Two State Solution
I find myself thinking heavily last Saturday,Sunday morning and this week about the current status of the Middle East with Israel,Palestinians,Arab League. I am assessing the current challenges that the Middle East is facing with a host of problems,issues that are causing a separation with the different factions. I want to sit down,write about something called the Two State Solution that you frequently hear about debated with many governments and the news media. This idea is always talked about with the combined Palestinian refugee camps that exist for about 30 years inside Israel. Their is a lot to the two state policy that most people don't know about unless you've actually are one of diplomats and negotiators sitting in these meetings working on these problems. Many people in governments all over this planet earth know that I am considered an expert on both diplomacy and negotiations on a intergovernmental level. Having said this let's start to explore this idea of a Two State Solution with the Palestinians and Israel. I am going to throw in the Arab League into the article mix here showing how,what components that they contribute in overall Middle East policy from a western democracy standpoint. When you look for solutions in the Middle East to solve problems that have,continue to exist it's not easy to find something that works. Why? First of all as a western leader and diplomat you get generally a gap between what you think is accepted as moderate and their definition as moderate are two very different things. You walk into a diplomatic or leaders meetings expected that you as a westerner going to be instantly accepted,your going to be very disappointed. The overall gap between you and them at the negotiations table is very appalling even to a seasoned diplomat or head of state. I'll get to the facts about the two state solution later in the article however right now I want to bring you a variety of facts that will lead you into a better understanding of both policy,agenda. When you negotiate an itemized agenda with all the different factions involved in the region you know as a seasoned leader that your never going to get all the items on the list accomplished. You know from experience that you have to be direct in pushing the agenda with a take or leave it attitude. Example 1. We'll give you this this part of Lebanon for a small settlement in exchange for you agree to work with Israel on economic cooperation. Example 2. You'll put down your weapons realizing that we can help you or we'll park a carrier battle group on your front door step. Example 3. We will pump money into your economy so that your people can gain everything from basic necessity to phone communications. We can help you become a build banks and we will even throw in a sweetener with credit from the IMF ( International Monetary Fund) which will boost your economy. Or we will pull the plug on that last trade deal that made your economy growth at 4.1% their by you'll have your economy go in the toilet. This is some types of leverage negotiations strategy that work with the difficult different factions in the Middle East. You have to be blunt with your proposals and projects when trying to get different countries to all agree on same agenda. It's always a challenge to deal with the Arab League because they bring to the table a radical different viewpoints of how to fix systematic problem. My three decades in government working with common solutions in the Middle East have given me a unique understanding that when your trying to get something accomplished you better do the first 5 or 10 items on the list. You know if you got a good proposal their likely to do the the first five or ten items,then start squabbling over the rest of the agenda list. When dealing with World Leaders as a rule of thumb their patients,time is very limited and their attention span about the same. If you don't bring something of concrete value to the table their most likely to scoff at it,walk out of the meeting having accomplished nothing. Leaders,diplomatic meetings usually have the same kind of problems with a combined agenda that is put forward by each side in the meeting. Having said this you get a feel for how difficult it is to get anything done in the Middle East region. I have sat in multitudes of meetings trying to hammer our an agreement on getting peace and security issues solutions. You walk into these meetings knowing that if you get a limited agreement on regional support and security you've accomplished a lot. It always a uphill road for western leaders and diplomats to broker any kind of deal with the Arab League,Palestinians and Israel. They all want their slice of the same pie,their willing to bicker,kill each other to get it. These obviously present a variety of difficult challenges to brokerage of a collective deal that won't turn into more civil war. I have often said peace is a reality that can be achieved in the Middle East to some degree but you'll have to bring all the factions to the table and that in of itself isn't easy. I have sat in meetings with Middle East leaders where you know the air of mutual animosity and hatred so thick you'd cut it with a knife. This is what you take with you knowledge that is a underlying base with the other points I have made about hammering out agreements. Now that I have shown you some of the problems you face trying to get leaders in the Middle East to agree to move forward with a common sense plan,with a well constructed proposal for economic,peace,security and other important agenda items of great regional importance. Let's explore now the ideas of the Two State Solution in the Middle East and how it works,who benefits from it. The ideas of the two states isn't really a new idea in the Middle East with the fact that Jimmy Carter really is one of the creators of this plan to solve the three ways problem that exist between Israel and Palestinians with the Arab League involved. It's very complex plan with certain components that one must understand how it all works. The idea of Israel and the Palestinians become two separate countries where part of Israel would be a Palestinian authority. You add in the West Bank includes Hebron all the way to the Sinai peninsula, basically giving the Palestinians a vast amount of land for which to call home. Many western leaders have tried unsuccessfully to float this large land exchange program to try to stop the ongoing blood shed within the region. All three sides have fought it out very bloody civil war flash points over the two state idea. In the Middle East you have to clearly understand the ignition triggers that continues regional fighting over the same things for decades. You have to come to a understanding that you as a western leader can only do so much to improve the situation but you have to get some kind of built up mutual cooperation with even some of the factions in order to get something done. This two state solution is so far a mixed bag as far as it has gone in the Middle East with Israel and the Palestinians agreement to allow settlement homes in the West Bank. The other part of the agreement hammered out is to allow the palestinians to setup a limited state authority. This combined agreement has achieved some security,peace between the two sides with an integrated part allowing both to coexist in the same region. Many other ideas have been tried by western leaders with either dismal results or triggered violent street fighting or civil war. I remember my former boss President Bush Jr throw up his hands in anger and disappointed at the Middle East situation on the ground. I am going to throw in some of the Iraq war Operation Desert Storm so you can see another aspect of the complexity of dealing with the Middle East. I will take you back to the time when Saddam Hussein was fighting us tooth and nail with the Republican Guard. You see I was in the White House right with the President when we had to make a lot of important decisions that ultimately would effect the outcome of the ground offensive we were doing to kick the dictator Saddam out of office and Iraq. We needed supply lines to support the ground offensive against the Republican Guard to keep our soldiers,sailors and marines from being cut off from needed supplies,equipment. I remember telling George we got to get our coalition partners to provide us air coverage meanwhile we do a three prong approach to support them. "George if we don't get Turkey and Saudi Arabia to join us with Israel providing military support to cover our backside this thing could bite us in the butt." Saddam is no idiot but he's no match for the creative minds sitting here in this cabinet meeting and certainly no match for the Pentagon Brass who are experts at these problems. George Bush Jr and Dick Cheney agreed with my analysis but General Colin Powell liked the ideas but was sceptical we could get Turkey,Saudis to work together with NATO to finish the job on Saddam. Ultimately we decided to use my plan with adding enforced no fly zones over Iraq to cripple Saddam air power which it did do. We flew our planes and Saddam was shot out of the sky including his air fields were regular bombed. So,we finally got NATO to work together with Turkey and the Saudis provided us limited amount of airfields to fly our planes out of during the hight of the Gulf War. To negotiate these terms with Turkey,Saudi Arabia and eventually Israel was not easy because the Saudis and Turkey wanted assurances that Israel wasn't going to use the agreement as a excuse to invade them when they were not watching. In the end we negotiated a good agreement where all parties worked with NATO to finish Saddam off and liberate Iraq. When Iraq was finally liberated the entire population of Iraqi people sang and danced in the streets shouting we love America, Thank You Americans. This is how the Middle East is dealing with problems.