Moderating
Don’t hijack this debate.
This would work out exactly as well as gafol worked for the Britons. i.e. not at all.
Is that the same as danegeld? If so, danegeld was a one time payment (or multiple one-time payments), and thus they were incentivized to threaten again to get paid again. For my plan, no one gets paid until a peace agreement is signed, plus 1 year of peace… and then the ongoing payments are paused with any violence, and only resume upon violence ceasing. Not sure what the threshold for “violence” should be – something above a single incident, something below Oct 7th.
So I think it’s pretty different. Which obviously doesn’t guarantee success.
Again, the plan sounds good in theory. The problem though is that the Palestinians can’t go to Hamas or Hezbollah and ask them to please refrain from terrorist attacks on Israel so they can get money from the UN/US/whichever group is paying. Best case scenario, they get laughed out of the room. Worst case scenario, they get executed.
I didn’t say it was the same. I said it would work about as well.
This. Are we expecting Palestinians or Israelis as a group to root-out and turn-in troublemakers to the authorities? Or expecting them to somehow suppress the bad guys?
You might be right, but you haven’t provided any argument.
I agree, they’d have to figure something else out. Thankfully, throughout human history there have been other options to oppose, dissuade, and defeat violent extremists with more chances of success than “to ask them to please refrain from terrorist attacks”.
I don’t know all those possibilities, but Hamas is not all-powerful, and neither are Israeli settlers and other extremists. One day they’ll be defeated, diminished, or otherwise gone. Maybe financial motivation for the general population could help speed that up.
One argument is that it’s very, very likely that you’re just wrong about the amount of motivation money can provide, when what you’re trying to bribe away is something more important - for a lot of Palestinians (I would guess the majority), that’s freedom from oppression. I know back in the day, no amount of money would have persuaded most of us non-White South Africans to just suck up being oppressed and content with living on the wastelands on the fringes of our own land.
Your proposed peace bribe isn’t going to be enough motivation against that, or against Israeli greed for Gaza beachfront property.
This is very possible. It’s based on an assumption that, for the most part, Gazans and Israelis are just regular people, politics notwithstanding, and most of them are primarily motivated by wanting to ensure a decent life and future for themselves and their families. I think if this is true, then real long term financial security (along with the prospect of real peace) really could be a motivation that isn’t already there.
Also, the peace agreement that would have to be put into place would have to be signed by elected representatives from each side. So no one should have to accept being oppressed. Oppression isn’t necessary for (and in fact IMO it’s entirely in opposition to) a peaceful two state agreement.
Obviously it’s still a long, long shot. Nothing else has worked. Maybe try something out of left field? At least it wouldn’t cost anything until there’s actually been real success.
“A decent life and future” includes the freedom to live it unoppressed.
Only a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian Right of Return can be honestly called free from oppression. So if that’s where the deal goes, sure.
Totally agree with your first point, and I think the second point could be achievable as well with an EU-type agreement.
It’s probably generally true.
But it’s probably generally true that most people would like a cessation of hostility even if nobody is getting paid for it.
The problem with your plan isn’t a mischaracterisation of the general consensus, it’s that the disruptive nature of the exceptions can overturn the entire scheme.
Yes, that’s indeed possible.
Because…the people always obey their elected representatives? Remember Hamas came into power because Gaza held a democratic election and the Hamas candidates were selected (for now let’s ignore that the previous party in leadership, Fatah, was essentially run out of Gaza, violently). What if the guys with the guns want to be in power again, under another name, and they are elected, again, in another election?
My point is that societies don’t work the way this scheme would require - people are not going to collectively cooperate to root-out extremists and blunt their ambitions, even for a few bucks. If the OP could point to any instances where a “money for peace” scheme like this has worked, I would be happy to take a look.
I don’t think anything like this has ever been tried. There have been plenty of payoffs (like the Danegeld already discussed), but those were generally from one party paying off another not to attack them. Tribute, essentially. This would come from the rest of the world (presumably through the UN or similar).
Lots of ways it could go wrong, but the beauty of the plan is that there’s no risk - at worst things stay as they are, with no additional cost.