Both the two-state and one-state solutions exist only in the imagination. Time has run away from them, as things stand today. The violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been going on for 75 years, with Israel emerging stronger from all of the more serious outbreaks of warfare. How can this conflict be resolved?… Read more »
Category: Peacebuilding
Gaza: A Religious Conflict?
Hamas named its terror attacks on 7 October ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’. Hamas believes that Jewish extremists, with the direct and indirect support of the Israeli authorities, pose a threat to, and are plotting to take over, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. The terror attacks led to an outbreak of the kind of religious language… Read more »
Is the Time Ripe for Peace Diplomacy Regarding Ukraine?
In the war between Russia and Ukraine, the distance between the parties seems insurmountable. Ukraine has proposed a ‘peace formula’, and various other peace plans have also been put forward. Now Ukraine’s supporters are starting to signal that the time is ripe for diplomatic solutions.
Two Wars Set a Triple Test for Western Unity
International attention has shifted its focus from Ukraine to the conflict in Gaza and its potential impact on global governance. The Western front faces challenges in navigating peace efforts in both regions. The war in Ukraine has all but disappeared from the international news stream since the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel on October 7,… Read more »
The Next Surge of Conflict in the South Caucasus Is Still Preventable
The tragic exodus of the Armenian population from the Nagorno Karabakh region has closed a chapter in the long saga of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The disappearance of this self-proclaimed republic provides the opportunity to bring these bitter hostilities to an end; it takes, nevertheless, plenty of wishful political thinking to believe that a… Read more »
The Two-State Solution Vacuum
In Israel/Palestine, it is an established truism that there is no alternative to the two-state solution. When the Oslo Accord was signed in September 1993, this solution was its central premise. Developments over the past 30 years, however, have rendered it impossible. This is something we must talk about.
Hard Georgian Lessons for Ending the War in Ukraine
Russia’s all-out aggression against Ukraine, which will pass the 18-month mark next week, is indirectly but strongly connected to the Russo-Georgian war of 15 years ago. In the first week of August 2008, Georgian villages in South Ossetia, a separatist enclave controlled by Russia since 1992, came under heavy artillery fire; on August 14, Russian… Read more »
Ukraine’s ‘Counteroffensive’ in the Global South
The low-profile and high-impact meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on August 5 and 6 was never intended to produce a road map for ending the war in Ukraine; neither was it a summit, since the invitations sent to some 40 countries specified the level of representation as national security advisers. It can, nevertheless, be called… Read more »
The Other ‘Peace Process’ on Afghanistan: Geneva Talks 1982-1988
In the past three years, the US government’s role in the Doha Talks (2010-2020) has attracted scrutiny and criticism within the United States and abroad. Starting in November 2010, the Doha Talks was a process of intermittent negotiations between the United States and the Afghan Taliban. The culmination of this process was the Doha Agreement, signed… Read more »
The Future of Peace Dialogues in Colombia: Challenges and Opportunities
Despite the landmark 2016 agreement between FARC and the Colombian government, peace is far from the reality in Colombia. According to the INDEPAZ report, armed actors are present in at least 500 out of the 1123 municipalities of the country.