Bruce Bueno De Mesquitas, Chairman of NYU’s Department of Politics, has an interesting take on why past peace plans have not worked, and how to structure new ones so that they do:
“Land for peace is an inherently flawed concept because it has a fundamental commitment problem. If I give you land on your promise of peace in the future, after you have the land, as the Israelis well know, it is very costly to take it back if you renege. You have an incentive to say, ‘You made a good step, it’s a gesture in the right direction, but I thought you were giving me more than this. I can’t give you peace just for this, it’s not enough.’ Conversely, if we have peace for land—you disarm, put down your weapons, and get rid of the threats to me and I will then give you the land—the reverse is true: I have no commitment to follow through. Once you’ve laid down your weapons, you have no threat.
“In a peaceful world, what do the Palestinians anticipate will be their main source of economic viability? Tourism. This is what their own documents say. And, of course, the Israelis make a lot of money from tourism, and that revenue is very easy to track. As a starting point requiring no trust, no mutual cooperation, I would suggest that all tourist revenue be [divided by] a fixed formula based on the current population of the region, which is roughly 40 percent Palestinian, 60 percent Israeli. The money would go automatically to each side. Now, when there is violence, tourists don’t come. So the tourist revenue is automatically responsive to the level of violence on either side for both sides.”
One issue I see is that money (including from tourism) handed to a Palestinian government is not necessarily money handed to the people. If peace broke out with Israel, Palestinians would likely start looking for a new government that specializes in governing, not war-making. That’s not good news for the current government, or its supporters that send it money and weapons.
Nonetheless, the De Mesquitas’ idea is quite interesting, and seems to have a lot of merit. Given enough time, I could see plans like this incentivizing Palestinians to start moving in the right direction.
It would be nice to see more of this type of thinking applied to US foreign policy as well, which apparently might be in the works.
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