Windmills

Some have indicated to us that there has already been much work done to humanize the Middle East as a means of resolving the conflict, and that work has failed, and that the ideas presented in 'The Foundation Stone' will also flounder and are fundamentally a quixotic exercise.

Second, that power imbalances and asymmetries mean that, for example, Israel is capable of continuing settlement of Palestinian areas unimpeded.

It is true that cultural efforts have so far failed in the Middle East and that the play of power does mean no resolution and continued conflict.

In the past however, the approaches we suggest have not been tried at the political level. Instead, past political solutions were based, incorrectly, on hard, interest-driven paradigms which ignore the fundamentals described in 'The Foundation Stone'.

A peace treaty that is not first based on a mutual recognition of Palestinian needs for autonomy, independence, legitimacy and the dignity of refugee rights, as well as Israeli needs for physical security from attack and a sense of belonging for the Jews in the Middle East will not work.

Indeed, an approach based on a classical Western focus on constructing structures or a Middle Eastern emphasis on zero-sum game negotiations may, in fact, be more quixotic, despite its excitement appeal and its fit with common cultural habits, than the unusual approach we are suggesting.

It is true that a third party may be required to take the parties to more positive ends, addressing power imbalances. However, even then, a full and satisfactory basis for moving forward will require a full redress of the intangible needs outlined in 'The Foundation Stone', at the political level.

The Foundation Stone

"Dignifying Security and Securing Dignity"

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is known for its intractability. Soon, it is expected that President Obama will try to bring together Israeli and Palestinian leaders for yet another round of negotiations.

He has a chance to succeed - possibly by sheer will power, if he exercises it - but it is not very likely.

There is another possible approach. It is one that has not been properly tried, and that Obama hints at in some of his speeches. This is to come to an explicit agreement on something more basic before beginning negotiations on such thorny issues as Jerusalem, the refugees and borders.

According to this approach, Israelis and Palestinians would agree beforehand that they both have a common set of human needs that are essential to their future, but that if these needs continue to be unmet, it will simply perpetuate the conflict between them. These fundamental needs underlie and fuel the problems between the two peoples and remain unaddressed because they are intangible by nature and are not traditionally considered in the realm of statecraft.

At a general level, these 'human givens' (1) include, for example, the need for security and safe territory, a sense of autonomy and control, meaning and purpose and the need to be valued by a wider community, among others.

All humans, no matter their identity, will spiral into dysfunctional patterns of behaviour and resort to violent reactions and unsuccessful management of differences if these basic elements of our nature are left unfulfilled.

In the case of the Middle East, the two sides have specific unmet needs: after decades of occupation and no Palestinian state, Palestinians need a sense of autonomy and control over their lives without outside interference; Israelis need security and safe territory in order to provide Jews with a national home. Both sides have denied the other this basic requirement.

Ironically, both peoples also need to a strong sense of legitimacy from and to be valued by others. For Jews, their experience in Europe as the victims of capricious history was the source of this lack, and it was followed, ironically, by their arrival in the Middle East, where their takeover of land - in their minds for a good cause - ensured that Arabs would in turn deny them legitimacy.

For the Palestinians, the rule of the Ottomans gave way to the rule of the British and from there directly to the creation of Israel on their land, reaffirming a consistent pattern of being 'lesser' in the eyes of others. This lack of legitimacy is an unacceptable status for any people.

It is these unmet and very human needs that lie, like phantoms, behind the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No amount of political activity, innovativeness, even will, can resolve the situation if these basic needs are not agreed to as the basis for negotiation. Many have referred to these needs in various forms in their analysis of the region, but few have recommended that talks explicitly be held on the basis of addressing these needs.

As difficult as it may be to agree to recognize an enemy’s needs, this mutual agreement can greatly facilitate agreement and lead to known answers:

• For Palestinians, the need for autonomy and control can be met through the creation of a Palestinian state

• For Israelis, security can be met by normalizing their relations with neighbours and ending the state of conflict, as offered, for example, in the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

• The need for legitimacy from and being valued by others can be further met for both through recognition of Jerusalem as their respective capital and of their links to the city on the basis of religious heritage.

• Resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem by recognizing refugees' rights without endangering the status of Israel as a Jewish state, providing refugees with permanent and stable conditions through citizenship, employment opportunities and compensation for suffering can go a long distance to making Palestinians feel less as the nation undeserving of a national status.

Experts will look at the above and say the most talented negotiators have tried to tackle these issues and failed and that this is more easily said than done.

But they have not. They have dealt with Jerusalem, Israeli security, a Palestinian state and the refugees as issues in themselves. They did not come to an explicit, mutual recognition of the common human needs behind these issues first - pinning the phantoms to the ground - before entering the issues and their details.

An initial, explicit recognition by Israelis that Palestinians share these of their common human needs may greatly facilitate negotiations by providing an equivalence between the sides based on a common human condition and a perspective and foundation to return to if talks become heated, hit an impasse, or sink into a quagmire of details. Over decades, both sides needs may have spiraled beyond these basics; however, this may be a way to return to the necessary basics.

Admitting the existence of basic human needs as the basis for any negotiation may seem odd at first. It appears to pull the carpet from right under the feet of the politicians and demystify apparently intractable and addictive, angst-ridden processes. Yet, this basic human recognition of the needs of another, even an enemy, may right decades of wrong and provide the foundation stone for greater contentment and a future for Israelis, Palestinians, their children, and their children’s children.

____________________________
(1) http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/human-givens.htm

Understanding Iran IV - Mutual Respect

We have put forward the possibility that relations with Iran are handicapped by narrow perceptions of that country, and that Iran's behaviour, including some of its excesses, can be explained through its search to have its 'intangible' needs met in the face of considerable international barriers. This is especially the case in a country with a powerful sense of status and entitlement driven by millenia of sophisticated culture and political history.

We believe there are two basic approaches to deal with Iran. Either we use what Ornstein calls our "old brain", rely on its caricatures and act on that basis, and continue to deprive Iran of its needs, or we derive a new more nuanced and realistic approach to the matter, unfamiliar as it may seem.

As we have indicated, we have in our mind only slim pictures of a fuller reality, including that of another society like Iran. All can appear terribly simplified through the words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or, indeed, of George Bush. It is also plain that not only the USA suffers from this problem; Iran has the same simplistic understandings of the USA (and of Israel) that Americans have of it. This is a two-way street where a sense of moral superiority, a black and white world of right and wrong, drives both sides.

Iran is a country seeking basic, if intangible, needs of legitimacy and respect. Many of the policies that have been under consideration do not sufficiently consider this. Iran will neither be bribed into a deal, nor threatened out of its ambitions. This is a cold reality. Therefore, the whole diplomatic approach of "carrots and sticks" that has marked American diplomacy will not work here. Furthermore, limited and cartoon perceptions not only limit our views of another society, they can cause misjudgments regarding the consequences of our actions:

• Sanctions on Iran, even very heavy sanctions, will not likely make it bend nor stop it from enriching uranium. In fact, it will likely only strengthen the Iranian hardliners and radicals making them pursue uranium enrichment at an even faster pace, which, theoretically, is counterproductive to the international community's goals.

• A military attack on Iran will not likely destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities nor its desire to pursuit it, but it will certainly destroy a country in the process. Hatred for the USA and Israel will be beyond the pale after such an attack with many currently incalculable consequences. Furthermore, in response, Iran can unleash a mixture of terror and missiles at Israel, American targets and other strategic sights in the Gulf, wreaking havoc in an already heavily destabilized Middle East.

Therefore, military strikes and sanctions cannot assure that Iran will not go nuclear; but they can assure that Iran will strike back, and that the atmosphere between the USA, Israel and Muslim countries will be deeply poisoned.

The reality is that this mindset may still, sadly, prevail. Both sides still feel the need to punish the other for past misdeeds, and expectations of threat can easily morph into an uncontrolled spiral of violence.

The key to avoiding this human disaster is to engage Iran on the basis of mutual respect and equality, which meets Iran's needs and may yield positive results for all concerned. Negotiating while threatening sanctions does not meet this criterion.

Although this second approach may be may be difficult and counterintuitive because of understandable aversions to the Iranian government's policies, especially over human rights, or Ahmadinejad's rhetoric about Israel, it may only be this reality that can move matters forward constructively.

Understanding Iran III - A Question of Needs

Recent advances in the field of psychology, in addition to shedding light on our own behaviour as individuals, can also provide valuable clues as to what may be happening below the surface with regards to such things as conflicts between groups. Our awareness of the subtle, and perhaps more fundamental, aspects of the Iran-West conflict may be measurably heightened by our consideration of some of these new understandings.

We are fast learning that mental health and well-being (and the actions that arise from those states) depend highly upon certain emotional needs being met. It is being demonstrated that in addition to important physical needs of food, air water, and shelter, human beings need and require:

* security
* attention (to give and receive)
* a sense of autonomy and control
* to be part of a wider community
* a sense of status within social groupings
* a sense of competence and achievement
* meaning and purpose

When enough of these needs are unmet within a person or a community, psychological disarray, suffering and conflict may result.

Iran’s political and diplomatic behaviour, posturing and rhetoric which is often characterized as “extreme” or “rogue” and is sometimes depicted as being intrinsic to Iranian culture, is more likely related to its needs as a nation being deprived than it is to some inherent evil. And western countries may be quite complicit in this situation.

The ongoing effort by the West to sanction and isolate Iran, as an uncreative standard operating procedure, may be a primary cause. In fact, it might be said with some degree of certainty that the reason for which tools such as sanctions exist is to deprive countries of their needs in order to exact punishment, or to force capitulation on an issue or range of issues.

Decades of Western hostility, suspicion, forced isolation from the global community, and a devaluing of all things Iranian, go completely against the grain of the needs listed above: security, the ability to exercise attention through official relations, autonomy, control, being part of a community, and enjoying a certain national status and the fruits of growth and achievement. The implications of this, as profound as they are on their own, are further bolstered by the fact, often unappreciated, that Iran is a historically and culturally rich nation with a deep sense of pride. It’s needs for recognition, respect, and status perhaps run even deeper than other nations.

How does this bear upon the conflict and on our perception and understanding of Iran as whole?

If Iranians, or others in a similar situation, cannot have their needs met through the usual avenues that modern nations and people do, they will try to fulfill them in other ways.

For instance, what the west takes to be actions that are purely hostile towards it, may in fact be alternate and/or misplaced avenues for Iran to pursue its needs:

• Iran’s continued revolutionary struggles, especially by its elites, against its “enemies” that include extreme rhetoric, action and political – may constitute an alternate form of pursuit of meaning and purpose, whose more appropriate forms are denied by sanctions and isolation

• The development of a nuclear program (either energy or weapons or both) is a pursuit of security, status, competence and achievement, again, where isolation and sanctions prevents Iran from attaining these goals in other areas

• Iran’s controversial relations to other groups such as Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, North Korea can easily be understood in terms of its needs to share attention, have relations with others, and feel part of a larger community, since it is currently excluded in various ways from the community of nations

• Iran’s intentions to become a regional power in the Middle East – something construed as hostile and ill-intentioned – may be seen through the prism of Iran’s need to have a sense of autonomy and control denied to it by the wide range of economic and political strictures imposed by the world community

• Any one of these actions can be related to other unmet needs cited in the other examples.

A dialogue with Iran can be entered into to both understand these needs as well as to discuss such possible excesses.

What is the impact of all of this for our understanding of Iran?

These behaviours, seen as pure hostility and apart from their other motives, re-enforces and feeds back into our already skewed caricatures of Iran. Our responses further alienates Iran and produces more behaviours that we use to strengthen our models. The cycle seems to have no end. Iran itself, or its leadership, may not be fully aware of the needs as described above and may be trying to compensate for those starved needs in excess.

The first step away from the precipice of the deadly violence which looms above this long-standing conflict, and towards more flexible policy options and improved relations between Iran and the West is for not only elites, but also regular citizens to learn and better understand why we see each other as we do, and how we might be able to bring our perception, even slightly more in line with what the reality might be.

Understanding Iran II - A Distorted View

In order to appreciate the notion that what we as humans actually perceive is often far removed from what is actually there, we need to draw upon recent understandings in the fields of psychology and human behaviour.

Dr. Robert Ornstein is an American psychologist whose pioneering research and work in the areas of brain functioning, consciousness and human nature has transformed the way in which we understand ourselves. Among other things, he has shown that contrary to what we think, we as human beings do not perceive and experience the world as it actually IS, but instead as a distorted picture or caricature of that reality.

According to Ornstein, because of the evolutionary imperative over millions of years for humans to survive, our brains have evolved to filter in only certain information relevant to our survival while ignoring a multiplicity of other stimuli and data which exists in the external world.

Once we have experienced any given thing - whether it be a person, a place, an object or an environment - our minds create visual models and slots those things into simple and generalized categories, which we subsequently re-experience as we understand them in our own minds, rather than as they actually exist.

Our views and experiences become “habituated” or “automized”, as kind of natural shortcut to ensure survival. Things like assumptions, biases, and prejudices are all part of the way in which our minds generalize and simplify the world around us, in order to see and react to those things that may be most relevant to our survival. The end result is that we can only see what our minds have allowed us to see at any given time. Whatever we do “see” or “experience” is almost always done so in an incomplete fashion, and as we know it to be in our minds.

Far from being a far-flung theoretical exercise with little relevance to the real world of people and events, these contentions have been confirmed by science and apply to all aspects of human life and human interaction. Because reality feels to each of us so convincing, so rich and so complete, and because we are not otherwise taught about the limitations of our cognition, it seldom occurs to us that our perceptions are incomplete or flawed. We are thus convinced of our views, and are too often compelled to act upon them.

We tend to see a country like Iran primarily in terms of its potential dangers and its propensity for aggression because that is how we have come to identify, categorize and model it, both individually and collectively in our brains. We have become habituated to that generalized perception.

Our distance from the reality of the country itself, its people, and its rich cultural heritage, combined with media coverage filtering in stories that confirm our viewpoints further strengthens our incomplete picture. A country like the United States, which has been conditioned by its past experiences with Iran, or like Israel, whose predominant collective paradigm on the outside world is that of threat and the possibility of persecution, are both more susceptible to these processes.

But the cycle of misunderstanding does not end there. It is further heightened by our own actions on the political stage, which are essentially our responses to these entrenched viewpoints, which then play back into, and further enforce, our incomplete and lopsided perceptions.

Understanding Iran

The traditional view of Iran, that of an irrational and hatemongering monolithic regime pining at any opportunity to harm its enemies, is one which has become widely accepted and unquestioned in the West. Over a generation of experts, academics, and policy-makers - some with relatively little firsthand knowledge of Persian culture - have inherited and continue to perpetuate the vilifying clichés and rhetoric that constitute the brick and mortar of a conflict that very few people understand.

The cornerstone of the West’s strategy in confronting Iran has always been to contain and punish it through the use of sanctions and diplomatic isolation, while waging covert actions in the shadows where Iran’s allies and agents are said to be also continually operative.

Despite periods of brief détente and cooperation on tactical issues, notably after 9/11, both sides have never been able to fully bridge the chasm of misunderstanding that divides them. Now, with Iran on the cusp of becoming a nuclear power, this conflict threatens to escalate to dangerous new heights as Israel – with or without the backing of the United States – stands poised to intervene militarily to deny the Iranians a nuclear capability.

Few people (including most Iranians) will deny that many of the ruling elites and organs of the Iranian state manifest extreme religious and ideological positions that are antagonistic towards the West. But in much the same way that an American would tell an Iranian who’s never experienced America that the United States is quite a lot more than someone’s idea of a “Great Satan”, Iran is also more welcoming, tolerant, diverse and sophisticated than the bleak unchanging image presented to us on the nightly news, or by our own blinkered politicians.

Indeed, at the political and other levels, if one is willing to look closely enough, there is an obvious dissonance between our perceptions of one another, and what may in fact be a more complex reality.

This in turn begs a number of questions:

1. How much of the Iran-West conflict (or any other conflict) is the result of limitations in our cognition that we as humans are naturally subject to, and are not even aware of?

2. Could the character and actions of Iran be seen through different lenses, which could help to free us from the myopic viewpoint to which we are today seemingly condemned?

3. If so, could an understanding of these subtler factors also constitute an important key towards the resolution of a long and unnecessary conflict which may yet have devastating consequences for the Middle East and for the world?

In the case of relations between Iran and the West, for example, we would like to put forward the idea that the conflict, although encompassing real issues, is also an ongoing drama involving and demonstrating flawed human cognition on multiple levels.

The West’s understanding of Iran and the dangers that it poses is more of an imaginary or psychological construct, than a true reflection of reality – and is one which gets in the way of amelioration of the conflict. The West’s inability to properly understand Iranian culture and its failure to appreciate that its own largely reactive, conditioned, and ritualistic posture of hostility towards Iran, elicits and compels Iran towards certain behaviours that then further reinforce our generalized misperceptions of Iran being a rogue.

We will be exploring these ideas further in our next series of posts.

"We are better than Them"

"White smoke drifted up from a fog machine... A sound system played...anthems - deep male voices booming to a marching band's rhythms. The parents applauded wildly, the mothers ululating." (1)

We usually reserve the word ¨cult¨ for groups that commit mass suicide by drinking poison-laced purple cool-aid.

There is a view however that cult phenomena are much more pervasive in our lives. In the book 'Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat', Dr. Arthur Deikman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, explains how cult thinking affects almost all of us. In the Middle East, where group belonging and identity remain supreme totems, the effect of hidden cult behaviour may be especially marked. Understanding its effects there may be critical to moving the region to new and more constructive paradigms.

Deikman points out that cult behaviour has three main characteristics:

• Dependence on a leader;
  
• Devaluing the outsider; and
• Avoiding dissent within the group.

Compliance to and within groups is a natural human phenomenon, necessary for survival. But group activity can vary greatly, from consensus building and open critical discussion to more cult-like closed systems that reject not only outsiders but also any intruding realities – ultimately much to the expense of the group and its survival.

Taboos and respect and fear for authority are strong features of many groups in the Middle East. From national identity, to religious systems to patriarchal families, respect for the leader, authority or ¨father figure¨ is unquestioned. The values of the society, especially religiously based ones, are taboos that do not sustain critical inquiry. Indeed, in this scenario, the ability to truly see an outsider at ¨eye level¨, i.e. equal, is simply not there.


In the Middle East, these matters are simply seen as "the way things have always been, and will always be". However, this is a method of group survival with potentially terrible consequences in an age of globalization and weapons of mass destruction.

Whether in Israel´s relations to its neighbours, its desperate desire to preserve its identity or assumptions among some about being somehow superior to others, or in Hizballah´s grip on its members, motivating them to higher purpose through sacrifice, even death, cult behaviour continues to grip the region, hidden in the veneer of tradition and references to longstanding cultures and civilizations.

"You are our leader... We are your men!" (2). Indeed, most seductive of all, according to Deikman, is when belonging to a group comes with a divine calling. It makes the mission of sublime importance and eases the ability to maintain the tightness of the group, calling on members to act blindly in its favour. By devaluing outsiders and feeling supreme, the group can provide members with a sense of mission and meaning.

The benefits of belonging to groups that act like cults are many: comfort, security, belonging, and, above all, a sense of higher purpose that the group and leader deliver, often at any cost. Indeed, it is when security and comfort meet higher purpose that the cult becomes an iron-clad contract between individual and group.

The cost of cults is massive. Deikman calls it ¨diminished realism¨. We see it every day in the Middle East:

• 91% of Israelis supported the bombing of Gaza even though the results are profoundly uncertain, even possibly counterproductive (e.g. a post-war strengthened Hamas), and other methods of approaching the problem may not have been exhausted.

• Hamas is so sure of their ¨divine purpose¨ that there is little questioning of their goals or methods. All - rockets, bombs, terror – can be justified in the light of the group´s distant goals even if, again, the results are not there: Gaza remains under siege and in a profoundly abnormal condition despite Hamas's strategy.
  

Certainly, the record of progress in the Middle East is testament to a state of ¨diminished realism¨. It may not be at all impossible for Israelis and Palestinians to come to terms if certain taboos are sacrificed, i.e. if cult behaviour is recognized and reduced.

Cult behaviour does not just apply to religious or Middle Eastern groups. It appears in a more subtle fashion in companies, organizations, and even between friends. The difficulty is that devaluing outsiders, avoiding dissent and blindly obeying leaders is often unrecognized for what it is. Furthermore, the reality is that breaking out of the group can be terrifying. Being thrust out, "excommunicated", a heretic in one's own "family" - however understood - can mean that the most basic instincts of life or death are triggered.

Yet, ironically, the word 'heretic' is derived from the Greek 'hairetikos', meaning 'able to choose'. Indeed, many in the Middle East deny the possibility of choice and point to the dance of fate in their desperate destiny, where in fact longstanding and unconscious acceptance of cult behaviour may be at play. After all, no one really wants to be a heretic.

Developing awareness of the problem is not easy, but it is possible. Recognition of one´s own cult tendencies may be the beginning.

"The musk oxen gather in a circle to defend against the wolves yet there may be only other oxen outside the circle."




(1) "Hezbollah Seeks to Marshall the Piety of the Young", New York Times, November 21, 2008
(2) Ibid.

All text and photography copyright (c) John Bell and John Zada

Human Needs and the Lure of Extremism

All text in this post copyright John Bell and John Zada 2008

As the boundaries of our understanding of psychology and human behavior are widened by the work of innovators in those fields, we are provided with new possibilities for perceiving the world around us in ways that may be more in line with reality.

For years, academics in the social sciences looked to socio-economics in their attempt to find an explanation for the powerful appeal of political and religious extremist groups in the Middle East. The idea soon emerged that disenchanted individuals – people with little education and/or few or no means to financially support themselves - were easily lured by militants, and made up the majority of their rank and file.

To many, this explanation seemed straightforward and logical enough. The solution, according to its proponents, was for governments to address the root economic causes of the disenchantment that led to people embracing extremist ideology – including unemployment, poverty, and lack of access to education.

But then something happened to muddy the waters.

Other academics, as well as those in some security services, started pointing to exceptions to this socio-economical approach. Many people, they claimed, who joined militant groups were in fact educated professionals that were known to be from the middle or upper classes. Lack of education and economic opportunity - although a factor in many cases of extremist recruitment - did not fully account for the large numbers of others who were clearly not lacking in education, jobs or money. These others had been suddenly magnetized to “the cause” for some other reason or reasons. Something else had to be at play.

Despite an emerging body of evidence-based research in the fields of the behavioral sciences that bear upon this question, there remains little consensus among academics and policymakers as to what causes some people to be attracted to extremist groups, and others not.

We now know that human beings have a set of clearly defined emotional needs that are as equally important to their well being as their physical needs. It is a person’s attempts to fulfill those needs that largely accounts for much of his or her underlying motives and behaviour in the many areas of life - regardless of how that person views his or her own actions. It is this needs-based approach that is the key to understanding the powerful motive to join an extremist group.

Some of these needs, including the need for a sense of status within social groupings and the need for a sense of competence and achievement, reflects the longstanding view by some social scientists that socio-economic issues including unemployment, poverty and lack of education do in fact play a role in the appeal of extremist groups. The inability to fulfill these needs on their own compel people to connect with others who can offer them the means to realize those needs, but in another way. For instance, a person who can’t derive a sense of competence and status through his or her work, simply because they are unable to find work, will be easily lured by a group or organization that can offer to meet those needs. But it doesn’t end there.

One could have an education, status, and money but still be vulnerable to the appeal of militancy – as demonstrated by privileged individuals who are a part of these organizations. But why would this be the case?

The appeal to join an extremist movement may be amplified for those who lack any or a combination of security, attention, a feeling of control, friendships, community, and meaning and purpose – and other fundamental human needs - because any such grouping will almost inevitably provide just those things for the would-be member. Being handed a gun and given a mandate to combat “evildoers” can provide a very powerful sense of safety, social cohesion, control over one’s destiny, and meaning to those who previously lacked those things, regardless of how well-off they may have previously been.

If people have their needs met through the healthy outlets of daily life, in a healthy society, by way of a good job, a sufficient income, a safe environment, a social network of family and friends, and a sense of meaning, they would not need to look elsewhere to have them met and will think twice about joining with others whose outward goals don’t gel with their own. This has always been the fundamental, subconscious, appeal of cults, who in addition to offering to meet certain needs also appeal to a person’s sense of dependency on others, especially authority figures.

Educating people about their needs and the necessity to meet them in a healthy fashion, combined with efforts on the part of governments, and others with influence and resources in the Middle East to foster environments where those needs should not go unmet, would go a long way in reducing the appeal of extremist groups. It would also have the effect of reducing conflicts and ameliorating core issues that provide the raison d’etre for these groups in the first place.

The Basis for Moving Forward

In recent years, a new approach in the field of psychology has opened up possibilities for understanding important aspects of human nature. This new organizing idea, known as The Human Givens, postulates that when certain specific important human needs are not met, or are denied to an individual, that mental illness and suffering can ensue. Optimal well-being therefore can only be assured when a person’s needs are both known to that person and are sufficiently met.

We believe that this scientific, evidence-based approach, which is now gaining wider currency and is replacing outmoded models of psychology, can be applied to collectives as well, and can be used to better understanding the situation in the Middle East - a region which is undoubtedly today in a state of disequilibrium.

We propose that not only does the issue of unmet human needs hold as true for collectives, groups, and societies as much as for individuals - indeed, the goal of collectives is mostly to ensure that individuals have all those needs met - but that unmet needs are at the root of many of the problems in the Middle East today – fueling “issues” which are grappled with endlessly by politicians and diplomats using traditional methods and mechanisms, often with little or no results.

Viewing issues through the lens of unmet needs offers new possibilities for addressing complex issues in the Middle East.

Below is a list of needs, which we have adapted from the Human Givens approach, and which we believe societies in the Middle East must have met if a more healthy, productive, and promising future for the region is to be realized:

Security - safe territory and environment free of threat for the healthy growth of individuals and of societies respectively.

Ecological and Environmental Health – the maintenance and promotion of a balanced physical environment that can provide for the physical sustenance/needs of individuals and societies – clean air, water, and food and sufficient living space to avoid crowding.

Economic Welfare and Opportunity – systems for governments to deliver sufficient economic welfare and opportunity for their citizens.

A Sense of Autonomy, Control and Responsibility – for communities and nations in relation to each other and the outside world, and for individuals within all societies in the Middle East. Too much control by one country over another, one group over another, or by governments over its own citizens robs collectives and individuals of the sense of volition, and leads to frustration. Examples of greater autonomy and control include:

* Israel allowing Palestinians greater freedom of movement

* Palestinians having autonomy and control over their lives through an independent government and state.
* Easing of controls and restrictions by certain Arab governments on their people on access to information
* Greater opportunities for individuals and communities to be involved in politics, local or national.
* Less intrusion by governments into the lives of citizens through security services, informants and the like
* Greater allowance and encouragement of independent thought and dissent within groups or communities

Recognition – a recognition between communities and political entities of each others’ existence and the right to exist, and the cultivation between them of healthy relations, interactions, and exchange on an equitable and mutual basis.

Connection to the Wider Community – a more integrated Middle East, and more integrated countries within the Middle East with fewer divisions, separations, and barriers, and greater interconnectivity between countries, regions, and people. Some examples:

* Greater freedom of movement for people in the region to travel to different countries
* Greater allowance for people of the same ethnic community who are currently separated by borders to meet with one another in other countries or regions, ie – Palestinians, Kurds, Druzes etc.

Individual and Group Competence, Achievement and Status – better run societies with more effective frameworks for providing groups and individuals greater opportunities to realize their economic, political and cultural goals - thereby providing individuals and collectives with the need to have a sense of their own competence, achievement and status.

Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, greed, and government apathy, deny individuals and groups fair access to opportunities for political and economic growth, leading to frustration and the channeling of energies by individuals and groups towards violence and dangerous ideologies in an attempt to meet those unmet needs.

Meaning and Purpose - Enabling an environment and culture which permits individuals to pursue meaning and purpose in their life.

The Problem

Photo copyright Tim Paul 2008

For years, efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestine problem, as well as other issues in the Middle East, have floundered outright or only managed to scratch the surface of issues whose roots lie much deeper than where most peacemaking work has taken place. Despite the failures, these political initiatives continue unabated while the problems of the Middle East become further entrenched.

As a result we have a situation today in which a team of well-intentioned doctors are attending to a patient, whose malady has been misdiagnosed, in the hope that a successive application of misplaced treatments will result in a sudden, random, and miraculous cure.

We believe that new clarity is desperately required regarding the problems of the Middle East and their resolution. In our view, the problems of the region cannot be effectively addressed on faulty premises or political terms, or in talks or agreements that do not attend to the root problem.

We believe the correct basis and working assumptions must be established before efforts move forward. Therefore we would like to suggest reframing the problems of - and the solutions to - the Middle East in wider, simpler and more fundamental human terms that draw upon new understandings in the fields of psychology and human behaviour.

We therefore postulate the following:

* Human beings come into high states of anxiety and emotion if their needs - physical and emotional - are not met. These needs can be defined and articulated and they must not be confused with wishes.

* This heightened state of anxiety and emotion is not conducive to finding ways to meet those needs, leading to a downward cycle of worsening of conditions, and in the end, violent conflict

* We believe that the Middle East is exactly in this state, failing to find successful mechanisms to meet the needs of its citizens, societies and its groups.

* Part of the reason that Middle Easterners are not properly attending to the needs of their own, is because theirs is a region that emphasizes and employs the use of ancient means of meeting needs - approaches that no longer work in today's complex world.

* These ancient means can be described as old systems of survival used by small groups (whether tribe, religion, or nation - or a mix of the three) derived from millenia of threat and competition.

* Historically, the pressing need to survive in a region filled with competing groups and frequent invaders, often combined with a lack of overarching authority to provide security, have led to the creation of these group survival systems - based partly on strength, intimidation, deterrence, and war-making - and which have persisted until today. A high degree of exclusivity within groupings adds further fuel to these divisions in a region where groups live together, or in exceptionally close proximity.

* This continued reliance upon survival through a system of exclusive and ancient grouping that once helped to meet the needs of another time is now obsolete in a world where human beings live as part of one global community, where our survival as a race depends on collective cooperation against collective threats, and in a region that, despite the wishes of many, is fundamentally interconnected.

* Put in another way: continued emphasis upon ancient group survival in the Middle East only leads to worse emotional states and poorer responses to a conflict which now, ironically, threatens the survival of the people employing these techniques in order to survive.

* In addition to spending much of their time and resources towards ensuring group survival and neglecting the basic needs of its citizens, leaders in the region often take advantage of these conditions in order to keep themselves in positions of power, prohibiting the development of new mechanisms and deepening the already profound crisis facing the region.

* This failure to properly meet needs, and the ability to move towards approaches that do, is the source of regular violent conflict in the Middle East, whether between Israelis and Palestinians, or between groups in states such as Lebanon, or Iraq, or even between Palestinians, for example.

* Indeed, today in the Middle East, there is an often intentional approach of denying or belittling the other group and its needs as a means of strengthening one's own. This, above all, needs to change if negotiations or political processes are ever to achieve lasting solutions.


We believe that new mechanisms can be achieved in the Middle East for the needs of all groups to be met, and for survival and prosperity to be assured. To be sure, these must be developed by the people in the region on the basis that the needs of all sides must be met and that new arrangements - political, economic, and cultural - can and must be found to do so. As a basis for moving forward, various groups in the Middle East must also recognize each other's legitimate needs.

Through this blog we will aim to elucidate an examination of the problems, the needs, and the means to meet them, and thus, the possible roads that could help the Middle East move from illness to health.

All text in this post copyright John Zada and John Bell 2008