Resolving Middle East conflicts

   The first problem of resolving conflicts is understanding what each party wants.  Having mediated divorce cases, I know that it is essential to find out what each party wants.  Too often parties will go through years of litigation without addressing the real issue:  What it is that they want.  In international relations, it is obvious that the first issue to be determined is what the parties want.  One problem is that what a party to a negotiation wants may be entirely different than what his constituents may want.  Lord Acton noted that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The advantage to a democracy is that power is not absolute because those in power can be voted out of office.  As an aside, democracy is more than voting.  A democracy presumes a free society, for which we should apply the town square test.  When we look at trying to solve conflicts, the idea of simply appealing to the better nature of negotiators is silly.  We have to convince the negotiator that a resolution is in his best interest, not that it is in the best interest of those he is purportedly representing.
   Specifically, let us view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Abbas is currently worth north of 100 million dollars.  In a just society, his money would be taken and used for the benefit of the Palestinians. That, however, is not his goal.  If it was, he could distribute the money today.  To negotiate terms of peace the terms of which would entail an actually free and just society is not in his interest.  The same is true of Hamas, of Assad and of any other dictatorial kleptocracy, including ISIS.