Tax shelter promoters, before the tax laws changed in '87, created something which, on paper, looked like a real corporation, with a product and staff, but which were in reality just placeholders to justify tax deductions. The Ethical Spectacle and believe that something exists, outside myself and my words, an institution with that name. Humans are plain wishful, and the wish is often the template for a reality that comes later, and sometimes is the substitute for the reality. Like Hamlet, we are but mad north by northwest, and when the wind is in the south, can tell a hawk from a handshaw. We can usually, not always, use our radar to tell when something has the feel of reality and when it is woven of dreams.
Lets compare the Bosnian peace agreement to the Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
In the latter, you have two strong personalities, with a great deal of control over their respective peoples, who concluded it was time to stop fighting. In Bosnia, you have multiple players on the Serb side with limited control over one another, and the will to stop fighting is far more equivocal. Another way of saying this is that in the Middle East you have good faith, and in Bosnia you have none on the Serbian side of the equation. You also have outsiders, the mujahedeen, on the Moslem side who do not want to end the bloodshed. In the Middle East, you have a plan to separate, to yield land to form another country with its own borders, which will co-exist in security with Israel as long as good will exists on both sides.