Israel, Palestine, and the Two-State Solution

I noticed this op-ed by Ehud Olmert today in the NYT (it’s late in the month, so hopefully your free article count with them hasn’t run out), where he outlines the terms of a deal that he thinks both sides should agree to, involving land-swaps, equivalent land area to the pre-1967 borders, a shared Jerusalem, and third-party administration of the holy sites in that city…and, to cap it off,


I don’t pretend to know the current official positions of either side on the first few issues, but this last one strikes me as particularly difficult from a practical standpoint. So let’s leave other substantive issues with the agreement aside and consider this one: would an agreement to forego a military even work?

This deal would require that an erstwhile state agree to give up its two primary means of self-defense: arms and allies. (I can imagine a state that suffered a total military defeat agreeing to this, but not many others.) In fact, yielding the means of self-defense is almost like yielding statehood, and the Palestinians likely know that this will leave them vulnerable (not just to Israel but to other potential threats) in the future, a future in which states with militaries can’t commit not to use that leverage to their advantage. In that sense, it’s easy to see why this agreement might not work: the status quo today, however painful and however dim the prospects of some alternative deal emerging, might be better than a future in which a state can’t effectively wield military power. (Of course, we might also think that agreements to demilitarize are inherently incredible to begin with, and that Palestine could freely militarize regardless of the agreement, but doing so would be in clear violation of a previous agreement, giving outsiders a casus belli or, at the very least, legal room in which to frustrate any attempt to arm.)

All in all, the terms themselves would prevent this deal from being self-enforcing: states with militaries might want to make demands of states without them, leading those states without to try to militarize in violation of the terms of the agreement, which means the deal likely wouldn’t stick (and when it broke down, it would be pretty costly). And, anticipating that, why sign that deal in the first place?

However this whole thing shakes out—peacefully, violently, or, well, never—my suspicion is that, unless the status quo goes quickly from bad to worse for Palestine, a stable agreement to establish two states won’t involve a de-militarized Palestinian political entity.


UPDATE: Phil Arena has a great discussion of some of the longer-term demographic sources of commitment problems in Israel and Palestine.

What does bargaining theory have to say about Mubarak’s decision?

So Hosni Mubarak promised not to seek a new term once Egyptian elections roll around in September, but the crowds of protesters have stayed in place. The question is: should we be surprised? I say no, and here’s why: unless he steps down, and soon, Mubarak’s promise is pretty incredible. If he promises to step down 7, 8 months from now, yet the crowds go home, they’ve lost their leverage over him. He’s free to renege on the promise, because with the populace once again demobilized and uncoordinated, the repressive apparatus can take steps to make a repeat more difficult…and without people in the streets, the pressure to step down when September rolls around won’t be as great. Returning to their homes means that the protestors lose their leverage, so Mubarak’s promise is just that—a convenant without the sword—and it’s no surprise that the crowds remain in the streets, despite the costs of maintaining a country-crippling protest.

What’s the endgame? Who knows? Revolutions have to be unpredictable to some extent if they’re to get off the ground (otherwise they’d be headed off by the state’s repressive organs), but it’s now become a waiting game, of sorts…but the only way to guarantee that the crowds get what they want is for Mubarak to blink first…

…and, at this point, we’re watching either history or one really big tease.

What worries me long term about Egypt?

Several things, to be honest, but I’d say that whether the Egyptians come out the other side of this with a government that will honor or repudiate the peace treaty with Israel will have a lot to say about international relations in the region in the coming years. For decades, Egypt’s been repressive at home and pragmatic towards Israel, but who knows what the relative balance between those two will be when the dust settles?

Yemen and the problem of sovereignty

Much has been made lately about Yemen as a new front in the American military effort against Al Qaeda and its affiliates (in this case, it’s Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP). An already ill-defined border with Saudi Arabia has long caused problems in the control of militants, criminals, and illegal immigrants, and as AQAP continues to operate and, perhaps, grow in strength, the Yemeni government’s inability to run its own household has led to some interesting strategies on the Saudi side for dealing with the problem, detailed in this article I ran across in the Times a few weeks ago. Turns out that my paper with Toby Rider, “War, Peace, and Internal Sovereignty,” has something to say about this problem (in fact, Toby’s working up a case discussion of Yemen for the next draft of the paper as I write this), so let’s dig into it a little deeper.

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