I marvelled at his willingness to leave a relatively comfortable life to take on a high-risk career in a country that has most often been associated with the term “state failure”. Several decades of civil war; a short but failed effort at stabilisation by the US; the secession of its northern region of Somaliland; and an armed intervention from some of its African neighbours have left the country utterly fractured and dysfunctional.

The result has been a dramatic rise in a loot-driven economy, most acutely manifest in the rise of piracy from the Somali coast in which a whole bevy of characters from fishermen to former navy officials have been implicated. The International Maritime Bureau reported that 111 of the 293 incidents of piracy or armed robbery at sea worldwide in 2008 took place off the coast of Somalia — double the number from the preceding year.

Sadly, it is the novelty and drama of piracy on the high seas that has brought back the world’s attention to this beleaguered yet promising land of frankincense. Accounts of Somali piracy have ranged from sheer dread of their links to Al Qaeda to a romanticisation of their efforts to stop illegal dumping and over-fishing in the region.

Anyhow, the American media got a diversion from covering Pakistan’s turmoil this week by focusing on the dramatic rescue of an American captain from Somali pirates. In another engaging twist to this story, the ship that was pirated was not some commercial vessel carrying goods to fuel global trade but rather food aid for impoverished Africans!

Captain Richard Phillips hails from my home state of Vermont and got a hero’s welcome when he returned to his village of Underhill, a few miles from our home. At the same time, a Somali pirate was also brought back to the US to face a piracy trial for the first time in almost a century. There is bewildered amusement on American talk shows about this young captive whose age is not known by even his parents.

Interestingly enough, many small towns in the United State have encountered Somalis in various capacities because of the United States’ willingness to accept several thousand refugees from the country over the past decade. Many of them have been placed in far-flung states and are beginning to build their lives as so many other immigrants have done in the fabled American “melting pot”.

Yet the captive pirate is more of a curiosity than any of the immigrants and brings home the striking interactions that can occur between communities in a globalised economic system. Negligence to consider deteriorating state circumstances across the world can impact communities far removed from each other. The same argument for imminent intervention is being used regarding Pakistan’s situation.

Surprisingly enough, Pakistan and Somalia have had peculiar ties and commonalities. Among the few foreign students still enrolled at Karachi University is a group of Somalis, whose interest in coming to Pakistan for higher education is representative of several decades of educational cooperation between the two countries. Perhaps a more striking commonality that the two countries seem to currently share is that both governments are negotiating with Islamists. The new President of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, is a hafiz-ul Quran trained at Sudanese and Libyan Islamic institutes and was formerly commander of the Islamic Courts Union. Interestingly, the Islamist movement in Somalia also arose out of the need for judicial reform, similar to what happened in Swat.

What is remarkable is that the new Somali government has managed to form an alliance between a group of devoutly religious Islamists and a bunch of Western-educated technocrats. There is still a group of even more hardened young jihadists (known as Al Shabab) who continue to call for the retrogressive interpretation of sharia. However, they are being marginalised by the Islamic Courts Union itself and most religious clerics in the country as misguided absolutists. The country seems to finally be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and got commitments of more than $300 million in development assistance at a donors’ conference in Brussels earlier in the week.

These developments augur well for Somalia but also have some important lessons for our own Islamist parties in Pakistan. It is high time that some of the educated Muslim scholars from the Jama’at-e Islaami and other religious institutions as well make it clear that the Taliban brand of Islam is a caricature of this great faith. Just as the Islamic Courts Union has disassociated itself from Al Shabab and Al Qaeda, and formed an alliance for the implementation of a pluralistic vision of Islam, the Pakistani ulema must actively sermonise to reclaim the minds of the youth in the Frontier from the infection of militancy.

If such a transformation is possible in Somalia, that has held the epithet of Islamist state failure for so many decades, it can surely be possible in Pakistan too.

Conservation appeared to be making a comeback among conservatives this year, with the publication of staunch conservative Newt Gingrich’s Contract with the Earth, which even boasts a foreword by ecological doyen EO Wilson. However, McCain’s embrace of a conservative Alaskan as vice presidential nominee raises questions about his commitment to conservation.

While Senator McCain is admired by environmentalists for acknowledging the seriousness of climate change, his score with the League of Conservation voters remains highly varied, ranging from 6 to 56 (on a scale of 100). Governor Palin has not been rated on this scale, but Alaskan politics have always been a textbook case of campaigns that pitch the economy versus the environment.

The choice of Palin as the running mate should prompt voters and the international community alike to inform themselves about resource conflicts in the self-proclaimed “last frontier” of America.

Alaska has changed with the times in remarkable ways since it was bought from Russia for a paltry sum of $7.2 million in 1867 — around 1.9 cents per acre (the purchase price would amount to around $105 million current dollars).

For Americans, the state has always been a perplexing paradox. It is the largest in size but smallest in population density; it has the coldest climate but also the most active system of fiery volcanoes; and it has been the largest source of a non-renewable resource like oil but also the largest source of renewable resources such as timber and fish.

The state is home to the largest percentage of Native people in the country with over 15 percent of the population of indigenous Alaskan lineage but unlike much of the Lower-48 states, there were no treaties signed between settlers and local, leading to a legal settlement in 1971.

Adding to the list of Alaska’s extremes is another unlikely statistic. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, the state is the emitter of the largest amount of toxins into the air, land and water of any state in the union. This dubious distinction has been held by the state for six years in a row since 2001 and raises alarms when mentioned to Alaskans as well.

What could possibly be so polluting?

The usual suspect is the North Slope’s oil, but this is in fact extracted without much incident and piped down 1500 miles to the port of Valdez. Problems may arise once the oil is on the tankers, but those incidents are relatively few and far between since the devastating Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 which spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.

Alaska’s toxic release inventory top spot owes largely to one particular operation on the extreme north-western coast of the state, more than five hundred miles from the nearest oil installation. Close to the shores of the Chuckchi Sea in this desolate wilderness is the world’s largest zinc mine. Named after the pet of a local aviator, the Red Dog mine is a monumental achievement of engineering but also a stark reminder of the impact resource extraction can have. An estimated 500 million pounds of “waste rock” is dumped each year into permitted facilities and are stored in stockpiles and mine tailings on site.

Nevertheless, the mine provides precious livelihoods for an extremely remote community and is partially owned by one of the native Alaskan corporations (The NANA). From 2000 through 2006, the mine produced an estimated $6 billion worth of zinc, lead and silver — about 80 percent of the value of all mine output in Alaska. Sentiments regarding the mine are widely divided between those who are benefiting from the employment and reside in the nearest town of Kotzebue, 86 miles from the mine, and those who are in small villages in closest proximity to the mine.

Governor Palin has supported mining across Alaska and resisted efforts to list species such as the polar bear or beluga whales as endangered as such listings may hamper mineral development. In Alaskan politics, contentious issues can arise around resource development far more acutely than at the national scene. This is evidenced by the struggle between various Native groups and environmentalists over the Pebble Mine project adjoining Bristol Bay, near the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. Despite her fishing credentials, the governor is a supporter of this project as well.

Support of mining projects should not singularly discredit a candidate’s environmental credentials. However, the nuance and care with which such decisions are made deserve greater scrutiny by the public as a mark of leadership versus positional entrenchment. In coming months, Alaskan resource management may well become an unlikely touchstone of presidential acumen for voters.

As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.

During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.

Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.

For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.

However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.

Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.

Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu

As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.

During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.

Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.

For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.

However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.

Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.

Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu

The mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has passed this week with a surprisingly calm election and Pakistanis will no doubt begin to approach her son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in various ways to express their hopes and fears for the country. As one such citizen, I write this article at the eve of the publication of his mother’s notable book and also after a pivotal election victory for her party. You may ask why I write to give advice to a nineteen year old who couldn’t even run in the election? The answer is simple: reform is far easier to advocate to those who are new to the process than to those who are entrenched in entitlements of the old system. Perhaps that is why so many Americans are gravitating towards an inexperienced but youthfully optimistic senator named Barack Obama.

As an expatriate, like Bilawal, I have much less at stake in the future of Pakistan than the millions who languish in poverty and despair or the elite who continue to benefit from an arcane system of privilege. Yet I cannot help feel the need to emotionally connect with the land with which I am most frequently identified by language, ethnicity and tradition.

Since Bilawal has accepted to carry forward the mission of his mother despite the risks entailed, it is important to get this message to him at the earliest. As he is immersed in studies at Oxford and perhaps insulated temporarily from the gathering storm of discontent in Pakistan, it is a time for the PPP to consider effectively what role he might play as a positive catalyst for change. I heard his first press conference in London, and was pleasantly surprised to observe relative composure in the face of some very tough questions from the media about his tender age and the perceived lack of legitimacy as a political force. There is little doubt that he has the potential to be a fine leader in terms of intellect and that should remain his forte rather than the Bhutto name. In this regard, he should seek to find some common ground with his cousin Fatima, who has quite emphatically called for the emergence of a culture of meritocracy in the country.

No doubt there will be plenty of people who will try to erode Bilawal’s youthful idealism and make him feel as if feudal politics are all that can work in Pakistan, including perhaps some in his own family. Let’s hope he is wary of such enticements that the establishment will try to seduce him with in various ways – perhaps by servile compliments or by elderly admonition. The only way to change the system of privilege in Pakistan is for the next generation of elite like Bilawal to move us out of this inertia.

True democracy will only flourish when each candidate can be evaluated on their merits and we can have a more equitable distribution of power across society in Pakistan. The most fundamental resource that the country has is land and until we are able to have a comprehensive land redistribution program our attempts at democratization will fail and so will Bilawal’s call for “revenge through democracy.” The Peoples Party has always prided itself for principles of social equity and under the leadership of a true reformer there is perhaps a chance that it will make comprehensive land reform a priority. Bilawal should endure the opposition that he may face on this fundamental matter with the same fortitude that he has shown since the loss of his mother. Land reform is always tough but as Pakistan’s neighbor India has shown in many states, it is indeed possible and once it is achieved, democracy can take firm roots. As a martial artist trained in Karate, the young Bhutto perhaps appreciates the importance of self-denial and leveraging power through efficient use of our muscles. Similarly, land redistribution, will be the most effective way to leverage power to move the Body Politic towards collective victory against poverty and deprivation. We are beginning to see the public move away from entrenched feudal politicians in some of the results from central Punjab in this election. However, the winners are still largely connected to old families of influence.

The question of religion will always remain salient in Pakistani politics. In this regard, Bilawal has an admirable manifesto from his mother in her posthumous book: Reconcilliation, Islam, Democracy and the West. There is indeed a way to reconcile Islam and modernity but that must be accepted within some clear parameters. Islamic societies are beginning to reform in many positive ways to allow for pluralism and the process will no doubt be generational as it was with its Abrahamic predecessor faiths: Christianity or Judaism. The power of intangible spirituality and benign religious practice cannot be ignored in societies just as the power of a good story remains timeless, even if it may be fictional.

There will certainly be attrition and conflict as we move beyond a literalist interpretation of scripture but moderation of Islamic doctrines is quite possible in an increasingly globalized world. Surely, Bilawal’s upbringing in the Emirates will have provided him with enough experiential learning in this regard on how to evolve a modern society within an Islamic context. Such proclivities for spirituality must be embraced so long as they are not exclusionary in implementation – a lesson which Benazir Bhutto clearly reveals in her book.

Finally, let’s hope that Bilawal appreciates that no one is indispensible and the human urge to govern has tremendous resilience across societies. However, as a student of political science, Bilawal might well consider the words of Charles de Motesquieu, which underscore the admirable insistence his late mother had to spend time with the public, and which he must aspire to amplify through action: “to be truly great one has to stand with people, not above them.”

British-born South African diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes left a lasting legacy of learning for brilliant minds aspiring to study at one of the world’s oldest centers of higher learning – Oxford University. Despite his adamant support of colonialism and overt claims of British superiority in all world affairs, the endowment of the Rhodes scholarship in his bequest is considered one the most significant acts of global educational philanthropy. Notable politicians such as Wasim Sajjad in Pakistan or Bill Clinton in the United States have been Rhodes scholars and one can make a good bet every year that winners of the scholarship will end up in notable political positions within a decade or so later.

Among the recipients this year is a young Pakistani-American named Isra Bhatty who is currently a first year law student at Yale University. While South Asian families are well known for being “model minorities” and often produce many overambitious youngsters that end up with prestigious scholarships, Isra stands out as a particularly remarkable recipient. She attended high school in the Chicago suburb of Glenview and came from a devoutly religious family that was deeply committed to bridging Islamic learning with modern education. Even though Isra attended an American public school, she also was intimately involved with a mosque school that her parents helped establish on weekends and is a deeply observant Muslim. She wears the hijab but considers it a personal choice and has no ill feelings towards those who choose not to do so.

Isra has only visited Pakistan three times in her life for brief family visits, but her ethnic identity is strong and she can read and interpret Urdu poetry. Her parents were quite insistent that she always embrace her multiple identities as a Muslim, an American and a Pakistani. When I questioned her about how she might prioritize these identities, she was hesitant to suggest one was more dominant than the other but admitted that “Islam is her compass” and thus most salient in how she defines her life. Given her strong cultural sensitivity, it is not surprising that as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Isra chose to major in Economics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations – one of the few programs in the United States where you can even get a doctorate in Urdu. She subsequently went on to work for a law firm that was advocating the cases of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Isra speaks six languages and these rare skills were used by the firm to facilitate communication between the inmates and their families in Pakistan and with the legal teams in the United States.

This assignment was a particularly emotional experience for Isra as it had the potential to bring her identities as an American and as a Muslim and Pakistani in conflict with each other. Yet she handled the matter with tremendous maturity. One of her professors at Yale Law School, Dr. Ian Ayres spoke glowingly of her ability to balance her Faith in Islam with her Faith in science and the democratic process: “Isra is amazing in how many different worlds she can simultaneously inhabit. She is devoutly religious but at the same time can be speaking at the same time about Monte Carlo simulations.” Such an ability is perhaps what many young Muslim students need to embrace with greater vigor as it exemplifies the Islamic concept of meezaan, or the ability to judiciously balance values.

At the age of twenty four, Isra is already married but has managed to continue her career with a supportive Muslim husband who is also a lawyer (and a graduate of Yale Law School). She still has two more years to complete her law degree but will first take a year off to complete her M.Phil in “evidence-based social intervention” at Oxford. She plans to focus her studies on the improvement of the American criminal justice system, particularly its interaction with people of color. “It is my motivation from the scriptures of Islam and also the scriptures of America – the constitution,” she says with confidence.

Defying the stereotype of many Muslim youth who are often branded as killjoys, Isra also knows the importance of enjoying life. She is an avid fan of American football and plays sports regularly (one of the criteria for evaluation in Cecil Rhodes bequest for the scholarship). The ability to connect with youth through sports and peer-mentoring programs is so essential among social activists and Isra has used these skills in her work with the Inner-city Muslim Action Network in Chicago. Such programs bring positive competition to youth that might otherwise be indoctrinated with radical absolutist ideologies and are gaining momentum in Muslim communities.

As we ponder the future of Muslim societies, inspirational stories such as those of Isra Bhatty give us much-needed hope. We must all strive to encourage such young scholars to flourish with multiple identities in an increasingly globalized world.

(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.