CHAPTER FIVE
Peacebuilding

PEACEBUILDING IS THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL cooperation and contact between post-conflict societies. When a society progresses from a state of conflict to one of peace, all such cooperation, even at its most banal, must be integral to the process to engender better mutual understanding and work for the common benefit of rehabilitation.

Peacebuilding as a concept can seem abstract—it overlaps with the other pillars in many arenas—but peacebuilding projects are among the most tangible and practical activities in the peacemaking process. Often, peacebuilding involves the literal construction of infrastructure—roads, bridges, irrigation, hotels, warehouses, factories, and schools. Sometimes the construction is less tangible —the creation of a fund to assist cross-border soccer teams, for example. In both cases, however, peacebuilding programs are designed to build physical, financial, and political connections where there were none before.

Economic Projects and the Peacebuilding Triangle

Post-conflict economies are generally damaged, if not devastated. Infrastructures have been destroyed and societies lack organized institutions to deal with refugees and displaced people. Security budgets are inflated compared to small social budgets, and governments are often plagued by corruption.

A country’s progression from conflict to peace must be reflected in its economy. A war economy must be converted to a peace economy through the creation of necessary, accountable, and transparent 68 institutions to launch the country’s rehabilitation. A conflict state’s economy is largely determined by its defense establishment, which may contribute to a society’s technological know-how but is detrimental to the social fabric of the economy. Peace dividends should germinate from the bottom up, translating to initiatives such as job-intensive megaprojects, advanced social services, and greater equality in the education system.

Three areas that require a great deal of attention from peacebuilding projects are the rehabilitation of displaced persons, refugees, disabled persons, and child soldiers; the diminishment of socioeconomic gaps through ruralurban integration; and the development of support for children six years old and younger.

Because post-conflict countries must reshape their economies as quickly as possible, most important peace-related decisions concern the intended economic relationships between former enemies and with the international community. The economics of peacebuilding can be defined as a triangle, with the two countries in conflict on either side and the international community at the triangle’s base. Today, the international community deals with conflict countries independently to enhance development and economic growth, but this misses prime opportunities to enhance peace through economic activity that forces former enemies to work directly with each other.

Within the framework of an economic triangle, the international community—particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the UN Development Programme—can help conflict countries establish joint projects to engender common interests and economic interdependence, and then can create regional and local funding mechanisms to support those projects. The most successful funding programs include substantial earmarking of funds for professional cooperation as well as technical assistance for joint capacity building between former foes. The international community can provide both conflict states with crucial assistance, including micro-infrastructures, feasibility studies, training, marketing, and legislation development, to attract 69 private-sector investment. Free trade agreements—between former enemies and between each of them and the international community, specifically the United States and the European Union—also can be facilitated on an international level. Ultimately, economic borders can enhance security more than barbed wire.

Even during the early days of the fleeting honeymoon at Oslo, no funding (out of approximately $10 billion of assistance funds to both sides) was allocated by the international community for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. Had 25 percent of these funds been invested in economic cooperation, the whole process might have been different.

Governments are often opposed to such assistance because it does not produce high overhead for donor consultants. But the desires of government bureaucracies do not always align with the needs of post-conflict societies. An economic peace structure should be built to link transportation, energy, water, and investors who previously have not invested in the region because of war. Investment in post-conflict regions is fundamental to sustaining peace.

For instance, joint development of water infrastructure for both drinking and agriculture is fundamental in many post-conflict areas that lack water resources or are suffering from drought. Because conflicts often go hand-in-hand with developmental crises, agricultural development is an important component of joint peacebuilding activities. These activities can include food security projects as well as peri-urban agriculture projects that produce employment in low-income areas.

Health-related peacebuilding projects by their very nature deal with life and the living. Each party can provide different expertise—telemedicine, for example—whereby patients can use hospitals across the conflict border. Doctors and hospital administrators benefit from the exchange of knowledge, and patients benefit from improved access to health care.

Linking cross-border infrastructures—including roads, railways, air and sea routes, energy, water, and so on—can create the physical 70 platform for interconnectivity and cooperation, and it will facilitate the free movement of individuals and commodities. The free movement of people and goods, even if it involves security risks, can only enhance peace and security in the long run.

Peacebuilding projects also can be implemented in specialized border zones comanaged by two or several nations. Tourism zones or other attractions, such as artificial lakes or theme parks for children, can turn the border into a “peace zone.” Peacebuilding might include joint industrial zones that provide incentives for investors, including special trade arrangements within and beyond the region. By offering free-trade advantages, qualified industrial zones would distribute both economic and peace dividends.

Shortly after the Peres Center for Peace was established in 1996, the importance of peacebuilding projects became apparent. I realized that such projects were easier to fashion within the environment in which NGOs operate, beyond the rigid bureaucratic peace concepts of government. The Center for Peace provided an outlet for Peres’s unique creativity and imagination; we called the Center “Peres’s dream factory.”

A certain dream-come-true quality was manifest in an agricultural program that we developed with Palestinians, Egyptians, and Israelis. During the summer of 1996, while in Rome, Peres met an intelligent and wealthy forty-year-old entrepreneur named Guido Barilla, also known as the king of pasta production. His company, Barilla, has become the world’s leading pasta producer and is a household name in many Western countries.

Peres presented Barilla with a challenge: to grow the wheat for his Italian pasta in the Middle East, where the ecological conditions could be ripe and cost-effective. With Barilla’s agreement and the help of a top Israeli agricultural expert, Professor Shmuel Pohoryles, we launched a pilot project to grow wheat in the deserts of Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. To ensure the project would be cost-effective for the Barilla Group, we brought together a group of Israeli, Egyptian, and Palestinian experts to deal with research 71 and development on soil, water, and other elements to yield the necessary durum wheat.

Less than a year later, in the desert-bound region of the Israeli Negev (close to Palestinian Hebron) and in the Egyptian town of Asyut, known for its fundamentalist population, the project bore fruit—or, more accurately, wheat. That wheat contributed to the production of bread, pasta, and peace. Although the pilot lasted only three years and produced a relatively small amount of wheat, its profits in the peacebuilding department were high. The project, dubbed Pasta for Peace, possessed the key ingredients for peacebuilding: joint negotiations and research, labor and employment for farmers, bread that was produced and consumed in the region, and partnership with a global company. The project fulfilled the needs of peace and development in the region.¹

The project was celebrated in a ceremony that brought Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, and one Italian—Barilla himself—together in the middle of the Negev, among a vast sea of wheat fields. Lands that had been drowned in blood were now flourishing with agriculture; desperation had been replaced with hope in a project that spanned borders and cultures alike. The fundamental goal of peacebuilding—to connect conflict societies in cooperation and creation—had been met.

Tourism

Cross-border tourism is another joint activity that is particularly conducive to peace. Tourism is one of the main mobilization industries actually bringing about a global village; it has the power to bring people closer together, literally and metaphorically. Tourism in post-conflict environments can create cross-border infrastructure such as roads, railways, and open air and sea space. Through cooperative tourism, societies acquire deeper knowledge of one another and can potentially bring large numbers of tourists to lands that were too risky to visit in the past. Tourism also 72 can bring peace dividends to a broad cross section of society, from hotel owners to taxi drivers to bus companies to tour guides, on both sides of the border.

I have long recognized the importance of tourism in peacebuilding, though its potential has been largely ignored in peacemaking circles. In early 1996 I chaired the Israeli delegation during peace negotiations with Syria, at the Wye Plantation outside Washington, DC. The Syrians demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the region Israel occupied in 1967 and that overlooks the whole of northern Israel. In return, the Syrians would agree to normalized and peaceful relations with Israel.

When we asked for Syria’s definition of peace, Syrian chief negotiator Walid Mualem, then ambassador to Washington and today Syria’s foreign minister, quoted President Hafez al-Assad: “Diplomatic, commercial, and tourism relations.” Two prominent groups in my delegation firmly objected to this definition: the defense personnel overseeing security arrangements during peacetime and the lawyers, who named eighteen spheres of normalization, from communication to environment, that had to be included in the peace treaty. (These were based on the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty; most of the spheres were never implemented.)

Despite their objections, I asked one of the more creative minds of our delegation, Dr. Yossi Vardi, to compose a full peace treaty based mainly on tourism cooperation. We conceived a plan that, following an Israeli withdrawal, would render much of the Golan Heights a tourist zone, with a specific focus on health and ecotourism. The plan included hotel chains on the Heights, complete with roads, energy infrastructure, and special attractions. We planned a worldwide marketing campaign to advertise archeological sites in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The large number of monumental sites from antiquity, with their historical and religious significance, would attract a force of tourists that would stabilize peace more than any peacekeeping force.

In partnership with the Syrians, we planned a Mediterranean high road that would link Israel and Europe through Syria and 73 Lebanon. By driving to Europe, Israelis could purge their feelings of isolation and renounce their national self-perception as a besieged land. To all negotiators’ surprise, President al-Assad did not spurn such discussions. On the contrary, he designated Syria’s number one hotel developer, Osman Aidi, to deliberate these issues with us and with US private-sector groups led by a prominent Jewish American businessman, Lester Pollack—discussions that did later take place in New York.

Talks with the Syrians collapsed after an outbreak of Palestinian terror in March of that year, which meant that our tourism-based peacebuilding plan could not reach fruition. Still, it remains an important peacebuilding concept for future negotiations because of its great potential for creating stability, strengthening the economy, and encouraging cooperation on both sides of the border.

Technology and the Arts

At its core, peacebuilding is about creating positive effects on people’s lives—which also are the stated aims of globalization and the information superhighway. During recent conflicts, affected societies have been deprived of high-tech tools that inspire and connect people and cultures; while these societies have been bogged down by war, the rest of the world has become globalized. People around the world visit the same Web sites, listen to the same music, watch similar feature films, and idolize the same soccer players. The expansion of information technology into post-conflict societies should be an important goal. Much has been said—though litde has been done—about closing the digital divide. These infrastructures can be cemented in place by third parties from both the public and the private sectors.

Tools of communication and symbols of globalization can be catalysts for change; they can penetrate post-conflict societies and inspire the younger generation. Information technology can contribute quantitatively and qualitatively to the peace process. On 74 the same note, the international community should not tolerate countries such as Syria that heavily monitor Internet usage. Information technology and peacebuilding industries should be used in conjunction to create a sense of belonging, a common language, and ongoing interaction between former enemies.

Other industries integral to peacebuilding include the arts, entertainment, and sports. Following conflict, former enemies lack a common language, so potential dialogue is hampered by prejudice and stereotypes. The arts can overcome communication barriers through the establishment of film and music studios, theaters, and joint work based on cultural expression and exchange. The mainstream media often focuses on the detriments of peace processes, so it is important to employ other joint media opportunities, such as film, to present positive developments. As a result, a common language will evolve and foster mutual understanding.

Youth Projects

In post-conflict societies, children may be young in age but not in experience. Many youth that have lived through violent conflict have been traumatized by war—they suffer from deep emotional scars that are not easily healed. Many young people, eighteen years old and younger, are perceived to be mature and strong enough to be employed as soldiers during conflict—to fight, to kill, and to be killed. It should be obvious, then, that these young people are also old enough to work with their former enemies toward a modern, participatory peace.

Sports can have an enormous impact on the well-being of youth by providing an important outlet for personal expression, contributing to a sense of belonging, and allowing children to behave as children—as they are generally unable to do during conflict. Most conflict countries lack soccer fields, basketball courts, gymnastic equipment, and swimming pools. As the basis of any rehabilitation process, the international community must invest in these 75 infrastructures and initiate joint activities, training, and competitions among youth on both sides of the conflict.

During the summer of 1999 the Vatican’s ambassador to the Holy Land invited me to participate in a most surprising peacebuilding project. With the blessing of the Holy See, he suggested that, in conjunction with a Palestinian NGO (led by the courageous peace fighter Kamel Husseini) and Italian NGOs, we organize a soccer game. The game was to be held in Rome’s Olympic stadium and would pit a team comprising pop singers and world-renowned Italian soccer stars against a joint Israeli-Palestinian soccer team chosen from the best players in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The teams would be spiced up with a sprinkle of Hollywood and sports stars; spectators would include the president of Italy, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat.

After long preparations and unconventional negotiations with Arafat in May 1999, sixty thousand people filled the Stadio Olimpico. Teams competed as planned and included Sean Connery, the soccer legend Pelé, and Michael Schumacher, the Formula 1 world champion. In addition to the 5-4 win for the first-ever Israeli-Palestinian joint team, the game had two other important results: it was transmitted live in both countries—illustrating that when former enemies appear together, the world takes note—and the income generated from tickets was used to build soccer and computer infrastructures in schools on both sides of the border.

Today, using a half million dollars provided by the tickets and the international community, Israel and Palestine have twenty-four twin schools playing soccer and a joint indoor soccer team made up of Israeli and Palestinian players, which has won the Israeli indoor soccer championship. In 2002, the Israeli-Palestinian team played a Rwandan team that included Hutus and Tutsis.

To some, such events may seem anecdotal. But for the youth who participate in the project, soccer changes their attitudes toward the Other more than any governmental policy initiative could. I had a vision of covering all Israeli and Palestinian cities with green 76 fields of peace—soccer fields, that is. Implementation has been limited so far, but there is always hope.

Peacebuilding must be activated in all arenas that affect the attitudes and motivations of former enemies. Ultimately, the goal of peacebuilding is to present cooperation with former enemies as legitimate and beneficial. Although peacebuilding activities should be implemented among many groups—including security forces, businesspeople, physicians, and soccer stars—I believe that peacebuilding should emphasize youth. Their openness and enthusiasm allow them to respond positively to cross-border activities—and when they become empowered, they can serve as engines for broader change in their societies.