The United States and Israel could garner more meaningful engagement from Syria in the Middle East peace process by proposing the creation of a peace park in the disputed Golan Heights area, say University of Vermont Associate Professor
Saleem Ali, a recent speaker at the Wilson Center, and Rabbi Michael Cohen of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel in “
Salvaging Peace with Syria,” available on the Carnegie Council’s “Policy Innovations” website. Noting that transboundary conservation areas have helped resolve past conflicts—as with the Cordillera del Cóndor Transboundary Protected Area, established between Peru and Ecuador in 1995—the authors argue that a Golan Heights peace park should be on the agenda at tomorrow’s Middle East peace conference in Annapolis.