CHAPTER 14
Peace in the Mediterranean Basin: What Will It Take?

THE MEDITERRANEAN IS A REGION OF CONTRAST: VISIONS OF blue waters and white sand set a backdrop for ethnic conflict and Maghrebian mayhem. Some of the region’s richest countries lie across the water from some of the poorest. To appreciate the cultural, political, anthropological, religious, and historical diversity inherent in this area, one simply needs to look at a map: the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea range from France, Spain, and Italy to Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco; from Israel, Greece, and Turkey to Libya, Syria, and Lebanon. There are twenty-two states along the shoreline, all of which have unique and interwoven histories and cultures.

The first step in any effort toward regional peace must be to unearth the unifying factors among these societies. The identification of common values and experiences will provide a foundation for cross-border understanding and mutual respect for human rights.

A Region of Commonalities, a Region of Conflict

The Mediterranean is rich in culture and history, relaxed in nature, full of unique flavors and cuisines, and a source of creativity. The most obvious commonality among Mediterranean societies—aside from geography—is monotheism. The Mediterranean Basin is the birthplace of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and the civilizations built around these religions have spread similar yet distinctive cultures throughout the region.

The Mediterranean is a source of peace and Western civilization, according to our history books. Philosophy, democracy, and 158 humanity—as we in the West perceive them today—can be traced back to the ancient cultures of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Athens, and Rome. The modern concept of glocalization is in fact rooted in ancient Mediterranean beliefs and values: the Greek philosopher Diogenes famously claimed to be “a citizen of the world” at the time when city-states emerged.¹ Diogenes’ notion of what it means to be cosmopolitan reflects the aim of modern peace to reconcile and respect local identities while also taking advantage of global opportunities.

At the core of the cosmopolitan worldview is the belief that all human beings, regardless of race, religion, gender, or political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a single community—a community that should be appreciated and cultivated. Just as ancient Greece saw the rise of the city-state, today’s Mediterranean community can engender the rise of a decentralized peace. The Mediterranean boasts a rich history, complex philosophy, common values, and the universal desire to end war. It thus provides fertile ground on which to develop innovative ideas about peaceful coexistence beyond the narrower region of the Middle East.

But the region’s commonalities often clash with the needs and desires of individual states; shared values become forgotten in the wake of conflict. Border disputes, ethno-religious violence, and civil conflicts have flared across the Mediterranean Basin despite such cooperative efforts as the Euro-Arab Dialogue, the Five + Five and Twelve + Five negotiations, and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean.²

At the heart of Mediterranean politics lies the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the possible resolution of which will reflect on the entire region. The 2006 Hamas electoral victory in the Palestinian parliament makes the situation more difficult, but it is not an obstacle that cannot be overcome. The tools and methods of modern peace can be applied on both a country-to-country basis (for example, bilateral cooperation between Israel and Palestine) and at the regional level (the Pax Mediterraneo), thus ensuring that specific 159 conflicts are addressed in full while also being incorporated into a larger regional framework for cooperation and peace.

The Mediterranean Proclamation: A Vision of Peace

At the outset of a Mediterranean peace process, the players can take the opportunity to outline a vision of the regional ideas about and goals for sustainable peace. The vision that the Peres Center for Peace has already proposed—to widen support among regional actors—is succinct yet powerful, balancing the ideals of modern peace with specific recommendations for practical implementation.

Glocalization: Cities and Youth

• Developing decentralized cooperation through the creation of a network of cities in the region that will work together on socioeconomic and cultural issues through the involvement of local governments and civil societies.
• Emphasizing youth empowerment and facilitating youth events and exchange.

Peace Ecology: Human Rights and Peace Education

• Developing mutual understanding, respect, and a sense of equality and justice, with a sensibility about disparities in size, population, and levels of development, as well as the great wealth of cultural diversity among communities. Promoting peace education, cultural exchange, and interfaith dialogue to engender an ecology of peace in the region.
• Upholding the principles of peace, pluralism, rule of law, human rights, equality of opportunity and development, territorial and demographic integrity, and the right to self-determination in strengthening relations among communities.

Peacebuilding: Joint Economic, Social, and Environmental Ventures

• Creating full diplomatic, cultural, and commercial relations among all Mediterranean countries, including exploration of federative relations between some countries.
• Creating shared responsibility for preserving the environment of the region, to enhance the quality of life for present and future generations and to ensure that the Mediterranean Sea, as the common natural treasure and resource, is clean of pollution.
• Taking advantage of opportunities presented by globalization, including rehabilitation after conflict; strengthening regional cooperation and integration; creation of a regional financial mechanism and establishment of free trade zones, both independendy and with the European Union and the United States; and bridging economic divides within and beyond national borders by facilitating free movement of people and goods and by developing joint infrastructures for water (including canals), communication, energy, transportation, tourism, high technology, integrated crop management, and desert habitation.

Creative Diplomacy: Borders, Security, and the International Community

• Resolving conflicts and rejecting violence in an effort to move toward a just peace that will inspire cooperation and foster a common identity and future throughout the region. Conflicts will end through creative diplomacy, based on equality, and border disputes can be handled according to international resolutions, security arrangements, and the principle of territory for peace.
• Promoting nonviolent resolution of all issues of contention by employing creative diplomacy according to shared current and future interests.
• Creating a pact against all forms of violence, and cooperating 161 in the struggle against terrorism and for the enhancement of security arrangements.
• Creating a comprehensive Mediterranean peacebuilding framework, such as a Mediterranean Partnership for Peace with NATO (patterned on the Eastern European model), that is based on cooperation and dialogue about political, socioeconomic, and cultural issues at all levels.
• Cooperating with the international community, including the United States, the European Union, Russia, Japan, the United Nations, and the World Bank, to strengthen the Pax Mediterraneo in all aspects of cooperation, including peacebuilding, decentralized peace, the promotion of a peace ecology, peacekeeping, and security arrangements.

This Mediterranean Proclamation can be the starting point for a more detailed discussion of Mediterranean peace. After all parties have committed to its principles, the proclamation represents a skeletal structure for the Pax Mediterraneo, which can be initiated by regional actors and orchestrated with the help of the United States and of the European Union, the southern states of which are part of the Mediterranean region. The proclamation can be thought of as the mission statement, whereas the Pax Mediterraneo is the business plan.

The primary aims of the Pax Mediterraneo are to develop a joint Mediterranean identity, to endow each state with a sense of belonging to the greater region, and to serve as the basis for modern peacemaking. The Pax Mediterraneo can be the focus of a Mediterranean peace summit at which national and regional players agree on roles and responsibilities in the implementation of the outlined activities.

Implementation, however, comes later. My goal here is to offer a structure for creating a Pax Mediterraneo that covers all elements of the Mediterranean Proclamation and that is built on the four 162 pillars of modern peace, which are represented in the remaining four chapters of this book. Each chapter offers specific, practical guidance for implementing that pillar’s concepts in the Mediterranean. These tools and methods also can be shaped to suit the needs of other areas and conflicts worldwide.

The proclamation and the Pax Mediterraneo that I present here are not, of course, set in stone. However, these recommendations have been shaped by years of experience and successful implementation, and I present them as a foundation on which Mediterranean peace can be built. The successful implementation of a Pax Mediterraneo can guide regional cooperation and relationships during the peacemaking process and well into the future.