Offering frest perspective and expanding peoples' choic set is a goal of academic research. To do that, it helps to try to get at the root of issues -- to understand where we are. It also helps to explore applying new ideas -- to envision where we could go. This proposal envisions a collaborative development zone which could help reverse the polarity of the relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, in Jerusalem and beyond.
How could two peoples find themselves sacrificing so much generation after generation? The Technical Report "Modeling Confrontation -- Why Stalemate?" discusses how complex, noisy feedback systems can be deceptive and induce persistently maladaptive responses. That report demonstrates the value of empathy, accommodation, self-restraint and an independent reference such as the international community, consistent with traditional values and common sense. There can also be a basic reluctance to let go of what you've got -- even if it's an expensive, insecure stalemate -- until you've got hold of something else.
This policy propsal has its roots in MIT research into transition exonomics of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Specifically, the portfolio endowment policy endows every citizen with a financial instrument composed of a portfolio of enterprises. A highly liquid, secialized nationwide marketplace supports a range of investment choices at periodic intervals.
Adapted to the Israeli/Palestinian situation, the portfolio endowment policy can serve as the focus of a collaborative development zone, or Green Belt, joining the two communities along their Green Line with a nechlace of enterprise parks. The Green Belt would be home to botanic gardens, agricultural research tracts, performing arts facilities and memorials. Types of Green Belt enterprises with a lot of promise include tourism, agriculture, branding, cultural marketables, education, consultancies, finance, health and international institutes. Think, for example, of the worldwide marketing potential of a "Shalom/Sallam" brand with a flagship product of organic olive oil, perhaps showcasing hopes for the future of kids from the two communities.
In returen for Green Belt status, shares of enterprises are included in portfolio endowments for every current and future Israeli and Palestinian citizen. Green Belt status goes along with tax-free status and with a strong responsibility for corporate governance that respects individual and collective rights and inter-ethnic heritage. The Challenge of corporate oversight by a large number of shareholders is addressed with an innovative method of polled shareholder voting, with perhaps interesting and positive connotations for civil society of the the two communities. There also exist very positive opportunities for the collaborative development zone to help regularize the settlement and refugee issues.
The most obvious financial advantage of this proposal is to begin recovering the lost economic opportunity sacrificed to stalemate over the years. However, the collaborative development zone with a focus of the portfolio endowment policy is in a sense morelike a tool which the two peoples can use to help make a bold choice to reverse the polarity of their relationship. It is a reversal of polarity in the relationship which provides a buffer against a reversion to degraded security and economic performance.
The advantages of reversing the polarity of the relationship are much deeper than financial recomvery, and can be summerized as helping both peoples exercise their legitimate right to self-determination as they pursue sustainable development. One of the most significan ways this proposal promotes such deep objectives is by credibly supporting successful statehood. In a world where inequality is a serioius concern, the collaborative development zone represents an opportunity for all citizens.
Is this proposal "only a dream"? A people which believed itself incapable of making a choice which is in its short and long term interest could be selling itself short; and projecting onto only the other people such an incapacity seems inconsistent with the amount of shared heritage. Just the same, according to the Technical Report, a trajectory from stalemate (associated with a zero-sum mentality and aggressive conduct) toward peace (with empathy and accommodation) can seem at times not in the immediate self-interest of one or the other peoples. Therefore, authentic leadershipis important if the two peoples are to adopt this policy proposal.
A sentiment applying to the Executive Summary and entire propsoal:
"[B]revity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situation. . . . Abbreviation is a necessary evil and the abbreviator's business is to make the best of a job which, though intrinsically bad, is still better than nothing. . . . In this way he may be able to tell, not indeed the whole truth . . .but considerably more than the dangerous quarter-truths and half-truths which have always been the current coin of thought . . ."
Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited" (Foreward).
