Workshop 9

HOW TO MEDIATE ARMED CONFLICTS WHILE ENSURING THE NEGOTIATIONS ARE NOT FAKE?

DEHUMANIZATION AS A BLIND AREA OF PEACEMAKERS

For nearly 40 years, practically the whole world has believed that, one way or another, a peace process had been ongoing between my country, Israel, and the Palestinians. In Israel, that process regularly made the headlines between bloody terrorist attacks and bloody military operations, day in and day out, for long decades. Only in 2017 did the perfect soul kinship between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu stop that train of fake news, which newsmakers believed were not faked.

Earlier, practically every political commentator and Israeli medium of mass communication in its headlines has been engaged and indeed enthralled by the diplomatic mediation and negotiations under the umbrella of the Great Mediator, the superpower and our best ally, the United States. Its uninterrupted line of dedicated secretaries of state—Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, Alexander Haig, George Shultz, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powel, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry—shuttled in and out of the Middle East nonstop. 

Our media was overflowing with screams of the pro-occupation ruling majority, warning against the imminent disaster that would fall on us if the “peace process” brought results. The “lefties” held their breath anticipating that their desire for peace will be realized. To the best of my knowledge, I was the only one then who was saying and writing to all who would care to listen that nothing could come out of it. I even once did something that, as far as I know, no reporter or commentator in Israel has ever done: put my money where my mouth was. In the heat of the peace process in the early 1980s, with President George H. W. Bush and Foreign Secretary James Baker, I challenged my readers in a newspaper article to bet me 10 to 1 that Israel would not concede one inch of its occupied territories as long as the government at that time was in power. Nobody rose to the challenge.

The reason I was so sure of not losing that bet was the psychological theory of dehumanization I developed, which you can read about in Chapter 8. I was able to diagnose the key Israeli actors in the Israeli–Palestinian “peace process” at the time as dehumanized. Among the cognitive blind areas that are symptoms for making that diagnosis, one rules out even the possibility that a more conciliatory policy toward the enemy could be better for us. The dehumanized cognition consists of patterned beliefs, one of which is that only force and more force are their strategic imperatives.

Now, agreement on a peace process as the way to resolve a conflict implies that each side has decided that some concession to the enemy would serve their interests better than the continuation of war. If the stronger party is dehumanized, making concessions, which means using less force rather than more, is physically impossible, which is not a hyperbole. The conscious cognitive mindset is part of humans’ organic system of orientation; it relates as software to the hardware that is the brain. There cannot be orientation without it. Therefore, it was like either I am right or my theory of dehumanization is wrong. The theory of dehumanization was right.

A peace process in which the strong party is dehumanized cannot be genuine. The weak party could, of course, be dehumanized not less but could make concessions knowing it has no better alternative. If the dominant dehumanized party has the alternative not to budge an inch, its participation in a negotiated settlement of conflict could only continue war by diplomatic means, be a sham, a facade.

Having the means to diagnose dehumanization makes it clear that the mediation of conflicts between dehumanized parties is good-intentioned futility, which borders on Collective Insanity. As long as their narrative fits the fanatic patterned beliefs and lacks any spontaneous evidence of awareness of blind areas, they could not, through their orientation system, agree to make peace as long as they believe they could win in war. 

So blessed be you, peacemakers! In many ways, your position as mediators between adversaries and enemies, who at least agree to show up for negotiations, already puts you in a kind of heavenly bliss in comparison with us who are killing one another in wars. However, you must promote and achieve humanization of the dehumanized attitudes of both parties to not participate in a travesty, such as what has been going on in the Middle East for decades. 

 

HUMANIZED MEDIATION SCENARIO

To begin the mediation process, mediators and parties to conflict must sign a contract that specifies the conditions under which the mediators are engaged in the process. At this preliminary stage, an honest mediator in political conflict must ensure that both parties are interested in compromise. Any ending of war other than victory and defeat entails the use of less military force. Dehumanized actors will not choose compromise over having their way by force because in their mindset, the possibility of using less force as a better option is a blind area. In a humanized mediation scenario, mediators must ensure that a party that is determined to end the war by winning and until then to drag the "status hostilis" on and on must not receive mediation services for posing as if it intends to reach a peaceful resolution. 

Mediators should explain to parties that agreement would not be possible if even one party is determined to fight the other for every inch of contested territory or material, or any other issue in conflict, actually trying to force the other party to accept its terms. Agreement on a peaceful resolution requires the governments of each side to make a strategic decision that conceding something to the enemy would better serve its interests than war. Parties cannot negotiate reconciliation and peace unless both decide to make concessions to the enemy.

To ensure both parties decide to negotiate in good faith, a humanized mediation scenario, at the contract-signing stage with each party, should include the condition that before regular negotiations on the issues in conflict begin, the representatives will be facilitated by the mediator through a “humanization workshop,” during which they will get to know one another as persons and be facilitated in structured experiences (“games”) to reduce prejudice and build trust.

Mediators should explain to politicians that without a conscious effort of all to eliminate or at least significantly reduce dehumanized-prejudiced attitudes, hatred, and mistrust and without building a degree of mutual commitment to human values of peace and equal human rights, including those of the adversaries, negotiations could not reach agreement. Agreement of the parties on that should be part of the working contract, without which mediators-peacemakers could not agree to operate as facilitators. At the end of the workshop, each official representative will undersign a document titled “Personal Commitment to a Peaceful Resolution of the Conflict.” Parties will be shown the document, and mediators will explain that unless each official representative signs it, the mediators will not agree to mediate the negotiation process.

The “Personal Commitment to a Peaceful Resolution of Conflict” will directly confront politicians-representatives with the human realities that dehumanized fanatics fail to see and with the possibilities they never consider because in their mindset, they are covered by blind areas. The humanness, individuality, and uniqueness of each person in the enemy camp are blind areas. To raise their awareness of it, the personal commitment they would have to undersign will include wording such as I commit myself to the truth that people on the other side are human individuals, each different and unique.

That both sides have equal rights to be treated justly and fairly is a truth that both must commit to uphold. Otherwise, they would not accept the mediator as impartial and fair; however, in the dehumanized mindset, it is a blind area that obscures the view of “them” having equal rights. The personal commitment will fill in that blind area with I do not deny their human rights and their unalienable universal rights that I claim for myself and my people—to be free, live in peace, and be treated as equals. To prevent the negotiation process from becoming a war by diplomatic means, representatives of both sides will have to sign their commitment to human values that the dehumanized do not extend to their enemies. 

To verify and strengthen the warring parties’ stated intention to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the conflict, which means using less force and making some concessions to the enemy, the “Personal Commitment to a Peaceful Resolution” could include phrases such as I do not wish to defeat the other party or manipulate them into submission. I am committed to a resolution of the conflict that will do justice to their claims as to ours.

The “Personal Commitment to a Peaceful Resolution of Conflict” should include passages requiring both parties to confirm that they agree to concede something and not just adhere to their prescribed opening position. A precondition for continuing the negotiations must be an explicit affirmation that the negotiators are not barricaded against a change of their opening positions. This is what negotiation is about, and if they are not open to any change, their presence in the negotiation is a sham. Mediators should therefore see this as a precondition to their facilitation of the process—that the representatives of parties’ governments commit themselves to changing any of their presently held opinions about the enemy, and their opening positions in any disputed issue, if better solutions to the issues in conflict emerge in the process of these negotiations.

 

These would constitute some measures that mediators can adopt to prevent officiating in fake negotiations that are no more than fighting through diplomatic means. Humanistic mediation has not been attempted in political conflicts. In trying to imagine such a scenario, I assume politicians will shrink off it and dismiss it as impractical and unrealistic. We, in contrast, already know that hoping for an agreement in negotiations without humanization is unrealistic, a case of Collective Insanity.

According to well-established findings in behavioral science, resistance to change is expected when a new way of doing things is introduced in an organization. Organizations, and of course nations that are total organizations, are hierarchical institutions in which managers or rulers expect all changes to be to their liking, particularly those that interfere with what the domain rulers see as exclusively theirs.