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November 24, 2007
Salvaging Peace with Syria
Salvaging Peace with Syria
(originally published by the Carnegie Council's online publication Policy Innovations November 20, 2007)
Saleem H. Ali, Michael Cohen
We are once again at the brink of a Middle East peace conference and Syria's attendance remains unlikely. U.S. and Israeli policy makers continue to speculate about the sincerity of Syrian involvement, and consequently the Syrians have dismissed the forthcoming meeting as a "waste of time." The most significant point of contention between Syria and Israel remains the disputed mountainous region of Golan, which Israel has occupied since 1967. In order to have meaningful engagement from Syria, creative solutions to the Golan conflict must be on the agenda of the proposed Annapolis meeting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning.
Interestingly, the original Druze inhabitants of the region see themselves as distinct from Israelis and Palestinians since their religious group has its own culture and ethnic identity. The Golan Heights has a population of about 38,900, of which 19,300 are Druze, 16,500 are recently settled Jewish immigrants, and about 2,100 are Muslim. Golan is also an environmentally sensitive region with a cool and moderately wet climate that has allowed fruit orchards to flourish. Underscoring the unique environmental conditions of this area, Israel has allowed Druze farmers to export some 11,000 tons of apples to Syria each year since 2005.
This confluence of interests makes the region an ideal case for implementing a novel dispute-resolution strategy known as environmental peace-building. The strategy involves transforming disputed border areas into transboundary conservation zones with flexible governance arrangements. Such territorial arrangements are increasingly called peace parks. To some realist commentators this term may suggest idealistic or naive notions of conflict resolution, but it is championed even by military officers, such as retired Indian Air Marshal K. C. "Nanda" Cariappa, a former POW who has called for such a strategy to resolve India and Pakistan's dispute over the Siachen glacier.
Earlier this year an old proposal for resolving the Golan conflict was resurrected by Syrian-American negotiator Ibrahim Suleiman and former director-general of Israel's foreign ministry Alon Liel. They met with the Israeli Knesset's Foreign Relations and Defense Committee to develop a plan to establish a jointly administered peace park between Syria and Israel in the Golan. The proposal was initially motivated by Robin Twite's work at the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information during the 1990s. Now the strategic plan for the effort has been laid out in detail and the momentum is there to move forward on this solution, which is feasible in the Golan given the demographics of the region. According to the plan, Syria would be the sovereign in all of the Golan, but Israelis could visit the park freely, without visas. In addition, territory on both sides of the border would be demilitarized along a 4:1 ratio in Israel's favor.
When one looks at the stalemate between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights it is clear that neither side is willing, at present, to relinquish its claim to that important piece of Middle East real estate. Syria has a legitimate claim on the basis of recent history, while Israel has a claim based on the ruins of 29 ancient synagogues, and more importantly as a security buffer. One way to break through this stalemate of legitimacy is to phrase the dynamic in a different way. That is to say, it is not so much that Israel wants to keep the Golan Heights, but that they don't trust giving the Heights back to Syria. At the same time, while it is important for Syria to have the Golan Heights back under her rule, she is more motivated not to have Israel remain there.
This understanding of the dynamic opens up possibilities for a new scenario whereby a third party is involved. In addition to the peace park proposal, it is also possible to set up a Druze Autonomous Area that is neither Israeli nor Syrian but jointly administered by a commission. Similar proposals have also been initiated by Friends of the Earth Middle East along the Jordan River, and there is, at least on paper, a marine peace park between Jordan, Israel, and Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba (which was established as part of the first round of Oslo negotiations). The Golan proposal is geographically much more significant in terms of its joint-management potential and also as a means for instrumental conflict resolution between two states that currently do not recognize each other.
Following the recent air strike by Israel on a suspected nuclear site in Syria, tensions are again running high. Syria announced on October 24 that it is issuing identity cards to Druze inhabitants in the Golan (only ten percent have Israeli citizenship). At the same time, Druze inhabitants in Israel have started protests about discrimination. While prospects for a peace deal may seem distant these days, the Golan peace proposal is much easier to implement than some of the other complicated territorial arrangements proposed for the West Bank and Gaza.
Putting a Golan Heights Peace Park on the Annapolis conference agenda may help garner wider support among Arab states and also facilitate stabilization in Iraq since Syria is a significant player on that front as well. Territorial bargaining with environmental factors in mind has proved successful in other conflicts, such as between Ecuador and Peru in the Cordillera del Condor region in the 1990s. The establishment of a jointly managed conservation zone was instrumental in resolving that dispute, which was mediated by the United States twelve years ago. It is high time that we consider ecological solutions in the Golan conflict, which is demographically and spatially configured for green diplomacy.
Saleem H. Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and editor of the new book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press). Rabbi Michael Cohen is the director for special projects at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel.
Posted by Saleem Ali at 06:09 PM
November 10, 2007
Pakistan's Lessons from Lebanon
By Saleem H. Ali, November 10, 2007, The Daily Times
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\11\10\story_10-11-2007_pg3_6
I received news of Pakistan’s latest state of emergency during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon for a conference on regional conflict resolution. While driving past the shattered remains of the Saint George Hotel, where Rafik Hariri had been assassinated, I pondered the fate of my ethnic homeland that sadly is just as fractured today as Lebanon.
Interestingly enough, only a month earlier, Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated Lebanese prime minister and business tycoon, had been mediating to resolve the dispute between General Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif. As with many other cases of political exile in the Muslim world, the Saudis had also played a questionable role as interlocutors. Yet the lessons which Saad Hariri and the Saudis most acutely needed to highlight to President Musharraf and his opponents were that neither autocracy nor democracy are sufficient solutions to civil discord within nations.
The Saudis tried autocratic curtailment of civil liberties and cooptation of the religious establishment that led to further empowerment of Al Qaeda. The Lebanese, being a highly educated society, focused on democratic channels through a creative constitutional arrangement for governance based on devolved religious leadership but are still dealing with discord.
What then is the key to concord in multi-ethnic societies?
First, absolutist ideologies that dehumanise other points of view must never be used as political tools as was done by the American and Pakistani alliance during the first Afghan war and which has led to the current situation. Now that the militants have overwhelmed the army with their weapons, the only option left is to disarm these groups without compromise and strictly enforce laws about the sale of weapons.
In many cases, this can be undertaken through international programmes for household weapons purchases such as what was undertaken in Bosnia and Serbia after the Yugoslav civil war under the auspices of the United Nations. In an impoverished country like Pakistan, if enough money was put into such programmes rather than in buying more weapons for the army, there is immense likelihood of success. Any remaining hard-line elements would be much more easily dealt with through police action.
The only reason why militant groups are able to wield such widespread influence in Pakistan is because they are armed to the teeth, similar to the militias that existed during the Lebanese Civil War. Preventing vigilante anarchy is the responsibility of the government that has so far not been taken seriously in Pakistan because of a general acceptance of an armed culture of tribal fiefdoms. There is of course a dark side to having a defenceless populace. If the military is malevolent and willing to abuse its power to suppress the people, as has been the case in Burma, we are left with an agonising status quo. This is the argument that the founders of the American Bill of Rights used to give citizens the “right to bear arms”.
However, the Pakistani military generally has, until now, not shown abject physical abuse of citizens that military juntas elsewhere often demonstrate. This is largely owing to a fairly strong civic culture within the armed forces. Interestingly enough, this culture of relative civility may have evolved as a result of the army’s forays into private enterprise and institutions such as the Fauji Foundation. However, what is most troubling in the recent action has been the government’s disregard for the judiciary and the independent media that are both important institutions to prevent the abuse of power by the state in the absence of arms-bearing militias. The subjugation of the judiciary and the media has, in reality, given the cause of violent militias much boost, which the Musharraf regime should consider as an ominous and self-defeating sign.
Even well-intentioned rulers can fall prey to a grandiosity complex, feeling that only they have the ability to lead the nation to salvation. Sadly, it appears that General Musharraf, despite his sincerity and commitment to Pakistan, is now beginning to exhibit severe symptoms of such a psychological situation, just as the Lebanese leaders did before the civil war began.
In crises, rulers are often reinforced into believing that they are indispensable because of a circle of servile sycophants that inevitably surround them. Instead of falling for such self-indulgence, what must be considered is the power of due process that gives power legitimacy.
Let us not forget that President Abraham Lincoln, whom General Musharraf so emphatically quoted, followed due process throughout his career and was an elected president. Lincoln’s main emergency actions pertained to suspending the writ of habeas corpus (convincing body of evidence) for arrests of dissidents which is incidentally allowed by the US constitution in “cases of rebellion” and when the “public safety” requires it. Furthermore, unlike General Musharraf, Lincoln did not interfere with the authority of the Supreme Court, and Congress and the Courts subsequently validated all his actions.
Apart from the justification of a war on extremism, General Musharraf’s second justification for his actions has been to continue the path towards development that he takes credit for in terms of economic growth indicators. Here too, there are important lessons to be learned from Lebanon. Following the end of the civil war in 1990, private capital flowed to Lebanon and Beirut was rebuilt to its days of mid-century splendour. Yet many of the underlying tensions remained since income inequality and tribalism were not directly addressed in the economic euphoria that followed the investment boom.
Indeed, this is a lesson even Pakistan’s neighbour India must learn as it tends to gloat over its rival’s predicament. As Martha Nussbaum has argued in her important new book The Clash Within, India also has many structural symptoms of radicalisation and inequality that even a robust democracy and economic giant must be willing to address if it is to prevent conflict.
Peace is fragile in a fractured world and until institutions of human tolerance and economic and political justice are carefully nurtured at the most fundamental level in societies, there is little chance that either elections or martial law can salvage countries as far afield as Pakistan or Lebanon from such perennial cycles of crises.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment. He is the editor of the new book: Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press)
