Israel’s Critique Of Weak Palestinian Leadership Is A Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Both Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip agreed to an Egypt-brokered ceasefire on May 21. Many see it as the calm before the storm, or ‘hot peace’, to quote former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Peace in the Holy Land seems ephemeral. Israel often blames Hamas militants for starting the provocation, but that seems to be a symptom and not the cause.

To elucidate, let me begin with this example.

Not many would have heard the town Nogales. In fact there are two towns with the same name. The two Nogales are identical: both towns have a Spanish-speaking Hispanic majority, both towns have an identical arid weather, they have the same culture and even celebrate Cinco de Mayo. That’s where the similarities end — and the difference start to widen when it comes to economic indicators.

One of the Nogales’ has a higher purchasing power parity, it has better health facilities, lower crime rate, better infrastructure and is high on the human development index. That Nogales is a town in Arizona, in the United States, while the other Nogales, the weaker twin, is in Sonora, Mexico. This is how economists Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson’s book Why Nations Fail opens.

Their belief is that institutions and their efficacy and robustness are a precursor for economic success. Transpose this argument to the Korean peninsula, where North Korea and South Korea share a certain homogeneity with language, culture and…