Determining U.S. policy toward Iran and its nuclear programs should begin with considering the way the Iranian leadership and people regard their effort to develop nuclear power and nuclear weapons.  The current leadership wants to remain in power, but they differ about how that is best accomplished.  Ahmadinejad does not determine policy.  To what extent it is ultimately shaped by Ayatollah Khamenei or by the high military leaders is widely debated.  There is also widespread Iranian disaffection with the ruling regime.  The U.S. should be wary of unifying the divergent groups within the country. 

It is safe to believe that the major purpose of the Iranian leaders is to maintain themselves in power and to play an important regional role.  Having nuclear weapons can reasonably be considered as necessary to avoid efforts to overthrow them.  They may see what happened in Libya compared to the survival of the regime in North Korea.   

Coercive sanctions alone will not suffice for the U.S. government to halt Iran’s progress toward producing nuclear weapons and the means to employ them.  Even a military strike would only delay such programs and unleash terrible reactions.  Current sanctions need to be accompanied by reassurances to Iranian leaders that NOT having nuclear weapons would NOT open them up to attacks and to efforts to overthrow them.  They are already close to having the capacity to build nuclear weapons, but not close to being able to employ them.  In any case, they will forever be extremely unlikely to use them to initiate a war, attack Israel or even risk passing on any capability to external organizations they cannot control.   Such actions, they know would be utterly self-destructive.

There are realistic reasons the region and the world would be much better off if Iran did not possess nuclear weapons.  Its possession of such weapons may result in other countries in the region developing nuclear weapons, further increasing the risks of nuclear accidents, military attacks, and even wars.  The economic burdens of financing nuclear arms races would further damage the well-being of the peoples in the Middle East. 

The U.S. can take steps that will induce the Iranian leaders to stop short of actually constructing nuclear arms, yet having demonstrated that they ultimately have the capability to do so.  Inducements include reassurances that can be made with little risk to the U.S., Israel, or other countries in the region.  They incorporate working to establish a nuclear free zone in the Middle East.  Israel would not be taking any risk by acknowledging its nuclear weapons capacity and collectively working to diminish the need for them.  The U.S. should move toward restoring diplomatic relations with Iran, with the promises that entails.  Opening Iran to more contact and exchanges with Americans can strengthen the position and influence of Iranians who seek domestic reforms.

This path holds out the promise of widespread benefits for the peoples in all countries in the Middle East, including Iran.   There would be enhanced security for everyone.  There would be greater economic benefits for everyone.  In the context of the Arab Spring, improving stability and reducing mutual fears is highly desirable.  With American leadership many other countries would choose this path making it the right way for all.

As many have pointed out, dealing with complex problems calls for bringing together multiple disciplinary perspectives.  As anyone who has participated in such endeavors knows, however, thinking together along with those trained in different disciplines – often with different ideas about what constitutes valid knowledge, not to mention different concerns and commitments regarding the relationship between knowledge and social change – can be frustrating.   Like the problems they seek to provide insight into, furthermore, interdisciplinary endeavors are themselves fraught with power dynamics that are often impossible to disentangle from intellectual issues.

Nevertheless, even as layers of complexity seem to proliferate, individuals and groups seeking to engage with the complexity of real problems need not yield to paralysis.  If one foregoes the urge to synthesize multiple partial perspectives into an integrated whole, but rather pursues the more modest goal of making space for multiple partial perspectives, and paying attention both to areas of overlap and areas of dissonance, then there can be a path – or, more accurately, paths – through the complexity and towards meaningful and adaptive actions.

In developing the “Integrative Framework,” we’ve make the rather paradoxical attempt to engage systematically with complexity.  Crucially, the goal is not to arrive at a single output – there will be no answer, and certainly the reality of imperfect solutions to complex problems will not disappear.  Nevertheless, by allowing space for multiple perspectives and ways of thinking, gaining perspective on complex problems becomes possible.  An expanded perspective, furthermore, can help diminish some of the unproductive tensions that often occur in interdisciplinary settings, and ultimately lead to actions (or non-actions) that avoid relying on an over-simplistic view.

A Framework for Integrative Thinking about Complex Problems

What it is

• · A conceptual architecture that “makes space” for multiple perspectives and ways of thinking about complex problems and trade-offs

• · A heuristic for the development of a collaborative processes of reflection, research, and action

What it isn’t

• · A synthetic theory or model: The aim of the framework is not to produce a unified theory, or an analytical output that justifies one choice over another to all audiences.  Indeed, an orienting principle of the framework is that all perspectives and models are partial, highlighting some problem dimensions while obscuring others.

Multiple Perspectives

Any problem can be approached from multiple perspectives. When a problem is sufficiently complex, it becomes impossible to unify the views from multiple perspectives into an integrated whole. A commitment to exploring problems from multiple perspectives therefore begins with an acceptance and appreciation of dissonance and incommensurability. 

Shared Orienting Principles

This dissonance can be more productively navigated with the identification of some shared principles. Based on experiences over the course of a four-year initiative that included practitioners and researchers across several countries and disciplines, we have identified a set of orienting principles that can serve as a starting point for a collaborative process of reflection and action.

Integrative Lenses

The three lenses emerged from struggles in communicating across the divides of discipline, organization, and culture. Each lens reflects a particular set of concepts and assumptions, and focuses thinking on a specific set of related questions. The concepts and questions are designed to be approachable from multiple perspectives. Answers to questions and subsequent discussion should be in “ordinary” – i.e. non-specialized language.  The articulation of three sets of concepts and questions allows for two things: first, it allows for a parallel process in which different “modes of rationality” each have the opportunity to be expressed and experimented with in the search to understand and deal with trade-offs and complexity.  Second, it allows for the development of new insights via the exercise of translation, which will undoubtedly yield both actionable successes and telling failures.

Better Problem Definition

Making room for both parallel exploration of different ways of thinking AND for remaining open-minded in the face of the tensions that emerge can help to transform unproductive multi-perspective discussions into productive ones.  Ideally, the result will be better problem definitions that open the way to generating and communicating better decisions, and formulating and organizing better research.

Guiding Principles

Trade-offs

• In most complex problem scenarios, trade-offs can and do occur
• A minimal understanding of trade-offs is the simultaneous existence of losses and gains
• The concept of trade-offs should not be applied in overly narrow ways that obscure:
  • Distributional issues (winners and losers)
  • The role of values and interests that are difficult to quantify in a widely agreed upon manner
  • The role of values and interests that are not comparable in socially meaningful ways
• The real power of the trade-offs concept may not lie in calculating costs and benefits, but in the concept’s usefulness for bringing diverse actors to the common recognition that hard choices are being faced
• More explicit acknowledgment of trade-offs, and the hard choices they entail, may mitigate some of the alienation, disappointment and loss of trust that comes when “win-win” projects fail to meet expectations
• In the long run, proactive acknowledgement of trade-may lead to more resilient and sustainable outcomes

Pluralism

• At the root of many long-standing disputes are differing models, metaphors, and ways of understanding
• Every perspective, theory, or model highlights certain problem dimensions and obscures others
• Better formulation of problems can occur when new ways of understanding are developed collaboratively and iteratively with the input of multiple voices and multiple perspectives
• Diligence is necessary to ensure that the voices of affected parties are heard, understood and respected

Complexity

• Many important issues will always involve uncertainty
• The simplification of complexity cannot be separated from the expression of power

Context

• Tools and methods should be applied with sensitivity to political, economic, institutional and social contexts
• There are no panaceas or one-size fits all solutions
• Decisions and strategies will have to be revisited as new knowledge emerges, and as the social, political, economic, and ecological contexts change

Scale

• Different values and dynamics manifest at different scales
• In some cases, dynamics operating at one scale may constrain possibilities for resolution of problems at another

Integrative Lenses

Illustrative Application

Consider the controversy surrounding the drive to proceed with hydraulic fracturing for natural gas development in upstate New York, USA.  Land Trusts operating in the region are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to A) develop easements in partnership with private landowners who also choose to lease sub-surface rights for natural gas exploration and drilling; or B) only develop easements with landowners who do not lease sub-surface rights.  In such a situation, the constituency of a Land Trust may very likely be split between those who would rather guide the placement of drilling infrastructure so that it is more consistent with land protection, and those who would rather the Land Trust take the position that hydraulic fracturing is inherently inconsistent with the values of land preservation.  Since the primary business of Land Trusts entails achieving land-based values by negotiating tax easements with private property holders in exchange for permanent protection, this dilemma would be highly salient for the actors involved, and its resolution one way or the other may have impacts at larger scales.

An application of the Integrative Framework to such a context might entail the following:

• Moving beyond good/bad discussions of hydraulic fracturing, and working instead to help stakeholders understand and acknowledge that any decision involves trade-offs
• Bringing attention to both the losses and the gains that allowing hydraulic fracturing – in general, and associated with land trusts – might entail
• Reflecting on the problem at multiple scales: from the largest scale discussion in which natural gas is seen as an important alternative to coal and oil (from the perspective of limiting greenhouse emissions, and pursuing energy independence); to the much smaller scales in which individual landowners must face hard choices that are affected both by their principles and their pocketbooks
• Bringing together disciplines such as economics and anthropology, both of which clearly have something to offer to the issue, but which do not typically work together because of epistemological differences that often remain under the surface
• Engaging members of the relevant public in clarifying the key values affected by decisions about hydraulic fracturing, and working to identify tangible indicators of those values
• Identifying values that can not be easily measured or compared, and developing ways to bring consideration of those values into ongoing discussions and decision-making

Contributors to the development of the Integrative Framework include:

Paul Hirsch, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry / Maxwell School of Syracuse University

J. Peter Brosius, Center for Integrative Conservation Research, University of Georgia

Zachary Anderson, Department of Geography, University of Toronto

Juan Luis Dammert, Peruvian Society for Environmental Law / Catholica University, Peru

Rose Peter Kicheleri, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Ann Kinzig, Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University

Bruno Monteferri, Cambridge University / Peruvian Society for Environmental Law

David Mutekanga, Wildlife Conservation Society

Sheila O’Connor, Worldwide Fund for Nature

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peruvian Minister of the Environment

Jennifer Rice, Department of Geography, University of Georgia

Alexander Songorwa, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Hoang van Thang, Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam

Tran Chi Trung, Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam

Meredith Welch-Devine, Center for Integrative Conservation Research, University of Georgia

Asim Zia, Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont

Thomas O. McShane: ACSC Principle Investigator, Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University

Initial iterations of the framework were presented and discussed at the 2009 and 2010 Conferences organized by the Philosophy of Interdisciplinary Network. http://pin-net.gatech.edu/international_workshop2009.php

In addition to the applications discussed in this document, the Integrative Framework has been used to:

• Develop case studies in conservation trade-offs at the Peruvian Society for International Law (SPDA), the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES), and the Sokoine Institute of Agriculture (SUA)
• Structure integrative curricula at the Center for Integrative Conservation Research (CICR) at the University of Georgia and Paidea Middle School, Atlanta GA
• Develop guidance for the selection of tools and methods for the evaluation of trade-offs.  Co-sponsors for this work include the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

See Also:

McShane, T., P. Hirsch, T. Trung, A. Songorwa, A. Kinzig, B. Monteferri,, D. Mutekanga, H. van Thang, J.L. Dammert, M. Pulgar-Vidal, M. Welch-Devine, J. P. Brosius, P. Coppolillo, and S. O’Connor. 2011. Hard Choices: Making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biological Conservation 144: 966-972

See Hirsch, P., W. Adams, P. Brosius, A. Zia, N. Bariola, and J.L. Dammert. 2011. Acknowledging Trade-offs, Embracing Complexity: A Challenge for Conservation. 2011. Conservation Biology 25 (2): 259–264

Anderson, Z., P. Hirsch, and T. McShane.  2012. Navigating Trade-offs between Conservation and Development.  In Evidence-based Conservation: Lessons from the Lower Mekong, Edited by Terry C.H. Sunderland, Jeffrey Sayer and Hoang Minh-Ha. Earthscan: Routledge

Zia, A., P. Hirsch, A. Songorwa, D. R. Mutekanga, S. O’Connor, T. McShane, P. Brosius and B. Norton. 2011. Cross-Scale Value Trade-Offs in Managing Social-Ecological Systems: The Politics of Scale in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania. Ecology and Society 16 (4): 7 

By Azra Hromadzic  

One of the most commonly heard “complaints” about postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), made by policy-makers and academics alike, is that “ordinary Bosnians” vote for nationalists and, in that way, allow them to stay in power. While it is true that the nationalist parties have been dominating the political scene in postwar BiH, these facts and statistical data are used to make two very important and problematic claims: The first argument is that since Bosnians and Herzegovinians massively support the nationalist parties that started the war, this must mean that the majority of Bosnians and Herzegovinians are themselves nationalists (for an insightful critique of this position see Kurtović 2011). The second assertion is that any broader, cross-ethnic political and social articulations of common Bosnianhood are apolitical, nostalgic, invented and over-romanticized visions of Bosnianhood and/or are reflections of “impaired insights” on the side of “subjective” academics (see Hayden 2007).  These two claims problematically accept statistical data as “true” reflections of political and social beliefs. Furthermore, these positions rest on a primordial, essentilizing and totalizing view of Bosnian and Herzegovinian “ethnic groups rooted in ethnic territories” (for a powerful critique of this rigid vision of multiculturalism, see Campbell 1999; Chandler 1999, and Gagnon n.d.).

Ethnic divisions are very important but not primordial nor exhaustive political formations in contemporary BiH. During and after the war ethnic cleavages were politicized and ethnonationally conceptualized; homogenous ethnicities rooted in ethnic territories emerged as the most powerful form of identity that structures perception, informs thought and experience, and organizes discourse and political action. Complicated and heterogeneous local notions of nationhood in BiH were flattened by ethnic nationalism and the consociational model of democracy, during and after the war. These changes, however, do not exhaust explanations given by ordinary people for why Bosnians vote in a certain way. In what follows, I use an ethnographic moment from my fieldwork to quickly explore ambivalent political subjectivities in postwar BiH, in order to complicate these assumptions.

The complicated relationship between nationhood and political subjectivity became apparent to me in the fall/winter of 2010-11 when I briefly returned to BiH, right before the municipal elections. I was picked up at the Zagreb Airport in Croatia by Samir[i], my distant relative. On our three hour long trip to BiH, Samir told me that his father, Husein, was now actively supporting the main nationalist Bosniak party—Stranka Demokratske Akcije or The Party of Democratic Action (SDA). I had a hard time believing that Husein would not only vote for SDA, but also announce this decision to the whole town: Husein had the reputation of an honest komunjara (derogative for an ex-communist), who, I remembered, lost his influential and prestigious managerial job at the beginning of the war because he refused to join the ranks of SDA. Remarkably, he remained influential in town during and after the war, regardless of his open critique of SDA politics; Husein always supported a moderate, self-proclaimed multi-ethnic Socijaldemokratsku Partiju Bosne i Hercegovine or The Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP).

As we were driving to BiH, I recalled my last visit to Husein’s house, when we were sitting around the dining room table, talking about politics. At one point, Samir commented on, in his opinion, gloomy political prospects for the country’s future, and concluded by saying, “What could make people vote for non-nationalist [political] parties?” Without any hesitation, Husein responded, Pa za koga će drugog? Ovdje samo nacionalisti mogu da vladaju. (Who else can they vote for? Only nationalists can rule here). After only a few short moments, Husein elaborated, however: “[But] Narod je gladan (People are hungry). People are voting for the nationalists because they feel that there is no other option, no alternative, and that nationalists will provide them with jobs. But wait and see, narod će se dići (people will rise).” These different explanations provided by Husein in the past and his recent support of a Muslim nationalist party left me puzzled: Was Husein deceiving us the whole time? Or was he “simply” being pragmatic, by emphasizing that the only way to have political voice and social and economic security in contemporary BiH is to vote for nationalists?  Was he possibly sarcastic, without me noticing? Was his response possibly an invocation of some better futurity, the one that is not “here”?

The next day, when I met Husein, I immediately asked him about his recent political activities. He smiled and said… “I knew that you would ask. Things have changed. I have high moral standards. Everyone in this town knows that—you cannot buy Husein, I am transparent. You know my story—I lost several jobs [at the beginning of war] because I refused to join SDA and play their dirty game. They tried to put so much pressure on me.” Husein paused for a second and then continued. “But…you see…while SDP at the national-level still has some good people in its ranks, here, in our town, it is so dirty, so rotten. You would not believe their games. Take the mayor, for example. We had so many hopes [when he was elected]… But look, he is the worst of them all. He is friends with mafia, imagine! He is so corrupt—he bought two new houses at the [Croatian] coast. I cannot support these people. And SDA [in town] has changed. They have many new, young and educated people leading the party politics. See, I think they really want to do good things for this town. And I have to think pragmatically—they [SDA] are also better for me. The mayor already betrayed me, you know the story when he promised all those things to my organization but never delivered his promises. You know me, I hate lies. So I will vote and openly support SDA and I will tell everyone to vote against the mayor and his followers. But, on the national-level, I will still support and vote for SDP. I might even vote for Naša stranka (Our Party)[ii] at the national level—I like how young and thoughtful those people are.”

Husein’s political pragmatism is a profound critique of those approaches to Balkan politics which take a static view of ordinary people’s political behavior, assuming that if people vote for nationalist parties as their representatives, they are themselves nationalists (Kurtović 2011). Husein’s case points to a more complicated political subjectivity that escapes classification into nationalist vs. trans-nationalist and anti-nationalist frameworks. In addition, his discussion of morality is deeply interwoven with his life under socialism, the experience of which significantly impacts his ideas of ethical behavior. Husein’s seemingly contradictory and “eclectic” voting patterns thus make sense when placed within the context of Husein’s everyday life and his multiple identifications, pasts loyalties and future orientations, relationships and political visions. Given this complexity, it is understandable that Husein continually articulated his despise of ethnic nationalism, his nostalgia for Yugoslavia, and his support for a united Bosnia while, at the same time, he supported SDA at the local level. Husein’s actions thus illustrate  how ordinary people use common logic and available resources to enact, de-enact and re-enact  nationalist and anti-nationalist stances, without seeing their actions as contradictory and/or immoral, and without ever “becoming” indoctrinated into (anti)nationalisms.[iii] 

This brief moment in the field reminded me of an ever-growing need to ethnographically grasp and anthropologically untangle the complicated and ambivalent nature of “the political” that powerfully shapes behaviors of “ordinary” people in postwar BiH and beyond.

References cited:

Arnautović, Suad.  Izbori u Bosni i Hercegovini ’90. Sarajevo: Promokult, 1996. Print.

Arsenijević, Damir. “Protiv Oportunisticke Kritike.” http://eipcp.net/transversal/0208/arsenijevic/bhs. (Nov. 2007) Web May 31, 2012.

Bieber, Florian. Postwar Bosnia: Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the Public Sector. London: Palgrave, 2006. Print.

Bougarel, Xavier. Helms, Elissa and Gur Duijzings, eds. The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Postwar Society. Aldershot: Ashgate 2007, Print.

Campbell, David. “Apartheid Cartography: the Political Anthropology and Spatial Effects of International Diplomacy in Bosnia.” Political Geography 18:395-435, 1999. Print.

Chandler, David. Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton. London: Pluto Press, 1999. Print.

Gagnon, V.P. Jr. “Liberal Multiculturalism and Post-Dayton Bosnia: Solution or Problem? ” Unpublished Manuscript, Print.

Kurtović, Larisa. “What is a Nationalist? Some thoughts on the question from Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Anthropology of Eastern Europe Review 29(2):242-253, 2011. Print.

By Hans Peter Schmitz

Non-communicable diseases are creating rapidly rising health issues across many nations.  The main NCDs include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory illnesses and share common behavioral risk factors, including smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and the harmful use of alcohol. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 60 per cent of global mortality, or 35 out of 59 million deaths in 2005 were caused by NCDs. Six of the top ten risk factors leading to death are NCDs. This burden is particularly high in low and middle-income nations, where 80 per cent of all deaths caused by NCDs occur. While many still believe that the biggest health challenges in developing nations continue to be infectious diseases, this view is long outdated. NCDs today are a greater threat to global economic development than fiscal crises, natural disasters, corruption, or malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDs. Addressing NCDs more broadly represents a crucial link between single issues such as alcohol and tobacco and the broader development agenda, including the discussion on what should follow after the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

NCDs have recently come more forcefully onto the global agenda. A September 2011 High-Level Meeting on NCDs convened by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly marked a watershed in the global response, but the commitments to this agenda remain shallow and continue to fall short of effectively addressing the global harm caused. A 2010 report of the Center for Global Development found that less than three percent of all global health funding in 2007 ($22 billion) was targeted at NCDs.  This stands in stark contrast to the fact that addressing most NCDs is relatively inexpensive and measures of prevention and treatment have a proven track record of success. We know this from the experiences of developed nations, but we have yet to apply it in much of the developing world. For example, raising taxes on and restricting the marketing of tobacco and alcohol are very effective, while distributing relatively cheap medicines (aspirin, asthma inhalers, beta blockers, etc.) will greatly reduce injury and death from NCDs.

Despite the fact that the global community could make a lot of progress very fast on NCDs, the agenda continues to be stuck in mere rhetoric. At the 2011 High-Level Meeting many of the problems slowing down action were on display. Food, tobacco, and alcohol industries hold a tight grip on governments and slow down policies harmful to their profits as much as possible. NGOs with their focus on specific issues were afraid that their ‘cause’ might lose out or was not adequately represented (for example, mental illness). And unlike the case of HIV/AIDs a decade earlier, there was barely any public interest, let alone street demonstrations by victims of the diseases and their supporters. Some observers argued that the NCD agenda is simply too broad and cannot be addressed effectively at the global level. As a case of complex collaborative governance, NCDs are a key issue not just because of their global burden of disease, but also because the emerging responses offer ample opportunities to research the failures and successes of strategies deployed to limit the harmful effects of NCDs. Students of global governance have variously studied the role of scientists, NGOs, industry, the public, intergovernmental organizations, and governments in addressing major challenges. In the case of NCDs, all of these groups play crucial roles, but even on the least controversial issues they have yet to produce effective collective action.

Admittedly there are several reasons to doubt that this exchange will contribute to the transformation or even moderation of the Israeli-Hamas antagonism.  Having yielded to this deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may feel compelled to demonstrate his toughness in facing Hamas.  Hamas leaders may claim that their fierce resistance has been triumphant and vindicates persisting in their hardline policies toward Israel, including the use of kidnapping in order to gain leverage during any future negotiations. Some of the released Palestinians may seek vengeance against the Israeli Jews and conduct violent attacks.  Some Israeli Jews who oppose the exchange and any easement of hostility toward Hamas may violently attack Palestinians. 

Nevertheless,  it is possible that the exchange can result in a moderation of the Hamas-Israeli hostility in several ways.  Severe grievances each held against the other have  been reduced; they were  a significant barrier to any improvement in relations.  The exchange demonstrated that negotiations between these two parties, which otherwise have not recognized each other, are possible for them. Hamas leaders may go on to enlarge upon their readiness to accept a two-state solution, if that is the will of the Palestinian people.  Israeli government leaders, recognizing the changing Middle East, may move to strike an agreement with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.  The visible joy at reunions on both sides may increase the recognition by people on each side of the humanity of those on the other side.   In addition, nonofficial groups from the two camps may believe that it is feasible to explore other possible small agreements. 

It is also significant that intermediaries helped broker the agreement, including Egyptian and German officials.  In addition, non-officials used private channels, as did  Ghazi Hamad, Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister and the Israeli Gershon Baskin, former co-director of the Israeli Palestine Center for Research and Information.  The agreement affirms the positive role that intermediaries can play in de-escalating the conflict and might revive failed past mediating efforts.   Other potential intermediaries can now feel encouraged to attempt mediations between Hamas and Fatah or between Hamas and Israel.  Finally, the exchange may ease the way for U.S. officials to conduct back-channel, indirect communications with Hamas or signal reduced opposition to a negotiated unity agreement between leaders of Hamas and of Fatah.  Such efforts can help produce an improved atmosphere and perhaps open up the opportunity for mutually acceptable steps toward improved relations between Palestinians in the occupied territories and Israeli Jews.  

In any complex and protracted conflict the agreements reached between adversaries will have consequences that affect the future trajectory of that conflict; some negative and some positive. What its consequences are depends on how particular people in each opposing camp and among possible intermediaries act.  The meaning and implications of the exchange will be shaped by how all the interested parties treat it.  Simply dismissing any possibility of peacemaking progress is likely to be self-fullfilling, while recognizing possible transformative potentialities can help advance constructive conflict management.

I’d like to thank Rabbi Evan Shore for inviting me to speak. When we set today as the date for the talk, I had no idea it was US constitution and citizenship day. How fitting to be discussing the Palestinian bid for statehood today.

I’d like to address three central questions:
1. Why has the Palestinian Authority (PA) embarked on this move—why now? What does it hope to gain?
2. Presuming the UN General Assembly votes in favor, and there is every indication that this will happen, what does it mean for Israel? And,
3. How does the notion of sovereign statehood inform our analysis of the pros and cons of the PA’s UN gambit?

To address this last question I am going to give you a snapshot of scholarship on the concept of sovereignty since it was first established and developed in the 17th century. I will suggest that when we look carefully at the notion of sovereignty and apply it to present conditions, the Palestinians have much to lose from being designated as a sovereign state; it is Israel which has much to gain.

The Palestinian UN Gambit

Some months ago when I wrote up the description for this talk, I noted that I would speak about the “PA’s decision to seek a declaration of statehood from the UN General Assembly”. Because that was the thinking at the time. That is—since the PA can’t get recognition from the Security Council, as the US will veto, it would approach the General Assembly, where there is no veto provision. And that remained the thinking for some time. But now we know that the PA will go first to the 15 member Security Council asking it to endorse the statehood bid. So, on September 23rd there is every expectation (unless the Israelis or US President Obama pull a rabbit out of the hat) that Abbas will submit his proposal to UN head Ban Ki-moon after addressing the General Assembly. Technically, the Security Council would appoint a committee to look at the proposal. So that could take some days, or weeks. If, at the last minute, Abbas does decide to go the General Assembly all indications are that the proposal will pass.

What will the PA gain from going to the Security Council? Not full admission. Only the Security Council can confer that status. But a move to the status of non-member observer state would be symbolically significant. The word state would be attached to Palestine at the UN—only the Vatican, Taiwan, and Kosovo have that status. And there are a host of privileges that would be open to the Palestinians. Palestine would have membership opportunities at key UN bodies, like the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court. Israel could face new legal challenges from these organizations.

Contrary to the popular press, embarking on this UN bid is not a novel, sudden shift in the PA’s strategy. For some years now, the PA has been moving away from the negotiation route toward a unilateral, internationalist strategy that bypasses Israel. Consider for example the recent attempts by Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria over the summer to breach the borders with Israel; the global BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaign; and the weekly protests at designated points at Israel’s security fence, with invitations to the foreign media to cover them. These are all elements of a general internationalist orientation—the goal is to put international pressure on Israel to make concessions. This is not the give and take of the peace process.

Now, if you are a regular reader of the blogs, and the op-ed pages, then you know that the general consensus is that the PA has embarked on this international strategy because of the intransigence of the Israeli government led by Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu; or the continued building of Jewish settlements; or the ineffectual response of the Obama administration. So it is posited as being the culmination of decades of frustration.

But what I want to suggest—and you don’t see this argument reflected much in the newspapers or the internet—is that the reason the PA has moved in this direction is that the Palestinian negotiating position has itself hardened to such a point that the peace process—this thing called Oslo and then post-Oslo that has limped along since 1993—is done, dead, kaput. [For a similar argument see Dov Waxman, “The Death of the Peace Process,” The National Interest, September 8, 2011 at http://nationalinterest.org%5D. Thus, the PA is pursuing UN statehood not to jumpstart the peace process, but because they have abandoned the bilateral negotiation track. Indeed, the UN gambit is wholly a unilateral move—the members of the UN are not being asked to do anything except give the new state of Palestine its blessing.

The Hardening of the Palestinian Negotiating Position

In the early 1990s, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel even if it meant postponing a resolution on Jerusalem—the negotiations advanced without Jerusalem. No Palestinian leader will take such a position today. Indeed, the Palestinian leadership and public (and much of the Muslim world) have come to accept the claim that Jerusalem (and perhaps all of Palestine too) is holy Muslim waqf land and as such no part of it can be renounced, despite the fact that this notion is not rooted in Islamic legal texts or in historical practice.

It is not only Hamas that has rejected Jewish ties to the Holy Land, but PA officials as well. Palestinian secular and religious leaders today publically reject Jewish historical and religious ties to the Temple Mount; by extension, many also reject Judaism’s connection to the land of Israel and the legitimacy of the Jewish return to their homeland. Such sentiments have also been expressed by the public. Indeed, in recent polling only 6% of Palestinians think that it very important to allow Jews to visit their holy sites in Jerusalem; nearly 35% would not grant Jews any access to Jerusalem’s holy sites at all.

[Of course, the fact that Jews have a permanent historical claim to the holy sites of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is also often neglected by Israelis. Most Israeli ‘peaceniks’ and moderates are secularists who view the occupation as a temporary security necessity. The topic of Jewish faith and heritage rarely comes up in these circles].

At the trilateral negotiations set up by Condoleeza Rice at the US State Department in July 2008, the PA insisted that the status of East Jerusalem should be identical to the rest of the Palestinian territory in the WB and GS. It should be considered—all of it—occupied territory. By contrast, in the 1990s Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were willing to entertain the idea that Israel would incorporate the large settlement blocs adjacent to the Green Line and they also conceded that as part of a final status agreement Israel would retain control over the Jewish quarter of the Old City and sovereignty over at least the exposed part of the Western Wall (the Wailing Wall) and the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Today these positions have little support.

And then there is the issue of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, something which the Palestinians say they will not do. The only problem is that they did exactly that in the Geneva document of 2003. In that document, the Palestinian negotiators recognized the Jewish people’s right to a state and also that the state of Israel is the Jewish people’s homeland. The preamble of the document explicitly states that Jews are not foreign implants, invaders or immigrants but that the Jewish nation was born in the Land of Israel and has the right to return there. All this is on top of recognizing the right of Israel to exist.

Now Abbas and other PA officials have claimed that they must reject the recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people in deference to the over one million Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. But in the Geneva agreement the Palestinians included a provision specifying that the state’s Jewish character does not allow it to infringe on the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. So, it is entirely possible to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and not, in doing so, endorse the discrimination of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. [For an excellent review of the negotiations which led to the signing of the Geneva agreement see Menachem Klein, A Possible Peace Between Israel and Palestine: an Insider’s Account of the Geneva Initiative, Columbia University Press, 2007].

The only thing that Abbas’ rejection of Israel as a Jewish state does is fuel the right-of-center Israeli argument that he is not sincere about the peace process. The rejection holds open the window to the Palestinian diaspora that a Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem today is only the first step toward a larger state tomorrow. That is, in refusing to recognize the right of the Jewish people to statehood, Abbas in fact is endorsing Hamas’ position and the stance of the Palestinian diaspora, namely that a Palestinian state on the territory of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem should not be viewed as an “end game”.

The Israeli Response to the Palestinian Bid for Statehood

If you follow the Israeli press, the prospect that the UN will recognize Palestine as a member state, even if the US and Israel oppose it, has generated no small amount of hysteria.

In recent polls conducted by Tel Aviv University (see its monthly Peace Index), 64% of the Jewish Israeli public believes that UN recognition will damage Israel’s interests. A larger majority—74% believes chances are high that following the recognition, the international community will exert substantial pressure on Israel, including economic sanctions, to force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

70% of Jewish Israelis and 62% of Arab Israelis think that, following a declaration of an independent Palestinian state, an intifada will erupt in the territories—and about 58% of the Jewish Israelis (50% of Israeli Palestinians) think the PA will encourage the violence.

At a minimum, most Israeli pundits are saying that the move will lead to heavy pressure on Israel if it does not begin a process of withdrawal, as would be warranted by a declaration and recognition of this kind.

What Does Israel Stand to Gain?

I’m going to suggest that if we apply the standard of sovereignty to the new state of Palestine, then at the present time, it is the Palestinians who have much to lose from the PA’s UN gambit. By contrast, Israel has much to gain.

To understand why, we have to go back to the late Middle Ages. At the end of the middle ages, the international system went through a dramatic transformation–the jurisdiction of feudal lords, emperors, kings, and popes started to give way to territorially defined authorities. The feudal order was gradually replaced by a system of sovereign states [for a fascinating study of this process see Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and its Competitors, Princeton University Press, 1994].

The concept of sovereignty fundamentally altered international relations by basing political authority on the principle of internal hierarchy and territorial exclusivity. An external demarcation by borders was key to the new concept. As developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, sovereign states were to be self-governing and thus free from outside interference, but they also had the responsibility to secure the safety of their citizens. Sovereignty thus conferred rights but also obligations and responsibilities. If the sovereign did not live up to its obligation to protect, it was understood that other states in the international community could intervene. Thus as Australian political scientist Luke Glanville says, “in instances where the state is unable or unwilling to fulfill its sovereign responsibility to protect, the responsibility shifts to international society”. [For a comprehensive discussion see Luke Glanville, “The Antecedents of ‘Sovereignty as Responsibility,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2010): 233-255]

From the days of early modern Europe, the right of sovereign statehood has always entailed the right of non-intervention—freedom of interference in internal affairs—and the right of self-government. Yet, popular sovereignty, which emerged in ideas expressed in the American and French revolutions, also suggests the citizen’s right to life and liberty, free from tyranny and despotism. Here the idea was that no people should be forced under a sovereignty under which it does not wish to live.

Given this understanding of sovereignty, it is not clear that the PA can meet the standard. The PA is an unelected care-taker government—it does not speak for the Palestinians in Gaza, nor does it speak for the Palestinian diaspora. Some Palestinians outside of the West Bank see the UN gambit as a Fatah ploy to increase its power vis a vis other groups. In general, the Palestinian diaspora has never believed that the PA—a body set up to administer the Oslo agreements—speaks for them. This community continues to identify with the PLO, in which Fatah is a part but not the only legitimate voice.

In terms of the conception of sovereignty discussed above, another way of putting this is that for many Palestinians, the PA is a “tyranny and a despotism”. After all, sovereignty is a legitimate claim to political authority. A sovereign government derives its powers from the consent of the people. Yet, the PA does not yet have that legitimate authority conferred on it by the millions of Palestinians who live outside of the West Bank and who are ostensibly, from the PA’s perspective, supposed to be included in the citizenry of this new state.

Furthermore, since the PA does not control Gaza and since it does not have a monopoly on the use of force within the territory to be demarcated as the state of Palestine, the new state will be sovereign-lite at best. This kind of quasi sovereign status is not in the best interests of the Palestinians. The most basic understanding of the sovereign is that he is autonomous—supreme over other rulers within the territory. This condition has not been met by the PA. It cannot make binding law for millions of Palestinians and it is presently not supreme over other rulers.

As seen in the recent terror attacks in southern Israel, militants from Gaza, who—by the way—used the sovereign territory of Egypt to launch their attack, can freely operate independently from the PA’s security forces.

A state within a state, which is what Gaza would really be, is not compatible with any notion of sovereignty. Writing in the 17th century in The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes noted that only a sovereign has the right to make war and peace—a right that cannot be shared by other rulers or authorities. At present, Palestine can hardly be called a sovereign state.

The Obligations and Responsibilities of Statehood

If admitted into the community of nation states, Palestine will have to live up to a ‘standard of civilization’ which was established within international law around the early 20th century. To be recognized as a fully sovereign member of the family of nations, the test of admission was to adhere to a set of responsibilities that were required of all members of international society—guaranteeing, for example, life and property of foreign nationals, and adhering to accepted diplomatic practices and principles of international law.

So, here too its unclear whether the PA at the present time can live up to this pretty high standard. It can’t make credible commitments because it does not speak for the Palestinians in the diaspora, and it does not speak for the Hamas or the myriad of other groups that claim to speak for the Palestinians. And it can’t protect foreigners. It can’t protect—on its own, without Israel’s help—Jews living within the territory of the new Palestine, and it can’t protect Israelis living across its borders.

The most fundamental right of the sovereign state is self-defense, codified in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Self-defense allows a state to protect itself against armed attack by another. By contrast, customary international law views violence directed by non-state actors against the state and its citizens or their property as falling within the purview of criminal law. Technically, terrorist attacks are criminal acts and not armed attacks.

Consider, for example, the advisory opinion by the ICJ on Israel’s security wall. In that July 2004 opinion the ICJ ruled that Israel had failed to establish that terrorist attacks against its citizens were being directed by a foreign state—hence Article 51 did not apply. In other words, the ICJ argued that the law of self-defense requires an armed attack by a state as a condition precedent to its application.

As the government of a sovereign state, it will be the responsibility of the PA to protect both Palestinians within the territory demarcated as the state of Palestine, as well as the Jewish population that resides in this territory. At present, Israel has that obligation. If Palestine is designated a state, the obligation will fall to the PA. Of course, Abbas says that, after recognition, nothing will change in terms of the security arrangements that the PA has with Israel. He says he will continue to invite the Israelis to collaborate with PA forces to provide security for Palestinians. Other Palestinian officials and supporters have also endorsed this position [see for example the interview with Hussein Ibish, senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine in The Guardian, September 15, 2011]. Thus, “all-important security cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli security forces that has restored law and order, curbed terrorism, provided the basis for investment and economic development” would be maintained. Sounds good; cooperation is never a bad thing. The only problem is that it is a gross misunderstanding of the notion of sovereign statehood.

Presently, as an occupying power it is Israel that has the obligation to protect Palestinians. This duty has stymied Israel’s counter-terror efforts, and has brought the brunt of international condemnation on Israel for civilian casualties during counterterror operations. That changes once Palestine is a state. At that point, nothing in international law obligates Israel to assist the PA in the protection of the Palestinian population.

What is more, it will be the PA’s responsibility to protect the Jewish population from terror attacks, and if it can’t, Israel will have the legal authority to intervene on their behalf. The Palestinians want recognition of the state of Palestine in the entirety of the West Bank, Gaza and Eastern Jerusalem. In total, some 600,000 Jews reside on this land. Going all the way back to Hugo Grotius we have the notion that intervention by one sovereign on behalf of the persecuted subjects of another is lawful. The upshot is clear—if the PA can’t protect the Jewish residents of Palestine, Israel will have every legal right—under international law—to do it for them.

Israel has long faced condemnation for failing to live up to the standards set by international humanitarian law. It has been faulted for using disproportionate force, for using force when non-violent measures were available, and for not distinguishing between civilian and non-civilian targets.

Palestinian groups have sometimes faced such criticism, but for the most part they have received a pass. Some argue that this is an indicator of rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish bias. But I think there is another reason that is much less sinister.

Israel faces more condemnation than the Palestinians do precisely because Israel is a state and Palestine is not. After all international humanitarian law—the whole corpus of law that exists to govern both jus in bello, the norms for the conduct of military operations during armed conflict, or justice in war, and jus ad bello, just war initiation—was written by states and meant to apply to inter-state relations.

These laws do not transfer very well to non-state actors. So we are currently faced with a situation where we have new ways of fighting—asymmetric conflicts between states and non-state actors—but we only have old laws to use. As Michael Schmitt, professor of law at the US Naval War college puts it, “Although Israel has engaged in practices that are certainly objectionable, and which its own supreme court has condemned, its opponents have adopted a strategy of fighting asymmetrically by attacking civilians. Yet much world opinion nevertheless continues to view Israel as the bully while only half-heartedly condemning glaring jus in bello violations by its enemies…their tactics self-evidently violate international humanitarian law, yet most condemnation focuses on the state of Israel”.

It hasn’t been a fair fight because one side has elected not to be fully bound by international humanitarian law. The trouble is that international law has no real practical advice for a state facing terror attacks other than to grin and bear it.

But with Palestine as a fully recognized state, it will be legally challenged to uphold the host of humanitarian protections for individuals that underpin jus in bello. I think, for example, that if Palestine is a recognized as a state then Israel will have a much stronger case to make regarding the unlawful detention of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit; not to mention the launching of thousands of rockets from Gaza at communities in southern Israel—all unequivocal violations of international humanitarian law.

Finally, what provisions does the new state of Palestine have in terms of the protection of minorities? How will the Christian Palestinian minority be protected? And what about other vulnerable minorities—such as gays and lesbians, children, the disabled?

No constitution has been written; there is no Bill of Rights—will Palestine be a secular liberal democracy? A Muslim democracy (modeled after the Israeli Jewish democracy)? Or some other hybrid? What will be the role of religion in public life—what guarantees will be put in place to protect minorities?

While people have the right to govern themselves free from outside interference, this is conditional on their protection of human rights. When a state, and sovereign people, is unable or unwilling to protect members of their own population, they yield their sovereign right to non-intervention and the responsibility passes to international society.

At present, the PA has few responsibilities either to its own population or to the international community, or to the populations of neighboring sovereign states.

All that changes if the UN gambit proves successful.

Be Careful What You Wish For

PA President Mahmoud Abbas insists that Palestine already is a state—he says its meets all the criteria: a permanent population (Palestinians); a specific territory (the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem); and a government (the PA). I have argued today that even though Palestine does not meet these criteria for statehood, Israel should be supporting it. The Palestinians have everything to lose from gaining statehood without the wherewithal to truly establish a sovereign state of Palestine. And ironically Israel has everything to gain from the establishment of a Palestinian state that will be subject to not only rights but newfound obligations.

I was asked in a recent interview what plan the Palestinians have for the day after the UN vote? To the best of my understanding, there is no plan. Maybe there will be mass demonstrations, and Israel is gearing up for that. Unfortunately, as I have tried to convey here, although there are great hopes and wishes, not much regarding the UN gambit has been carefully thought through. But if the UN vote unleashes a new wave of violence, both Israelis and Palestinians will bear the costs of this wishful thinking.

With President Barack Obama set to deliver his second major speech on the Middle East today, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled to deliver his own speech to a joint session of Congress next week, the Palestinian National Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent call to the international community to recognize the State of Palestine (“The Long Overdue Palestinian State”, The New York Times, May 17) was timed well. By preempting Obama and Netanyahu, Abbas has compelled both statesmen to address the urgency of Palestinian national aspirations. With Abbas’ formal call for UN recognition, the Palestinians have stated in no uncertain terms that they will no longer wait for this status to be bestowed at some future time at the conclusion of final status negotiations with Israel—recognition of statehood will come this September, whether Israel or the US likes it or not.

Abbas’ decision to reach out to the international community for support of Palestinian statehood is part of a larger strategy aimed at internationalizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is consistent with recent efforts by the Palestinian Authority and other grassroots groups in the West Bank to pursue nonviolent methods of protest and it links the Palestinian demand for freedom with similar demands being voiced throughout the Arab world. Most Israelis, even those on the Left, are skeptical of this new strategy and insist that the Palestinians have no recourse but to return to the negotiation table with Israel. But Israel should not be too quick to reject Mr. Abbas’ bid for UN recognition. In fact, come September, Israel should be the first in line at the UN to vote in support of Palestinian statehood.

Mahmoud Abbas’ Arguments for Palestinian Statehood

Abbas begins his essay with the by now well-known claims that the Palestinian right to self-determination has been denied because: (a) since 1947 Zionists have been bent on expelling Palestinians from as much of the land as possible; and (b) Israel refuses to negotiate in good faith by continuing to populate Palestinian lands with Jewish settlers. Both arguments have some merit, but each can be challenged.

First, it is true that before the Arab armies invaded Israel in May 1948, Zionist fighting units initiated a plan to effect partition and pave the way for a successful declaration of Jewish statehood (known as Plan Dalet, or Plan D). But Abbas elides the fact that from November 29, 1947—when the UN General Assembly voted to endorse the partition plan—Jewish and Arab irregular forces in Palestine were already mired in a civil war characterized by mutual atrocities (e.g., the massacre at the Arab village of Deir Yassin and the attack on a Jewish medical convoy in Jerusalem). The picture Mr. Abbas paints is one of an unarmed civilian population at the mercy of a Zionist army. In reality, even before “the Arab armies intervened,” the 5000 strong Arab Liberation Army, commanded by the Syrian officer Fauzi al-Kaukji, was fighting against Zionist forces in the north of the country, while in the Jerusalem area there were an additional 2000 armed Arab Palestinian fighters operating under the command of officers loyal to the Mufti.    

Second, it is true that Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are an obstacle to peace. But Mr. Abbas ignores the fact that West Bank settlements have been removed in the course of negotiations—after all, in 1997 even the hawkish Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron. Arafat’s celebratory welcome to that city in January of that year marked Palestinian Authority control in all the major population centers of the West Bank (even if the areas controlled by the PA did resemble something like a ‘Swiss cheese’ patchwork). To be sure, Israel’s overtures at Camp David in the summer of 2000 did not come far enough to secure the Palestinian “right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of the [Palestinian] historical homeland”—but at the negotiations at Taba in January 2001 they actually did (at the close of that round of negotiations, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations were quibbling over a mere 3% of territory). 

Abbas is on a more sure footing when he suggests at the end of his essay that Palestinian statehood should be conferred by the international community because the Palestinian people have met the criteria for “membership in the community of nations”. In the last several years, the Palestinian Authority’s efforts at state-making have been remarkably successful. In particular, after the lawlessness of the second intifada years, the major towns of the West Bank are now violence-free, due in large part to the exemplary efforts of a top-notch 5000+ police force trained in Jordan by US General Dayton. What is more: the economic rejuvenation of the West Bank is also palpable–its annual economic growth rate today is over 7%. In 2009 alone there was a 94% surge in tourism to Bethlehem generating 6000 new jobs for that city; a 24% increase in the average daily wage; an 82% rise in trade with Israel; a 200% increase in agricultural exports, and an 82% rise in trade with Israel. The list goes on. In cities once heavily impacted by violence, there are now state of the art shopping malls, movie theaters, and restaurants.  Abbas has every right to be self-congratulatory about the West Bank’s turn-around, and his sure hand has eliminated a great deal of the corruption that characterized the PA under Arafat. Yet, while Abbas does not acknowledge so in his essay, it is also the case that the Palestinian state-in-the making has been facilitated with Israel’s blessing. Indeed, for some years Israel’s strategy has been to compel Gazans to reject Hamas by demonstrating the benefits of cooperating with Israel. The upshot has been a lessening of the occupation in the West Bank, including the removal of dozens of checkpoints and roadblocks, the enabling of new commercial transactions between Israeli Palestinians and Palestinians in the West Bank; and the support for the deployment of Palestinian security forces. 

Despite these positive developments, however, and despite Abbas’ claim to the contrary, the Palestinian Authority has not yet met “all the prerequisites of statehood”. One glaring feature yet to be secured is a monopoly on the use of force, which is a hallmark of sovereignty.  Mr. Abbas has not yet fully disarmed Hamas, nor has he succeeded in nationalizing the militias of the myriad other Palestinian groups that have sworn themselves to Israel’s destruction and have not renounced violence. Hamas’ inclusion into the political process in a unity government with Fatah may have a moderating impact on its strategies and ideology—already most of the Hamas leadership no longer speaks with the same radical message of the organization’s founding Charter and some have openly supported the two-state solution. Yet, without the incorporation of Hamas’ military wing into a nationalized Palestinian armed force, participation in a democratic process is unlikely to have a taming effect. Hamas may morph from a social movement that has endorsed terrorism into a responsible political party that eschews violence, but as long as it has a militia to fall back on, what guarantee do we have that it will support the State of Palestine’s intention to be, in Abbas’ words, a “peace loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations Charter”?  

Palestinian Statehood and Israeli Security: a New Legal Footing for a Counter-terrrorism Strategy    

In his masterful book Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (Oxford, 2002), Marc Gopin correctly notes that what the Palestinians demand of Israel is dignity while what so many Israelis crave and need is a long-term feeling of safety—of a safe haven. As he so eloquently puts it (p. 148): “Both sides cognitively and emotionally seems to misunderstand the others’ needs and are bitter about the deprivation of their own needs…The Arabs’ overriding concern with home concerns what they have missed most, the dignity of home and the actual ownership of ancestral lands, while the Jewish side craves what they have most missed, multigenerational safety from murder.” Gopin’s insight explains why so many Israelis find Mr. Abbas’ calls for Palestinian statehood off-key. Instead of trying to show Israelis how a Palestinian state will offer them safety, he grounds the Palestinian bid for statehood in an adversarial narrative.

Mr. Abbas might have written a different essay for The New York Times, one that said something along these lines: if the General Assembly vote passes, then with the very next terrorist attack, Israel will finally have the legal right to self-defense as stated in the UN Charter’s Article 51. Until Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state, Israel’s counterterrorism policies are unlawful because, as an occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under international law to protect Palestinian civilians living in the occupied territories. As a full member of the United Nations however, the obligation to protect Palestinians will fall to the Palestinian government, which will also be required to police Palestine’s borders to prevent armed attacks on any other UN member states.

 With that statement, Bosnia’s High Representative Valentin Inzko declares the newly-proposed independence referendum by the Serb Republic an act of aggression, of provocation. His proclamation carries with it the full power of a disinterested and over-extended international community, the last flails of a dying institution no longer respected by any party under its authority, praying that the Serbs will not call its bluff.

 Calling the 1995 Dayton Accords a “Peace Agreement” is a fallacy and a travesty. Dayton was built to fail, a hasty bandage applied to a situation that had nearly bled out. That it has taken 15 years to show these emerging signs of collapse is nothing short of miraculous. That the High Representative is only now seeing how shaky the foundation upon which his institution was built is testament only to his self-delusion.

 Few Bosnian citizens trust the institution of the Bosnian state. The Serbs feel, often rightly, that the legal system is biased against them. The Croats feel, with powerful evidence to back their claim, that they are second-class, marginalized citizens within the Bosnian Federation. The Bosniaks themselves have little desire to share governance with the same Croat-Serb partnership responsible for the atrocities of the 90s. This was all obvious when I served as an election monitor in Brcko, the dividing line between Republika Srpska and the Bosnian Federation, in October of this past year. Almost 30,000 ethnic-non-Bosniaks were turned away from the polls, and the international observers were not permitted to monitor the vote count in its entirety. But Representative Inzko and his international cohorts applauded the election as free and fair, ignoring and denying the obvious breaches of democracy innate in the Dayton Accords and the laws that have emerged since.

 We as observers were supposedly strengthening the democratic process, laying the groundwork for a free future for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But what good is an election if it only upholds the illusion of democracy? The civil war that could have precipitated from that election would have been at least partially on the “humanitarians” coming in for the festivities of the election. We strengthened the facade of freedom and gave continued legitimacy to the corrupt institutions of the Bosnian state and Dayton, allowing Mr. Inzko to feel entitled to his near-dictatorial position. His feeling of entitlement is obvious through his emphasis that the referendum’s most dangerous feature is that it will “put into question all laws — I repeat — all laws enacted by the respective high representatives, claiming they are in violation of the peace agreement”. But how could a people who claim to be in any way free not reject the authorities of an externally-appointed foreign High Representative?

 The Dayton Accords—the western-imposed treaty that ended the Bosnian war in an uneasy and unfair draw and left the country an ungovernable mess for fifteen years—are the crowning achievement of international bureaucracy. It’s such a Byzantine maze of backroom deals and bureaucracy that a friend of mine teaching International Law told his class “if you understand Dayton, leave now because you already know too much.” The legacy of Dayton and the High Representative is not peace but rather a long-term tentative stalemate, constantly on the verge of civil war and ethnic conflict. The political lines drawn by Dayton have left the nation (if you can call it that) divided on ethnic and religious lines and entirely reliant on foreign rule and foreign aid. Unlike most ethnically divided regions who make such choices themselves, Dayton has mandated ethnic division, with Bosniaks voting for the Bosnian representative, Serbs for the Serb, and Croats for the Croat, guaranteeing continued division.

Before the war, the region was prosperous both agriculturally and industrially. Certainly, conflict has much to do with their fall from grace, but the division of Dayton has left a fragile, stagnating economy only supplemented by a bustling black market and with no hope of restoration or local redevelopment. The only aspect of the Bosnian economy that is thriving is the multi-billion-dollar district of high-priced hotels and restaurants in Sarajevo serving the UN, EU, NATO and OSCE “humanitarians,” with all the public rebuilding that comes with such war tourism.

 Yes, significant blame falls on the sectarian politicians profiting from the division and strife. But Bosnia’s systemic corruption relies on the Dayton framework, and responsibility can easily be shirked with blame placed on foreign occupiers, such as an all-powerful High Representative, an indefinite position created by Dayton. As the cracks show more and more visibly in the framework upon which the union of Bosnia-Herzegovina was built, the international community must come to terms with the reality that Dayton was built to fail.

 There are dangers in dissolution and disengagement. Most children in both Republika Srpska and the Bosnian Federation know from a young age how to clean, assemble and fire a rifle, and most families have at least one in the house. Paramilitary civil war is not out of the question, but it never has been, even under Dayton. But the militaries of both entities are declawed, leaving neutered states, incapable of the kind of violence witnessed in the 90s (of which no side is innocent). Dissolution is decried as a guaranteed path to war, but it is more likely that the violent nationalist rhetoric that plagues this failed union can only be mitigated by disengagement. As the dysfunctional, paralyzed non-state created at Dayton, there is only poverty, strife and ethnic tension. There is no future for a united Bosnia.

 Zachary Gallant is a Fulbright Scholar in Postwar Redevelopment in the former Yugoslavia and author of the e-book Voices of a Revolution.

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Zachary Gallant
Fulbright Scholar in Urban Redevelopment

As American policymakers express their anger and astonishment that Osama bin Laden was able to reside in a mansion so closely to the Pakistanis capital, it would be useful for them to pause and realize how counterproductive this approach is, especially when successive US administrations emphasis Pakistan’s importance to US national interests. In many ways, Pakistanis often claim that the monster of Islamic terrorism is a product of US involvement in South Asia and they point to the role of people such as Charlie Wilson praising such men as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-I Islami. Put simply, you cannot call an ally work with an ally for years and then begin calling them incompetent, untrustworthy, unreliable and deceitful, and expect them to trust you and work closely with you.

US-Pakistani relations were forged when the US could not form an alliance with India following Partition, as India opted to take a path that at times put them on a collision course with Washington, as Delhi pursued its own agenda. Thus, when the US “lost” India it turned to Pakistan signing the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement in 1954 and a number of other regional treaties that sought to bring the two countries closer together. From the Pakistani side, its desire for US support stemmed from Ayub Khan’s, (Pakistan’s president between 1958-1969) belief that the United States would and could aid Pakistan’s quest to industrialize and catch up with its archenemy, India. Washington for its part saw in Pakistan an important strategic ally not only against the Soviet Union but Communist China, with who the Americans had no diplomatic relations until the early 1970s. However, Pakistan quickly realized that it was the inferior partner in the alliance and its policymakers realized that overreliance on the US was an existential mistake, as Washington repeatedly abandoned Pakistan in its hour of need. Washington’s position was that it did not want to become entangled in conflicts on the Indian Subcontinent. This meant that whenever Pakistan and India went to war, Islamabad could never rely on US support. Consequently, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sought an alliance with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), which has continued to this day and which many Pakistanis value above all else, as China has shown itself to be a real ally, in that it never publically criticize Pakistan, even when Chinese nationals are killed by Pakistani extremists.

With the end of the Cold War, and India’s decision to embrace market capitalism and move away from its brand of socialism, a succession of US politicians and presidents courted Delhi, often at the expense of Pakistan. From an American perspective, this made tremendous sense as India was bigger and more powerful than Pakistan, not to mention a democracy. For Pakistanis what this showed was Washington’s real intention was to have an alliance with Delhi and once this was given, the US quickly forgot forty years of cooperation, friendship and commitment. Thus, in the 1990s as Pakistanis sought to deal with economic woes, the legacy of the Afghan Jihad (which Pakistanis maintain they fought on behalf of the US) and many other domestic issues, the US developed its alliance with India, leading the US to not only publicly criticize Pakistan but shun and humiliate it at times (Pakistanis still remember how many hours President Clinton spent in their country as opposed to the days he spent in India (in 2010 President Obama went to India and not Pakistan)).

When 9/11 occurred, US-Pakistani relations were transformed once again, with Pakistan becoming America’s closest and most valuable ally. US policymakers ignored Musharraf’s bloodless coup, the exiling of Pakistan’s most prominent politicians – Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto – and actively courted Pakistan, bestowing on Musharraf the honor of being the first South Asian leader to stay at Camp David. The hypocrisy continued, with Washington turning a blind eye, as Army Chief Pervez Musharraf circumvented democracy, allied himself with Islamic political parties and permitted gross human rights abuses to occur. Washington accepted these actions due to its fixation with the ‘war on terror,’ that called for the division of the world between those that support the US and those that stand with the terrorists. In 2007-2008, as Pakistan experienced its own ‘Arab Spring’, the US ended its support for Musharraf, who had been described as “a courageous leader and a friend of the United States” in favor of Asif Ali Zardari, a tainted politician with no real support in Pakistan. Unfortunately, for US-Pakistani relations, the Obama Administration has been as inconsistent as the Bush one, with President Obama continuing to court India, which worries Pakistan to no-end. When President Obama makes statements supporting Indian permanent membership in the Security Council, the temperature in Islamabad rises, as it has such tremendous implications for Pakistan, whether it is in respect to Kashmir or other differences that the two countries have. Such actions, supported by agreements over nuclear technology between the US and India, while Pakistan is forced to endure the humiliation of seeing US aid micromanage under the Kerry-Lugar Act does not assuage Pakistani paranoia about India undermining US-Pakistani relations. If it is true that the four US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace without authorization or without even appearing on Pakistani radars, Pakistani paranoia will increase, with the question of what if India was to undertake such a mission if there is another Mumbai attack, i.e. if the US breached Pakistani sovereignty why not India? Put simply, Washington repeatedly fails to appreciate that its actions and words carry grave consequences, as people take them very seriously.

Pakistanis watching the unfolding bin Laden saga are undoubtedly credulous not so much at the fact that bin Laden was able to find sanctuary in Abbottabad but that Americans despite their drones, satellites and CIA operatives did not find the world number 1 terrorist earlier. US policymakers need to realize that Pakistanis remember insults and finger-pointing. Pakistanis feel aggrieved by the attitudes and words that are being directed at them in the post-Bin Laden period especially as they are continuously rocked by Islamic terrorism that has claimed thousands of Pakistani lives. US policymakers forget or ignore that Pakistan knows that once the dust settles, Washington will turn to it again and seek its aid and assistance because this is what Washington always do, especially as US national security is becoming more and more intertwined with the fortunes of Pakistan. Pakistani policymakers know that the United States would not countenance the prospects of a “failed” Pakistani state, because of Pakistan’s nuclear program and because AfPak means that if one country fails, the other would follow suit. Having two failed states in South Asia is something that the international community (led by the US) will not accept. The challenge US-Pakistani relations face is the uncontrolled rhetoric and the media circus that has seen a litany of US politicians berate Pakistan, its behavior and commitment to the ‘war on terror’, which in turn has only worked to further anger Pakistanis at what they perceive is American hubris.

 Isaac Kfir is a Schusterman Visiting Professor for 2009-2011 at the Syracuse University College of Law, and Maxwell School. He is a researcher at the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT).

 Implications for US-Pakistan Relations Following the Killing of Osama bin Laden (http://insct.org/commentary-analysis/2011/05/03/implications-for-us-pakistani-relations-following-the-assassination-of-osama-bin-laden/)

All this is not to suggest that Al Qaeda is washed up. Al Qaeda is not the ragtag group of fighters holed up in the mountains of Afghanistan that the US fought in 2001. Since then, and especially due to the mess the US made in Iraq, Al Qaeda has morphed into a powerful international brand with a global reach. Bin Laden’s charismatic leadership and his near legendary status had much to do with the organization’s continued appeal. But much of this also had to do with the fact that disparate groups with their own particular beefs against local governments could draw on Al Qaeda’s anti-US ideology without having to necessarily buy into its whole package. Most of the groups that borrow Al Qaeda’s name are, after all, not anti-state (they all want their own state!) nor are they particularly anti-Western if that is to mean, as Bin Laden expressed it, a separation from the globalized economy. And while many of the peoples in the Muslim world are deeply religious, being devout has not translated into a pan-Arab or pan-Muslim desire for a return to the caliphate or a rejection of Western values. If anything the “Arab Spring” shows just how much Western ideals of civic activism, rule of law and government accountability to citizens, and prosperity and globalization have permeated the Middle East and North Africa. Al Qaeda, and in fact religious fundamentalism in general, has played little role in the uprisings; it is not Bin Laden who inspires the masses but Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian Google executive who became a champion of non-violent protest and a mastermind behind a revolution.

Unlike the “Arab Spring”, which is a grassroots, bottom-up phenomenon, terrorism is small-group, not mass-based, social behavior. Terrorist organizations are almost always splintered off of larger and older social movements that come to be viewed as too complacent, and too “soft” on the enemy. To be sure, any organization that employs terrorism as a tactic needs a much larger base of support in society—larger segments of the society must believe in the organization’s ideology; condone its tactics; and provide logistical and technical assistance when necessary, including harboring fugitives (as elements within Pakistani society obviously did, enabling bin Laden to ‘hide in plain sight’ in a fancy neighborhood on the outskirts of Islamabad). It follows that terrorism ends when target states manage to drive a wedge between the organizations the employ terror tactics and the larger society that is their support system. The success stories are when visionary statesmen and women reach out to moderates within these societies offering legitimate concessions and an alternative, non-violent means for conflict resolution (e.g., democratic reform; peace processes; etc). All too often however, states respond to terrorism by adopting heavy-handed counter-terror measures (read: collective punishment) that wind up alienating the larger society; undermining the influence of the moderates; and improving the status of the terror organizations. Sadly, the US ‘war on terror’ has all too often served as a good example of this sort of dynamic.

As a result, despite claims to the contrary, the US and its allies have had little to do with Al Qaeda’s waning fortunes. In Iraq, the organization self-imploded by seriously over-stepping—heinous terror attacks, the targeting of revered religious sites, and the sowing of sectarian conflict, ultimately alienated the very people Al Qaeda needed to have on its side—disgruntled Sunni Iraqis who the US and its allies had failed to make into stakeholders of the new regime. It was Zarqawi’s over-the-top violence that finally convinced the Sunni to defect; the surge helped, but was not decisive. In other places, Al Qaeda’s focus on a post-Westphalian world system with only vague ruminations of how such a transformed world politics might look, coupled with its inability to provide a concrete practical plan for addressing the Arab world’s dire economic, demographic, and social problems has also made it irrelevant to most people’s lives.

I have no doubt that political scientists who study terrorism will dismiss Bin Laden’s death. This field of study has long held that, in explaining terrorism, “cause and comrades” matters more than do individual leaders. The field’s emphasis on the diffuse, networked characteristic of the organization further minimizes the role that Bin Laden—alive or dead—would play. Yet, many terror campaigns contradict this view. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, Hamas’ terror attacks during the 1990s and during the second intifada were often reprisal attacks coming on the heels of Israel’s targeted assassination of key leaders of the organization. Bin Laden’s killing is also likely to spark revenge acts of terrorism—it is with good reason that the US Department of Homeland Security has raised the threat level and is calling for increased citizen vigilance. If nothing else, groups who have affiliated themselves with Al Qadea’s brand will need to convince their supporters that they are still ‘on the map’ despite the death of the organization’s founder.

Political scientists who study terrorism’s causes typically assign motivation to rational choice and strategic calculation. Thus, terrorism occurs because democratic states occupy land that does not belong to them and terrorism is a cheap and effective means of dislodging them from this usurped territory (Robert Pape); or because its a useful way to outbid competitor political organizations in democratizing polities (Mia Bloom); or because political groups can convince their target that moderates are actually weak and unable to credibly commit (Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter). Such rational choice explanations for terrorist violence should not be dismissed—they go far in accounting for the motivations behind many terrorist campaigns. And yet, terrorism is also a deeply emotive response—it is abnormal behavior linked to a perceived abnormal situation. Demonization of the Other is a necessary condition for terrorism, and in the overwhelming majority of cases the perpetrators experienced the death, injury, or humiliation of a close family member (often a father figure) at the hands of the enemy, and often at a formative age. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, the rage, dashed expectations, and feelings of hopelessness that give way to such a passionate emotive action as the deliberate killing of unknown strangers—including women and children (and perhaps oneself as well)—will outlive Bin Laden—even as the organization that he founded may not.