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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tekboy who wrote (32687)	6/19/2002 8:06:15 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

why aren't they complementary? Well, I'm not sure I do like den Beste's solution, I'm still thinking about it, though I like it better than Gal Luft's on first pass. The problem with increasing any carrots at the current moment is that ALL the Palestinians, especially the PA, are in the throughs of a major terror campaign; thus the carrots will be rewarding the terror, whether you want them to or no. This goes double if you just leave the current regime in place. Thus the attraction of using the stick side to try to pound some daylight between Hamas and the majority of the Palestinians, before offering carrots.

To: tekboy who wrote (32687)	6/19/2002 8:19:57 PM
From: ThirdEye	Respond to of 281500

I'm afraid that raising the cost and lowering the benefit of terror by occupying the West Bank "until terror attacks stop" (not to mention being immediately imprisoned by declaring an absolute policy of any kind)will have the opposite effect of galvanizing Palestinian public opinion against Israel in much the same way as the barrage of attacks in March and April galvanized Israeli public opinion against the Pals. Hence, if the time comes, more carrots will be necessary.

To: tekboy who wrote (32687)	6/20/2002 7:16:53 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi tekboy; Re: "Den Beste wants to increase the sticks for terror side, Luft wants to increase the carrots for the peace side. why aren't they complementary?" The essential problem of responding to terror is that there is only the population as a whole to apply the response to. As den Beste noted, the application of sticks is generally ineffective because international laws against genocide (or putting civilians into concentration camps or ghettoes for that matter) is not allowed anymore. If you gave carrots to the people who didn't support the terrorists and sticks to the people who did, the carrot and stick combined tactic might work. But since they're instead applied to the population as whole (without discrimination), they cancel each other. To get the chaff out of wheat (traditionally), you have to separate it by throwing it into the air and relying on the differential propensity to be blown away in the wind. This works because each individual piece of chaff or wheat is acted on differently by the wind. If you put the combined wheat and chaff in a bag, tie it up and throw the whole thing into the air, it won't separate into wheat and chaff even in very strong winds, and no matter how many times you repeat the activity. Even if you could figure out how to apply the sticks and carrots differentially, you'd probably find that the human propensity to resist blandishments as much as threats would reduce the effectiveness. The basic fact is that if you want to calm angry people, you have to give them something that they want or kill them. Killing is not an option for Israel, so living with terror until the final negotiation is what will happen. -- Carl