* The following article was co-written with Andrea Bartoli and set to be published in the next issue of Unrest Magazine.
This month a new flotilla is scheduled to set sail to Gaza. As will be recalled, in May 2010 a violent confrontation at sea between Israeli naval forces and pro-Palestinian activists led to the death of nine people and many more injured; before a Turkish vessel aiming at breaking the Israeli blockade of Gaza was escorted to a port....
As scholars of conflict resolution, we believe that such situations call for constructive adaptation on the part of those involved. To that end we propose the IDF take initiative and create the first ever Conflict Resolution Commando unit.
Imagine back in 2010 if instead of masked men with guns, trained for intense warfare at sea, boarding a ship in the dead of night, the IDF had dispatched an elite unit of conflict resolution specialists. Could the tragedy at sea been averted? Could it be that new tools must be designed to maximize the possibility of non-destructive outcome to occur? Could it be that a fundamental reframing to many situations could be offered by people willing to die for a cause but not willing to kill for it?
The fundamental idea is that military units are more and more specialized. Comprised of highly skilled individuals trained in conflict resolution, effective communication, negotiation, dialogue, participatory processes, the Conflict Resolution Commandos (CRC) will be part of the military...
[Read the rest of this article at the Huffington Post HERE]
