Col. Kris Bauman
Colonel Kris A. Bauman, USAF is an active duty Air Force officer serving as a Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies and as an adjunct instructor at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, both at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. In 2013-2014, Colonel Bauman worked inside the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the Chief of Staff for the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense, General John R. Allen, USMC, retired. Gen Allen’s team was responsible for the security portfolio of a proposed two-state agreement between Israelis and Palestinians during the negotiations led by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Key Recommendations
Completing the security barrier should include an indefinite Israeli freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank east of the barrier and an Israeli preparedness to acknowledge that territories east of the barrier would constitute a future Palestinian state, pending a negotiated agreement.
FOR ISRAELIS
Israelis will need to know that there will not be arbitrary timetables that force a premature redeployment that leaves Israel vulnerable. To address this, there would be a conditions based redeployment with agreed target timetables.
FOR PALESTINIANS
Palestinians will need to see a realistic end to the occupation and real and visible changes on the ground quickly. This will be necessary to cause the fundamental political shift that will convince many Palestinian fence-sitters to support the agreement instead of rejecting it and sympathizing with violators of the agreement.
The SIVG
A Security Implementation Verification Group (or SIVG) consisting of Israeli, Palestinian and American security professionals would be established to implement the transition and would set up a clearly defined set of metrics designed primarily to evaluate the capabilities of the Palestinian security forces and the construction of the necessary security infrastructure. The SIVG would provide training to the Palestinian forces while a separate and objective evaluation group would judge their performance.
HOW THE SIVG WORKS
For example, if the SIVG were to judge that the Palestinians have met a particular series of targets, then a redeployment of Israeli security forces in a specific area would proceed as planned. If the Palestinians are judged to have not met a specific metric, then the SIVG would develop a plan to address the deficiencies. If this process does not produce unanimity in judging Palestinian performance, the matter is referred to the respective senior political leadership.
