We are witnessing in the current Israel-Palestinian conflict a perversion of the liberal international system which usually brings peace to democratic nations. Interdependence and exchange between Israelis and Palestinians only offers opportunities for Israeli forces to humiliate Palestinians and inflict collective punishment and for suicide bombers to kill dozens in return. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority appears to have the ability to stop bloody attacks on the other side, which in any case appear to make political hay for both sides. Worst of all, competing religious doctrines appear to justify competing sides' claims for Jerusalem. Traditional measures of attaining peace -- destroying terrorists, ceasing violence and diplomatic intercourse -- can do little to resurrect the Oslo peace accord from its very deep grave due to fundamental incentives for violence. This column will explore an unconventional method for the United States to achieve peace that may work better than the diplomatic intercourse that seems a world apart from the carnage in the streets of Tel Aviv and Ramallah.
Amplify the Costs of Violence
Ostentatious (and messy) security operations by the Israelis as well as martyrdom by Palestinians makes great press on both sides, which in itself feeds more low-level violence. The solution -- calling for restraint on both sides -- merely increases the relative benefit of violence. If Yasser Arafat knows that Bush will call for Israeli "restraint" after the latest suicide bombing, then he and the Palestinian terrorists who inflict these obscenities on Israel get a free political lunch out of dead Israelis and Palestinian martyrs. If Ariel Sharon knows that Bush will condemn suicide bombings, sending tanks into refugee camps makes great politics among Israeli hard-liners. Both sides have perverse incentives to break American preferences for peace. And hence we have a situation where 10 or 15 people get killed per day in perpetuity. This level of violence is enough to feed popular anger, silence moderating voices and continue until we reach a situation where almost 2,000 on both sides are dead. It is not sufficient to sober each population against violence.
On the other hand, if the Palestinian Authority was provided with modern anti-tank weapons at the same time Sharon was provided with economic aid such that he could continue general mobilization of the Israeli Defense Forces without economic damage to Israel, the level of violence would increase very quickly but a military stalemate would still ensue. Such a condition would give credence to the peace parties on both sides. The key is that enough violence occurs to shock the population and perhaps give peace a chance. It is unfortunate that neither side can take the direct approach to peace by simply laying down their arms. Instead, it may take the investment of 100, 200 or 1,000 dead in a single day to stop the perpetual cycle of violence.
Separate the Sides
Having discredited the violent hardliners on both sides, the key would be to prevent opportunities for a peace to break and violence to spiral upwards again. While in the long run, peace is preserved through interdependence and commerce, the two only provide opportunities for discord and violence in the short term. Open borders to Palestinian workers and West Bank settlements would serve as the catalysts for renewed low-level violence. Sealing the border and pulling back Israeli settlements in the West Bank to behind a Korean-style demilitarized zone would reduce these instances and increase the chance of peace. A border inviolable by any party -- government or terrorist -- would also reduce the possibility of incursions by either side achieving any objective and would discourage retaliatory violence. Palestinian Katyusha rockets could be countered by Nautilus laser systems under development by the US Army; Israeli AH-64s and armor could be countered by missile systems under Palestinian control. Publicly authorizing Israeli nuclear retaliation in the event of another Yom Kippur invasion would go a long way towards guaranteeing Israeli security. By stabilizing the military condition on both sides, Israel and the Palestinian Authority buy time for public rage to dissipate.
Kill the Hostage
A field of conflict reshaped among stable lines removes any incentive to violent action. The next step is to remove any possibility of future conflict over religious sites. Inevitably, any security force guaranteeing or denying access would itself become a political football. There is too much political capital to be gained or lost over who has a better deal over which religious site. By denying access to all sides -- preventing gunmen from taking refuge in the Church of the Nativity or Ariel Sharon from visiting the al Aqsa mosque -- the religious issue is taken off the table. Yet we simultaneously need to retain our faith that somehow the religious issue will be solved by cooler heads in the long term instead of being hijacked by religious politicians such as Hamas and the Likud party.
Evacuating East Jerusalem and poisoning the religious sites with radioactive elements with a specified half-life buys enough time to work the religion out of the heads of both sides. At the same time, radiation does not physically destroy the religious sites. No mullah will be able to claim Zionist desecration and no Zionist will be able to talk about any destiny or biblical claim to a land which is uninhabitable to humans. Something that killed all humans that entered the land would emphasize the common ground that everyone there shares. Removing religion from the political arena leaves only human concerns such as economic development, human rights (on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides) and democracy. In the end these, not appeasement or violence, are the answer to the question of peace for Galilee.
These three steps proposed here are bloody and reveal an estimation of human nature that is baser and more bestial than the conceptions assumed by modern diplomacy. Yet these solutions are only a response to the failure of our better instincts. We can't simply ratchet down war until we remove its incentives. We can't have peace without creating the conditions in which peace can survive in the short run or without denying ourselves the opportunity to derail peace in the long run. These involve reducing "frictional" interactions and taking religion off the table. Given the failure of idealism to provide any answer to the conflict, we may be forced to deny it in order to achieve peace.
