![minimizing settlers 3 minimizing settlers 3](https://bestlifeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/04/Settlers-of-Catan.jpg)
Over the years, the AHP has been successfully applied in a wide variety of complex corporate and military decisions, involving resource allocation and prioritization of options, such as Poland’s decision not to join the Euro zone, and in some extremely sensitive political situations, such as the conflicts in Northern Ireland and South Africa.
![minimizing settlers 3 minimizing settlers 3](http://img.everychina.com/nimg/71/16/40cb03bcd1aa21fea6ff0c29d49d-600x600-0/plate_settler_clarifier_tube_settler_media_wide_use_in_papermaking_water.jpg)
![minimizing settlers 3 minimizing settlers 3](https://www.mdpi.com/sustainability/sustainability-10-02934/article_deploy/html/images/sustainability-10-02934-g003.png)
This paper can serve to illustrate how mathematics can help quantify the value of tradeoffs necessary to solve this impasse. We began with testing how this retributive conflict (one in which both sides profess to desire a solution but were equally committed to inflicting pain on the other party) could be profitably addressed by the AHP, a mathematical theory concerned, among other factors, with the measurement of the crucial intangible criteria at the heart of this conflict. These advantages include minimizing the emotional interplay between the parties, accurately measuring the impact of intangible factors not previously considered, providing an opportunity to consider every possible issue involved, identifying all concessions that could be made by either party, no matter which party articulated them, providing an opportunity for tradeoffs between and among concessions, establishing values for each concession that create priorities expressing the importance, as accurately measured, of each factor involved, and using a hierarchical structure to establish the benefits, opportunities, costs and risks. Suffice it to say that the advantages which the AHP provides over face to face negotiations are critical intellectually and substantively. A summary of how AHP can be used to resolve conflicts is shown in section two of this paper. The last two meetings were held in January and in April of 2014. These serious-minded and influential participants proceeded to pursue goals to provide decision makers with quantitatively based parameters with regard to the major issues involved in the conflict. This latter group has worked together for several years and has developed trust and confidence in one another that facilitated their deliberations. Finally, a group of prominent Israeli and Palestinian leaders were invited to complete the cycle. Over time these initial participants were replaced by citizens of Israel and of Palestinian residency. With the support of a number of private foundations, we were able, on several occasions, to gather together in Pittsburgh participant groups of equal size, consisting of people who were interested in and knowledgeable about this conflict. What has been provided is an agreed upon solution to virtually all of the issues impeding past negotiations, including borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem, the Holy Places, security and expectations of each side.įive years ago we began preliminary work to organize the difficult issues, associated with the six decade old confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians. That problem is currently being worked on, but will take an extended period because of the unique factors involved. To date, the participants, significant members of both communities, have derived and agreed upon a solution that includes all the major issues, except for the refugee problem. A summary of the highlights of the AHP approach precedes how it has been applied to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This paper identifies a significant number of those impediments and indicates how the AHP can productively address them. There are a plethora of reasons why the traditional face to face negotiations have broken down over the years. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approaches the problem along these lines. While the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has raged for decades, in all of its ramifications there has never been a totally structured or scientific approach to the conflict with all of its details.