I’ve just completed my third week of classes in the Conflict Resolution Masters program at Tel Aviv University. Though there is so much more to learn, I want to cumulate everything I’ve learned so far, inside and outside of the classroom, to attempt to find the answer to the classic beauty pageant question, “How would you bring about world peace?” I will do a couple of these “checking in” points throughout my year in Israel, especially at the end, to see how my hypothesis has evolved. INNATE ISSUES There are many terms for what I’m studying: “conflict resolution,” “conflict management,” “peacekeeping,” “peacemaking,” etc. All of these connote procedures to mitigate harm after a dispute, suggesting that perhaps conflict is inevitable. Sure enough, there are exercises and studies that support this theory. In my negotiation class, the teacher split us into groups of four and told us we were going to play a game in which the goal was to attain the most points. All we were given were an x and a y card for each person on the team. The game was set up so that if all four of us played the same letter, we would all get the same amount of points, but if one person played the x card and everyone else played the y card, then the person who played the x card would get many more points than the other three. This came into play especially on the special rounds, 5, 7, and 10 (out of 10 rounds). Normally we were not allowed to speak to each other, but before each of the special rounds we could talk to each other about strategy. The most mutually beneficial strategy was for us all to play y. We talked about it and agreed we would all play y. But sure enough, in two of the three special rounds, one person in my group played the x, screwing the rest of us over. I felt angry because to me they broke a social contract. You said this, but then did that. You broke your word and now I can’t trust you. It was interesting to find that the ten other groups in the class had the same experience. (On the left, all of the team’s results (my group was VIII). On the right, the rules of the game.) There were a couple people who were proud of how they manipulated (their words, not mine) the others in their group to get the most points and win the game. I became more upset thinking, “because I feel very strongly about standing by my word, does this mean I will always get screwed over by more aggressive people?” And then the teacher revealed the real lesson of the game. If everyone had played y cards for the entire game, everyone would have gotten 25 points. Because some people played the x card, those people got 35 or more points while others, like me, got -10 points. Of course, this is just a game, but it is easily translatable to the real world. If people didn’t look at life as a zero-sum game, maybe we would all have more equal shares. Another value to the game was how it highlighted the consequences of negotiating with a zero-sum mindset. You can lose people’s trust, making them not want to work with you anymore. In political negotiations, perhaps you even gain an enemy, which can lead to war. From this game, we can see that the ideal is that everyone sees the value in negotiating fairly and getting equal shares. For instance, one could say that a solution to undocumented immigration into the US from Mexico, Central America, and South America is to ensure the citizens of these countries get basic human rights (e.g. livable wages, freedom from violence and corruption, etc.). By this logic, the more we help you out now, the better off we will all be in the future. However, the reality is that many people, and many people in positions of power, see politics as a zero-sum game, meaning if we give you something, then there will be less for us. This is the viewpoint of many political and international relations professionals. In "One World, Many Theories," Harvard International Affairs professor, Stephen Walt, defines realism as an emphasis on the self-interest and security of the state, which acts under the assumption that all states, given the opportunity, will seek to gain more power (also known as Power Politics). Because of this, all states should put more power and funding into their militaries. Walt believes that realism is the most indicative of politics today, especially in the US. The view that the natural inclination of groups is conflict can also be argued in terms of psychology. In the 1970's, social psychologist Henri Tajfel performed an experiment, now known as the Minimal Group Paradigm, that shows intergroup competition and discrimination can occur simply by placing people into defined groups, even if there is not a scarcity of resources. Furthermore, according to social psychologists Masi Noor and Dr. Nurit Shnabel's research on competitive victimhood, a rival mindset prevents feelings of empathy and generosity for other groups. In this globalized world, avoiding differences is practically impossible. Just by going on the internet, you can find myriad cultures, religions, ethnicities, and nationalities, each with their own viewpoint of how the world should operate. One fascinating group I've discovered through my History of the Middle East class is the Modernist Apologists. A product of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th Century, they believe that the only way to return the Arab world to a dominant political, scientific, and technological power is to mesh Islam with politics. In other words, Muslims should be able to enjoy all the modern advances and freedom of speech that the Western world enjoys, but only if and when it aligns with the strictest laws of the Quran. This contrasts with many democratic states that have found that the best method of running a state is to separate politics from religion. When there are two such divergent ideas, it is easy to see why it can be difficult to cohabitate. What I've covered so far paints a depressing picture of our world. Therefore, the second portion of this essay is dedicated to some possible solutions. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Gordon Allport is credited with developing Contact Hypothesis, which has inspired countless grassroots efforts in conflict resolution. The premise is that, in order to bridge two groups, members of each group must spend an extended amount of time together. The interaction has stipulations: members must have equal status (e.g. similar ages or positions in society), work towards a common goal, institutional support (e.g. societal approval), and willingness to cooperate. A couple weeks ago I went to a panel offered by a non-profit called Debate for Peace that exemplifies Conflict Hypothesis well. Debate for Peace brings Israeli-Jew and Palestinian high school students together through Model UN. They students come from schools all over Israeli and have multiple conferences a year (recently one in Belgium), in which they debate issues together. One key facet of this program is that they don't necessarily debate their side of the argument. For instance, one of the Palestinian students was telling me that once he was challenged to take the stance of a right-wing Zionist Jew on the land dispute. This is so essential for building peace because it encourages young adults to empathize with someone who has very different beliefs. (Two good friends on the Debate for Peace team, one Palestinian and one Israeli-Jewish.)
In addition to Debate for Peace, there is a plethora of other non-profits in Israel that are modeled after the Contact Hypothesis, including ones that use dance, football, and technology to bridge the gap between groups. I met Reverend Gary Mason the other day when he gave a lecture to our class. For those who do not know of him, he was a trendsetter for peacekeeping in Ireland during the Ireland/North Ireland conflict, both on the grassroots and the legislative levels. I asked him about Contact Hypothesis programs and he used the term, social peace process. To my understanding, "social peace process" contrasts with "political peace process" and refers to grassroots and religious peacebuilding efforts. Rev. Gary Mason suggested that in political peace processes, political leaders sign treaties and expect that to be the end of the conflict. I find the dichotomy between social peace process and political peace process fascinating. In political peace processes, international law is everything. For instance, there is a dispute between two states, the states sign a treaty agreeing that they will not kill each other, and there is supposedly peace. However, as one wise 18-year-old Palestinian woman in Debate for Peace told me, "peace is a process." The reality is that after the treaty is signed, trauma, scarce resources, segregation, discrimination, and revenge remains. Thus, the question becomes, how do we begin the social peace process? Contact Hypothesis is a big one. In addition, the closest meshing between political and social peace processes are found with the United Nations. According to Malcolm Shaw's book, International Law, recently the Security-General (of the UN) has recognized fact-finding missions to areas of tension in support of group-effort crisis-prevention action to be more beneficial than civilian police and related rule of law elements in peace operations. Additionally, the UN's General Assembly organ is responsible for many humanitarian aid organizations. A further social peace process resource is religious peacebuilding. Most religions have a peacemaking leader. If we use the Israel-Palestine conflict as a case study, we can look at Judaism and Islam. Both consider their religious leader - in Judaism, a rabbi and in Islam, an imam - as a peacemaker who acts alone in making peace, as well as a respected lay leader who acts as one member in a delegation of peacemakers. One key difference between religious mediation and secular mediation is the religious peacemaker has power and authority, whereas the secular peacemaker is usually an unbiased third party. On the one hand, the conflicting parties might trust and listen to the religious leader more than a stranger. On the other hand, though most religious leaders are deeply aware of themselves, it is a challenge for any human to be completely unbiased. Despite certain challenges, religious peacebuilding warrants further discussions. There are enough similarities between Jewish and Muslim religious leaders when it comes to mediation that that might be a strong bridge. What it really comes down to is, what works? We've all seen attempts to democratize Arab states fail. We've all seen peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians come to a heated stop. When I hear of these situations, I am reminded of a quote that Rev. Gary Mason recited: "It's easier to kill people when you have God to justify it." It seems like most of the world's conflicts are over religious differences. If religion is the problem, then maybe it's also the solution. During the Debate for Peace panel, one of the Palestinian students told a story about a flight he was on from Israel to Europe. He happened to be seated between two Rabbis. They were deep in conversation with each other when the student revealed that he is Palestinian. The Rabbi seated next to the window promptly asked to get up and never came back. The other Rabbi turned to the Palestinian student, said that didn't matter to him, and continued their conversation for the rest of the flight. This is a great example of how religion is not necessarily the problem in and of itself, but it's the people who have certain interpretations of religions that are the problem. I would argue that any person - deeply religious or not - who has a legacy of trauma, persecution, and displacement, which applies to both Israelis and Palestinians, is liable to have extremist views. Maybe conflict is inevitable; maybe it's preventable. However, it is undeniable that conflict is a huge part of our world right now, both between individuals and between groups. What I have learned so far in Israel is that the best path to world peace is to listen openly and speak honestly to those that differ from us. That is something that is so easy that each and every one of us can take part in. REFERENCES Maoz, I. "Does contact work in protracted asymmetrical conflict? Appraising 20 years of reconciliation-aimed encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians." Journal of Peace Research, Vol 48, Issue 1, First Published February 15, 2011, pp. 115 - 125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343310389506. Noor, M., Shnabel N., et al. "When Suffering Begets Suffering: The Psychology of Competitive Victimhood Between Adversarial Groups in Violent Conflicts." Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol 16, Issue 4, First Published March 29, 2012, pp. 351 - 374. Sage Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868312440048. Shavit, U. Scientific and Political Freedom in Islam. 1st ed., Routledge, 2017. Shaw, M. International Law. 6th ed., Cambridge University Press, 2008. Tajfel, H. "Social categorization and intergroup behavior." European journal of social psychology 1.2, 1971, pp. 149-177. Walt, Stephen M. “International Relations: One World, Many Theories.” Foreign Policy, no. 110, 1998, pp. 29–46. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1149275. |
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