Political Mediation (yes I said I wouldn't get political, I know)

In the end, Israel and Hamas both know that there will be a cease-fire in Gaza. Its timing and terms will be "negotiated" in bombs and bloodshed in the days ahead; it will be mediated by a third party or a combination of third parties; and it will be shaped by a complex regional power game involving an array of competing Israeli politicians, the rival Palestinian leaderships of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt, Syria and even more distant players such as Turkey, Iran and, of course, the United States. The victims of this "negotiation", needless to say, will be scores of ordinary Palestinians, and a handful of Israelis. And at its end, the fundamentals of the Gaza standoff will remain largely unchanged. x

read the full story @ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869122,00.html

What is interesting to note here is that the consensus is (by reading the last sentence above) is that the mediations will not change anything, but they are doing it anyway. Like other forms of what one could call "micro mediation" or mediation between a smaller group of people, there is a competition in place, peace and understanding are only possible if there is no "power game", as the article states. Now there can be a political power game as easily as there can be a personal one in just a dyad of two people or any small group. There is the tendency for people to have a dichotomous view of their situations; right/wrong, winner/loser, good/evil, etc... A person will go into a power game with that label ready to pounce. Except in the cases that I have talked about in previous posts, where a criminal must prepare him or herself to be "wrong" and "evil" while the other side of the mediation table is full of the supposed faces of "good" and "right", other people will simply stroll into mediation, wanting to win, wanting to prove they are right, and believing they are "good" and the other "bad". There has to be a gray area, there has to be a right to be different without a total focus on what makes others different, but rather what makes them the same. There is trouble when people feel like they are not being totally PC and not recognizing differences, but it seems obvious that rivals KNOW they are there (differences that is). But, from The Art of War comes the obvious strategy for rivals. Respect your enemy. People fight over their differences, they can only respect one another is they can see their similarities. So, I guess we can see how this mediation goes. It should be interesting.