Hi Wilf,

Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Sorry, but I don't see this as that insightful, or even that hopeful. It's Israeli/Arab culture 101.
I don't think I characterized it as either "insightful" or hopeful" . And, yes I agree, it is a 101 class. What I was hoping to find, and it doesn't really show up in the main article Rex linked to unfortunately, was if they had expanded it significantly beyond the Israeli-Palestinian group. Anyway, I've emailed Scott to see if they have done any more elaboration on it.

Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
The bizarre and patronising western attitude that the "Laws of Souk" apply to negotiating your peoples future, is well known and has always been useless. Look at the failure of the British and French peace and partition plans in 1929 and 1948.
Really good points, as is Rex's on not being able to come up with an agreeable narrative.

As an historical note, there are some interesting examples of this type of negotiation apparent in the Treaty of Westphalia (which is where I was hoping they had taken it) and other treaties (e.g. Quebec, 1760).