Cultural diplomacy tutorial case study Part 2

My second case study is the most difficult one that exists in the world today, which is the generation long conflict, both military based and in the lack of peace of mind, in the Middle East, specifically Israel, the Palestinians, and the neighboring Islamic countries and populations. I have been enormously frustrated from the very beginning at the inability and unwillingness of "the powers that be" to seek a genuine solution and pathway to going forward in harmony and peaceful co-existence.

In the first case study I pointed out that regardless if one approves of the situation, actions or mindsets of one or all the participants, one must identify the values that are being protected (or believed to be protected) and then diplomats propose scenarios and solutions that protect those values in reality, not in concept.

If one looks at it that way, all of the participants actually have the same value that they are seeking to protect, but it is the fulfillment of that value that varies widely among the interested parties. To give an analogy, suppose you have a group of five hungry people. They share the value that they are trying to protect, which is "to have enough food to survive and thrive." But simply because all five are hungry, and share the value of needing food, it does not mean that all five need the exact same food. If one is an infant, then that one needs baby food and milk. If one is a grown man who works at hard labor all day, he would not survive on baby food and milk, he needs high calorie protein meals. If the third has simple needs, then he or she will be happy with bread and perhaps fish, so long as there is a steady and reliable supply. Do you see what I mean? In the Middle East situation, everyone has from the very beginning leaped toward arguing, using my analogy, about the foods that one expects for one's self, ignoring what specific foods the other needs. Further, no one has agreed that the foundational problem is a shared value and common need, which is in the analogy, "the need to have enough food to survive and thrive." One cannot be a cultural diplomat without identifying each party's core value that they seek to protect and invest in finding a solution for providing that value to your diplomatic partner, yes, even the "opponents," especially with the opponents. If someone is shooting at you because they need baby food and milk for their infant and has no other way to provide it, you do not have peace by trying to convince them that their infant should just gnaw on a beef bone, or eat hard food when the infant would not survive on that. This is, as I said, still using my analogy. One must buy into the need of one's cultural diplomacy partner (aka opponent) that they must receive food that is appropriate to the infant, not to the grown adult. Just because you might have a lactose intolerant household, you should not tell your cultural diplomacy partner or opponent that "milk is not good for them because it's not good for you" and that "their baby should therefore learn to survive without milk."

So turning back to the reality of the Mideast situation, what is the shared value that each party is seeking to obtain and/or protect? It is the shared value of "home," which must be described as territory that is under their governance, under their self determination, and where they can provide an economy where their people can thrive. Do you see the problem? When one uses the word "homeland," that connotes completely different "foods" to each "hungry" participant in the diplomacy, or conflict. There is insufficient attention to the definition of "home" being a place of self determination where the economy can provide for a thriving of the people. Decade after decade I have watched "the sound and the fury" of Mideast participants forcing down each others throats their own definition of "home," ignoring the needs of a genuine home, which is a place of self determination combined with an economic structure where the population can thrive. If genuine diplomats started from the very beginning of this situation and did this process, as obvious as people might assume the answers would be, it would be educational and helpful to an extreme.

When one goes to the very beginning and defines the core value being sought, obtained and/or protected, and then supplies the specifics of how that value, as in "home," must be provided to be successful, suddenly you have something that the Middle East has never had before: options. Once one combatant recognizes that the food the "other side" needs is infant milk, for example, suddenly options dawn on everyone, as light bulbs, instead of guns and bombs, go off. Think of the ways to provide infants with milk. Nurture mothers so they can breast feed. Nurture wet nurses. Provide cow milk. Provide goat or sheep milk. Import milk from other countries. Suddenly you have, just in this one example, more than five "options" where no option at all existed before, when one party was insisting that a hard potato and a beef bone are "food" and thus "meets the need" of the diplomatic combatant party that is representing the infant.

The past is only important because it helps to understand the frame of reference when your diplomatic partner/combatant is describing to you, in good faith, their "home" value and its definition. The odds are that even they do not really understand fully their own needs and definitions until they pause to reflect on them in that context, as I describe, and explain it to others. The obvious example is the "never again" shorthand definition that the country of Israel uses to describe their vision of "home." "Never again" is one of the greatest paradoxes in modern politics and social verbiage. It seems so obvious, but it has become incredibly obscure. Let me divert with an example. When someone has lost a home to a hurricane or a typhoon, one can say "never again," but what does that mean? There is a huge range of options if one examines it carefully in dialogue, to see what the lost homeowner means by "never again." Here is what the homeowner might mean: Never will I build in a hurricane prone area. Never will I be caught without flood insurance again. Never will I have a basement that can flood, or lack stilts for my rebuilt house. Never will I ignore hurricane warnings and not evacuate. Never will I build out of thin wood a home when I could use steel, brick or cinder block. And etc. etc. one could go on and on. Do you see what I mean? The battered hurricane home owner who lost his home can say "never again," but unless you know what he means by that, how can anyone proceed with action? It is likewise with the Israelis who have become so used to saying "Never again" that they lose patience, and even misunderstand themselves, what options exist to make "never again" come true for them.

I know for a fact that you can put two Jews together who both agree "Never again," and think they are in complete agreement, and would quickly pick a fight with a diplomatic combatant who questions their "Never again," who would actually find, if they paused and analyzed "Never again" the way I describe that they would find they have totally different visions of what "Never again" means. But individuals, political parties, communities and schools of belief do not recognize their own different mental visions of what "Never again" means. When people hear a word or a concept, they form a mental picture, one that flashes so quickly they do not even realize that they are "painting a mind portrait" in that instant. So here is how that works in an example. I know Jews who when you say "Never again" to them, they do not picture Israel being afflicted as was Germany, but they imagine some other country in the world being afflicted and Israel being the "last resort" for those Jews. Thus "Never again" to them means "Never again will a Jew have no place to go to be rescued when their own country persecutes them." Ah yes, but I also know Jews who when they say "Never again," they imagine an affliction occurring within Israel. Do you see what I mean? They think they are speaking of the same "Never again," but their "food needs" based on the common shared value of having food (to go back to my original analogy) differs. One envisions a country that must continue to exist as the ultimate refuge and insurance policy. The other envisions a country that is actually in danger of being under siege or affliction. This is a huge simplification of course, but it is realistic, as I know what people are thinking and how they individualize their perceptions, of course, as they would.

Thus a diplomatic partner or combatant can inadvertently "press the button" of one Jew but not the other with a particular action or set of words. The diplomat partner might address a "Never again" definition of one Jew, but totally alarm the "Never again" specific needs of the other Jew.

This exact same principle applies to the Palestinians. They, however, do not have a "Never again" mindset that both illuminates and obscures at the same time, since they are still within the situation that is unsatisfactory. They live within "What do we do now, and what will happen next?" and that mindset both illuminates and obscures too! Here is why.

Everyone has seen the obligatory science fiction movie where a huge meteor hits the earth or whatever. (I'm not sneaking in reference to "End of Time" fears here. If you ever talk to me in person you have to get used to my saying and meaning the obvious, not hinting at the theological or the occult). I want to use the meteor as an example of a huge object hitting something and causing material to spurt out in all directions. You see that in pictures of the moon and some of the planets, and it is believed that the Gulf of Mexico was gouged out by a striking meteor. Now, I can't use the example of throwing a stone into the water, because while there are ripples, they don't stay frozen as ripples, but the water immediately smooths over again where the stone was thrown. This is not a description of the Middle East, but the meteor striking is an example. While there has always been land grabbing and conflict in the Middle East, since Biblical and Roman times, and all the way into the colonial recent past, Hitler basically threw a meteor during the Holocaust. The meteor caused the rippling of refugees fleeing the countries of his control, and the survivors did not "flow back" into Germany upon his defeat, except those German nationals who repatriated. Refugees and their fears and their realities remained thrown "out there," just as if they were ejected during a meteor strike.

So what happened next? The refusal of many countries to take Jewish refugees and other problems and motivating factors resulted in a second meteor hitting, and that is Jewish home seekers arriving in Palestine. This is not a judgmental statement at all, but a retelling of actual history using an analogy. The arrival of the Jewish advocates for a home state were like a secondary meteor (one that is understandable and justified) hitting, but this time in the territory of Palestine. Now the Palestinians, right or wrong, in fact or in fear, become the "ejecta" from the impact of the meteor. Millions became displaced and that is simply a fact. They are still in their physical or mental state of "displacement." Thus one cannot begin to solve the Mideast problem and bring peace without conducting a total inventory of "home displacement." I do not mean that we set up courts and argue over a land ownership. I mean we need to diagnose, like compassionate doctors, the segments of displaced Palestinians and articulate their degree of displacement, just like the hurricane homeowner used in the previous example. Are they in the second generation of living in camps in another country? Are they displaced within Israel? Are they in Israel but mentally and spiritually displaced? Are they confined in areas where they cannot economically thrive? Peace will not come to the Middle East until we all act like adult doctors who can count the scars and decide what to do about them, rather than ignore or deny them. That is not weakness, that is honesty and strength. Everyone has been too weak about speaking honestly about the Palestinians who are displaced, and so they live in a confined and churning "lack of home" reality and state of mind. This is why "We want a Homeland" like "Never again" sounds so obvious, but is completely diffuse and differing in meaning from Palestinian to Palestinian, just like from Jew to Jew. A "homeland" to one Palestinian may be returning to Israel from Jordan to reside in a Palestinian state, but that might not at all be what the next Palestinian wants, who only wants to get out of the refuge camp and become part of the economic mainstream of wherever he or she is currently residing. So again, just like "Never again," Palestinians who have no idea what each other thinks and needs are "assuming" that they all mean the same thing when they say "Palestinian homeland." One would find, however, that they, like the Jews, have totally different mental portraits of what they mean, and what they would need for them and their families to thrive.

Thus you have the third parties, which are the Islamic countries of the Middle East, who feel somewhat helpless. They feel that the displacement crisis (both physical and spiritual) of the Palestinians are completely ignored. Jews understandable map that concern by the Islamic countries onto their "Never again" fear, and perceive this as pressure (which it is) but reduce their reaction to one option ("offense as defense.") The Israelis feel a constraint pressure of having to evaluate each blip on the political and crime radar as being a "act, react, forebear or endure" crisis. It's no way to live. But the Middle East countries must understand that when they apply pressure without doing the same "homework" within their own resident Palestinian populations, they are pressing the buttons of the Jews and that is not constructive at all. Let's be honest. The Islamic countries have pussy footed in fear of stirring up their own unhappy Palestinian populations. I understand that, but at some point, one must take a first step and not just wring one's hands in dismay. Everyone is waiting for some magical solution that is not going to exist. Middle East countries fear fully absorbing their Palestinian populations because they hope that they will someday be able to "go home." As a result, we are on the second generation of millions in camps who cannot yet "go home." Where is home and what should it look like? This must be decided by working with Israel, not against Israel, to do a displacement inventory and analysis. Where there is hope that some Palestinians may migrate to their preference of a Palestinian state, then sure, continue to host them, but ask for some assistance from the world in making their temporary conditions more amenable and as an investment in their future. Where Palestinians must or prefer to remain, then mainstream their access to the economy so they can thrive, and not just eke out a living somehow.

Israelis have the know how about how to contribute to economic success, but as you can see in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they withhold that because they feel both unappreciated when they do "help" and they use withholding economic self determination as a weapon. This is understandable but has never been actually helpful. Someone who is able to self determine and thrive with hope of prosperity is not sitting there hating and planning the next attack. No, I am not naive, you are. When one does a genuine displacement inventory one suddenly sees many more options of behavior than cutting off supplies as punishment for terrorist attacks.

The lack of genuine progress, of the type I have described, results in all sides feeling they are "forgotten" and they are, for all intents and purposes, if one looks at the results. Israel is "forgotten" because the world feels there is a formula of support they give Israel, but cannot really relate to the heart of why Israelis need security. The Palestinians are "forgotten" because like meteor ejecta, they still sit wherever they were thrust, and live not in homes but in places and mindsets of "displacement." The Middle East countries who host Palestinians are "forgotten" because the status quo just drags on and on in the refugee camps. (Look at how, on a different example, Syria has had to just do the best they can with virtually no help from the world as they host hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, including many Christians who were driven out of Iraq by persecution) "Out of sight out of mind" is the motto of the world when it comes to refugees, and the countries of good will must struggle to support them. And this is why a country like Iran will apply the pressure, not because they are a host country, but because they chafe at the feeling that the Palestinians are "forgotten," and so they rattle the saber to remind the Israelis and the world that the problem of displacement is dragging on and on and on.

In my spare time I've even sketched out a recovery plan for the Gaza strip. Trust me, that did not require a tremendous amount of my brain power, just good will and sound cultural diplomacy expertise. When are people going to go to work in good will and solve these problems peacefully?

I hope you have found this helpful, especially the young people, who inherited this mess that should never have become such a mess at all.