The Middle East

The conflict in the Middle East between Palestinians and Israelis is a situation that has all the characteristics that make it attractive for analysis using fuzzy cognitive maps: 1) it is a very complex problem with many factors involved; 2) the problem cannot be modelled mathematically because it is not possible to reduce it to equations; and 3) the problem is open to interpretation and to different views arising from different perceptions.

In the following sections I explain how I have prepared a fuzzy cognitive map to represent the conflict in the Middle East. I also present the results obtained in the simulations on the fuzzy map using the applet. The simulations are aimed at finding a way to reduce or stop the violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Finally, I try to obtain some conclusion from the results of the simulations.

1. Selection of factors

The first step in the preparation of a fuzzy cognitive map is the selection of the factors that will form part of it. The following is a list of the factors that I have selected, according to my understanding of the situation.

Palestinian violence and Israeli violence: the violence is the most tragic consequence (or cause?) of the problem in the Middle East. Our aim is to find how the violence can be diminished or altogether stopped. Therefore the violence factors have to be included in the fuzzy cognitive map.

Palestinian eonomic development and Israeli economic development: we can assume that the level of economic development, both Palestinian and Israeli, may have some influence on the situation. The most conflictive regions of the planet are usually the poorest. There seem to be a strong correlation between conflict and economic development. I do not know if this is because poverty leads to violence or because violence prevents economic development, but more often than not they appear together. It seems reasonable to assume that wealthy people are less likely to be keen on taking part in armed conflict, if nothing else because they have a lot to lose, whereas the poor have less, or nothing, to lose but their own lives. Therefore I have decided to include economic development factors in the fuzzy map.

Palestinian military expenditure and Israeli military expenditure: no matter how ready to resort to violence one may be, nothing can be done if he has no weapons. The availability of weapons is a key factor in the development of conflict. War does not come cheap. Weapons have to be bought, maintained and replaced; soldiers have to be paid, fed, dressed and accommodated. Those who have more money, and hence more and better weapons, can strike longer and stronger.

US support of Israel and US support of Palestine: the US have been playing a major role in the peace talks and negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The US certainly have influence in the evolution of the situation. They have been able to enforce ceasefires and to bring together Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Other countries have tried to take part, somehow and to varying extent, in the peace process, but for what I know no country has been as committed as the US. For example, it seems to me that the European Union could do much more than what they do, and that the participation of Russia, China and Japan in this issue has been altogether negligible. Therefore, and for the sake of simplification, I have limited the international role in the conflict to the US's role.

Islamic support of Palestinian violence: the Palestinian cause and, more specifically, the Palestinian violence have always enjoyed committed and unconcealed support from most, if not all, other Islamic countries. In addition to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement the Islamic extremists of Islamic Jihad (from Syria) and Hezbollah (from Lebanon) have always taken a leading role in the Palestinian violence. More recently, Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda has promised war for as long as the Palestinian requests are not met. Gadaffi's Lybia does not even recognise the existence of Israel.

Israeli recognition of Palestinian state: Palestinian leaders say that what they are after is an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, with its own territories where the Israelis have no control, and fully recognized in international forums. Palestinians say that once this requirement is met their violence will stop. It is not clear to me that this is so easy; I do not believe that peace will arrive the day the Palestinian state is acknowledged by the Israelis. Nevertheless, the recognition of the Palestinian state is a key factor in the picture.

2. Selection of relationships

The second step in the preparation of the fuzzy cognitive map is to set the causal relationships between the factors.

Causes of Islamic support of Palestinian violence

The (lack of) recognition of the Palestinian state is one of the reasons for the Islamic support of Palestinian violence. The causality relationship is negative (less recognition, more support; and more recognition, less support). Another cause, positive, of the Islamic support of Palestinian violence is the Israeli violence. In Islamic countries religion acts as a kind of "glue" that makes them a brotherhood where an offence to one of the members of the group is taken personally by each of the other members. The Israeli violence against Palestinians brings other muslims to embrace the Palestinian cause without reserve.

Causes of Palestinian violence

The first and main cause of the Palestinian violence is the Israeli violence. Many of the violent actions of the Palestinians are regarded as responses to previous acts of Israeli violence. The causality relationship is positive: violence produces more violence. Another cause of the Palestinian violence is the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state. The relationship is negative: less recognition, more violence. The third cause is the Islamic support from outside. The Palestinian machinery of war is better oiled when it receives supplies and militants from other Islamic countries. The US support of Israel is almost invariably considered by Palestinians as a grievance to them, and therefore promotes violence. The economic development is also a cause of violence. Low economic development nurtures resentment and despair, and therefore incites to violent behaviour. The causality relationship is negative (more economic development, less violence). Finally, the Palestinian military expenditure is a cause of the amount of violence that the Palestinian can deploy.

Causes of Israeli violence

As with the Palestinian violence, the main cause of Israeli violence is other side's violence. In fact, to large extent the Israeli violence is focused onto Palestinian armed groups' leaders and militants and their headquarters (although school children and otherwise innocent people also take their share). The US support of Palestine is not taken gladly by Israelis; I have considered that it is a positive cause of Israeli violence. The third positive cause of Israeli violence is the Israeli military expenditure. Although I have assumed that the Palestinian economic development is a negative cause of Palestinian violence, I do not think that the Israeli economic development is a cause (positive nor negative) of Israeli violence. The sources of violence in the Palestinian and the Israeli sides have different nature. The Palestinian violence is mostly carried out by terrorist groups or unofficial non-regular armies that recruit their militants from the poorest in their communities. The Palestinian territories are impoverished regions where there is little chance of a prosper life. On the other hand, Israel is a well developed country and the Israeli violence is mostly carried out not by uncontrolled individuals or groups, but by its official army and police force. Therefore, I reckon that the Israeli economic development do not have a direct effect on the amount of Israeli violence. It has, though, an indirect effect through the military expenditure; that is, the amount of money that the state can spare to fund its army and police.

Causes of Palestinian economic development

I consider that both the Palestinian and the Israeli violence have negative effect on the Palestinian economic development. The violence consumes resources that could be otherwise devoted to productive activities. Also, violence claims its toll of deads and wounded mostly from the ranks of young adults. I read somewhere that in one year since the intifada was resumed (Sept 2000) there have been 400000 new people that can be considered to live under the threshold of poverty. The US support of Palestine, perhaps in the form of investments and loans, has a positive effect on the Palestinian economic development.

Causes of Israeli economic development

The Palestinian violence has negative effect on the Israeli economic development for reasons similar to those explained above. Palestinian bombings in Israeli hotels, restaurants and beaches do not encourage tourism and investments. On the other hand, the US support has a positive effect on the Israeli economy. In the case of Israel, this support takes the form not only of loans and investments, but also of technology transfer. In the US support factor we could also include other ways of international support, even if not American, such as the transfer of capital to Israel from Jews living elsewhere (the Diaspora) and the compensations that Germany pays to Israel for the Holocaust.

Causes of Palestinian military expenditure

From the factors in the fuzzy cognitive map I reckon that the only cause of the Palestinian military expenditure is the Palestinian economic development. It has, of course, a positive effect. I think that it the Palestinians had enough money to buy fighter planes and missiles they would buy them (and of course, they would use them).

Causes of Israeli military expenditure

The cause of the Israeli military expenditure is the Israeli economic development. This link is particularly important. As I said above, I have assumed that there is no direct effect of the economic development factor on the Israeli violence because the Israeli violence is carried out by their regular army, their secret service and their intelligence agency. The Israeli wealth is not used to fund the violence through uncontrolled individuals, but to fund the Israeli armed forces, which in turn carry out the violence.

Factors without causes

Some of the factors in the fuzzy cognitive map remain without causes, namely the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state, the US support of Palestine and the US support of Israel. I do not mean that these factors do not have causes, but that they are not motivated by any other factor in the fuzzy map. The Americans have their own agenda, and their involvement in the peace process of the Middle East varies depending on factors that often are well outside the Middle East conflict, such as the political beliefs of the US president in power at the time, or the American alliances with other Islamic or non-Islamic countries. Regarding the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state, this is a political standpoint that does not depend on anything other than on the Israeli leaders' beliefs. Of course, this is just an opinion, and it could be challenged. This will be addressed in more detail below.

The fuzzy cognitive map

The fuzzy cognitive map for this system is represented in the figure below.

The fuzzy cognitive map shown in the figure has been stored in the applet. To load it, click the Load System button, select the system in the popup window and click OK. The factors of the system will appear listed in the main window of the applet.

3. Levels of factors

We can assume that the situation in the Middle East is steady, it does not evolve. Of course, there are variations from time to time, like the peace talks during the last months of the Clinton administration, in which the parties where nearer to an agreement than never before, or the outburst of violence of the intifada, or the blockade of Palestinian territories by Israeli forces. However, on the whole, the situation does not change much. There are opposing forces, there is a conflict and there seems to be no way out of it.

Therefore, in the fuzzy congnitive map we can assign levels of 50 (out of 100) to represent the levels of all factors. This results in a steady situation in which no factor level triggers a variation in the level of any other factor. This can be verified by running the simulation and checking that there is no evolution after a few iterations.

Assigning levels of 50 to all factors does not mean that the levels of all factors, in absolute units, are the same. In fact, every factor has its own level and is measured in units that may not be applicable to other factors. For example, let's suppose that in the current steady-state situation the level of US support of Israel, in absolute quantity measured in US$/year, is say 1000m US$/year, and that the level of US support of Palestine, also in absolute quantity, is say 500m US$/year. In the fuzzy cognitive map we represent these two levels by a dimensionless value of 50, wich does not mean that the two factors have actually the same level in absolute terms. It does not matter if we use the same values to represent different absolute quantities in different factors, because we will not use the values to compare the level of one factor with the level of a different factor. Instead, we will use the values to compare the level of one factor before the simulation with the level of the same factor after the simulation. The simulation is carried out after introducing a perturbation in the system to push it away from the steady state. The perturbation of the system is, as we have seen in previous tutorials, a variation in the level of one or more of the factors.

4. Intensities of effect

Not all the causes affect a factor with the same intensity. Some of them have more effect, and others not so much. For example, we have said that in our fuzzy cognitive map both the US support of Israel and the Israeli violence are positive causes of the Palestinian violence. Both of them are causes, but not to the same degree. Surely, the Israeli violence is more a cause of Palestinian violence than the US support of Israel is. These relative importances of different causes are reflected in the intensities of effect, which in the applet range from 0 (no intensity) to 100 (maximum intensity).

Assigning intensities of effect is, in my opinion, more difficult than choosing the factors and the relationships to include in the fuzzy cognitive map. In order to make it simple, I have separated the relationships between factors in three groups: high intensity, moderate intensity and low intensity. I have assigned to them values of 25, 50 and 75 out of 100, respectively.

The relationships in each group are listed below, expressed as " factor X causes factor Y".

High intensity relationships:
Palestinian violence causes Israeli violence
Israeli violence causes Palestinian violence

Moderate intensity relationships:
Israeli recognition of Palestinian state causes Palestinian violence
Israeli violence causes Islamic support of Palestinian violence
Palestinian violence causes causes Israeli economic development
Israeli violence causes Palestinian economic development
Palestinian economic development causes Palestinian military expenditure
Israeli economic development causes Israeli military expenditure
Israeli violence causes Israeli economic development
Palestinian violence causes Palestinian economi development
Palestinian economic development causes Palestinian violence
US support of Palestine causes Palestinian economic development
US support of Israel causes Israeli economic development

Low intensity relationships:
Israeli recognition of Palestinian state causes Islamic support of Palestinian violence
Islamic support of Palestinian violence causes Palestinian violence
US support of Israel causes Palestinian violence
US support of Palestinian causes Israeli violence
Israeli military expenditure causes Israeli violence
Palestinian military expenditure causes Palestinian violence

This is just one of the many possible ways of assigning intensities of effects to relationships. Somebody else might have chosen different numeric values to represent "low", "moderate" and "high", or might have grouped the relationships in a different way, or might have chosen a different number of groups.

5. Changeable factors and dependent factors

The actors in the Middle East conflict, according to our fuzzy cognitive map, are the Palestinians, the Israelis and the US. There are also the other Islamic countries and groups that provide support of Palestinian violence. However, these other countries and groups are not a single actor. Instead, they are a not well defined set of actors that act more or less in the same way but that do not do it coordinately. Therefore, we do not consider them an actor in this discussion.

The actors may choose to change or persist in their behaviour and their objectives. In their choice, they affect how the whole system evolves. Some of the factors of the system are under direct control of the actors, and the actors can change the levels of these factors according to their will. The levels of other factors, however, are not under direct control of the actors. For example, the Palestinians may decide to stop the Palestinian violence overnight if they so wish, and the Israelis may decide to fully recognise the existence of the Palestinian state at the flip of a coin. On the other hand, the Palestinians cannot modify the level of military expenditure because this depends on their economic development. No matter how strongly the Palestinian wish to spend US$10000m in fighter planes, they cannot do it if they do not have that money in their pockets. Similarly, the Israelis cannot modify their economic development by simply willing to do it, not even by passing an act that makes it compulsory.

The factors that can be changed directly are the US support of Palestine, the US support of Israel, the Palestinian violence, the Israeli violence and the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state. Therefore it is with these five factors that we have to play to try to find a way out of the conflict.

6. Simulations on the fuzzy cognitive map

We can run simulations on the fuzzy cognitive map introducing variations in the five factors that we are allowed to change. This will give us an idea of how each factor affects the whole system.

When we modify the level of a factor in the fuzzy map and then run the simulation, the level of that factor does not remain constant. In fact, it evolves together with the other factors. In other words, it is as though the initial variation in the level of the factor is just a perturbation that pushes the whole system out of balance. The system then evolves until it finds a new balance. The aim is to find a perturbation that leads the system to a new balance that is better than the old balance. In this particular fuzzy cognitive map "better" means that it has a lower level of Palestinian and Israeli violence, and hopefully a higher level of economic development.

6.1. Effect of Israeli violence

The first factor that we can change is the Israeli violence. We can run simulations for a sample of values. The table below shows the final state of the simulations for different intial values of Israeli violence. The table does not include the levels of the factors that do not have a cause in the fuzzy cognitive map (Israeli recognition of Palestinian state, US support of Israel and US support of Palestine). The levels of these factors do not change throught the simulation, so it is not necessary to include them in the table.

As can be seen in the table, the final level of Israeli violence is different from the initial level.

The results show that an initial decrease of the initial violence (that may take the form, for example, of a unilateral conditional ceasefire) provokes a decrease in the level of Palestinian violence and its support. The Israeli violence also diminishes, but not so much. The economic development in both communities increases, and so does the military expenditure. When the initial Israeli violence is high the final state is the opposite: more violence from both sides, more Islamic support to the violence and more poverty on both sides.

6.2. Effect of Palestinian violence

The next set of simulations explores the effect of the Palestinian violence. As before we can run simulation for a sample of initial levels of Palestinian violence. The initial level of Israeli violence is in all cases 50. Again, factors that do not change are not in the table.

Remarkably, a decrease or increase of the level of Palestinian violence has pretty much the same overall effect at the corresponding decrease or increase of the Israeli violence. This result suggest that the violences and their effects are very symmetrical. This is not a big surprise because our fuzzy cognitive map is quite symmetric, both in the factors and in their relationships.

6.3. Effect of Palestinian and Israeli violence

The third set of simulations addresses variations of both Palestinian and Israeli violences in the same direction and by the same amount. The upper row of the table shows the initial level of Israeli and Palestinian violence.

Again, we obtain very similar results as in the previous two tables. This results suggest that, in order to achieve a reduction in the level of violence on both sides, it is not necessary a ceasefire from both sides. In the long run, it seems that a ceasefire from just one of the sides produces the same effect. Knowing this may be an encouragement for unilateral demonstrations of good will on either side.

6.4. Effect of US support of Palestine

The next series of simulations are aimed at understanding the effect of the US support. First, we run simulations for variations of the level of US support of Palestine.

In this case, the level of support remains constant throught the simulation because the US support of Palestine and Israel does not have a cause in the fuzzy cognitive map. Therefore the level of US support has not been included in the final state; it is as in the top row of the table.

Not suprisingly, the lack of US support of Palestine has devastating consequences for them, according to the results. The level of violence increases significantly, better supported from other Islamic countries, and the economic development plummet. The opposite happens when the US supports Palestine, although this support does not eliminates the violence entirely.

The effect of the US support of Palestine on the Israeli economic development and military expenditure is not reasonable. It is not possible to see any coherent relationship between the level of US support and the levels of Israeli economic development and Israeli military expenditure. It seems that there are only two possible final states for these: either 90/90 or 10/10. This suggests that the representation of the relationships of Israeli economic development and military expenditure with everything else in the fuzzy map are flawed for some reason.

6.5. Effect of US support of Israel

The next table shows the effect of variations of the US support to Israel. The initial (and subsequent) levels of US support of Palestine are at value 50.

Interestingly, the results show that the less US support of Israel, the better for the improvement of violence. A 0 US support to Israel (which perhaps may take the form of even economic sanctions, accusations on international forums or blockades) diminishes the violence and the Islamic support of violence significantly. Unfortunately, the side effect is the disaster in the economic development of Israel. However, it is not clear how reliable this is, because as we saw in Table 6.4-1 it seems that the fuzzy cognitive map does not represent well the economic development and military expenditure of Israel. This can be noticed also in Table 6.5-1: the level of US support of 60 produces a worse economic situation than the level of support of 40. This cannot be right.

6.6. Effect of US support of Palestine and Israel

The next table shows the combined effect of variations of US support of Palestine and Israel, in the same direction and to the same degree.

The results show that both maximum and minimum support are bad for the situation, both in terms of violence and economy. The best results are obtained when the support is low, but not too low (i.e. level 20). However, the results for economic development and military expenditure, both for Israel and Palestine, are not reliable, as they do not show a meaningful relationship to the levels of US support.

6.7. Effect of Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state

The last factor that can be modified is the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state. The results of a set of simulations for a sample of different initial values are in the following table.

The best results are obtained when Israel fully recognises the Palestinian state. However, full recognition of the Palestinian state does not eliminate the violence. And again, the results for the economic development and military expenditure are suspect: they are either at level 10 or 90. However, although quantitatively suspect, they are qualitatively correct, as they increase with the level of US support.

7. Modifications to the fuzzy cognitive map

The factors and relationships included in the fuzzy cognitive map that we have used in the previous sections (see figure above) represent one of the many possible views of the conflict in the Middle East. Somebody else might have come up with a very different map. After all, the fuzzy cognitive map reflects our knowledge about the problem at hand and our perceptions.

In the map above the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state affects the Palestinian violence (negative causal flux), but the Palestinian violence does not affect the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state. This may be a faithful representation of the actual situation. However, one could suppose that the Palestinian violence does affect the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state. It is possible that if the Palestinian violence diminished the Israelis would be more favourable (or less opposed) to the idea of a Palestinian state. On the other hand, if the Palestinian violence were high, the Israelis would strongly oppose the Palestinian requests of an independent state for them.

Also, one could suppose that if the Israelis give up to the requests of the Palestinians and recognize, to some extent, the Palestinian state, this would be accompanied by a reduction in the Israeli violence against the Palestinians. After all, it would not make any sense granting what the Palestinians request and at the same time attacking them.

We can modify the fuzzy conginitve map and add a negative causality relationship from the Palestinian violence to the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state and another negative causality relationship from the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state to the Israeli violence. The resulting fuzzy cognitive map is depicted in the following figure.

I have assigned an intensity of effect of 50 (i.e. moderate according to the classification above) to each of the two new relationships.

8. Simulations on the modified fuzzy cognitive map

The following sections present the results obtained in the simulations on the modified fuzzy cognitive map. In order to facilitate the comparison with the results presented in Section 6 I have run the same set of simulations with the same initial values.

8.1. Effect of Israeli violence

The next table contains the results of the simulations for variations in the level of Israeli violence. In the modified fuzzy cognitive map the Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state is not any more an invariant factor: it depends on the level of Palestinian violence, and therefore evolves in the simulation. I have included the final level of this factor in this and the subsequent tables.

We can see that there are only two very distinct final states, depending on whether the initial level of Israeli violence is above or below the average. The amount of deviation from the average does not have any effect on the final result. When the Israeli violence is below the average the final situation is remarkably good. It all ends up with full recognition for the Palestinian state, little Islamic support of violence, high economic development on both sides and low violence. It is interesting to see that even in the most favourable of the situations there is still remaining violence on both sides. This is surely an effect of the high level of military expenditure.

When the initial level of Israeli violence is above the average the final situations are certainly bad: lots of violence, poverty and high Islamic support of violence.

8.2. Effect of Palestinian violence

The results of the simulations for variations in the level of Palestinian violence are the same as those for variations in the Israeli violence. They are in the next table.

This curious behaviour (same effect arising from different violences) was already found in the first fuzzy cognitive map (Table 6.1-1, 6.2-1 and 6.3-1). The modifications have not altered this.

8.3. Effect of Palestinian and Israeli violence

The following table presents the results of simulations in which both initial levels of violence have varied. The results are the same as those presented in sections 8.1 and 8.2.

If we compare the results presented in Section 6 with those presented in this table we see that the effect of the modifications in the fuzzy cognitive map is that they reinforce the results for violence, whereas they do not affect the economy. Where before we obtained low (high) violence we now obtain lower (higher) violence; where before we obtained low (high) Islamic support of violence we now obtain higher (lower) support.

8.4. Effect of US support of Palestine

The results of the effect of US support of Palestine are in the next table.

As before, we have two distinct final states depending on whether the initial US support of Palestine is higher or lower than average. The results for Palestinian economic development and military expenditure are the same as those in Table 6.4-1. There are variations in the levels of final violence and in the economy of the Israelis. In Table 6.4-1 we saw that the levels of Israeli economic development and Israeli military expenditure were chaotic in their dependency on the level of US support of Palestine. This does not occurs in Table 8.4-1.

The results in the previous table suggest that higher US support of Palestine is beneficial for the conflict in the Middle East.

8.5. Effect of US support of Israel

The results of simulations for variations in the level of US support of Israel, in Table 8.5-1, suggest that lower US support of Israel leads to lower violence, better economic development and reduced Islamic support to Palestinian violence.

In this table the chaotic dependency of the Israeli economy on the level of US support appears again. It is clear that the modifications to the fuzzy cognitive map have not sorted out this deficiency in the map.

8.6. Effect of US support of Palestine and Israel

The following table shows the effects of the combined US support, or lack of support, of Palestine and Israel at the same time.

The final violence levels are similar to those obtained when only the level of US support of Palestine is changed. The results for the economic development and economic expenditure are not meaningful because, once again, they show chaotic behaviour.

8.7. Effect of Israeli recognition of Palestinian state

The level of Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state produces two final results

An initial higher level of recognition of the Palestinian state has a dramatic effect on the evolution of the situation for the better.

The final results in this case are the same as those we have seen in Table 8.1-1, 8.2-1 and 8.3-1 (effects of Palestinian and Israeli violences). These results seem to be a consequence of the feedback loop formed by the factors Israeli recognition, Palestinian violence and Israeli violence. Less Palestinian violence leads to more recognition leads to less Israeli violence leads to less Palestinian violence.

9. Conclusions

From the results obtained in the simulations we can draw some conclusions. The first one is that it does not seem possible to eliminate the violence completely, at least as long as the relationships between factors, as shown in the fuzzy map, do not change. Nevertheless, according to the results of the simulations, it is possible to achieve a reduction in the level of violence and an improvement in the economic situation of both communities. The necessary steps to achieve this are in the following list. The data that justify each statement are given between square brakets.

• The reduction of only one violence, either Palestinian or Israeli, even by little, is enough to achieve a significant improvement in the situation [Table 6.1-1, 6.2-1, 6.3-1, 8.1-1, 8.2-1 and 8.3-1].
• The US should not diminish their support of Palestine. To achieve an improvement in the overall situation the US should increase their support to Palestine, even by little [Table 6.4-1, and 8.4-1].
• The US should not increase their support of Israel. At most, they can reduce it a little, but not too much [Table 6.5-1 and 8.5-1].
• Israel should recognize the Palestinian state. If possible to full extent, but even a slight increment of recognition would make a significant different for the better in the long run [Table 6.7-1 and 8.7-1].
• The US or the international community should enforce Israel to publicly commit themselves to a higher recognition of the Palestinian state if the Palestinians reduce unilaterally their level violence. This is to make sure that the negative causal flux from Palestinian violence to Israeli recognition of the Palestinian state exists. [Comarison of levels of violence in Section 6 with those in Section 8]. Following this, the US should enforce a ceasefire from Palestine.

It is clear from the results of the simulations that the fuzzy cognitive map does not represent well the relationships between the economic development and military expenditure with all the other factors. This would have to be fixed. However, it is not clear to me how this could be achieved.

The fuzzy cognitive map presented here is, as I said, only one of the many possible views of the conflict. The relationships in the fuzzy cognitive map could be rearranged, and more factors could be added, such as the Israeli and Palestinian religious extremists opposed to the peace process (e.g. Hamas), the corruption in the Palestinian authorities, the degree of control or lack of control that the Palestinian authorities have over violent Palestinian militants, the availability of weapons for the civil Palestinian and Israeli population, the number and frequency of meetings between Palestinian and Israeli authorities, the readiness of Palestinian authorities to arrest Islamic terrorists, and the intenational intervention from UN, European Union, China, Russia and Japan.

If you have other fuzzy cognitive maps of the Middle East that you want to share with me and other readers of this page, please send them to me and I will post them here.