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The Key to a Lasting Peace

(Tablet) Lee Smith - Robert Aumann, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for economics for his work in game theory, told me in his office at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, "I'm for the two-state solution, or something like that. But what we are doing does not promote that." When it comes to the Arab-Israeli peace process, Aumann believes that the problem isn't that the Israelis and Arabs don't want peace, but rather that the Israelis and their U.S. patron believe they are playing a one-time game, whereas the Arabs see themselves as playing a repeated game. Jerusalem and Washington are in a hurry to conclude negotiations immediately, whereas the Arabs are willing to wait it out and keep playing the same game. The result is that Israel's concessions have brought no peace. Poker players are familiar with the principle: Don't show your hand with chips still on the table. "The players must not be too eager for immediate results," Aumann said. "The present, the now, must not be important. If you want peace now, you may well never get peace. But if you have time - if you can wait - that changes the whole picture; then you may get peace now." "Israel must act with patience and with long-term vision, even at the cost of not coming to any present agreement and continuing the state of belligerence, in order to improve its position in future negotiations." As the Arab novelist Abdul Rahman Munif once observed, showing your interest in an item immediately triples the merchant's price. There can be no co-existence if one person isn't willing to negotiate as hard as the other. The appeaser will always be swallowed up and simply cease to exist. It is stubbornness rather than the willingness to make immediate concessions that brings about successful negotiations.
2010-09-24 09:37:46
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