Today, I attended Karin Aggestam's Brown Bag Lunch seminar on Palestine-Israel Conflict and the Peace Process. She briefly made a presentation about the EU Project which is on durable peace in the region. Below are my reflections about the seminar:
Quest for justice and quest for efficient peace building structure are the main challenges in regard to peace process. Jordan River and other water resources are the source of conflict. These are analyzed under the title of Hydropolitical Security Complex. In other words, water resources have become the objects of security policy in the region. Needless to say, Israel has a hegemony over the resources. Although bilateral and multilateral attempts are done, the water question has still remained unresolved.
Diplomacy strategies such as gradualism (step by step approach), status quo diplomacy (interpretations of previous agreements - not a new agreement) and liberal peace approach (promoting liberalization, elections) are used to deal with the question.
After the presentation, Mark LeVine asked a question and he says if there is a big power imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians who cares diplomacy.
Then I directed a question to Dr. Aggestam: If the international actors use liberal peace approach as a diplomatic instrument, don't they need to negotiate with Hamas instead of Abbas gov't? If they support elections and other democratic mechanisms, I think they are expected to be in contact with the legitimate gov't.
Kivanc
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