Peace First: A New Model to End War (BK Currents) - Hardcover

Savir, Uri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576755967 ISBN 13: 9781576755969

Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Uri Savir has an ambitious, indispensable goal: to bring peacemaking into the 21st century. “Little in today’s world,” writes Savir, “is more progressive than modern warfare. Yet little is more archaic than peacemaking.” We remain trapped in a centuries-old mindset, with leaders bargaining warily for concessions and signing treaties that collapse because no one on the ground has any real stake in them.

Drawing on his experiences negotiating the Oslo Peace Accords as well as on trenchant examples from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Northern Ireland, and the former Yugoslavia, Savir argues that an enduring peace is built from the bottom up, not from the top down. He describes a new model based on establishing and nurturing mutually beneficial forms of cooperation beginning on the local level, city to city and organization to organization.

This process of “glocalization”—involving local actors in global issues—is the first step toward constructing a peace ecology: a comprehensive transnational culture dedicated to breaking down the psychological and social barriers between former enemies. These efforts are furthered through the establishment of joint ventures that give each side a tangible stake in maintaining peace. Diplomacy still has a role, but it must reject maneuvering for gain and instead emphasize the advantages both sides will gain with the cultivation of lasting peace.

Throughout Savir provides concrete examples of how these concepts have been put into practice. And he ends with a detailed vision of how this model could bring an enduring peace in one of the world’s most war-torn areas: the Mediterranean Basin. Peace First offers a pragmatic yet revolutionary new approach that promises to end our most intractable conflicts.

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Uri Savir, one of Israel’s most senior diplomats, was Israel’s chief negotiator during the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, between 1993 and 1996. In his role as director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, he also negotiated with Jordan, with Syria, and in the multinational peace tracks in the Middle East. Prior to this, Savir was Israel’s consul-general to New York and held various diplomatic positions in North America.

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Making Peace in a World at War

THIS BOOK IS THE RESULT OF MY PERSONAL AND NATIONAL distress.

From a personal perspective, I wrote this book while recovering from a severe stroke. It is believed that distress sharpens one’s thinking; this was certainly my experience. In writing this book I was reconnecting with life. For me, there is no stronger expression of life than yearning for peace.

In national terms, this book emerged from a place of disappointment regarding the implementation of the Oslo Accords. As chief negotiator for Israel, I was profoundly invested in the process. Yet, despite the agreement’s historical achievements, both Israelis and Palestinians are still trapped within a culture of conflict; the region remains pitted with emotional and practical obstacles to peace.

This distress, I believe, is not mine alone; the struggle of Israel and Palestine is symptomatic of the struggles in the world at large. In 1945, there were fewer than 20 high- and medium-intensity conflicts worldwide. By 2007, that number had risen to one hundred thirty, including twenty-five “severe crises” and six wars characterized by massive amounts of violence, according to the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research’s Conflict Barometer 2007.1 A vast majority of the more than one hundred partial and full peace agreements signed over the past two decades2 have endured severe sustainability issues or have simply fallen apart. And despite the fourteen Nobel Peace Prizes that have drifted through the Middle East, South Africa, and Northern Ireland,3 not one region fully enjoys the true fruits of peace. 2

In this light, our future as a species looks dim indeed. But I believe our current path is defined less by the inevitabilities of human nature and more by structural failures in the way we make peace. Consider: Little in today’s world is more progressive than modern warfare. High-tech intelligence-collection methods, laserguided missiles that surgically destroy targets, vision-enhancing technology that enables night missions, and other devices straight out of science fiction offer warmakers a buffet of enticing tools that were not available during the World Wars, let alone during nineteenth-century battles.

On the other hand, few things are more archaic than today’s peacemaking strategies. Contemporary peace processes and treaties mirror those of the past; our strategies have been left stranded somewhere in the nineteenth century. I do not mean that modern technologies are not manifest in current peace efforts; computers and the Internet are integral parts of planning and negotiations. But while the social, political, and economic elements of societies have evolved to encompass globalization, modern technology, and communication, peacemaking as a strategy has remained stagnant.

The inability of peacemakers to cope with progress is linked to the traditional character of peacemaking. Throughout human history, peacemaking has served to unravel the historical knots of military issues, security, and the distribution of power and physical assets, such as land and natural resources in colonial times; rarely has it established the groundwork for a future peace. The fact that many of today’s peacemakers are yesterday’s warmakers—or worse, simultaneously operate as warmakers—makes force seem like a realistic way to “keep the peace.” Thus, strategic security considerations maintain their status as the centerpiece in the transition from violence to nonviolence, and peace is merely perceived as the time between wars.

This cannot continue. As long as we view peace as simply one point on a continuum of war, we will never create real, lasting peace. We are still convinced that behind every conflict lies a culprit—but 3 the enemy is not the Other; it is our own archaic definition of what peace is and how to achieve it.

We stand today at a crossroads. In one direction lie conflict, mistrust, and hostility. If we continue down this path, as we have done for ages, the following scenario is not unlikely: A chemical terror attack on a Tel Aviv subway sparks a series of targeted bombings against the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. As Lebanese emergency personnel clear away the wreckage, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate in front of the US Delegation in Tehran. Iran’s president threatens to attack US military forces stationed on the Golan Heights, and the US president announces a high alert situation and threatens the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. CNN broadcasts a special appeal by religious leaders to prevent an apocalypse; the United Nations deems the world on the verge of disaster.

But there is another path, one that leads to a future of cooperation and understanding. This book points the way toward this new direction—a revolutionary model for modern peace. It reflects the changes wrought by globalization, including the erosion of the nation-state’s power and the consolidation of power within the private sector and civil society. It lays out a road map for transition from an outmoded definition of peacemaking to a modern one, from an exclusive to a participatory process, from a culture of war to a culture of peace.

The concepts in this book have been distilled from a lifetime of experience. My professional life has been dedicated to peacemaking and peacebuilding; I am a man obsessed. I have endeavored to make peace with the Palestinians as Israel’s chief negotiator of the Oslo Accords, and with Syria and Jordan as the head of our foreign ministry. I also have attempted to build peace through the establishment of two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv and the Glocal Forum in Rome. These NGOs have supported activities that foster cooperation between enemies and former enemies in the Middle East; in the African nations of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone; in 4 the European regions of Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia; and in the Asian nations of Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan.

Over the years, I have received invaluable guidance from individuals who have combined passion and practicality in their tireless efforts toward peace: my late father, Leo Savir, who was a brilliant and sophisticated soldier for peace; my political father, Shimon Peres, a great visionary, an unmatched statesman, and a man of the world; my wife, Aliza, who carries the torch of peace and possesses a wonderful gift of abstraction; my daughter, Maya, with her most pure values; and many friends and colleagues, including Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a man of integrity; Yossi Ginossar, who is not with us today but who pushed hard for peace and reconciled defense with human understanding; my partner at the Peres Center for Peace, Dr. Ron Pundak, who is a significant individual in the realm of civil society; Abu Ala, my Palestinian counterpart, who, while he sat on the other side of the table, taught me a great deal through his wisdom and creative peacemaking; James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank, a man of peace who understands better than anyone the link between economic development and peacemaking; Terje Rod-Larsen, the facilitator of the Oslo process and a man of true peace and humanity; Dennis Ross, the most committed and wise peace mediator in the US administration; and many more.

Influenced by these and other individuals, my approach to peacemaking is based on an ideological framework that places equality between human beings at its pinnacle; this is an equality that cannot exist in war. I am not a pacifist. I know that there are just and ultimately beneficial wars, but I believe these wars are limited. War is not heaven-sent but man-made; it is a product of human nature and is thus shaped by human desires,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1576755967
• ISBN 13: 9781576755969
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
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