With limited exposure to the Middle East, Doug Suisman has drawn on his experience designing public spaces and transit systems for Los Angeles to help him with a daunting task: envisioning the new state of Palestine.
In years past, the idea of an independent and economically viable Palestine seemed too far-fetched to contemplate. But with Jewish settlers now evacuated from the Gaza Strip and Israel intent on turning the territory over to the Palestinian Authority, the notion has become less abstract.
Even so, Suisman's vision requires getting beyond years of intractable violence, border disputes and failed peace plans. His proposal has its roots in a rosy scenario far removed from gritty realities.
"We started with the assumption that a peace accord had been reached and a Palestinian state had been established," said Suisman, 50, an urban designer and architect based in Santa Monica. "We asked ourselves, 'What then?' We were looking for strategies to help a new Palestinian state succeed."
His work is part of a two-year, $3-million Rand Corp. project to determine whether an independent Palestine -- made up of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank -- could succeed in the volatile region. Rand is a nonprofit think tank based in Santa Monica.
Working with maps and projections of a near-doubling of population in 15 years (to 6.6 million), Suisman and a colleague early last year began imagining a high-speed railway that would run 70 miles through the West Bank. It would link Jenin in the north with Hebron in the south, then swerve through Israel's Negev desert to connect the West Bank to the Gaza Strip -- a total of about 140 miles.
Alongside the line would stretch an aqueduct, a fiberoptic cable trench, power lines, a toll road and a narrow ribbon of parkland. Suisman has dubbed the ensemble "the Arc," after the gently curved portion that would hug the West Bank mountain ridges that divide the Mediterranean ecosystem to the west from the arid slopes on the east.
The proposal also seeks to foster a strong tourism industry and good links between air and ground transportation, which Suisman views as key to a future Palestine's economic viability.
Suisman's concepts are contained in a report called "The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State," which was released in April. It accompanied another Rand report titled "Building a Successful Palestinian State," which recommends steps the Palestinians, Israelis, the U.S. and the rest of the international community could take to ensure the success of a Palestinian state.
