If I was in charge...

Peace is a fleeting dream; negotiations broke down and fell apart years ago. There is no dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority anymore--unless you count the PA complaining about Israeli settlement expansion, and Israel trading shots with Hamas as "dialogue." The peace process is not processing.

How can we ever achieve peace and justice if there aren't negotiations? The Israelis could annex the West Bank; the Palestinians could "unilaterally" declare statehood (this is splendidly ironic... as if declarations of statehood or independence are ever "multilateral"). Neither scenario would be a solution, but neither requires one side to talk to the other, so these outcomes are more likely right now than any outcome predicated on resuming negotiations between the two sides.

But if I'm so smart, what would I do or suggest to get the ball rolling again, in a direction that not only would lead somewhere, but would be productive for both sides, and self-sustaining (that is, the negotiations wouldn't fall apart without pressure/support from other countries or IGOs)?

I'm glad you asked, because I have a plan.

Step One
Settlement expansion has to stop, period. There is no Israeli argument for continuing settlement expansion that holds water. If there is a burning need to construct new housing for Israelis, there is plenty of room outside the West Bank. I know this for a fact, because I drove through a whole lot of nothing between Be'er Sheva and Ashkelon. Or, if agricultural land is too precious to build settlements on, south of Be'er Sheva there's even less than nothing. Build there. But the bottom line is that building and/or expanding settlements in the West Bank has no legitimate purpose--other than attempting to create more "facts on the ground" that will result in more territory for Israel and less for the Palestinians.

There are two types of residents who move to these new/expanding settlements: economic settlers, and religious settlers. Economic settlers move into these settlements because the Israeli government subsidizes rents, making the settlements cheaper than other housing options. Religious settlers move into these settlements because they want to prevent the land from leaving Israeli control. The first group won't stand in the way of a settlement freeze, because their subsidized housing can be built on Israeli soil, for all they care. The second group is against negotiating with the Palestinians regardless, so a settlement freeze won't affect their view of negotiations, either. In either case, a freeze won't change the political will of the Israeli public to resolve the conflict--or at least make progress in that direction.

Step Two
Past negotiations have broken down because neither side has faith in the political leadership of the other side (and, especially on the Palestinian side, for good reason). Mahmoud Abbas is a caretaker with very little public support, and the Israelis know how little power he actually wields; the Netanyahu government is seen as the worst thing to happen to Palestinians since Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister--and Sharon was the worst thing to happen to Palestinians since 1967.

Because neither side has faith in the other's leadership, negotiations need to take place outside the leadership circles. Negotiators outside the loop of politics-as-usual need to be appointed. This has been done before: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators outside the circles of power have met over the years, and had very fruitful discussions. However, these discussions have amounted to nothing, because the negotiators were... well, outside the circles of power. The negotiations were words on paper, and nothing more. I suggest that negotiators be given the power--by their respective governments and constituencies--to implement the results of their negotiations. Obviously, there are a lot of political hurdles to clear with this idea, and it would be all-but impossible to implement this for "big" issues like the final status of Jerusalem, the right of return, borders, etc. So that brings us to...

Step Three
"Confidence building" was a process in the early 1990s whereby each side negotiated on little things, to show the other side that they were negotiating in good faith and could actually carry out the agreed-upon results. AS things started to fall apart in the mid- to late-1990s, "confidence building" went out the window, because those "big" issues needed to be resolved, and each side wanted to make a "big strike" to show their own people that they were making real progress, rather than simply building confidence with the other side.

However, in the 21st century neither side has confidence in the other. At all. So we need to return to confidence building. But at the same time, big issues need to be resolved, because things have deteriorated so badly that change needs to happen now. So let's tackle a big issue, but one that's been off the table from the beginning, because it seemed to be trivial compared to the rest of the big issues: water.

Most of the water used in Israel/Palestine comes from an aquifer that lies almost entirely under the West Bank. Israelis use, on average more than four times the amount of water that Palestinians do--and this doesn't count water used in agriculture and industry. Long story short: the water resources are predominantly under Palestinian land, and Israel consumes this water at a pace far greater than the Palestinians. This is unsustainable--not only for the aquifer, but also for the Palestinians. West Bank wells are increasing running dry, or being infiltrated by salt water due to fresh water being pulled out by the Israelis.

So this is a very important issue, but one that is not in the forefront of political leaders'--or the public's--minds. In other words, no one is fighting-mad about water. But it's probably a more important issue than the right of return, or other intractable issues. Thus, it's the perfect issue to start with--solving a big problem through confidence-building measures.

And it's a problem that the US can help solve. Israel has desalinization plants; these plants are very expensive, and they use a great deal of energy. Israel has ample renewable resources, however--coastal wind and plenty of solar capacity. The US could easily provide a grant to Israel for the purchase of solar panels and construction of offshore wind farms, using parts and technology purchased from US firms. This is a two-birds-with-one-stone idea--give the US renewable energy industry a lift, while solving a couple problems for Israel.

Providing a viable alternative source of water for Israel would allow room for compromise--dare I say, even justice--with the Palestinians. Once the two sides saw that there could be a solution to an issue that wasn't zero-sum--that is, one side wins and the other side loses--they could think creatively about other areas of dispute.

Step Four
In South Africa after the Apartheid regime was dismantled, there was still a great deal of anger--and rightly so. But rather than pursue long, potentially fruitless criminal trials to bring to justice the worst offenders from the Apartheid era, South Africa tried something else. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee was a way for the stories of abuse and injustice to come into the open; victims had a forum to air their grievances and tell their stories, and the abusers could admit their roles without fear of prosecution or retribution. It wasn't a perfect idea, nor was it perfect in its implementation. But the TRC allowed South Africans to acknowledge the injustice of the past, to air those grievances, and to accept responsibility... in an open forum, and--perhaps most importantly--rather quickly. Criminal trials take a long time, and if the prosecution isn't successful, there is no sense of closure for the victims. The TRC, because it wasn't prosecuting anyone, moved quickly enough to keep the country's wounds from festering--and there was no "failure" to convict criminals, because no one was being tried.

Something similar should be put on the table in Israel/Palestine. First, an open, televised forum needs to be implemented, so that individual Palestinians and Israelis can share their stories. There's too much they-ing, as in "They took my land," or "They're violent," etc. Individual Israelis and Palestinians are not tiny subdivisions of government policy and position; each has a unique story, family history, and encounter with the past. The Israeli public certainly needs to be exposed to the histories of dispossession Palestinians carry with them; Palestinians could benefit from hearing the histories of persecution that drove Israelis to the region. In other words, the monolithic identities of "Israeli" and "Palestinian" need to be deconstructed, so that each side can see the other as individuals and human beings, rather than as cogs in the faceless oppositional nationality.

Step Five
Tear down the wall. Israelis feel more secure because of it, while Palestinians feel caged in. Yes, taking it down would run the risk that radicals would start bombing buses again. But negotiations are a risk in and of themselves, and, at some point, the wall is going to have to come down anyway--and even then, there will likely be radicals willing to kill to make their point. Taking down the wall is a good-faith gesture that is sorely needed, particularly when Palestinians see the wall as yet another appropriation of their land.

Step Six
Israel needs to talk to Hamas. Hamas was legitimately elected in free & fair elections. Yes, Hamas' charter still calls for the destruction of Israel. And yes, Israeli governments have made a big deal about "not negotiating with terrorists." But Israel negotiated with enemy states before (Egypt, anyone?), and so dealing with a group that is hostile to the Israeli state is nothing new. And Israel has, does, and will again "negotiate with terrorists." In fact, in the 1980s, even as Israel was branding Yasir Arafat as a radical terrorist, they were actually protecting him from harm.

The Israeli government needs to learn that they're playing chicken with Hamas, and by refusing to deal with them, giving Hamas more incentive not to blink.

No progress toward peace can happen in the West Bank without concomitant progress in Gaza; shutting Gaza out to punish Hamas will just prevent anything from getting done in the West Bank.


Now, I realize that most of these steps are moves/compromises the Israeli government must make, so that might seem like less of a "negotiation" and more "a set of demands." But the bottom line is that since the peace process derailed in 1995-96, Israel has moved farther and farther from the negotiating table, through words (e.g., "East Jerusalem is not a settlement!") and deeds (e.g., the wall, the blockade of Gaza, settlement expansion). Israel has the power, and thus it is Israel's obligation to take the first steps toward compromise and peace.