Monday November 28, 2005

Column:

Negotiations, that's what makes the world go round. You want to buy a car? You negotiate. A house? Negotiate. Stocks. Bonds. A bride? Yes, even a bride is often open to negotiations. In the Middle East.

In the Middle East, especially, negotiating is an art form.

That's why it surprises me that there has been so much controversy and debate, of late, regarding third party negotiations in the Middle East in general and vis a vis the Israelis and the Palestinians in particular.

Much time and lots of ink has been spent on the issue of third party negotiations. One popular theory puts forth that when there is an outside power the two concerned parties to the conflict effectively bear no responsibility and hence, the agreement often fails. The theory concludes that, therefore, only bilateral agreements can work.

That argument might work sometimes and in some places, but not in the Middle East. Why? Because the argument does not consider the culture of the Middle East, a culture that, by its very nature, likes to see and utilize middlemen. In the Middle East middlemen are not called in as a last ditch effort. In the Middle East, third party middlemen are in from the outset, they are respected, they are relied upon, they are the final voice.

The bazaar of the Middle East, the Levant Bazaar, always utilized a third party. Not necessarily an impartial third party, but always a third party. When two people were negotiating - over anything from tomatoes and cucumbers to sheepskin or sheep - they would naturally turn to the third person, almost always a man, and ask what he thought of the deal. That is how a deal was cemented, with the aid of the third party. Listen carefully even in the modern day "shuk" and you will notice that third parties are still being called upon.

In the case of the Palestinians and the Israelis, neither side wants to go back to their people and risk saying "look what we just gave them." In order to save face and keep the negotiations momentum going, each side relies on the ability to go back to their people and claim that they were pressured, most often by the Americans, to go the extra step. That third party helps each of the principle parties, saves face in the eyes of their own society and electorate.

There is much that the United States Secretary of State does not understand or is unwilling to understand when it comes to the Israeli Palestinian issue, but when it comes to negotiating, Condoleezza Rice got it right away. The best way to move forward and resolve regional disputes, she realizes, is to turn the conflicts into issues worthy of international diplomacy and solve them through third party negotiations.

The fact that Condi Rice extended her trip to the region and through face-to-face, continuous meetings got the sides, Palestinians and Israelis alike, to agree on the issue of exits and entries from Egypt through Gaza speaks volumes. Like any good agreement, both sides made compromises. But when both the sides feel that the other got a little too much, you know a good deal was brokered.

Bottom line for the Palestinians is that they were attempting to get free movement in and out of Gaza into Egypt. Anything less would be a great disappointment. Bottom line for the Israelis is that they were trying to assert control over who would enter Gaza from Egypt. Anything less would jeopardize their security.

In the end both sides are only slightly disappointed. Third party America did intervention mediation and brought in third party European Union to manage the day to days of the third party brokered agreement.

Palestinian movement in and out of Gaza is now controlled by the EU.

The reality is that Israel wants live, real time intelligence on who and what is entering Gaza. For Israel the live report offers significantly more information than the info needed to stop individual potential terrorists with weapons. On site oversight gives Israel the ability to prepare the groundwork necessary to defend themselves against much bigger attacks. On the issue of weapons and explosives, the EU has the necessary machinery and the training to detect them already and I hope that it would be something they would be doing anyway.

Israel gets to watch a live feed in a room with both the EU and the PA. If good interaction is created between Israeli and European Union personnel, Israel will not only be able to hands on monitor the situation but they will be able to advise the EU on who does and who does not enter Gaza.

Israel's biggest border problem, however, cannot be handled through negotiation. Not third party negotiation and not bilateral negotiation. The real border security problem for Israel is the 180 miles of desert that runs adjacent to Egypt. Most of that area is unfenced and it is barely patrolled. That is where Israel must extend energy and resources. That is where the real risk of smuggling people and weapons is going to be, those 180 miles, not between Gaza and Egypt.

Negotiations make the world go round. Military intelligence makes it spin.