees as a functional path toward sustain-
able peace for religiously or ethnically fragmented states. Rae under-
scores that federalism is a capable mechanism that allows societies
that are composed of diverse groups to foster a system of governance
that is inclusive and to carry out consensus building through peaceful
means. Likewise as the three speakers before, he concludes as a les-
son learnt that peacemaking is not an event, but a process. Signing a
peace agreement is not the end of a peace process, but the beginning
of rearranging state order. All this needs the war-waging parties to
generate ownership of the process, and their commitment needs to be
internalized and kept alive by providing opportunities for participa-
tion within the new constitutional framework.
Hannes Siebert used the powerful image of conflict resolution as
a “peace journey.” He detailed that those journeys out of war toward
peace are first of all personal ones. As the chapters in this part of
the book show, constructive peace mediators aim to find a meaning-
ful role in supporting conflict parties on their path, while walking
their own journey with them. Evans’ experience and the role of the
International Crisis Group made clear that assisting conflict parties
effectively can demand the provision of independent research to help
stakeholders and peacemakers make more mindful decisions when
they arrive at crossroads. Irwin’s idea of peace polls suggests that
information about what a society thinks about the direction of peace
talks is critical for crafting sustainable peace. Rae presented feder-
alism as one option among others that highly fragmented societies
might use to mitigate conflict.
Ultimately, it is the combination of simultaneously being an art,
craft, and science that makes conflict resolution such a delicate pro-
fession. Finding the right balance among these facets is crucial in
order to avoid oversimplifying or overtheorizing peacemaking prac-
tice. This book has gathered personal stories of formal and nonformal
peacemakers, which can be a useful starting point for further reflec-
tion. Not all of the lessons learnt here can be transferred one-to-one
as best practices to other conflict contexts, but they can certainly
inspire stakeholders and facilitators in cases when they are looking for
alternative avenues for their own peace processes. Finally, peacemak-
ing remains an exercise that is marked by trial and error. There is no
absolute right way for making, keeping, or building peace; however,
there are manifold paths that can be taken.
Chapter 10

Beyond Mediation: Promoting Change


and Resolving Conflict through
Authentic National Dialogues

Hannes Siebert 1

In the last century, peace was the product of victory on the battlefield
instead of a negotiated settlement. From 1940 until 2002, the world
witnessed more than 370 state-based conflicts. Some of them were
terminated by cease-fires and peace agreements, others by military
interventions. Only 43 percent of all conflict were resolved through
a negotiated political settlement, while nearly one-third reoccurred
within five years of their initial termination. Significantly, most of
the conflicts that reoccurred were mediated by third-party or external
mediators.
The number of civil wars increased almost four times over the past
60 years since World War II, with more than 40 civil wars in the first
decade of the new millennium. One can claim that this increase in civil
wars resulted from a change in colonial practices whereby powerful
states no longer saw the need to occupy or colonize resource-rich
states to extract natural resources. These new strategies, however,
resulted in igniting internal strife as external powers used political
influence and often exploited internal divisions to achieve their eco-
nomic and strategic objectives. At any point in time over the last
decade, the world hosted nearly 30 armed conflicts simultaneously—
many of them were “check book wars,” with external powers funding
and supplying arms to different internal factions in order to enhance
their access to the beleaguered state’s resources.
In this “post-post-colonial” era, we are witnessing the postcolo-
nial government incarnations of the colonial “strong man” being
replaced by new democratic forces. These new movements are rede-
fining democracy; they are innovating new forms of representative
154 HANNES SIEBERT

government; and many are reconsidering the nation-state concept.


As each of these countries attempts to cut the umbilical cords from
their former colonial powers, we see a reduction in external foreign
mediation and an increase in mass people’s movements and national
dialogues as tools of political transformation. With these significant
phenomena, local and national peacemakers and concerned parties
work together to resolve their conflict through the creation of joint
instruments, different types of national dialogues, and various forms
of supporting peace infrastructures that emerge out of these local
contexts.
The role of nonstate actors increased during this period in efforts
to protect the rights of minorities, fight against poverty and oppres-
sion, and counter the impact of exploitative globalization practices.
For several decades, nonstate actors, particularly those labeled as “ter-
rorist organizations,” have been barred from negotiations processes by
their state antagonists and by certain dominant international actors.
This exclusion occurred despite the fact that many nonstate actors
were credible and legitimate representatives of people’s groups that
suffered oppression and discrimination from the state. Many of them
resorted to armed struggle only because the state refused to listen and
address their people’s grievances through dignified mechanisms and
credible processes.
I have been working in peace processes and with nonstate actors in
Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East since the mid-1980s—when
most of these movements were still involved in armed conflicts. Today
many of these nonstate actors either are in government or engaged in
active negotiation processes. The processes of dialogue and paths to a
just peace that these courageous actors have built have been inspiring,
creating an unfolding live textbook from which we can learn.

Emergence of National Dialogues


Though national dialogues have been used in one form or other
for several centuries, we have seen a profusion of public consul-
tations and political dialogues in the last two decades that go by
this name. National dialogues and constitutional change processes
are today taking place or evolving, for example, in Nepal, Burma/
Myanmar, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan but
also the United States and South Africa, and are gradually emerging
in Libya and Syria. The dialogue processes that I will focus on are the
“National Dialogues,” with capital letters, that have emerged after
civil wars, successful people’s uprisings or revolutions, a cease-fire or
B E YO N D M E D I AT I O N 155

peace accord, or a constitutional deadlock, when the existing consti-


tutional frameworks and mechanisms were no longer acceptable or
“broken.” These National Dialogues are formally mandated struc-
tures that are linked to existing constitutional instruments and usu-
ally comprise leaders inside and outside represented constitutional
bodies. The decisions they make are mostly by some form of consen-
sus procedure and serve as frameworks for constitutional change and
state restructuring, while addressing the root causes of the conflict
and facilitating fundamental structural change.
As can be seen in the cases of South Africa and Nepal, dialogue
structures and processes are by nature vulnerable and imperfect
instruments. In South Africa, the Convention for a Democratic
South Africa (CODESA), which has been a formal, mandated dia-
logue structure, failed twice before it delivered on a final framework
in its third multi-party negotiations forum attempt. As soon as all the
key issues were on the table and the parties had a sense of the costs
of change and what they will need to sacrifice, the ground realities
shifted. Parties were using non-dialogue strategies and violence to
communicate with each other and assert their “power.”
In Nepal, the multi-party talks were chaotic, unstructured, but
focused. The Nepali top leaders from all parties negotiated directly
for weeks until they reached agreement on the challenges they faced.
After more than 300 years under the rule of the Shah dynasty of
kings, they needed to decide on the future of the monarchy, elec-
tion reforms, military integration, and the structure of their future
state. The multi-party talks took place in the residence of the ailing
84-year old Prime Minister GP Koirala. Talks had to stop every time
he needed a rest or medication and continued when he woke up. But
a remarkable characteristic of this “National Dialogue” was that the
leaders continued this ritual for days until they reached agreement on
an issue—this process lasted almost two years.
Taking a closer look at the issues on the agenda and the work of
their committees and structures, these mandated dialogue structures
have not only provided new constitutional frameworks addressing
the root causes of the conflict or constitutional failures but served a
much broader function. They also served as spaces and instruments
for reconciliation, developing joint visions between former enemies
and slowly evolving an understanding of the needs, perceptions,
and perspectives of the “other.” To the leaders in these transforma-
tion processes, carrying the burden to deliver peace and justice to
the people, such peace and dialogue structures were temporary but
essential symbols of hope, critical alternatives to armed conflict.
156 HANNES SIEBERT

As change and “self-mediation” processes, National Dialogues


have been highly undervalued, mainly because they are insulated
from the outside and less susceptible to international intervention but
also because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time and
effort. National Dialogues are less directed toward the conclusion of
agreements, as it is often the main aim of international mediation.
Rather, they aim at establishing an environment for long-term sta-
bility, improved relations between state, community and nonstate
actors, and open communication between all of a society’s major
actors on issues that divide them or are of common national interest.
The strength of National Dialogues is that they establish a consistent
structure deeply rooted in the society, which becomes the mechanism
to address and agree on fundamental structural change, a new consti-
tutional framework, and a new national pact.
In both Nepal and South Africa, these structures changed in form
and composition as the needs of their peace and dialogue processes
evolved and the working relationships between the parties matured.
Sadly, when the relationships between the stakeholders eroded, these
structures became self-serving and destructive to the very process
they were supposed to transform.
In the midst of serious conflicts or deadlocks, national stakehold-
ers are often tempted to adopt or explore “good models” that have
worked in other countries. However, “good models” can be decep-
tive, as we do not always know how these “models” evolved. We also
do not know enough about the nuances and particularities of the
context in which they developed. Sometimes we would be better
served learning from our own and other’s “failed models” and experi-
ences. Most cultures in the world have practices, rituals, and inherent
assets that they have drawn on for centuries to survive. Building on
and strengthening these cultural assets in societies-in-conflict is as
important as finding best practice models from relevant international
experiences. In this regard, the best practice models for peace struc-
tures are as significant as the design and ownership of the process.
“Authentic” National Dialogues are mandated by all the major
interest groups, both on a regional and national level, in order to
represent and reflect all major groups in the society. Once man-
dated, national dialogues work best when they enable the creation of
shared knowledge and a language of mutual understanding among
stakeholders. Through shared knowledge and a common language,
National Dialogues can facilitate the communication of interests and
perspectives as well as the framing of a common agenda on national
needs and transition. National Dialogues integrate many forms of
B E YO N D M E D I AT I O N 157

community-based elements of consensus building, which exist in


each society, contributing to the dialogue and decision-making pro-
cesses. Finally yet importantly, the sustainability of national dialogues
is advanced through support mechanisms—such as expert groups,
technical and legal assistance provided by stakeholders, facilitators
and advisors—that can generate options for all dialogue participants
by responding to the needs of each dialogue party.
The most effective dialogue and peace structures are the ones
carefully designed by national stakeholders themselves to collectively
address their conflict and broken constitutional instruments. These
authentic structures and common spaces become the “immune system”
that strengthens societies from within.

An “Inside” or “Self” Mediation and


Process Perspective: Two Cases
My understanding of mediation and change processes has been most
influenced by five personal and professional experiences over the
past 20 years—where I have been working as an “inside mediator”
in my own country (South Africa) and as an adviser and facilitator to
peace and dialogue processes in Palestine-Israel, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
and Lebanon. I am sharing with you experiences from two of these
countries.

South Africa
The “peace journey” started in my own country, South Africa in
1989. Numerous sincere international mediators, but also as many
“trophy hunters,” came to bring “peace” and resolve the “apartheid
tyranny.” The problem with most foreign initiatives was that instead
of addressing the fundamental issues of injustice, discrimination, and
gross human rights violations, their mediation frameworks of “objec-
tivity and neutrality” often relegitimized discredited apartheid lead-
ers, or gave those leaders a way out—prolonging the suffering of more
than 80 percent of the population. This became a constant trend and
sometimes a predictable, tragicomedy. They reenforced the power
disparity by equalizing the pain and suffering of the oppressed, with
the rights and fears of the oppressor.
For Afrikaners like myself, whose people were responsible for some
of the most brutal human rights violations and systematic oppression
in recent history, it was a great challenge to counter this and focus
the discourse on the values of equality, justice, truth, and fairness.
158 HANNES SIEBERT

We were often perceived as “traitors” by our own people for fighting


for the rights of the so-called masses and distrusted as “spies” by the
majority, many who found it difficult to believe that privileged whites
would give it all up for their sake. It took long journeys of personal
discovery and shameful admission to be able to play any meaningful
role in our own conflict.
Indeed, our own conflicts are the most difficult to solve, as we
are deeply attached to our society’s prejudices, misperceptions, biases.
The widespread social pain and anger live inside you—as they live
in each of the stakeholders. Our daily struggle in South Africa was
finding how to embrace both sides across racial divides, finding ways
to connect common needs, values and hopes that could result in
visions breaking through the borders that divided us. A wonderful
concept, deeply rooted in African culture and that guided us through
our talks, was “ubuntu”—I am who I am because of you—a concept
defining our interconnectedness and interdependence.
It was only after the first failure of South Africa’s all-party National
Dialogue, CODESA I, and the death of thousands of people because
of renewed police brutality, that we really discovered the strengths,
mechanisms, and capacity of our own ability to make peace. This
catastrophic period was the turning point in our struggling peace and
dialogue process. It was clear that no outsiders could help us. Most
international agencies withdrew from areas where security risks were
too high. We had to do it ourselves: create an authentic, dynamic,
“self-mediation,” and inclusive process that would give all sides hope
and make necessary commitments to facilitate deep societal and
political change. A National Peace Accord was signed that mandated
the creation of more than 300 local, regional, and national peace
structures. For the first time in South Africa’s history, nearly all the
stakeholders in the conflict worked together and charted a way for-
ward. These peace structures served as safety nets, creating a condu-
cive environment for the political dialogue to continue and finalize a
new constitutional framework agreement that gave birth to a free and
democratic South Africa.

Nepal
I was invited to Nepal to help negotiate a cease-fire deal between
Maoist parties and the King and support the parties in setting-up the
national peace and negotiations process. But the challenge we faced
was that the King kept undermining the democratic and negotiations
process with covert military operations and self-serving, clientalistic,
B E YO N D M E D I AT I O N 159

and elitist economic and government policies. None of the demo-


cratic parties or Maoists believed he could be part of a future dis-
pensation. The country was about to enter the eleventh year of a
Maoist insurgency that aimed at fighting the King’s discriminatory
economic policies and left more than 95 percent of the population
in dire poverty.
After a series of failed cease-fire attempts, the political parties,
Maoists, and civil society finally managed to mobilize more than
8 million Nepalese and brought the country to a standstill in 2006.
For three weeks, the historic peaceful people’s movement changed
the course of history and brought centuries of monarchy rule to an
end. Young and old took to the street, including mothers and wives
of the soldiers and police officers with their children.
Before the people’s movement happened in Nepal I had been
in the country for almost nine months supporting the two widely
respected national facilitators—Padma Ratna Tuladhar, one of the
most respected national leaders and human rights activist, and Daman
Dhungana, former Speaker and co-drafter of the last Constitution—in
their efforts to secure a cease-fire and revive the formal negotiations
that they have been facilitating for almost a decade. On the morn-
ing when the movement started, they contacted me and suggested
I should leave the country for a few weeks. I felt insulted, confused,
and concerned that I had done something wrong. We met on the way
to the airport and just before I departed, I asked them to be honest
and frank with me, as I really needed to know why they wanted me
to go. “This is embarrassing,” they said, “but you’re going to give the
king a way out if you pull him into negotiations right now.” By this
time they knew I would try and prevent a confrontation between the
King’s Army and the people’s movement and try to convince them to
negotiate with the King’s government.
The conversation that morning reminded me of my own country,
how many times “mediation” relegitimized the apartheid govern-
ment’s power and how these efforts “equalized” the rights of people
suffering under oppressive governments, with the “rights” and inter-
ests of the oppressor. I left Nepal that day questioning again the
impact of our “mediation” efforts. We push for dialogue and com-
promises when lives are destroyed, when ethnic cleansing is taking
place, when there are no common values, where gross human rights
violations are being perpetrated by the state.
Three weeks later, the people’s movement was reaching its climax.
Many international brokers—particularly India—tried to negotiate
a compromise, but the movement’s leaders refused. On the Friday
160 HANNES SIEBERT

evening at the end of the third week, Padma Ratna called from prison
and asked that I return. That night the people stormed the palace;
rainstorms broke out and prevented an almost certain massacre. What
surprised and shocked people on the streets was that despite the
King’s orders to the army to open fire, the Chief or Army—the King’s
stepbrother—refused to act against his own people. Days of intense
negotiations flowed with many of the democratic leaders and activ-
ists refusing to leave prison until the King stood down. The parties
released a list of demands to the King and on the Monday morning,
the Peace Secretary and I met with the King’s head of government
to deliver a message from the imprisoned facilitators. That night the
King finally stepped down, his government resigned, and he handed
over power to the people.
If one considers the examples of fundamental change processes in
South Africa, Nepal, and more recently in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt,
none of them were the result of foreign mediation. Each one started in
a people’s movement and transformed into a political hurricane that
eventually achieved fundamental structural change through inclu-
sive National Dialogues, conferences, or joint constitution drafting
processes. These movements were triggered by long-standing govern-
ment oppression and the lack of political, socioeconomic, and human
rights of the population. As the leaderless movements in Tunisia,
Yemen, and Egypt have illustrated over the past few years, common
themes of social justice, economic welfare, and political freedom have
the potential to unite people for change. Peaceful revolutions in the
Middle East led to the resignation of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali
and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, and Yemen’s President Ali
Abdullah Saleh. As in Nepal, the military’s actions played a key role
in Egypt and Tunisia, as their decisions to support popular protests
increased the pressure on their governments and prevented more
bloodshed.

Revisiting International and Local Mediation


and Peace Processes
“External” mediation of conflicts is increasingly overtaken by “inside”
or “self” mediation. Inside mediators—credible and respected local
leaders and personalities generally acting in a collective—have the
advantage of authenticity, being from that culture and society, as well
as deep local knowledge and experience making them much more able
to predict the course of dialogue, negotiation, and peacemaking.
B E YO N D M E D I AT I O N 161

International mediation in national conflicts relies heavily on


power-based diplomacy, attempting to make progress by exerting
pressure on the conflicting parties through declarations, listings—as
“terrorists,” for instance—threats, punishment, aid, loans, and trade
incentives. Most of these interventions serve the strategic interests—
directly or indirectly—of the external “mediating” power.
One of the challenges of third-party mediation is how the cen-
ter point keeps moving based on the interest of the dominant par-
ties or the power mediators. When a partner or party in negotiations
constantly redefines the center point of a just and fair outcome, it
destroys peace. Center points shift constantly in constitutional or
rights-based negotiations, but they must be reexamined and chal-
lenged when people’s lives and their survival are at stake.
The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations constitute a classic
case regarding this point. While the Palestinians’ basic, fundamen-
tal human needs have been denied for more than half a century and
their suffering recently intensified, the Israelis have skilfully man-
aged to consistently reframe the conflict and redraw borders to serve
their security needs within a global framework of “terrorism” and
the “War on Terror,” while expanding their land-grab through their
settlement program. The core principle to find a fair and just solution
for both Palestinians and Israelis that would meet each community’s
fundamental needs no longer remain the center point. This protracted
“non-peace” and so-called peace process, mediated by the United
States, Quartet, European Union, and Egypt, has ensured the space
for continued Israeli settlements and strengthened security measures,
which limit the rights and freedom of the Palestinians. The conse-
quences of shifting the center point by insisting on no preconditions
for talks, but also violating a fundamental principle of reciprocal
security [In Africa we say: If you give your neighbor a snake and take
away his bread and his dignity, do not be surprised if you get a snake
in return], have made Israel much more insecure and resulted in the
pathological armament of a small, traumatized state with devastating
consequences for its neighbors and Palestinian communities.
It is painfully obvious that deep-rooted national conflicts cannot be
solved quickly or easily. Nevertheless, international mediators and donor
governments frequently make the mistake of seeking “quick fixes.”
They overestimate their influence and underestimate the complexities
of the conflict. Much of those mediation efforts focus on “agreements.”
However, successful national processes and outcomes show that parties
must own and ideally find their own authentic solutions.
162 HANNES SIEBERT

Facing the complexity of national and regional conflicts in this


new global context, mediation alone cannot be the answer, though
it remains an invaluable tool. What is needed are tools supporting a
much more systemic transformation of conflicts, and in the National
Dialogue cases mentioned, we have seen those new paths having
been pursued.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on May 23,
2011, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 11

Preventing and Resolving Deadly


Conflict: What Have We Learned?

Gareth Evans 1

L ooking out at the world around us, it is difficult for anyone fol-
lowing current events to believe at first glance that we have really
learned much at all about conflict prevention and resolution. Seeing
the high number of conflicts worldwide, it is hard to believe that any
of us in this business—whether governments, or intergovernmental
organizations, or NGOs or research institutes and think tanks—are
making any kind of difference. But let me try nonetheless to offer
you some thoughts about why we do still have some reason to look
on the bright side.
For everything that is still going wrong, we have been learning,
slowly and painfully, how to do things better. I have certainly learned
a lot from my own experience over the last 20 years, first as a Foreign
Minister actively engaged in a series of conflict resolution issues,
particularly in Cambodia, through my work as president and CEO
of the International Crisis Group, and as a participant in a number of
global panels and commissions addressing conflict issues.
So let me try to distill the lessons that I have learned, and which
I think the international community as a whole should have learned,
from the experience of the post-Cold War years. I will try to paint the
canvas both broadly, so as to keep the major issues in perspective but
also in a way that focuses on the role of third-party mediators and
facilitators in conflict prevention and resolution, both governmental
and nongovernmental, and those who assist them. Among others,
I will focus on the role of the International Crisis Group, which has
been playing an active role in supporting peacemakers with analysis,
recommendations, and often behind-the-scenes input.
164 G A R E T H E VA N S

Successful individual mediators and facilitators come in all shapes,


sizes, and styles, from charismatic international political leaders or
former leaders (think of Nelson Mandela in Burundi or Jimmy Carter
in Oslo and many places since) to almost publicly unknown and qui-
etly self-effacing backroom operators (think of Max van der Stoel in
Central and Eastern Europe after end of the Cold War) to boisterously
self-confident and forceful front-stage ones (think Richard Holbrooke
in Bosnia) to fascinating combinations of the stern and the avuncular
(think Martti Ahtisaari in Namibia, Aceh, or Kosovo). But what can-
not be doubted is the proven utility of third-party actors, whether
official or unofficial, in providing to parties to conflict or potential
conflict ladders for them to climb out of the holes they have so often
dug for themselves.
My basic story is that when it comes to preventing and resolving
deadly conflict—preventing its outbreak, continuation, and recur-
rence, and using all the instruments available to us, not just mediation
and facilitation—we are doing better than we have in the past, and
better than most people believe. And if we absorb and apply the five
or so main lessons we should by now have clearly learned in each of
these areas, which I will now sketch out, we can do better still.

Preventing Conflict Outbreak


The first rule for preventing deadly conflict is “don’t start it.” This is a
message the United States has had cause to ponder long and hard after
its rush to war in Iraq in 2003, and, it is to be hoped, it will ponder long
and hard again before taking any preemptive military action against
Iran, or encouraging or allowing Israel to do so. The Iran nuclear issue
is one on which the International Crisis Group has had quite a deal
to say, and on which I have been personally active, visiting Tehran,
maintaining contact with senior Iranian officials, and talking regularly
to senior US and European officials. We have taken the line, not very
popular until now in the West, that what matters more than trying to
hold an increasingly unsustainable line against Iran engaging in any
uranium enrichment activity, is drawing a very strong red line against
any move toward actual weaponization, and holding it through a com-
bination of a very intrusive monitoring regime, negotiated incentives,
and good old-fashioned containment and deterrence. This is a package
which I continue to believe is eminently deliverable, and which we will
be continuing to push hard to both sides in the months ahead.
There are circumstances in which there will simply be no alternative
to taking coercive military action, to respond to real and immediate
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 165

cross-border threats (as in the case of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in


1991), and—in the case of man-made internal crises of the kind we
confronted in the Balkans and Rwanda and elsewhere so often in the
last decade—to do so in the context of the principle of the “respon-
sibility to protect” (R2P) endorsed by the 2005 UN Summit, and
about which I have just published a book of my own. But such action
should only ever be undertaken in the most serious cases, as a last
resort, and in circumstances where it will do more good than harm.
It should certainly not be assumed that R2P requires it, even in the
most explosive cases. Kenya at the beginning of 2008 is a case in
point, with the violence and ethnic cleansing being stopped not by
sending in the Marines but by Kofi Annan’s diplomatic mediation.
The second rule of conflict prevention is to understand the causes:
the factors at work—political, economic, cultural, personal—in each
particular risk situation. The basic point about conflict is that it is
always context specific. Big overarching theories—whether cast in
terms of clash of civilizations, ancient tribal enmity, economic greed,
economic grievance, or anything else—may be good for keynote
speeches, and are certainly good for academic royalties. They may
also be quite helpful in identifying particular explanatory factors that
should certainly be taken into account in trying to understand the
dynamics of particular situations. But they never seem to work very
well in sorting between those situations that are combustible and
those that are not. For that you need detailed, case-by-case analysis,
not making assumptions on the basis of experience elsewhere, or what
has gone before, but looking at what is under your nose, right now.
That is perhaps the real strength of the International Crisis
Group, whose distinctive methodology is founded on field-based
reporting and analysis. The organization was established in 1995
by a group of prominent international citizens and foreign policy
specialists—including its first chairman, Senator George Mitchell
(one of Lebanon’s most distinguished grandsons), and Mark Malloch
Brown, who later became the later Deputy Secretary-General of the
UN—who were appalled by the international community’s failure
to anticipate and respond effectively to the catastrophes in Somalia,
Bosnia, and Rwanda.
The aim was to create a sophisticated, professional new interna-
tional organization, wholly independent of any government, with
a high profile and highly experienced board and senior manage-
ment, which could persuade governments and intergovernmental
organizations—when it came to deadly conflict and mass violence—
to think about things they did not particularly want to think about
166 G A R E T H E VA N S

and do things to prevent and resolve conflict and violence they really
did not want to do.
From very small beginnings—two people in a London office and
a tiny field staff in the Balkans—the International Crisis Group has
grown to having over 130 full time staff working across 5 conti-
nents in over 60 different areas of actual or potential conflict, with
an advocacy or liaison presence in Brussels (the Headquarters), in
Washington, next to the UN in New York, and in London, Moscow,
and Beijing. We produce around 90 freely available reports and brief-
ing papers a year, promote them directly and intensely with senior
policymakers and those who influence them, and are widely regarded
now as perhaps the world’s leading nongovernment source of early
warning, analysis, and advice to governments and intergovernmen-
tal organizations in relation to the prevention of deadly conflict and
mass violence (although some uncharitable souls might suggest that
we can claim to be the best at what we do only because we are the
only organization doing precisely what we do!).
The International Crisis Group’s particular value-added, when it
comes to both analysis and policy recommendations, is that all our
reporting is field-based. At last count we had people on the ground
from 49 different nationalities, speaking between them 52 different
languages. They are steeped in local language and culture, getting
dust on their boots, engaged in endless interaction with locals and
internationals on the scene, and operating from nearly 30 regional or
local field offices across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America,
and the still volatile parts of Europe.
While the International Crisis Group’s basic methodology has three
dimensions—field-based analysis, policy prescription, and high-level
advocacy (with the latter two depending on inputs from a wider range
of sources)—everything starts with the first: an accurate take on what
is happening on the ground, focusing particularly on both the issues
that are resonating and the personalities that are driving them. For a
variety of reasons, mainly security and budgetary, traditional diplo-
mats are not performing this function in as much breadth and depth
as they traditionally have—it’s hard to get out and about when you
are locked up in a fortress or have minimal staff resources—and both
early warning and effective conflict prevention capacity have become
more at risk as a result. This is a gap that the International Crisis
Group has been widely seen as very successful in filling.
We have produced many reports over the years on the ebb and flow
of events, issues, and problems in the Middle East in particular with
most attention, inevitably, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, and
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 167

Iran, but also a series on Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and other countries
and situations in the region. The aim has been always to explain the
local dynamics, trying to strip away the myths and misunderstand-
ings that so often afflict reporting of these issues in the West, and
constantly suggesting new ways forward.
Occasionally we produce thematic reports distilling what we have
learned from our work on the ground and linking it into more general
research. One of the best, and probably the most influential, of our
reports of this kind was Understanding Islamism in 2005, which tack-
led head-on the indefensible Western tendency, especially after 9/11,
to lump all forms of Islamism together, whether missionary, political
or jihadist, brand them all as radical and treat them all as hostile. But
a great many think tanks and research institutes do general thematic
research. The International Crisis Group’s real strength comes from
our detailed local knowledge of particular local situations, and our
capacity to force policymakers to sit up and take notice of the implica-
tions of that analysis. One of the many areas in which that approach
has won favorable reviews has been our reporting on one particular
stream of genuinely violent Islamism in South East Asia, the Jemaah
Islamiyah movement, which has regularly been described by senior
Western intelligence officials as “gold standard.” But then, knowing
what we now know about the performance of major Western intel-
ligence agencies, that is perhaps not these days quite the compliment
it might once have been.
The ultimate utility of field-based analysis, as distinct from the
kind that is routinely produced behind research institute and think-
tank computers, is that there is a much better chance of getting right
the policy decisions that flow from it. The current situation in the
Eastern Congo, for example, with Nkunda’s militia claiming to be
protecting the local Tutsi population from murderously inclined
Rwandan Hutus supported by the Kabila government, has been rou-
tinely portrayed as a replay of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, requiring
more and more external military intervention of a kind that was so
lamentably lacking then. But the situation in fact is far more complex
and nuanced than that—with Nkunda’s own troops being among
the worst human-right abusers in the since 2004, with many other
internal and actors at fault—and it cries out for an effectively applied
political solution at least as much, if not more, than a military one.
I was taught a lesson in my first months with the International
Crisis Group that has colored my thinking ever since about the abso-
lute need to base policy recommendations on reliable and completely
up-to-date field information. We issued a report a shortly before
168 G A R E T H E VA N S

the Serbian election of 2000, largely written in our Washington


DC office where our strongly activist Balkans Program director
was located, urging its boycott on the grounds that there was no
way the opposition could unite sufficiently to beat Milosevic. The
trouble was that, although this was a defensible reading of the situ-
ation on the ground when an analyst had last flown in and out six
weeks earlier, the local dynamics had recently dramatically changed,
and within a few days of our report coming out the opposition had
united around Kostunica. A few weeks later Milosevic was history,
and the Crisis Group had egg all over its face, which took a very long
time to wipe off.
The third big lesson we have learned about conflict prevention is
the need to fully understand the conflict prevention toolbox, and be
prepared to apply flexibly as circumstances change the whole range of
possible measures, that can be deployed to deal with high-risk situ-
ations. The simplest way of getting one’s head around the options
available in any given situation is to think, literally, of a toolbox
with two trays—for long-term structural prevention and short-term
more direct operational measures, respectively. Each tray in turn has
four basic compartments for, respectively, political and diplomatic
measures, legal and constitutional measures, economic and social
measures, and security sector and military measures. And there are
subcompartments within each of these—to take just the economic
area, direct economic measures might include positive incentives
(e.g., to take just one area in which the International Crisis Group has
been involved, an energy package for North Korea), negative incen-
tives or sanctions (e.g., which in a Korean peninsula context might
mean cutting off the flow of remittances to North Korea from Japan),
and focused humanitarian aid.
The crucial thing is to recognize not only that each situation has
its own characteristics, and that one-size spanners do not fit all, but
that each situation is likely to require a complex combination of mea-
sures, the balance between which is bound to change over time as
circumstances evolve. Burma/Myanmar is a good example of a need
for a fundamental rethink of the right tools to apply, with the long-
standing Western focus on coercive sanctions bearing, in the absence
of comparable regional pressure, no obvious fruit in changing the
military regime’s inward-looking, undemocratic, authoritarianism.
Although I am an old anti-apartheid campaigner for whom ‘con-
structive engagement’ has long been an almost obscene expression,
I have been persuaded by the International Crisis Group’s field analy-
sis, and we have been arguing accordingly for some time now, that
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 169

reengagement through major programs of development assistance


would not only make life less miserable in the short term for Burma’s
people, but do more than coercion alone to change regime behavior.
One of the reasons for the International Crisis Group’s credibility
with governments around the world is that whenever simple solutions
are just simplistic, we are prepared to complexify them. Our reports
do not easily lend themselves to seven-second sound bites—except for
occasional cases like Darfur where, when the catastrophic violence
first broke out in 2003, to get any action at all a major campaign had
to be initially mounted with a very simple core message: “Stop the
killing and get the humanitarian aid flowing now or a million will
die.” An average report of ours, and we have produced over 800 of
them since 1995, will have 15 to 20 substantial recommendations,
many of them quite detailed, directed as appropriate locally, region-
ally, and globally to all those actors capable of influencing outcomes.
A fourth rule of effective conflict prevention is to be prepared to
work without recognition. In diplomacy, as in life itself, more can
often be achieved by allowing others credit for whatever is achieved,
or by nobody seeking overt acknowledgment, than by a competitive
clamor for attention. Third-party diplomacy, be it governmental,
intergovernmental, or private, to prevent the threatened initial out-
break of conflict or mass violence is most successful when nothing
happens, and nobody notices—which is one of the reasons it is so
hard to mobilize. As I can testify after 21 years in Australian govern-
ment and politics, for most people in public office, performing good
works without anyone noticing it is like having your teeth pulled.
But while our rewards may have to wait for heaven, there have
been many successful preventive efforts over the years in which the
International Crisis Group can reasonably claim to have played a sig-
nificant part, for example, the sustained effort mounted since the
mid-1990s to stop a Rwanda-type explosion erupting in neighbor-
ing Burundi (where we have been a constant advisory presence) and
the rapid mobilization of international pressure at the UN (in which
the International Crisis Group played a key part) to stop what in
November 2007 looked to be the imminent resumption of major war
between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
One of the best examples anywhere of unheralded but extraor-
dinarily effective preventive activity has been the heroic mediation
effort of the OSCE’s High Commissioner for National Minorities
over many years, particularly during the volatile early post-Cold
War period when Max van der Stoel held the post, to quietly stop
as many as a dozen major ethnic and language-based conflicts from
170 G A R E T H E VA N S

breaking out across Central and Eastern Europe, from the Baltics
to Romania—using essentially the political, legal, and constitutional
subcompartments of the conflict prevention toolbox to find solutions
acceptable to both majorities and minorities. Since the Russia-Georgia
conflict this year, new anxieties have arisen about the capacity for
these minority issues to again generate confrontation and violence in
the former Soviet space, and the International Crisis Group, for one,
has been advocating close and careful attention to these issues. To
take one small example, with Russian nationalist sentiment resurgent
in the Ukraine’s Crimea, in particular, it does not make much sense,
and we have been saying so, to have the signs at the Sevastopol airport
in two language only, Ukrainian and English!
The fifth rule is to be prepared to commit the necessary resources,
governmental and intergovernmental, when and where they are
needed, and particularly at the early prevention stage, where any
investment now is likely to be infinitely cheaper than paying later
for military action, humanitarian relief assistance, and postconflict
reconstruction—something the international community is still
much better at talking about than doing.
There are many examples one could give of money being able to
be better spent than it has been, but one of the most succinct and
graphic I have seen is a table published in the New York Times in
mid-2004, just over a year after the invasion of Iraq, which showed
that the $144 billion already by then spent in Iraq—and costs, of
course, have multiplied almost exponentially since—could have paid
for, among other things, the more or less complete safeguarding of
US ports, airports, and airliners ($34 billion); the security from theft
of the world’s stock of weapons-grade nuclear materials, and the deac-
tivation of warheads (another $34 billion); the complete rebuilding
of Afghanistan, including drug crop conversion ($20 billion); the
addition of another 65,000 US troops, if anyone thought this neces-
sary ($40 billion); and another $10 billion in development assistance
(which would have filled, for one year anyway, nearly 20 percent of
the gap then identified if the Millennium Development goals relating
to poverty, disease, and the like were to be met).

Preventing Continuation: Conflict Resolution


When efforts to prevent the outbreak of conflict fails, the task
becomes that of preventing its continuation, or conflict resolution—
hopefully achieved by peacemaking negotiations rather than the
use of overriding military force. In this context, again, there are a
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 171

number of lessons we have painfully learned about what makes a suc-


cessful peace accord.
First, peacemaking requires, as does earlier conflict prevention
effort, the commitment of serious diplomatic resources, both in qual-
ity and quantity, at whatever level is most likely to bring success—
through the UN, through a regional organization, through a
particular government initiative, or sometimes through second-track
or unofficial mechanisms. At the UN level the crucial role is played
by the dozens of special representatives or envoys of the Secretary-
General who, it has been rightly said, need a combination of “excellent
political, negotiation, leadership and management skills” combined
with a “a superabundance of optimism, persistence and patience.”
The trouble is the UN’s selection process for such special representa-
tives remains largely ad hoc and informal, and it is almost entirely a
matter of chance whether any of these qualities will exist, let alone
all of them: one representative has confessed that he almost certainly
found himself top of the list for a post for which he was, on the face of
it, only marginally qualified (although in which, in fact, he performed
excellently) because his surname began with “A.”
Good selection is only the beginning. It must be accompanied by
carefully designed and implemented training, and practitioners going
into the field have to have first class initial briefing, and ongoing
advice and assistance. Here again the International Crisis Group has
played a significant role over the years, in supporting peace nego-
tiators behind the scenes with background information and analysis
based on our own knowledge of the local scene and relevant actors,
substantive ideas for solutions and suggestions about process—for
example in the North-South negotiations in Sudan, in Burundi over
many years, and in support of Martti Ahtisaari’s successful peacemak-
ing in Indonesia’s Aceh.
Second, successful peace negotiating requires creativity and stam-
ina and a willingness to work with all the players that matter, how-
ever ugly their past behavior may have been. The most difficult peace
negotiations in which I have ever been personally directly engaged
were those over 1989–1993, bringing to an end the long-running
conflict in Cambodia, which involved all these elements. The situa-
tion was extraordinarily complex, being played out at three distinct
levels: first, the warring internal factions, with Hun Sen’s government
against a fragile coalition of noncommunist royalists and others on
the one hand, and the reduced but still dangerous Khmer Rouge
on the other; second, the region, with Vietnam supporting Hun
Sen and ASEAN his opponents; and third, the great powers, with
172 G A R E T H E VA N S

China (determined to neutralize Vietnam’s influence) supporting


the Khmer Rouge and Prince Sihanouk, the Soviet Union support-
ing Hun Sen, and the United States favoring the two noncommunist
resistance groups.
The key to unraveling it all was China, without its willingness to
step back and withdraw support from the Khmer Rouge, the latter
simply could not have been isolated and marginalized, a broad-based
“independent” government formed, and a sustainable peace achieved.
What finally broke the impasse was an Australian proposal to give the
UN an unprecedentedly large role in the civil administration of the
country during the transition period, which was expressly designed to
give China a face-saving way of engaging in just that withdrawal. This
was the critical creative idea, but it would have disappeared without
trace without the extraordinarily intense and sustained diplomatic
effort that then went into selling it and bedding it down, over nearly
five years of sustained activity, to all the interlocutors that mattered
from Phnom Penh to Jakarta to Hanoi to Beijing to Washington and
New York. Within Cambodia, which meant talking face to face with
the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, it was an experience that I can
recall without shuddering, but it was a necessary one.
In the Middle East probably the most single creative idea that the
International Crisis Group has come up with—which we first articu-
lated in a series of reports in 2002, which fed into the initial Geneva
Accord process the following year, and has dominated the thinking
of policymakers since, even if success remains as elusive as ever—was
approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict in a way that focused on the
“endgame first,” in contrast to Oslo-type incremental confidence-
building, leaving all the hard issues until last, which as we now know
all too well, makes the whole process completely hostage to extrem-
ists on either side.
A third lesson we have learned is that peacemaking is not an event
so much as a process, and signing the agreement is not the end of
it. The critical need is to generate commitment to and ownership of
the peace by the warring parties, so their commitments are not just
formal, but internalized, and will stick. That takes, in turn, real skill
and commitment on the part of those mediating or otherwise assist-
ing the negotiation.
Although South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki won a strong and deserved
reputation for his peacemaking efforts in the Great Lakes and else-
where in Africa, his approach to resolving the harrowing situation in
Zimbabwe has been almost a textbook example of what not to do: first
in not putting any pressure at all on Robert Mugabe, then in insisting
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 173

on a power-sharing deal with the opposition that could only possibly


resolve the mess if it was rigorously and fairly enforced, and then in
being unable or unwilling to do so. No one underestimates the dif-
ficulty of the problem, given the intractability of Mugabe and those
around him, but it is hard to believe that a more determined effort
by South Africa and its leadership would not have made a difference,
and would not make a difference even now. It is hardly an excuse that
South Africa’s neighbors have been just as supine—as evidenced once
again by the failure of the SADC meeting yesterday to impose any
united and effective pressure on Mugabe to accept Morgan Tsvangirai
and his party as a genuine partner in government.
Fourth, we know that any peace accord must deal with all the fun-
damentals of the dispute: all the issues which will have to be resolved if
normality is to return. Sometimes that can be done in a sequential or
stage-by-stage way, with confidence building measures now and some
key issues deferred: we have suggested that the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict in the Caucasus, between Azerbaijan and Armenia, might
be such an example, but the failed Oslo process for Israel-Palestine
shows how risky that approach can be. One of the most fragile of the
peace agreements currently in place is that for Kenya, for precisely this
reason: the Annan negotiation, while producing an effective political
fix at the top, through a power-sharing agreement that stopped the
initial violence, left completely unresolved the fundamental underly-
ing causes of the explosion of ethnic violence, including land distri-
bution, economic disparities, and inadequate constitutional and legal
protections.
Fifth, any successful peace accord must get the balance right
between peace and justice. This is a lot easier said than done. The
South African truth and reconciliation commission model, with
its amnesties for the perpetrators of even serious crimes, is widely
admired, but in other cases, sustainable peace will not be possible
without significant retributive justice: i.e., the visible trial and punish-
ment of those most guilty. What is clear is that the people of every
country, whether it’s Cambodia or Rwanda or East Timor or Liberia,
have to resolve what works for them.
And peace negotiators trying to resolve conflicts that are still
ongoing have to work out what is best, not in principle and not in the
distant future, but here and now, to achieve that objective. Faced with
the competing demands of peace and justice, they are often faced
with a cruel dilemma: do you insist on no impunity for the worst
human rights violators and risk the conflict continuing with all the
further major loss of life and immiseration that conflict brings with
174 G A R E T H E VA N S

it, or do give them—as the price of the conflict coming to an end—a


soft landing of some kind? The asylum given by Nigeria to Liberia’s
villainous Charles Taylor in 2003 was entirely defensible, given the
prospect then looming of a bloody final battle for Monrovia. What I
think was much less defensible—though human rights organizations
are hard to persuade about this—was Nigeria’s later decision, under
strong international pressure, to hand Taylor over for trial in the Sierra
Leone Special Court: this sent a message to other dictators (not least
Robert Mugabe) that amnesty deals were not to be trusted, and has
made the job of peace negotiators everywhere that much harder.
Two current situations where the peace versus justice issue is
looming very largely indeed are Northern Uganda, where the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LR A) leader Joseph Kony, has been indicted by
the International Criminal Court, and—more difficult still—Sudan,
where an indictment is pending against the head of state, President
Bashir, for his behavior in Darfur, and the question is whether the
Security Council will, in the interests of getting a peace settlement,
use its power to override any such prosecution. My own, and the
Crisis Group’s, view of these issues is that there is sometimes a case
to be made for peace taking precedence over justice, but only in the
most exceptional cases where there is clear and unequivocal evidence
that there will be a major peace dividend—and that is not the case for
now in either Uganda or Sudan.
Sixth, the terms of any accord, and the method of its enforce-
ment and implementation, must be sufficiently resilient to deal with
spoilers—those who would seek to undermine or overturn it. That
has been a constant problem in most of the peace settlements in Africa
and elsewhere that have not held, or which remain incomplete—as
happened before in Rwanda and Angola for example, and is happen-
ing now in the Congo.
Seventh—and this follows particularly from the last point—a peace
accord to be successful must have the necessary degree of interna-
tional support: with all the guarantees and commitment of resources
that are necessary to make it stick. And this leads us to the last set of
lessons I want to discuss.

Preventing Recurrence: Postconflict Peacebuilding


The biggest lessons of all about the handling of conflict that we have
learned in recent years—not least from Rwanda (where the 1994 geno-
cide, taking 800,000 lives, followed the Arusha peace deal just a year
before), Angola (where the 1991 Bicesse Agreement to end the war
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 175

in was followed by a relapse into bloody conflict for another decade


with another million or more lives lost), Haiti, Afghanistan, and now
Iraq—is the critical necessity of effective postconflict peacebuilding
to ensure that the whole weary conflict cycle does not begin again.
One of the things we now understand most clearly about conflict is
that the countries and regions most likely to lapse into it are those that
have been there before. There is not a straight line sequence between
the anticipation of conflict and attempts to prevent it breaking out;
the resolution of conflict, by negotiation or force, when it has broken
out, and postconflict peacebuilding. Rather there is a cyclical process,
in which each postconflict environment contains the potential seeds
of the next round of destruction. In recent decades nearly 30 percent
of negotiated settlements have broken down in under five years.
What follows from that is that far more effort has to be put into
consolidating the peace after it has been won. Sustainable peace can-
not be guaranteed just because a diplomatic peacemaking initiative
has apparently been successful, or because a clear-cut military victory
has apparently been won. The conflict containment structures and
capacities that need to be applied in a postconflict environment to
prevent violence recurring are essentially exactly the same as those
that need to be applied in failed or failing states to prevent violent
conflict breaking out in the first place. The focus in each case must
be on structural prevention—building institutional structures and
processes (military, political, legal, economic, and social), which are
capable of relieving nonviolently all the crucial stress points that
arise between individuals and groups. Postconflict peacebuilding is
a hugely complex and often costly enterprise. It has all too often
been neglected or mismanaged or short-changed in terms of time
commitment—and when this happens it is only a matter of time
before the boil erupts again.
The International Crisis Group, for all these reasons, puts just as
much effort into monitoring and analyzing postconflict peace build-
ing as we do into preconflict prevention and current conflict resolu-
tion. We have people on the ground—producing a substantial series
of reports on what is going wrong and what is needed to correct
it—in, for example, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi, the Congo, Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Kosovo, Tajikistan, Nepal,
and Haiti. A great deal of this reporting has had a substantial influ-
ence, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, on policymaking: for
example, the former High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Paddy Ashdown, has been kind enough to say publicly that our report
on rule of law issues was his “bible.”
176 G A R E T H E VA N S

What does all this mean for negotiators trying to put together
international peacebuilding missions that will not fall apart, and for
those then charged with holding them together? I think, on the basis
of my own and the International Crisis Group’s experience, it means
five very basic things, which can be stated very succinctly.
First, sort out who should do what and when—immediately, over
a medium transition period and in the longer term: allocate the
roles and coordinate them effectively both at headquarters and on
the ground. Of all the things that have gone wrong in Afghanistan,
among the most serious have been weaknesses on this front—poor
coordination among all the international players (between military
and military, civilian and civilian, and military and civilian) and as
between them and the Afghan government.
Second, commit the necessary resources and sustain that commit-
ment for as long as it takes: this has been envisaged as a critical role for
the new UN Peacebuilding Commission, which is slowly finding its
feet with cases like Burundi and Sierra Leone, and certainly needs to,
given the long and lamentable history of ad hoc donors’ conferences,
and rapidly waning attention, and generosity, once the immediate
crisis is over. Afghanistan and Haiti have in the past been classic cases
of international players bringing conflicts to an end but then drop-
ping the ball, and Bosnia may be a case now where this phenomenon
is again in play.
Third, understand the local political dynamics—and the cultural
and other limits within outsiders must operate. Iraq and Afghanistan
are both unhappy major examples of how much can go wrong when
that understanding is lacking, and there are many others about which
the International Crisis Group has written.
Fourth, recognize that multiple objectives have to be pursued
simultaneously: physical security may always be the first priority, but
it cannot be the only one, and rule of law and justice issues, and
economic governance and anti-corruption measures, deserve much
higher priority than they have usually been given. Afghanistan is
perhaps again the best and clearest recent example where the inter-
national efforts to help create an effective police and court system
in particular have been, at least until very recently, hopelessly and
lamentably inadequate.
Fifth, all intrusive peace operations need an exit strategy, if not an
exit timetable, and one that is not just devoted to holding elections as
soon as possible, as important as it obviously is to vest real authority
and responsibility in the people of the country being rebuilt. Every
peacebuilding situation has its own dynamic, but many of the worst
P R E V E N T I N G A N D R E S O LV I N G D E A D LY C O N F L I C T 177

peacebuilding mistakes of the last decade and a half have had more
to do with leaving too soon or doing too little than staying too long
or doing too much. That reality now seems to have been recognized
on all sides in the case of Iraq, where the wrongheadedness and irre-
sponsibility of the original invasion would be matched only by the
wrongheadedness and irresponsibility of a premature withdrawal.
The United States and its allies do need to leave as soon as possible
but only in the context of national institutions being strong enough
to avoid the country plunging back into a genocidal ethnic and sec-
tarian bloodbath.

Preventing and Resolving Deadly Conflict:


The Case for Optimism
One last, and hopefully more cheering, word. Whatever our newspa-
per reading and intuitions seem to tell us about the ever increasing
scale and incidence of war and mass atrocity crimes—that we are, ever
faster, going to hell in a handbasket—that perception, let me tell you,
is just plain wrong.
The evidence comes from the statistics that have in recent years
been meticulously compiled, drawing on the best available world-
wide data (not much of which is available from UN or other official
sources) by the Human Security Report team working out of Simon
Fraser University in Canada, and published in successive reports since
2005, and summarized in a mini Atlas of Human Security that was
published together with the World Bank in 2008.
Since the early 1990s, despite all the terrible cases we all remember,
and all the terrible cases still ongoing in the Congo and elsewhere,
there has been an extraordinary decrease in the number of wars, the
number of episodes of mass killing, and the number of people dying
violent battle deaths. In the case of serious conflicts (defined as those
with 1,000 or more reported battle deaths in a year) and mass killings,
there has been an 80 percent decline since the early 1990s. Though a
number of significant new conflicts have commenced, and a number
of apparently successfully concluded conflicts have broken out again
within a few years, many more conflicts have stopped than started.
There has even more striking decrease in the number of battle
deaths. Whereas most years from the 1940s through to the 1990s
had over 100,000 such reported deaths—and sometimes as many
as 500,000—the average for the first years of this new century has
been fewer than 20,000. For wars in which states, as distinct from
nonstate groups, are one or more of the actors, for every 30 people
178 G A R E T H E VA N S

killed in 1950, only one was killed in 2005. Of course violent battle
deaths are only a small part of the whole story of the misery of war:
90 percent or more of war-related deaths are due to disease and mal-
nutrition rather than direct violence, as we have seen, for example,
in the Congo and Darfur. But the trend decline in battle deaths is
significant and hugely encouraging.
Even more encouraging is the analysis that lies behind these
figures. First, the dramatic decline in wars and battle deaths can
partly be explained by the end of the era of colonialism, which gen-
erated two-thirds or more of all wars from the 1950s to the 1980s;
second, it can be explained with the end of the Cold War, which
meant no more proxy wars fueled by Washington or Moscow; and
third also by the demise of a number of authoritarian governments,
generating internal resentment and resistance, which each side had
been propping up.
But the best explanation is the one that stares us in the face, even
if a great many do not want to acknowledge it: the huge upsurge in
activity in conflict prevention, conflict management, and postcon-
flict peacebuilding activity that has occurred over the last decade and
a half, with most of this being spearheaded by the UN itself. UN
diplomatic peacemaking missions rose from four in 1990 to fifteen
in 2002; peacekeeping operations rose from ten in 1990 to seven-
teen in 2005, and generally with much broader protective mandates.
And beyond the UN, a number of regional organizations, individual
states, and literally thousands of NGOs have played significant roles
of their own.
So to those of us who have been devoting large chunks of our
professional and personal lives to preventing and resolving deadly
conflict—and those of you readers who I hope will be tempted to
in your future careers—my final message is clear, simple, and I hope
encouraging: We are not all wasting our time.

Note
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on November
10, 2008, and edited in July 2015.
Chapter 12

The Public as Peacemaker: How Polling


in Divided Societies Can Promote
Negotiated Agreements

Colin Irwin1

P ublic opinion surveys have been used for conflict analysis since
World War II and were developed as an aid for conflict resolution in
support of negotiations and as an instrument of public diplomacy in
Northern Ireland in the 1990s.2 What are now referred to as “peace
polls” have subsequently been employed to bring the views of criti-
cal populations into peace processes in a number of conflicts around
the world including the Balkans, Middle East, and Asia. Initially, the
application of polling was only done on an ad hoc basis with no effort
made to do this approach as an essential instrument of learning in
all peace processes. However, throughout the last decade, this issue
was well understood by peacemaking authorities such as the United
Nations, which subsequently led to an in-depth review of best prac-
tice for the inclusion of local voices in all UN peacekeeping opera-
tions and a growing inclusion of “peace polls” as an important tool
for effective negotiations.
In my lecture, I will concentrate on how polling in divided societ-
ies can promote negotiated agreement and use the “public as peace-
maker.” I will explain what qualitative and quantitative methods are
used and finally how the lessons from this work might now be applied
to the resolution of conflicts elsewhere. Public opinion is a critical
force in shaping and transforming society. Properly conducted and
disseminated, survey research simultaneously provides the public with
information about what others are thinking while allowing their
voices to be heard. In this way knowledge of public attitudes and their
wide dissemination to the public can be useful in resolving conflicts
by making public views widely known.
180 COLIN IRWIN

Concept of Peace Polls


Peace polls are polls of publics who are parties to a violent conflict.
They may be directly involved in the violent conflict themselves as
potential victims of that conflict or indirectly involved as either the
electorate of a government or constituents of a community engaged
in a violent conflict.
Such polls can be undertaken at any point in the cycle of a conflict
as the objective of a peace poll is to help parties involved in a conflict
to bring an end to and/or prevent further harm associated with the
destruction of property, injury, and death. Ideally peace polls should
be undertaken prior to the outbreak of violence when parties to a
conflict may be threatening and/or preparing for violent action, in
the hope that accurate measurement of the opinions and attitudes of
all the affected publics can help resolve the conflict through peaceful
negotiation. In practice such remedial action is frequently not under-
taken until one party or another wishes to sue for peace after the
prospects of their gaining some advantage through continuation of
the violence has been lost. Critically, peace polls are nonpartisan and
therefore should be undertaken at any point in the cycle of a violent
conflict with a view to preventing harm in accordance with interna-
tional human rights and humanitarian law. Thus, peace polls can and
should be undertaken before violent conflicts begin, during hostili-
ties, and after the violence has ended to prevent and reduce the reoc-
currence of violence and its harmful consequences.
Peace polls can serve a variety of different functions with a view
to helping parties to peace. They can be used to track the attitude of
publics involved in a conflict. Such timeline research should be able
to identify those sections of the various publics that are commonly
referred to as “extremist elements” and “silent majorities” along with
their community and political affiliations. They can be used to rank
order “problems” associated with the causes of the conflict and “solu-
tions” or policies for dealing with those problems. Critically it is
important to gauge the values that all publics have with regard to
such problems and solutions so that all the parties to a conflict have
an equal opportunity to know and weigh the views of their adversaries
on key issues. In addition to such analysis and description, peace polls
can be used for public diplomacy by informing both publics and elites
as to the nature of the conflict, the identification of common ground,
points of most serious division and potential for compromise between
various publics on these issues. Such research also clearly has an obvi-
ous academic dimension to it that might include a political analysis of
T HE PUBLIC AS PE ACEMAK ER 181

leadership and party fortunes; however, if such research is to be used


proactively as part of a peace process then care should be taken not
to include questions that are politically partisan and/or cannot be
published as an otherwise transparent piece of research. These dif-
ferent functions will necessitate both the design of different research
instruments and different methods of dissemination that will vari-
ously include summary and detailed reports to the interested parties,
the media, and academic press.

Polling Experience in the Northern Ireland


Peace Process
Public opinion polls were used in Northern Ireland to create a form
of intertrack diplomacy through an on-going process of question-
naire design with the politicians, interviews with their electorate and
publication of survey results in the local press. This did not happen
“over night” by way of some carefully designed diplomatic strategy
but over a period of months and years during which time all the ele-
ments of this peace building exercise were put into place.
Nine such surveys of public opinion were completed in support of
the Northern Ireland peace process between April 1996 and February
2003. Significantly the questions for eight of these polls were drafted
and agreed with the cooperation of party negotiators to enhance the
peace process by increasing party inclusiveness, developing issues and
language, testing party policies, helping to set deadlines and increase
the overall transparency of negotiations through the publication of
technical analysis and media reports.
The first poll was undertaken as a piece of pure research by a group
of academics at Queen’s University and conducted as a random sample
of the population of Northern Ireland in April and May of 1996. The
findings were published in a series of articles in the Belfast Telegraph,
and as a supplement in a local current affairs magazine, Fortnight.
The study included questions that began to explore attitudes toward
various political solutions to the Northern Ireland problem. Most of
the questions dealt with problems of discrimination and segregation
as they related to employment, policing, education, Irish language,
public parades, and housing. The Catholic community, which had
been systematically discriminated against in the past, wanted stron-
ger policies than Protestants to deal with this particular problem but
Protestants were willing to accept more reforms than were presently
in place providing this would also improve the quality of services,
fairness, and choice. Both communities wanted policies that would
182 COLIN IRWIN

reverse the trend toward increased segregation. Other questions also


dealt with political arrangements for the future of Northern Ireland.
Areas of compromise that were potentially most acceptable to both
Irish Nationalists and British Unionists started to be identified.
As with most conflicts between peoples, intolerance and discrimi-
nation were common threads running through the Northern Ireland
problem. When asked, “Should the police make a greater effort to
recruit more Catholics and be more acceptable to the Nationalist
community by, for example, changing the name and uniform of the
Royal Ulster Constabulary?”, only 20 percent of Protestants said
“Yes” compared to 88 percent of Catholics. With regards to cultural
matters only 2 percent of Catholics were opposed to Irish language
schools compared to 39 percent of Protestants, while only 6 percent
of Catholics would allow all Orange Order parades compared to
42 percent of Protestants. However, although the Northern Ireland
Fair Employment Commission (FEC) had been established to elimi-
nate discrimination, particularly against Catholics, only 28 percent
of Protestants wanted to scrap it, while 72 percent of Protestants and
97 percent of Catholics wanted to keep the FEC or strengthen it.
Clearly some problems were going to be more difficult to deal with
than others, as part of a comprehensive settlement.
Although the first purely academic poll demonstrated public sup-
port for a political compromise on the future of Northern Ireland,
politicians disagreed with a lot of what was done in this survey. Many
of them thought the questions were biased or were the wrong ques-
tions on the wrong issues or even that the most important issues
had been ignored. Inevitably different politicians from different par-
ties had very different views on these matters. Some of them also
thought that the methodology could be improved in terms of the
way the questions were asked, analyzed or broken down in terms
of community and political groups. These criticisms were all very
healthy, welcome, and provided for a great deal to talk about and
agree upon without running the risk of making political decisions
that were irreversible.
It is important to understand that the public opinion polls,
although the most visible aspect of this approach to conflict resolu-
tion, were not an end in themselves; the process of poll-making was
equally important. The parties were encouraged to take the drafting
of the questions, the timing of the polls and the publication of the
results in any direction that they believed would be helpful to the
advancement of the peace process. It was a collective enterprise that
they could use as they saw fit until the new institutions of government
T HE PUBLIC AS PE ACEMAK ER 183

created under the terms of the Belfast Agreement would render such
work superfluous to political requirements. After the first poll, for
instance, the political parties elected to participate in the negotia-
tions on the future of Northern Ireland were invited and agreed to
participate in the drafting of a new poll designed to address all the
issues presently holding up progress in the negotiations. They agreed
providing individuals were not cited as being actively involved in the
exercise. A degree of discretion was essential especially when “old
enemies” were cooperating in this common endeavor.
In the case of Northern Ireland, it was crucial that funding was
secured from an independent sponsor, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust, that all parties accepted as neutral and agreement was reached
with the Belfast Telegraph that their paper would publish the reports
of the surveys without insisting on editorial control of their content.
The political consultations, interviews, analysis, writing, and publica-
tion were genuinely independent, from beginning to end, across all
three tracks of the process. Consequently the parties had confidence
in the process and took the results of the research seriously.

Surveys on the Israel-Palestine Peace Negotiations


Following the conclusion of the Belfast Agreement in 1998 and the
“Mitchell Review” of the Agreement in 1999, Atlantic Philanthropies
awarded me a two-year fellowship in 2000 to explore the possibilities
of applying the methods developed there internationally. With the
assistance of this grant, which I had received with the support of
Senator George Mitchell, I made arrangements to visit Jerusalem
again in 2002, and it soon became clear that a group of suitable
people could be brought together to design and run polls similar to
those undertaken in Northern Ireland.
Naomi Chazan, who was then the deputy speaker of the Knesset
and a past director of the Truman Institute for the Advancement of
Peace, as well as Ghassan Khatib, director of the Jerusalem Media
and Communication Centre and who later become a minister in the
Palestinian Authority, vice president of Birzeit University, and direc-
tor of the Government Media Centre, both expressed a keen interest
in such a project. At the time the director of the Palestinian Academic
Society for the Study of International Affairs, Mahdi Abdul Hadi,
was particularly interested in running a poll that explored the possi-
bilities for elections in the occupied territories. Some questions were
drafted, and with the support of the French government, he was to fly
to Paris to examine these issues further but when his colleagues were
184 COLIN IRWIN

stopped at Israeli checkpoints and prevented from joining him at the


airport, the project was brought to a close. Freedom of association
and freedom of expression are minimum requirements for this kind
of peace research, and these conditions could not be adequately met
to complete our project at that time.
I returned to Israel and Palestine whenever I could but had to wait
until Barack Obama was elected to the White House and George
Mitchell was appointed his Special Envoy to the Middle East before
I was invited to undertake a peace poll there in 2009. A month of
such interviews in Israel and Palestine produced two very different
questionnaires. One that focuses on the main features of a peace
agreement, what negotiators frequently refer to as “substantive issues”
and the other on the failures of past negotiations associated with the
peace process itself, “procedural issues.”
When we polled on substantive issues, one of the most contentious
topics to be resolved was the future of Jerusalem. In our poll we did
make a first effort to explore this issue using the “essential,” “desir-
able,” “acceptable,” “tolerable,” and “unacceptable” scale. “Divide
the city according to Palestinian and Israeli neighbourhoods” was
“unacceptable” to 55 percent of Israelis and 61 percent of Palestinians.
Clearly there was a degree of difficulty here comparable to the prob-
lem of police reform in Northern Ireland. In the case of in Northern
Ireland, when we rephrased the issue as one element in a “package”
of a comprehensive peace agreement, then 74 percent of Protestants
and 81 percent of Catholics were willing to give their support to such
an agreement. Similarly, the conclusions of our polls in Palestine and
Israel indicated that it should be possible to resolve the question of
Jerusalem.
Our polls on procedural issues clearly demonstrated the possi-
bility of achieving a peace agreement. Many other polls had con-
firmed this reality over the years. As both Israelis and Palestinians
want a negotiated peace (79 percent and 71 percent “essential or
desirable”), it should come as no surprise that nearly all the sugges-
tions for strengthening the negotiations were welcomed by both
Palestinians and Israelis. There was however one notable excep-
tion. Seventy-three percent of Palestinians and 52 percent of Israelis
were opposed to the idea that “The PLO/ Fatah and Israel should
negotiate in secret” as “unacceptable.” This is how the failed nego-
tiations of the past many years have been conducted and both
Palestinians and Israelis wanted change.
At the top of the Israeli list (third on the Palestinian list) was “The
people should be kept informed of progress in the negotiations” at
T HE PUBLIC AS PE ACEMAK ER 185

74 percent “essential or desirable” and second on the Israeli list (fourth


on the Palestinian list) is “Targets, timetables and milestones should
be set for negotiations” at 68 percent “essential or desirable” and so
on and so on. Unlike all the questions previously reviewed in this
research there was now much more agreement between Palestinians
and Israelis than there was disagreement.
One result from the procedural questionnaire, that particularly
pleased me as encouraging was the suggestion that “Israel should
freeze settlements as a first step to deal with the settlements” at only
23 percent “unacceptable” for Israelis. Similarly only 23 percent of
Palestinians were opposed to the proposal to “Stop firing rockets from
Gaza” as “unacceptable.” The symmetry of this result was one of those
happy coincidences that sometimes surface in this kind of research
and that seem to make all the effort so worthwhile. Unfortunately,
after the publication of this poll this particular procedural issue took
center stage as a precondition to be negotiated before negotiations
proper. Such issues were always “knocked down” in Northern Ireland
by framing such questions in a balanced way between both Catholic
and Protestant aspirations, and I had hoped that the same would be
done in Israel and Palestine. But this was not the case, partisan poll-
ing from an Israeli perspective on an Israeli agenda was allowed to
dominate the media on the question of a settlement freeze and nego-
tiations were allowed to stall on this point.
But that is as far as the process went. Instead of using the results
of the peace poll to deal constructively with problems in the negotia-
tions, the Israelis used partisan polls and public diplomacy to oppose
a balanced set of accommodations that would have seen the nego-
tiations move forward. Regrettably funding for the peace polls was
then terminated, so an invitation to engage with Israeli political par-
ties more clearly committed to achieving a peace agreement with the
Palestinians could not be made, and the peace process failed.

Challenges of Peace Polls


Clearly there are many practical difficulties associated with peace polls
including, for example, freedom of association, free speech, the press,
and other media; the safety of those undertaking the polls and their
informants; the neutrality of the researchers and their relationship to
the parties to the conflict and how questions of independence and
safety can be reconciled. Each conflict will present its own particular
set of problems in these regards, and these guidelines are made with a
view to helping the researchers navigate those problems.
186 COLIN IRWIN

One of my lessons learnt has been that peace polls undertaken as a


part of a peace process should be published as soon as practically pos-
sible after the fieldwork is completed. Any delay in disseminating the
results will inevitably raise questions about the legitimacy of the effort
as well as rendering the research and its conclusions less relevant over
time. For similar reasons the results should be disseminated to all
the interested parties and publics at the same time as any preferential
access to the results would be interpreted as partisanship. Secondary
analysis for academic purposes, particularly as part of any comparative
studies, is clearly not subject to these same imperatives.
Another point is ripeness. It is best to carry out polls when the
peace process is active. If the prospect of progress is zero then there
is no point in building up the people’s hopes only to get them shat-
tered. Often, failed politicians prefer negative headlines that empha-
size the public expectation that they will indeed fail. So expectations
get polled while desires get ignored to give these failed politicians
an opportunity to say “the people did not think that this process
would work anyway.” Expectation questions should never be asked
in isolation. They are run for the benefit of these failed politicians
who expect or may even want a failed peace process. The media will
inevitably run such questions that underline the negative expectations
of their publics so peace polls must always counter such questions by
running them alongside questions that highlight the people’s desires
for peace process success.
Regrettably surveys can be designed to undermine the efforts of
peace builders when they are employed by one party to a conflict
to advance their own agenda while ignoring the concerns of others.
Questions can also be designed to create distrust and even despair by
addressing just the problems and not their solutions or by highlighting
the fears and prejudices of each community while ignoring the hopes
and aspirations of the society to move beyond the failures of the past.
Those who have a vested interest in a continuation of the status
quo can also use public opinion polls to undo the good that may have
been done by attempting to undermine and/or renegotiate agree-
ments by selectively revisiting the concessions that only one side, their
side, has made. Responsible editors and journalists should avoid all of
these temptations often embarked upon to grab a headline and create
disagreement in an effort to increase circulation, ratings, and sales.
But responsible editors and journalists, politicians, and academics can
do otherwise.
A practical challenge in recent peace polls has been that many
national governments and international organizations place legal
T HE PUBLIC AS PE ACEMAK ER 187

restrictions on providing assistance to terrorists. This does not and


should not include research directed at identifying the opinions of
such persons, their organizations and their respective constituencies.
Identifying and measuring the extent of support for radical groups
is a necessary part of conflict analysis and resolution. However, pro-
viding compensation to such groups for their cooperation and par-
ticipation in public opinion research does raise a number of moral,
legal, and methodological problems. In this circumstance all forms
of compensation to the various interested parties engaged with as
part of the research should be avoided except for the research team
themselves.

Conclusion
All too often political parties find they have to align themselves with
different sections of society and communities to get elected. In deeply
divided societies this reality can lead to the increased polarization
of party policies and their associated electorate groups when most
people, most of the time, would prefer accommodation, peace, and
the prosperity that flows from political stability. And all too often
politicians and political parties (Track I) find it difficult, if not impos-
sible, to establish a positive dialogue with all the people (Track III)
through the media and institutions of civil society (Track II) in an
effort to define a set of common goals with a view to achieving some
common ends. Peace polls can help to connect those different tracks
in peace negotiations and provide a common understanding of the
issues at stake and the feasibility of available options.
Although the public opinion polls must deal with all the problems
and possible solutions that lie at the heart of a conflict questions of
confidence and continued progress should also be addressed by asking
people if they want a political agreement, an end to violence, negotia-
tions to be started, timely decisions to be made, democratic institu-
tions to be reestablished, the maintenance of human rights standards
and the rule of law, effective policing acceptable to the whole com-
munity, and economic development in the context of peace and so
on. Of course nearly everyone wants all these things and asking such
questions, arguably, is a trivial use of the polls. But providing such
questions are only included in the context of the more serious issues
that must be addressed then giving “a boost” to the self-confidence
of both the politicians and their electorate, from time to time, can be
a very worthwhile thing to do in an effort to provide some encourage-
ment to the war weary population.
188 COLIN IRWIN

Political parties can make or break agreements at the polls. What


then are peace polls good for? Public surveys are excellent instruments
for objective conflict description and analysis. But their value goes far
beyond this. Peace polls can guide those in destructive, intractable,
often bloody conflicts through to mutually acceptable agreements.
They can help those who want to make peace get to peace by bring-
ing their people with them. Partisan polls, in contrast, are used by
spoilers to break agreements and maintain the status quo by having
their people oppose all reasonable offers made.
Even if settlements are reached they often remain unstable result-
ing in a return to violence or necessitating on-going intervention by
the international community. But the potential for the success of
peace processes can be greatly increased when all sections of society
are provided with opportunities to become active partners in their
own peace process. Imposed solutions and deals done “behind closed
doors” and backed up with international pressure and force may
bring temporary relief to apparently intractable problems. But “home
grown” solutions that have the widest possible support among the
various elements that make up a society are essential for progress
toward long-term stability and peace.
By proactively testing public opinion as part of the search for
compromise and common ground, it is possible for negotiators to
build consensus and strengthen the potential for political stability,
economic prosperity, and the degree of social cohesion necessary to
sustain them. Peace polls have high value as a problem solving tool
for conflict analysis and as a public diplomacy tool for negotiations
and conflict resolution. When used properly they can help to achieve
stainable peace.

Notes
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on December
10, 2009, and edited in July 2015.
2. For details see http://www.peacepolls.org/.
Chapter 13

Fostering Power-sharing and


Governance in Pluralistic Societies:
Lessons from Canada’s Experience

Bob Rae1

T here was once a contest in the New York Times for the most bor-
ing headline that one could imagine. The winner of the contest was
the phrase “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.”2 Canada is not the
particular focus of concern for a great many people because we are
widely seen as relative to many other parts of the world, what one
writer has called a “peaceable kingdom.” War and conflict always give
rise to intense debate, but peaceful places are often seen as not very
interesting.
My aim is not to proselytize about Canada, but I do want to put
some of the evolution of the Canadian experience in the context of
my own international experience in the field of conflict prevention
and resolution. When I left politics for the first time in 1996, the
Prime Minister asked me to help set up a Canadian NGO called the
Forum of Federations, which was based on the idea that we would set
up a small research institution that would engage with other federal
countries and discuss how federal systems work. When we started this
endeavor we were contacted by a great number of countries that were
not federal, countries that had conflicts, or that had constitutional
structures that were not working. Working together with Switzerland,
in particular, and then India and a number of other federal states, our
particular expertise and experiences began to take on a different tone
in the new post-Cold War world in which difficult political questions
are being addressed.
190 BOB RAE

Canada As a Peaceful Place?


Canada is first of all a country where the European settlers conquered
the traditional territory and homeland of an indigenous population,
but we like to think of ourselves as a peaceful country. Nevertheless,
the origin of Canada was colonialism and came with inevitable
conflict. We often do not talk about this part of our history, and it
was only in 2009 that we established a Commission on Truce and
Reconciliation. We are now finally attempting to come to grips with
the origins of our history and with the consequences of that history
and with its continuing tensions and tragedies.
Canada’s indigenous population is growing at an exponential rate,
almost as high as that of a third-world country. If you go on to what
we call a “reservation” or “reserves” in Canada in the northern part
of our country, you will find a 50 percent plus of the population
under the age of 25. And you will find very difficult conditions, very
difficult circumstances, and very difficult tensions. Plus, we have as
Australia, New Zealand, the whole of Latin America, and the United
States does, a native population that is moving off the traditional
lands into the cities and into very different worlds than the ones they
have known. As a consequence, we have all sorts of issues of how
to create better and more respectful relationships, particularly in our
large western cities. We are now in the twenty-first century coming
to terms with what our seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-
century history was all about. It is a difficult challenge.

Canada as a Place of the British and


French Colonial Battle
The second issue about Canada is that we are a country where two
empires, the British and the French, fought on our Canadian land as
part of a complex imperial battle, which dominated the eighteenth
century. The British Empire “won.” The resolution that took place
with the Treaty of Paris in 1763 was that France would withdraw from
Canada. The other part of the resolution was that Britain decided that
the French population, which existed in Canada since the seventeenth
century, would be allowed to maintain their laws, language, and insti-
tutions. As a result, France was gone, but the French fact survived
and grew. Different to other British conquests in history, the decision
to allow for separate and distinct institutions in the French-speaking
colony was partly made for strategic and tactical reasons relating to
the American Revolution. Britain understood that to impose the
FOST ERING POW ER- SH A RING AND GOV ERNANC E 191

Protestant religion, the English criminal code, the English common


law, or other concepts of English institutions on Québec would have
meant a continuation of the conflict. All this was the reason for the
Québec Act, which was passed by the English Parliament in 1774,
and which in a sense—I know it is not a popular thing necessarily in
Québec to say this—was an enormously wise decision of the British
conquerors, because it avoided a prevailing long-term conflict.
At the end of the 1830s, the British Lord Durham said: “Well
maybe that was not such a good idea, maybe we should meld these
two cultures and countries together.” Lord Durham quickly went
back to England and the people who were left behind said: “Thank
you very much, but that is actually a model that does not work for
us.” So we spent the next 27 years arguing about what could be the
best way for both two communities to live together.

The Role of Civic Nationalism


Ultimately what happened after 1867, which is the year of our con-
federation, is that two national parties emerged: the Conservative
Party and the Liberal Party, which were if I may use the Lebanese
term “nonconfessional.” Both national parties decided that the only
way they could be truly national was if they had French and English,
Protestant and Catholic, together as members. It was not an easy
compromise because there were lots of instances where these issues
came to a head. For instance, we had many issues around confessional
education and language. These issues were particularly intense in the
First and Second World Wars because those wars were unpopular in
the province of Québec.
Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that a pattern emerged in
Canada where there awere two national parties, which have based
their structure, their belief, their driving force behind the notion that
there is a Canadian identity. This identity transcends race and reli-
gion, skin color, and sectarianism of any kind. It has been a successful
attempt to use these national parties as institutions of accommodation
and as institutions that can bring people together. These two parties
have now been joined by a third, the New Democratic Party, which
had until recently found its strongest base in Canada outside Québec.
In the last federal election the NDP gained strong support in Québec
and formed the offical opposition in the federal Parliament.
The “national question” in Canada has not been easy and has not
been without controversy and conflict. In fact, as you might know,
there is a very strong party from Québec now which has been in
192 BOB RAE

existence since 1967, which essentially represents the principle that


Québec should be allowed to be itself and become an independent
country separate from the rest of Canada.
We have governments elected at the provincial level because we are
a country that is federal. But in addition, we have created a charter of
rights and freedoms, which brings people together under this notion
of a common citizenship. And we have attempted to distinguish
between what the scholars refer to as “ethnic nationalism” versus
“civic nationalism.” In other words, the sense of our nationalism, of
our Canadian identity, is not based on ethnicity, not on religion or
language but rather is based on a set of common values. These are
secular values if you like that are civic values, which transcend in the
best case other differences that are still very powerful.

The “World in One Country”


In addition, there are two other points that I need to mention about
our society, which are interconnected. We have become the “world in
one country,” because we are a country of immigration. Probably the
most important decisions Canada took, maybe without really knowing
it, were in the two critical moments of our history at the beginning of
the twentieth century when we opened our doors to new immigrants
from all over the world to come and populate our country, to make
it big and grow. So we had particularly Ukrainians, Russians, Poles,
and people from elsewhere in Eastern Europe, from beyond Britain
and France, come to Canada and to become an important third ele-
ment in our culture. This happened in sequences after the Second
World War and in the 1960s. We made a conscious decision without
understanding fully its consequences and that conscious decision was
that we would become a country that is equally accessible for others
from around the world.
In terms of managing immigration, we went from a “quota sys-
tem,” in which immigrants from certain countries were more favored
than others, to a “points and merit system” in which entrance into
Canada is not based on regional or national quotas or limits. As
a result we grew quite quickly from being a multicultural state to
a multinational and multiracial society. If you come into our large
urban centers, you will find millions of people from all over the
world. We have vast Chinese communities, Caribbean communities,
we have communities from the Indian subcontinent and the Middle
East, and we have a significant Muslim population. So when I am
meeting with Arab leaders and we begin to talk about the so-called
FOST ERING POW ER- SH A RING AND GOV ERNANC E 193

“Islam and the West” issue, I look at them and say that I have five
mosques in my constituency. This is not an issue of Islam being
somewhere far away and distant from our country, this is part of
who we are as a country. So all the issues that the world has and
that the world is dealing with, we are dealing with at home, and we
are dealing with as a country that has enacted a deliberate policy to
encourage its people to be themselves. The shorthand version of it is
as we say: America is a melting pot, and Canada is a mosaic. We are
a country that allows people to be themselves, and so the makeup of
our country is much more of a mosaic than it is of a melting pot. We
encourage the instruction in people’s own languages, we encourage
the maintenance of culture, and this has its challenges, especially
regarding a common citizenship.
The second point is Canada’s emergence as an international coun-
try. We took a long time to grow up as a country, and we are gradual-
ists in our makeup. We were reluctant when we became a country in
1867. It was not as a result of a revolution or the result of a declara-
tion of independence; we were created as a result of a British Act of
Parliament, and for a long time our constitution was known as the
British North America Act. We did not really have a foreign service
until after the First World War. We fought in the First World War,
and many people believed that our citizenship began to take form
as a result of those sacrifices, as a result of people realizing that we
were part of an emerging global sensibility. We were members of the
League of Nations and became an active country in that regard, and
we began to send our ministers and ambassadors abroad in that post-
First World War era. But it was only after the Second World War
when Canada found itself as one of the few countries that had not
been directly attacked and had not been demolished as a result of the
Second World War in the northern part of the world.
So we were suddenly present in San Francisco in 1945, present in
New York, a Canadian helped to write the International Declaration
on Human Rights. We became a key multilateral country. We became
a country that believed intensely in the United Nations, and in the
extension of the rule of law. We were one of the founders of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); we were one of
the formulators of the international trade law for the simple rea-
son that we were one of the greatest trading countries in the world.
Today more than 50 percent of our GDP depends on trade, which
is a lot. We have one massive trade partner, which means that we
require multilateral institutions to deal with the impact of our neigh-
bor, the United States, to make sure that law, and not power, provide
194 BOB RAE

the rules. So the second aspect of our internationalism is not just our
makeup, it is also who we are in the world, and this is what I think
has created the powerful ethos for Canadian diplomacy in a variety
of ways.

Canada and the Middle East


I would like conclude with a few words about my own experience
but also about our experience as a country in the Middle East. Since
1945, Canada has has played quite a critical role that is not widely
known. Ivan Rand, a Canadian judge who was one of our leading
supreme court judges and went on to write several very important
decisions in the history of Canadian human rights was a key swing
vote in the determination for the partition of the mandate of Palestine
in 1947. We were critical participants in the debates post-1948 with
respect to what comes next and what happens. The fourteenth Prime
Minister of Canada Lester Pearson was the creator of the idea of the
first United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), which was estab-
lished by United Nations General Assembly to secure an end to the
Suez Crisis. Following the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, Canada
remained a critical partner in whatever effort was made internation-
ally regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
We do not come to the conflicts of the world with an imperial his-
tory abroad, although we do have a colonial history at home. We also
do not come to it with a sense that we have a mission to proselytize for
one model of constitution over another. My own view on this, after
some personal experience, is that we need to have a sense of humil-
ity in the face of competing cultures, ideas, traditions, values, and
perspectives. At the same time the world is increasingly accepting the
values of freedom and democracy, and this embrace poses a particular
challenge as they come into conflict with other forces and values.

Conflict in the Twenty-first Century


Much of the twentieth century was about the conflict between
empires and ideologies, which mobilized whole states and popula-
tions. The twentieth century was the most destructive century in the
history of the world. We like to think of ourselves as evolving and
improving, but it is pretty hard to see where we are as the triumph of
stability and civility. One should be reminded of Mahatma Ghandi’s
comment when he was asked what he thought of Western civilization,
and he said it might be a good idea.
FOST ERING POW ER- SH A RING AND GOV ERNANC E 195

The conflicts post-1990 and most intensively in recent years have


not been between countries but rather within countries, cultures, and
regions. And they have proven to be the most difficult to deal with. If
the political economists John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx were to meet
in a coffee shop and talk about the world, they would look at each
other in total bewilderment because both of them believed, although
they were contemporaries and had vastly different ideas, that we were
getting smarter, that societies evolve, that religion would become
much less of a factor scientific reason would prevail. Marx and Mill
had different views to where this rationality would lead to. That reli-
gion, faith, language, and culture in the twenty-first century would
become the key sources of conflict and the center of focus of our
modern history, might have been almost unthinkable for them.
It took Europe about 250 years to work out an accommodation
between different versions of Christianity. For two and half centuries,
Europe was seized by the terrible idea that if you prayed differently
or had a different faith, you should be killed or at best repressed.
Accepting that there was a private realm of faith compatible with
others holding different values was a long and costly struggle. This is
a history worth remembering and understanding because the cost in
human life and suffering has been so great.

Peacemaking without Being Missionary


I was recently reminded of the history of the American University of
Beirut (AUB) and the fact that the first people who came here said:
“We got a great idea, we are going to convert all these people to our
religion because we know a better way, and we figured a way out how
to do this.” And the missionary experience in the nineteenth century
had the same ideology: “All we have to do is go to China and go to
India, and all these people will become Christians. We will be sav-
ing all these souls and the world will be a better place.” But in fact,
it did not happen. Missionaries did not convert China or India or
the Middle East. Instead, eventually people said: “Well, education
is a good idea. We can still follow the missionary spirit, but engage
differently.”
Canadians do not go to the Middle East or anywhere else to just
say: “We’ve got some very easy solutions to these problems. If you
just imitate the way we do things, everything will be fine.” I do not
have that sense at all, but, and this is my concluding point, we have
begun to create an international society in which we are no longer
completely free to behave as badly as we might like to. Slowly and
196 BOB RAE

imperfectly, we have created an international set of norms and institu-


tions, which we hope, we aspire and we look forward to evolve in the
future. A good example in this regards is international humanitarian
law, which asks: “How do you limit conflict? What are the rights of
civilians? How do we deal with them?”
We have the International Criminal Court, we have the indict-
ment of the president of Sudan, and several other inquiries are under
way with respect to the situation in Gaza, and more broadly in the
Middle East and elsewhere and all of them are conducted under terms
and conditions of accountability. Those new justice processes follow
international law and many of them are disputed, but at least there
is the emergence of some common standards. Conflict and injustice
can no longer be seen as inevitable. Things do not happen overnight;
progress does not emerge instantly, and it does not materialize with-
out difficulties. We can, for instance, not expect that Afghanistan or
other societies transform into liberal democracies in a five-year period
just because we want them to. But we cannot run away from the need
to resolve conflict, because small wars have a way of becoming larger
ones, and much hardship, suffering, and loss of life are the inevitable
result. Creating stability is a necessary precondition to creating jus-
tice, and as the proverb goes, “If you’re in a hole, the first thing to do
is stop digging.” Extending this analogy, “If you’re in a conflict, the
first thing is to stop the killing.” The peacemakers may not always be
blessed, but their work today is more necessary than ever.

Notes
1. The lecture was held at the American University of Beirut on May 19,
2009, edits were included in July 2015.
2. Flora Lewis, “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” New York Times, April
10, 1986, online: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/10/opinion
/foreign-affairs-worthwhile-canadian-initiative.html (accessed on July 1,
2015).
Contributors

Lakhdar Brahimi, Former Algerian Foreign Minister and Ambassador,


retired from national service in 1993 and started a new career as an
international diplomat and mediator. In 1988/1990, he helped medi-
ate the end of the 17-year civil war in Lebanon on behalf of a High
Level Committee of the League of Arab States, which resulted in the
Ta’if Agreement. Brahimi has served as UN Secretary-General Special
Envoy and mediator in Afghanistan, South Africa, and Iraq, where he
helped mediate the historic national transitions in those countries. In
May 2013, he resigned from his position as United Nations and Arab
League Special Envoy to Syria and remained member of “The Elders,”
a group of elder statesmen and personalities created in July 2007 at
the initiative of Nelson Mandela.
Jimmy Carter, President, served as the thiry-ninth president of
the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was recipient of the 2002
Nobel Peace Prize. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two
terms in the Georgia Senate and as the eighty-ninth governor of
Georgia (1971–1975). Significant foreign policy accomplishments of
his administration include the Camp David Accords and the peace
treaty between Israel and Egypt.
Alastair Crooke is the founder and co-director of Conflicts Forum,
a Beirut, London and Washington-based organization working on
ending the isolation of mainstream Islamists, by promoting dialogue
and challenging entrenched views in both the Western and Arab
media. With over 30 years of experience of conflict, including working
with the European Union and the British government in the Middle
East, Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and
Colombia, Crooke’s last post was as former Mid-East Special Adviser
to the EU High Representative, Javier Solana, and Adviser to the
International Quartet. In this position during 2001–2003, he medi-
ated negotiations that led to the cease-fire declared by Hamas and
198 CONTRIBUTORS

Islamic Jihad and facilitated various other Palestinian-Israeli cease-


fires.
Jan Eliasson Since 2012, Sweden’s former Minister for Foreign
Affairs Jan Eliasson serves as Deputy Secretary-General of the
United Nations. Previously, he has been the UN Special Envoy of
the United Nations Secretary-General for Darfur. From 2005–2006,
Eliasson headed the United Nations General Assembly, and before
that he was the first UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs, where he was involved in Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique, and
the Balkans. From 1980–1986, he was part of the UN mediation
missions in the war between Iran and Iraq, headed by the late Prime
Minister Olof Palme. In 1993–1994, he served as mediator in the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict for the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Gareth Evans After spending 21 years in Australian politics and 13
in the Cabinet including as Foreign Minister (1988–1996), Gareth
Evans served for ten years as president of the International Crisis Group
(2000–2010) working worldwide on preventing and resolving deadly
conflicts. Evans was a member of the International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), the UN Secretary-General’s
High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (2004), the
Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction (2006), and the
Secretary-General’s Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention
(since 2006). He is internationally known for his role in developing
the UN peace plan for Cambodia.
Richard Falk Since 2008, Richard Falk has been the UN Special
Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine for the United Nations Human
Rights Council. Falk is an Albert G. Milbank Professor of International
Law Emeritus at Princeton University, where he taught for 40 years
(1961–2001). He has published more than 50 books in the fields of
international law, politics, and UN affairs. His most recent books
are Achieving Human Rights (2009); a co-edited volume entitled
Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs (2012); Global Parliament
(with Andrew Strauss, 2011); and Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear
Dangers (2012).
Filippo Grandi worked for over two decades in various positions in
both UN headquarters and the field on refugee protection, emergency
management, donor relations, humanitarian and political affairs. He
served as the Deputy Special Representative at the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and as Chief of Mission
CONTRIBUTORS 199

of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees


(UNHCR) in Afghanistan. His vast field experience also includes sta-
tions in various African countries, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and Iraq, the
latter during and in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. In November
2015, he was appointed as UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Colin Irwin is a member of World Association of Public Opinion
Research and Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the
University of Liverpool and the Institute of Governance at Queen’s
University Belfast. As part of the Northern Ireland peace process he
conducted eight public opinion polls in collaboration with the politi-
cal parties elected to take part in the Stormont talks. Since then he has
extended this work to include the Balkans and the Middle East com-
pleting “peace polls” in Macedonia in 2002, Bosnia and Herzegovina
in 2004, and Serbia and Kosovo in 2005.
Rami G. Khouri is senior public policy fellow at the Issam Fares
Institute at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He is a
leading Middle Eastern journalist and a syndicated columnist for the
Agence Global Syndicate and for The Daily Star, Lebanon.
Karim Makdisi is director of the Public Policy and International
Affairs Program and associate professor of International Politics at
the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He also leads the UN in
the Arab World Research Program at the Issam Fares Institute.
Robert Mood, Major General, is the head of the United Nation
Supervision Mission here in Syria (UNSMIS). He has been previ-
ously the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
(UNTSO), which is the first peacekeeping operation established by
the United Nations. Prior to his assignment in UNTSO, he held the
position as Chief of Staff of the Norwegian Army. Robert Mood grad-
uated from the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Command and
Staff College, and completed a Masters in Military Studies, USMC
University in 1995. In 1996, he attended USMC School of Advanced
Warfighting, and the NATO Defence College in 2001.
Amr Moussa, The Egyptian politician and diplomat, was for over ten
years Secretary-General to the League of Arab States (2001–2011).
During his term, he signed a memorandum of understanding with
the Holy See (2009) and met with Pope Benedict XVI in order to
strengthen joint projects and to promote peace and dialogue on a cul-
tural and political level. In 2003, he became a member of the United
Nations High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change for
200 CONTRIBUTORS

International Peace and Security. Prior to his work in multilateral


institutions, he has held the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in
Egypt, Egyptian Ambassador in India, and Egyptian representative
to the United Nations.
Bob Rae served as Ontario’s Canada twenty-first Premier and has
been elected nine times to federal and provincial parliaments. He was
the president and founding chairman of the Forum of Federations,
providing expertise in Canada and around the world in promoting
power-sharing constitutional arrangements in pluralistic societies, and
is now a fellow of that organization. He was the Chief Negotiator
of the Canadian Red Cross Society in its restructuring, and also
served as a member of the Canada Transportation Act Review and
the Security and Intelligence Review Committee for Canada. In the
spring of 2005, he was appointed a special advisor to the Canadian
Minister of Public Safety on the Air India bombing of 1985. He has
written several books including Exporting Democracy and What’s
Happened to Politics? He is now a lawyer and mediator in Canada
focusing on indigenous issues. In his lecture, Bob Rae looks at the
role of power-sharing and good governance in pluralistic societies as
paths toward sustainable peace.
Hannes Siebert works as a nonformal envoy, peace mediator, and
facilitator in national dialogue processes all around the world. Siebert
has worked in many of the world’s most conflict-ridden societies as an
international peace process and negotiations adviser and facilitator. In
South Africa, he served as director in the National Peace Secretariat,
the multi-party body mandated to implement its 1992 Peace Accord.
He also assisted the Special Presidential Task Force in key intractable
conflicts, focusing on demilitarization of youth militia. With five
Nobel Peace Laureates, he initiated the establishment of an inter-
national foundation in support of their “Appeal for Peace and Non-
Violence.”
Á lvaro de Soto, a Peruvian diplomat, served with the United
Nations for his 25-year career, his last position being the UN Special
Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. De Soto led the 1990–
1991 negotiations, which ended the decade-long war in El Salvador.
He conducted the 1999–2004 negotiations, which led to the draft
comprehensive settlement for the Cyprus problem. He was also the
Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Myanmar/Burma (1995–1999)
and his Special Representative for the Western Sahara (2003–2005).
He worked closely in his career with UN Secretaries-Generals Pérez
CONTRIBUTORS 201

de Cuéllar, Boutros-Ghali, and Annan, in addition to holding senior


positions in the Secretary-General’s Office and in the Department of
Political Affairs.
Martin Wählisch is affiliated scholar at the Issam Fares Institute
at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He is also political
affairs officer in the Office of the Special Coordinator for Lebanon
with the UN.
Index

Abbas, Mahmoud (Abu Mazen), apartheid, 102, 157, 159, 168


61, 102, 129 see also South Africa
Abdul Hadi, Mahdi, 183 Apartheid Wall. See under West
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Bank
(King of Saudi Arabia), 104 Arab common market, 118
Afghanistan, 26, 35, 141, 170, 176, Arab Customs Union, 114
196 Arab free trade area, 114
aid money, 28 Arab League
civil war, 25 Economic and Social Council,
constitution, 24 118
elections (2010), 30 inter-Arab cooperation, 93
Mujahideen, 25 Iran, formal dialogue, 112
Soviet invasion (1979–89), 25, regional action, 114–15
83, 56 special envoys to Middle East, 2
Unites States, attitude, 28 Turkey, relationships, 112
US military intervention, 25 Arab occupied territories, 95
women rights, 28–9 international community
see also Taliban attitude, 106, 136
Africa, 38, 55, 174 Arab Peace and Security Council,
African National Congress, 117
resistance movement, 124 Arab Peace Keeping Force, 117
African Union, 35, 39 Arab Peace Plan (2002), 93, 104,
African-Americans, rights of, 131 105, 106, 116
Agenda for Peace report (1992), 9, Arab Spring (2011).
13, 56 See Arab uprisings
Ahtisaari, Martti, 42, 164, 171 Arab Summits, 101
Annan, Kofi (former UN Secretary- Arab Economic Summit
General, 1997–2006), 17, (2009: Kuwait), 114
32, 51, 62, 173 Beirut Arab Summit (2002),
diplomatic mediation, 165 116
US pressure, 34 Arab uprisings, 77, 78, 106
Angola, elections (1992), 30 violence, political, 78, 97
Annual Global Peace Index, 9 Arab-Iranian dialogue, 112–13
204 INDEX

Arab-Israeli conflict, 4, 91, 92, 94, Benghazi, massacre, 180


96, 97, 115, 117, 172 Berlin conference (1885), colonial
bilateral negotiations, 113 powers, 40
normalization, 112, 116 Bernadotte, Folke, assassination of
US influence, 106 (1947), 42
Arab-Israeli peace agreements, 92–3 Bicesse Agreement (1991), 174
Hamas, role of, 60 Bin Laden, Osama, 26, 123
US efforts, 93 Blair, Tony, 16, 103, 120
see also Camp David Accords Blix, Hans, 42
Arab-Israeli peace process, 1, 3, 6, Bonn peace conference on
93, 99, 103–4, 111 Afghanistan, 29
importance, 115–16 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 142, 150,
see also Camp David Diplomacy 164, 176
Arab-Israeli War (1948), 96, 136, 137 see also Dayton peace agreement
armistice lines (1949), 55, 93, 94, Boutros Ghali, Boutros
136, 138, 145 UN Secretary-General, 17, 77,
Arab-Israeli War (1967), 42, 138 154
Israeli victory, 85 boycott, 61, 112, 168
occupied territories, 91, 105, Brahimi, Lakhdar
111, 136 Taif accords, role in, 24
Arafat, Yasser, 101, 102, 116, 129 UN special envoy
armed conflict, 8, 123, 131, 153, Afghanistan, 24
154, 155 Syria, 66
Assad, Bashar, 103 Brahimi Report (2000), 9, 15
Assad, Hafez, 101 key recommendations, 32
Association of Southeast Asian light footprint concept, 28
Nations (ASEAN), 171 Bremer, Paul, 30
asymmetrical power, 131 Brown, Mark Malloch, 165
Atlantic Alliance, 85 Bunche, Ralph, 55, 145
Atlas of Human Security, 177 Bush, George W, 81
authoritarianism, 1, 78, 79, 168, 178
Cambodia, conflict, 171, 172
Balkan Wars (1990), 32 Camp David Accords
Balkans, man-made internal crises, 165 implementation, 100–1
Ban Ki Moon, 34 Camp David Diplomacy, 99–100
Barak, Aharon, 100 Canada, 189
Barak, Ehud, 101, 120 British and French Colonial
Al-Bashir, Omar, 50 Battle, 190–1
Begin, Menachem, 99 confederation (1867), 191
Camp David meeting (1978), 100 constitution, 151, 193
Beirut Arab Summit (2002). immigration, 192–3
See under Arab Summits nationalism, 192
Belfast Agreement (1998), 183 political parties, 191
Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, population, growth, 190
resignation, 160 Treaty of Paris (1763), 190
INDEX 205

Carter, Jimmy Darfur crisis (2003–2005)


Bashar Assad Meeting, 103 Justice and Equality Movement
Camp David experience, 99–100 (JEM), 39
Carter Center, elections national dialogues, 50
monitoring, 30, 101, 102 peaceful solution, 39, 41
ceasefire lines, 38, 43, 62, 73, 95, UN envoys, 16, 33, 37, 39
132, 153, 154, 158, 159 Dayton peace agreement (1997), 142
Chad, boarders, 40 De Cuéller, Javier Pérez, 17, 56
Chazan, Naomi, 183 De Soto, Álvaro
China, 80, 81, 82, 86, 87, 172 Cyprus, experience, 53, 54, 57
Chirac, Jacques, 103 El Salvador experience, 53–60
Churchill, Winston, 57 democracy, 29, 109, 117, 142
civil rights movements, 122 Afghanistan, 30
civil society actors, 42, 43, 92, 115 Egypt, 79
clash of civilizations, 109, 114, 118, Iraq, 31
165 Palestine, 103, 107
Clinton, Bill, 101, 103 democratization process, 111
CODESA. See Convention for a Dhungana, Daman, 159
Democratic South Africa discrimination, 115, 154, 157, 181,
(CODESA) 182
cold war, 30, 73, 78–9, 85, 97, 109 distress, 65, 66, 110
colonialism, 78, 86, 93, 95, 119, Dobbins, Jim, 35
122, 126, 178 Doctors without Borders, 144–5
Commission on Truce and
Reconciliation (2009), 190 Eban, Abba, 111
conflict, twenty-first century, Egyptian-Israeli relations, 8, 91
194–5 Enlightenment values, 123, 128–9
conflict prevention European Union (EU), 38, 128
resources, committing of, 170 Evans, Gareth, 150, 163
rules, 164–70 extremism, 94, 141
tools, understanding, 168
conflict resolution, 53, 92, 170, Fanon, Frantz, 122
175, 179 Farabundo Marti National
requirements, 93 Liberation Front
Congo crisis, 32, 55, 167, 174, 177 (FMLN), 60
constitution, 28, 29, 30 Fatah. See Palestinian National
constitution drafting process, 160 Liberation Movement
constitutional change, 154–7 federalism, 150, 151–2, 189, 192
Convention for a Democratic Forum of Federations, 151, 189
South Africa (CODESA), Foucault, Michel, 123–4
155
counter-terrorism. See terrorism Galbraith, Peter, 31
Garang, John, 38, 41
Damascus, Hamas leaders, 103, 106 Gaza
Daoud Khan, Sardar, 125 public opinion polls, 107
206 INDEX

Gaza Strip Human Security Report (2008), 177


Hamas, control of, 102 humanitarian assistance, 61, 73, 41,
Islamists, influence of, 125 144, 168–70
Israel, siege on, 128, 129, 61–2 humanitarian corridors, 16, 38
Israel, withdrawal of, 100, 138 humanitarian diplomacy, 2, 8, 16,
population, 77, 83 37–8, 48, 56
see also Hamas humanitarian norms, 18
Gaza Wars, 6, 17, 86, 87 humanitarian peacemakers, 18, 20
General Agreement on Tariffs and humanitarian personnel, 73
Trade (GATT), 193 Hun Sen, 171, 172
Geneva Accords (2003), 92, 102, Hussein, Saddam, 50
103–4, 17 Hussein Bin Talal (King of Jordan),
see also Track II diplomacy 101
Ghandi, Mahatma, 194
globalization, 109, 125, 154 impartiality. See under mediation
Golan Heights, 8, 94 and peacemaking
Israeli occupation, boundaries, 138 International Atomic Energy
UN Security Council military Agency (IAEA), 113
observers, 2, 136–7 International Committee of the Red
Goldstone Report, 87 Cross (ICRC), 144, 145
Grandi, Filippo, 3, 14, 18, 19 International Court of Claims, 104
Gulf Cooperation Council, 9 International Criminal Court
Gulf countries, 79 (ICC), 50, 174, 196
financial power, 8 International Crisis Group, 150,
oil resources, 1, 78 152, 164, 169
analysis, 168, 175
Hamas, 87, 92, 125 mythology, 165–6
election (2006), triumph, 14, 17, reports, 167, 172
60–2, 102, 128–9 role of, 163, 171
EU attitude, 17 International Declaration on
parliamentarians, 102, 120 Human Rights, 193
US attitude, 17 International Humanitarian Law,
West attitude, 94, 96, 119–21, 58, 180, 196
128–9 international peace, 44, 59, 62, 84
see also Gaza Strip interventions in conflict, 5–7
Hammarskjöld, Dag, 55 external, 78
hard power diplomacy, 82–4 humanitarian, 6, 14, 16, 38, 66,
Hizbullah, 8, 34–5 109
Holbrooke, Richard, 164 international, 27–8, 156, 188
Holy Land, peace factors, 103–4 military, 94, 140–2, 144, 153
human rights, 13, 16, 18, 42, 48, operational problems of, 83
51, 180 UNTSO unarmed observers,
respect of, 16, 51, 57, 78, 117 138, 144
violations, 52, 58, 78, 157, 159, Iran, diplomacy, 111
160, 173 Iran nuclear agreement, 1
INDEX 207

Iran nuclear program, 77 Israeli parliament. See Knesset


Iran nuclear situation, 48, 112, 113, Israeli settlements, 87, 91, 106, 100,
130, 164 105, 106, 112, 115, 161,
Iranian Revolution (1979), 123, 185, 188
125, 126 Israeli-Hizbullah negotiations, 123
Iraq Israeli-Iranian relations, 92
Anglo-American Invasion of Iraq Israeli-Palestinian agreements, 60, 62
(2003), 31, 42, 51, 97, 164 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 41, 54,
constitution, 30–1 91, 92, 166
Palestinians, 69 hudna, 62
partition of, 31, 110 one state solution, 96, 104–5,
sectarian conflict, 77 107
US intervention, 83 US role, 41, 54, 96
US military withdrawal, 177 Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, 60,
Western view, 121 91, 101–3, 104, 106, 115,
Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait (1991), 47, 131, 157, 161
82, 87, 97, 110, 165 bilateral, 91, 113
Iraq-Iran War (1980), 16, 38, 42, Hamas role of, 106–7, 129
46, 47, 56 peace polls, 183–5
ceasefire resolution, 43 Israeli-Palestinian peace process, 7, 72,
negotiations, 46–7 75, 107, 115, 128, 157, 191
ISIS, 1, 5, 8, 94, 95 Israeli response, 117–18
Islamic regimes, 78, 79, 105 US efforts, 74
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Israel-Jordan bilateral peace treaty
See ISIS (1994), 91, 94, 137, 139
Islamism, 121, 124, 167
Islamist movements, 94–5, 122, 125 Jarring, Gunner, 42
Islamists Jemaah Islamiyah movement.
dignity, 122, 130, 131 See Muslim Brotherhood
ideas of, 124 Jerusalem
western limits, 126–8 East Jerusalem, 71, 106, 115, 136
western view, 119, 124–6, 130–1 ethnic cleansing, 77
Israel public opinion polls, 183
elections (1977), 99 UN peacemaking missions, 55,
nuclear program, 113 93, 103, 136
US support, 96, 164, 106 UN Security council military
Western support, 1, 83, 86, 87, 113 observers, 2
Israel independence declaration West Jerusalem, 136
(1948), 136 see also United Nations Truce
Israel-Egypt bilateral peace treaty Supervision Organization
(1979), 91, 93, 94, 100, (UNTSO)
101, 137 Jordan
Israeli dismantling of Syria’s elections, 125
chemical weapons (2014), 20 Palestinian refugees from Syria,
see also Syrian civil war 18, 69
208 INDEX

Kennan, George, 85 Mbeki, Thabo, 172


Kerry, John, 74 mediation
Khatami, Mohammad, 105 cultural understanding, 45–7,
Khatib, Ghassan, 184 141, 142
Khmer Rouge, 171–2 direct mediation, 16, 37
Knesset, 100, 183 geopolitical actors, 77–9, 82, 85
Koirala, Girija Prasad, 155 human relations, 100, 140, 142–3
Kony, Joseph, 50, 174 impartiality rule, 17, 20, 42, 54,
Korean War (1950–53), 55, 85, 168 59, 94, 146
Kosovo language, importance of, 47–8,
NATO intervention, 143 120–2
Kushner, Bernard, 16, 38 lessons learned
Kuwait developmental summit knowledge, 23–6
(2009). See Arab Economic resource use, 27–8
Summit (2009: Kuwait) underestimating situations, 26–7
military tool, 140–1
Lebanese civil war (1975–90), 69 non-state actors role of, 42, 45, 154
see also Taif Accords personal relationships, 48–9
Lebanon political will for, 20, 45, 50–1
Annan, Kofi, visit, 34 respect in, 121–2
Israeli invasion (1978), 137 timing, 43–4
Israeli invasion (1982), 137 mediators
Israeli military occupation, 95, 115 International Crisis Group
Israeli threats, 117 support, 171
Israeli war (2006), 17, 20, 86 international mediators, 42, 150,
infrastructure, destruction, 138 157, 160, 161
UN peacemaking efforts, 20, 94 tools, 23
Palestinian refugees, 18, 69, 71, 72 types of, 41–2
Syrian crisis, effects of, 67, 71, 72 Middle East
Syrian refugees, 69 Arab disarray, 110–12
Western attitude, 121 Canada, role of, 194–6
see also Sothern Lebanon educational institutions,
Libya role of, 135
humanitarian mission, 80–1 ethnic/religious strife, 78
national dialogue, 5, 154 geopolitical framework, 72,
NATO-led campaign (2011), 20, 77–9, 80
80–1, 97 instability, 73, 77, 80, 117
oil resources, 82 Iran, role of, 112–13
UN military intervention, 20, mass weapons free zone, 117
80–2, 87 peacemaking, future of, 7–9, 110,
uprising, 78 117
Lord’s Resistance Army (LR A), regional security system, 113–14,
50, 174 115–16
resources, oil and gas, 2, 78
Madrid Peace Conference (1991), 194 Turkey, role of, 112–13
Mandela, Nelson, 164 UN authority, 82–4
INDEX 209

UN challenges, 77–9 Non Governmental Organizations


UN credibility, 15, 34–6 (NGOs), 42, 63, 144, 145,
UN developments, 86 150, 163, 178, 189
UN legitimacy, struggle of, 87–8 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
UN role, 19, 20, 54 (NATO)
Middle East peace process, 1, 3, 9, humanitarian mission, 80
17, 42, 54, 74 Security Council authorization,
accords, 92 80, 81
agreements, 93 see also Libya and Kosovo
initiatives, 102, 110 North-South Comprehensive Peace
Middle East Quartet (2002), 15, Agreement (CPA) (2004), 41
34, 54, 60, 61, 62, 95, 106, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
131, 161 113
Roadmap for Peace (2003), 60, nuclear weapons, 19, 78, 84, 113,
102–3 117, 170
Milosevic, Slobodan, 145 nuclear weapons free zone, 114
Mitchell, George, 165, 183, 184
Morgenthau, Hans, 84 Obama, Barak, 81, 184
Morsi, Mohamed, 79 Ocampo, Luis, 50
Mubarak, Hosni, 79, 160 Occupy Movement, 78
Mugabe, Robert, 172, 173, 174 Organization for Security and
multilateral diplomacy, 2, 16, 37–9 Cooperation Europe
Muslim Brotherhood, 79, 94, 95, (OSCE), 37, 42, 169
97, 125 Organization of African Unity, 30
Muslim extremists, 120, 130 Oslo Accords (1993), 61, 91, 101,
106, 172, 173
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 37, 173 Ottoman Empire, collapse, 78
Nahr el-Bared, 69, 71 Oxfam report, 28
nakba (catastrophe) (1948), 70, 71
Namibia, 60 Pakistan
national dialogues, 6, 9, 150–7, elections, 125
160, 162 see also Taliban
nationalism Pakistani jihadi organizations, 26
Arab, 121 Palestine
civic, 191–2 internal divisions, 110
NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Israeli settlements, expansion of,
Organization (NATO) 77, 91, 95, 106
Nepal crisis partition of, 136
cease-fire negotiations, 158 question of, 60–2
civil society, role, 159 unity, deterioration, 102
multi-party talks, 155 Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, 102–3
national dialogue, 158–60 Palestinian Diaspora, 18, 69, 70, 95
new world order, 19–20, 86, 87, 128 Palestinian Liberation Organization
see also world order (PLO)
news broadcasters, 53 negotiations with Israel, 60, 101,
Noble Peace Prize, 42, 93, 101, 145 184
210 INDEX

Palestinian National Authority, 60, Israeli-Palestinian peace


101, 102, 106, 129 negotiations, 183–5
Hamas criticism, 123 Northern Ireland, 151, 179,
legislative council, 101 181–3
negotiations with Hamas, 62 peace process. See Arab-Israeli peace
US and EU influence, 129 process; Israeli-Palestinian
Palestinian national elections peace process; Middle East
legislative elections (1996), 102 peace process
legislative elections (2005), 102 peacekeeping. See under UN
legislative elections (2006) peacemakers
Hamas triumph, 14, 17, 60–2, job, 24, 54
102, 128–9 personality, 149
international community public opinion role of, 179
attitude, 60–2, 129 UN Secretary-General, role of,
Palestinian National Liberation 54–6, 59–60
Movement (Fatah), 60, 61, peacetime negotiations, 53
102, 123, 184 Pearson, Lester, 194
Hamas criticism, 123 Peres, Shimon, 101
Hudna with Hamas, 61–2 PLO. See Palestinian Liberation
Palestinian refugee camps, 48, 68, Organization (PLO)
71, 73 post-Cold War period, 13, 15, 20,
Yarmouk, 18, 65, 67–9, 70–5 56, 110, 163, 169, 178, 189
Palestinian State, future, 60, 91, post-colonial era, 153
102, 103, 104, 105, 111, post-conflict peacebuilding, 18,
112, 113, 115, 136, 139 151, 174–7, 178
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. challenges, 56–8
See Israeli-Palestinian Haiti, 175–6
conflict Iraq, 175
Palestinians sustainable peace, 172, 173, 175
future of, 117 proxy warfare, 77
identity, 70 public diplomacy, 179, 180, 185, 188
right of return, 104, 105
rights, 15, 19, 71, 72, 69, 99, Qaddafi, Muammar, 80, 81, 82
100, 101, 104, 161 Al-Qaeda, 26, 94, 95
UN failure, 34, 88 Quartet. See Middle East Quartet
Palme, Olof, 37, 42 Québec Act, 191
paradigms, 9, 109, 118, 130 Question of Palestine.
peace accords, 155, 171, 173, 174 See under Palestine
El Salvador, 56
Mozambique, 63 R2P norm. See Responsibility to
South Africa, 158 Protect
peace agreements, 153, 173 Rabin, Yitzhak, 101, 106
peace polls Rand, Ivan, 194
challenges of, 185–7 rebel movements, 16, 38, 39, 40,
concept of, 180–1 41, 42, 49
functions of, 180 resistance, 122–4
INDEX 211

Responsibility to Protect (R2P), 16, Al-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 79


38, 39, 83, 165 Al-Sistani, Ali (Ayatollah), 30
Gaza population, 83 Smith, Rupert, 140
Libya and Syria, 80–2 social media, 9, 141
rule of law, 116, 117, 175, 176, 187, solutions, 73, 141, 149, 161, 169–71,
193 180, 186–8, 195
Rumsfeld, Donald, 28 lasting, 2, 51, 52, 150
Russian Federation military, 48
Syrian government, support, 82 multilateral, 39
Rwanda, 150, 165, 167, 173, 174 peaceful, 57
genocide (1994) political, 19, 47, 50, 74, 140, 181
Arusha peace deal, 174 Somalia, 38, 67, 110, 145, 150,
military intervention, 167 165, 175, 198
Somalization of Syria, 18, 66
Sadat, Anwar, 100 see also Syrian civil war
Camp David meeting (1978), South Africa, 124, 132, 150, 154
100, 101 constitution, 30, 154
Jerusalem visit (1977), 99 national dialogue, 155–8
Al-Sadr, Muqtada, 121 National Peace Accord, 158
SADC. See Southern African peace journey (1989), 152, 157
Development Community reconciliation commission, 57,
(SADC) 173
Said, Edward, 120 resistance, 124, 132
Al-Salam (rebel group), 39 South Lebanon
Saleh, Ali Abdullah, 160 Blue Line, 138, 139
Salim, Salim, 39, 40 Israeli invasion (1978), 137
Scandinavian countries, 27, 145 peacemaking, 8, 94
secessionist movement. stability in, 140
See rebel movements UN mission (UNIFIL), 94, 137,
sectarian conflict, 8, 77, 79, 177, 191 138, 139
Shiites-Sunnis, 43, 112 UN Security Council military
security barrier. See Apartheid Wall observers, 2
Security Council. See UN Security see also Lebanon
Council Southern African Development
self-mediation, 150, 156, 158 Community (SADC), 173
September 11, 2001 attacks, 13, 26, Soviet Union
61, 78, 167 break up, 37, 55, 78
Sharon, Ariel, 106 ethnic problems, 55
Siebert, Hannes, 150–2 veto power, 85
Sierra Leone, 175, 176 see also Afghanistan,
special court, 174 Soviet invasion
Sinai (Egypt) SPLM. See Sudan People’s
Israeli occupation (1967), 136 Liberation Movement
UN Security Council military (SPLM)
observers, 2, 137 Srebrenica, 32, 35
violent conflict, 8 Safe Zone, 33
212 INDEX

structural change, 151, 155, 156, third-party mediation, 53, 54, 59,
160 150, 153, 161, 163
Sudan third-party peacemakers, 59
diplomatic relations, Chad, 40 totalitarianism, 121
humanitarian diplomacy, 38 Track II diplomacy, 42, 43, 92
North-South negotiations, 171 Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 123, 127
rebel movements, 40, 49 trust building, 30, 45, 48–9, 73,
see also Darfur crisis 80–2, 92, 94, 120, 143–6
Sudan People’s Liberation Tsvangirai, Morgan, 173
Movement (SPLM), 38, 41 Tuladhar, Padma Ratna, 159, 160
Suez War (1956), 85, 86, 194 Tunisia
France, role of, 85 change processes, 78, 154, 160
US attitude, 85 Turkey
Sweden, 16, 34, 42, 50, 51 diplomacy, 111–13
Switzerland, 63, 189 foreign policy, 82
Syria Turkish-Israeli tensions, 96
chemical weapons program, 6, 20
Israeli troop disengagement, 91 UN
occupied territories, 115, 136, 137 agreements, implementation of, 58
peacemaking efforts, 2, 5, 8 authorization, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86
Syrian Center for Policy Research, 67 budget, 33–4
Syrian civil war, 1, 8, 18, 69, 71, 72, credibility, 15, 20, 33–4, 85
77, 78, 80–2, 87, 96 envoys, 2, 5, 55, 58, 171
civilians suffering of, 67, 69, 73, 74 interim missions, 137–9
economy, effects on, 18, 66, 67 interventions, 6, 20, 81–3, 84, 87
Palestinian camps, 67, 68, 73 makers, 54–6
(see also Yarmouk mediation process, 60
Camp (Syria)) peace operations, 15, 27, 30, 32,
political solution, 71, 73, 74 33, 94, 178, 179
regime atrocity, 81 peacekeeping missions, 35, 80,
UN role, 87 93, 94, 135, 136
violence, 18, 66, 67 peacemaking, financial
Syrian refugees, 1, 69 contributions, 27, 34
role, 8, 13, 19, 20, 40, 55, 56, 59,
Taif Accord (1989), 24 60, 62, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83,
see also Lebanese civil war 87, 88, 93, 116, 172, 176
Taliban, 25, 26, 35 US influence, 35, 85, 86
Pakistani volunteers, 26 UN Charter, 9, 13, 17, 19, 20, 58,
Taylor, Charles, 174 62–3, 81, 83, 85, 88
terrorism, 39, 78, 82, 113, 161, 187 Article
terrorist lists, 61, 132, 154, 161 (99), 59
third world (100), 59
international intervention, 27 Chapter
third-party actors, 164 (6-Article 33), 47, 48
third-party diplomacy, 60, 169 (7), 6
third-party interventions, 4, 17, 53, 60 (7-Artcle 2), 6, 84
INDEX 213

UN General Assembly, 85, 86, 194 unified government, 16, 40


UN Peacebuilding Commission, UNIFIL. See United Nations
39, 176 Interim Force in Lebanon
UN Secretary-General, 32, 63 (UNIFIL)
credibility, 58 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
envoys, 18, 59 (USSR). See Soviet Union
special representative (SRSG), United Nations. See UN
145, 171 United Nations Development
UN Security Council, 17, 39, 44, Programme (UNDP), 67
49, 117 United Nations Disengagement and
mandates, 54 Observer Force (UNDOF),
members, 53, 84 94, 137, 138, 139
permanent members, 36, 40, 83, 84 United Nations Educational, Scientific
resolution and Cultural Organization
(50), 136 (UNESCO), 88
(54), 136 United Nations Emergency Force
(73), 136 (UNEF), 194
(242), 42, 103 United Nations General Assembly.
(598), 46 See UN General Assembly
(1706), 116 United Nations Human Rights
(1769), 40 Council (UNHCR), 39, 87
Soviet Union, boycott, 86 United Nations Interim Force in
troop-contributing countries, Lebanon (UNIFIL), 94,
32, 33 135, 137, 138, 139
unity, 16, 39, 41 United Nations Relief and Works
use of force, authorization, 50, Agency for Palestine
80, 81 Refugees in the Near East
veto, 14, 39, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86 (UNRWA), 14, 15, 18, 61,
UNAMID. See United Nations- 65–71, 73
African Union Mission in United Nations Security Council.
Darfur (UNAMID) See UN Security Council
UNDOF. See United Nations United Nations Truce Supervision
Disengagement and Organization (UNTSO), 5,
Observer Force (UNDOF) 55, 93–4, 135–9, 144–6
UNDP. See United Nations United Nations-African Union
Development Programme Mission in Darfur
(UNDP) (UNAMID), 40
UNEF. See United Nations United States
Emergency Force (UNEF) Arab oil embargo (1973–1974),
UNESCO. See United Nations 96, 99
Educational, Scientific civil rights movements, 131
and Cultural Organization conservatives, 121
(UNESCO) defense budget, 51
UNHCR. See United Nations economic relations, 78, 193
Human Rights Council foreign policy, 82, 83, 92, 106,
(UNHCR) 172
214 INDEX

United States—Continued Western civilization, 14, 194


leadership role, 107 Western colonial project, 14
Soviet Union rivalry, 79 Western intelligence agencies, 167
see also September 11, 2001 Western modernity, 126, 127
attacks Western press, 121
United States Agency for Western secular life, 126, 127
International Development Western society, 126, 128
(USAID), 145 Western thinking, 123, 126–7
Uniting for Peace Resolution, 86 Wilson, Woodrow, 84
UNRWA. See United Nations world order, 13, 14, 81–5
Relief and Works Agency for see also new world order
Palestine Refugees in the World Summit (2005), 51
Near East (UNRWA) World War I (1914–18), 78, 191,
UNTSO. See United Nations Truce 193
Supervision Organization World War II (1939–45), 77, 83,
(UNTSO) 84, 153, 179, 191, 193
US Armed Forces, 48 World War III, possible outbreak,
Utility of Force, the, 140 79, 85

Van der Stoel, Max, 164, 169 Yarmouk Camp (Syria), 3, 18, 19,
violence, 19, 20, 53, 56, 60, 73, 67–75
94, 101, 120, 125, 131, 132, crisis in peacemaking, 74
140, 141, 151, 155, 165, Palestinian groups, militarization
166, 169, 170, 173, 175, of, 68, 74
178, 180, 187, 188 Palestinian refugees, 18, 65–75
violent conflicts, 156, 175, 180 UNERWA services, 65–73
Yemen, 20, 78, 97, 110, 154, 160,
war crimes, 50, 58, 87 199
wartime negotiations, 17, 53 Yugoslavia, 33
West Bank, 18, 71, 100, 104, 107, break up, 55
136, 138
apartheid wall, 77, 106 Zahir Shah, 24
Fatah, control of, 102 Zimbabwe, 172
Israeli settlements, 87 Zionist movement, birth of, 96

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