There often comes a moment in any armed conflict when, like two punch-drunk fighters, the bloodied combatants want only the relief of the bell. I experienced that moment, that brief respite between, in the Bosnian war, and I sense that it may have come in Gaza.
As a reporter hunkered behind a demolished tram with a group of Bosnian civilians in the heart of Sarajevo, Serb snipers in the hills above us waiting for a clean headshot, I could not conjure a path to ending a war and genocide that had killed at least 100,000 people and forced millions from their homes. But after 21 days in November 1995 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the United States and its European allies orchestrated a 19-page peace agreement that ended the war. The alchemy that enabled such a seemingly impossible diplomatic tour de force rested on the shoulders of the late Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, under the guidance of the late Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former President Bill Clinton.
As the diplomatic and national correspondent for United Press International, the Bosnian war was not my first stint as a war correspondent or covering peace negotiations, nor would it be my last. But it was in the Balkans that I discovered the top-note of war was the sickening smell of burning human flesh, which hung over all of us during those 21 days of intense deal-making at the U.S. Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio.
The heart of the Dayton Accords involved painful compromises on all sides –– Bosnians, Croats and Serbs –– that preserved a multi-ethnic nation with a rotating presidency and separate sectors for the formerly warring factions. It was a sleepless, 21-day marathon for the small cadre of reporters allowed on the base as we attempted to sift through the backroom leaks of proposed maps and to interpret body language that at times had one party or another revving up their aircrafts on the tarmac and threatening to leave. With a pre-Putin Russia stumbling from the ashes of the former Soviet Union and largely out of the picture, Holbrooke, Christopher and Clinton delivered a master class in diplomatic hardball that ended a war and genocide.
Why, one may ask, is this relevant today? It is relevant because that conflict and the painful diplomatic conclusion could provide a blueprint for ending the war in Gaza.
It will exact painful concessions on both sides that shake the foundations of their raisons d’etre. And bringing it home will require the leadership of the United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and other players. In my view, having covered every American president since George H.W Bush, the opportunity for the type of leadership critical to forging a Gaza Accord may slip away come the November elections in the United States.
Granted, the devil is in the details, but the broad strokes of a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas seem rather obvious, and could be quite similar to the Bosnian Accords.
The first step would be a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners. There are plenty of war crimes to be litigated later under the auspices of a United Nations War Crimes Tribunal. But that should be put off for another day, like many of the most divisive issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and the creation of a Palestinian nation. Even though a “two-state solution” has been at the heart of the conflict for decades, that formula does not seem relevant any longer in light of the current demographics of Israel and the geography of the Palestinians.
The starting point, as painful and controversial as it will be, should be that there will not be a Palestine, rather a multi-ethnic nation in which Israelis and Palestinians live under the same flag, perhaps a new flag. Like the Dayton Accords, which were no less painful or controversial, there should be a shared executive branch that has, for example, an Israeli head of government and a Palestinian head of state, and a quota of seats in Parliament for each side. Again, like the Dayton Accords, there should be sectors of Israel for both sides, with a robust multinational peacekeeping force under NATO command and a diverse contingent of troops from Arab and Muslim nations. Finally, the United States, as chief guarantor of the agreement, should host a donor’s conference in which all nations pledge the billions of dollars it will take to rebuild Gaza. The rewards for Israel will be significant: diplomatic and territorial recognition from the entire Arab world, secure borders, open global trade, and for the first time since its establishment in 1948, peace.
Granted, a long and perilous road, but rife with opportunities for the United States, Russia and China to find common ground that could help them to overcome broader strategic differences that threaten the very existence of humankind.
Sidney Balman Jr. is a Pulitzer-nominated war correspondent, novelist, and writer in residence at Sul Ross State University. Sidbalman.com