I have a research paper due in a few weeks (max 10 pages) that must be about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The paper topic/question can be one of my choosing as long as it involves the Arab-Israeli conflict. I have to meet with my professor soon to propose a paper topic, or at least give him an idea of what I want to write about.
Can you think of any way to incorporate AE or anti-statist politics into my paper? I would prefer something with easily accessible information. Any ideas?
Not so sure you can include Austrian Economics in a history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A better idea would be to chronicle the progressive involvement of the US in the area, from Ike threatening to send the 6th Fleet to stop the Israeli and their Anglo-French allies in 1956 to Operation Nickel Grass in 1973. There are plenty of online sources that are only a click away. You can then make a point about US taxpayers being forced to subsidize the Israeli military.
Another good idea is to chronicle French involvement in Israel, particularly their help in setting up their nuclear program (it's well chronicled in The Samson Option) and how the French were the only ones willing to sell Israel advanced weaponry back in the days. You may make a point that while the US taxpayers presently subsidize Israeli weapons purchase back then Israel had to pay the French cash. Again this open to anti-statist interpretations. Mind that solid sources on Israeli-French relationships may be hard to find.
Yet another idea: how hardcore Egyptian nationalists took the country over from King Farouk in 1952 and gave Egyptian politics a much more belligerent stance and introduced many dubious reforms, like a ceiling on land ownership, abolishing political parties (including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood), nationalization of all foreign-owned property and then full-blown Socialism. Not to mention the Yemen War, which bankrupted the country (requiring Soviet economic aids) and the 1967 fiasco, when Nasser asked the UN to withdraw peacekeeping forces (which were the only thing keeping Israel at bay) from the Sinai and the following Egyptian humiliating defeat.
There's plenty to write, if you need any help feel free to ask.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/
Richard Landes is a historian of religion.
Cal: Can you think of any way to incorporate AE or anti-statist politics into my paper? I would prefer something with easily accessible information. Any ideas?
I wrote this a long time ago, and it could be better written and a lot more detailed, but it should offer you some ideas: Zionism's Losing Battle.
Is the whole class doing something on Arab-Israeli conflict or just you? How specialised are you looking to go? Very general or very specific?
Thats not a bad article. Establishing entirely private enterprise and private security companies within a single territory is a good idea. But there is an important point I'd like to add. Mises has written, only when respect for property becomes common ideology can there be economic progress (its in the last 200 pages of HA off the top of my head).
The economic history puzzle why the in 1300 advanced muslim world had been outpaced by europe; or why china was outpaced, had a similar answer. The peasant in Palestine did not accept the concept of contract.
Russian and European Jews bought land cheap, because productivity was low. They added their capital, often industrial knowledge based human capital. Land became productive and valuable. Former large landowners and peasants wanted land back, and not respecting the market contract they tried to take it. They failed, making the act more shameful, and this angers many peasants today.
The ideology predominant there is collective honor/shame. It needs to change more than anything else. Peace cannot exist without property rights. Israelis know that the peasant will never accept their property rights as it stands now, so they tolerate a highly socialist government (another problem being that indeed many Israelis are socialist and add fuel to the fire by reinforcing the Western Shame/destroy property rights ideology. Socialist government is self-destructive, even more so in their circumstances of high pressure.)
David Landes, historian of entrepreneurship, has said somewhere: when the vast majority of Arabs in the Middle East, not merely several scholars, start acting like the Japanese, will we see economic progress there. Until then...
Jonathan M. F. Catalán: Cal: Can you think of any way to incorporate AE or anti-statist politics into my paper? I would prefer something with easily accessible information. Any ideas? I wrote this a long time ago, and it could be better written and a lot more detailed, but it should offer you some ideas: Zionism's Losing Battle.
I will definitely check that out, thanks for posting it!
Marko: Is the whole class doing something on Arab-Israeli conflict or just you? How specialised are you looking to go? Very general or very specific?
The whole class is devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict, so everyone. I guess I want to go kind of broad since it seems easier to research. I don't know, I don't have much experience writing research papers, the vast majority of papers I have written were for philosophy courses. I'm much more comfortable writing in a "philosophy style." I would like to have a good "Why?" question that I want my paper to address. I thought that incorporating an antistate position would make the research and writing more interesting for me.
Jonathan M. F. Catalán:I wrote this a long time ago, and it could be better written and a lot more detailed, but it should offer you some ideas: Zionism's Losing Battle.
[United States has the largest nominal military budget in the world, but only the twenty-eighth largest in terms of percentage of GDP (4.06%).] I remember reading it was about 1 trillion on wikipedia (600 billion on record, 400 billion discretionary bs). At GDP = 14 trillion, 1/14 = 7% > 4.06%. I guess I'm only niggling about 3% here but its almost 100% error so...
Regardless, your paper contains a lot of useful facts and information. It might be tedious but if you could post hyperlinks or citations to where you get your statistics inside the essay that would be helpful. Just a suggestion. I know we're all on time/energy constraints. Great essay.
I think I will go either with The U.S.'s involvement in the conflict, or the economic impacts of the conflict on Palestine and Israel. I'm not sure if I will be allowed to editorialize. I am about to go talk to my professor about it.
Okay, I am writing about the economic impact of the conflict. I started the paper by writing about the myth that war is good for an economy, and I used the broken window fallacy and Bastiat's idea of the seen and the unseen. I plan on applying that idea of the seen and the unseen to various instances within the conflict, the isolation of Gaza, for example.
However, I'm having a hard time answering the "why is this important?" question. Obviously the economic impact of anything is important, but explaining that seems rather obvious. I thought about writing that the conflict persists because the economic impact of it isn't seen. I was also thinking about quoting Rothbard where he argued in one of his lectures that the income tax being taken directly out of paychecks (as opposed to being paid at the end of the year) led to more frequent and escalated war. (Does anyone have a direct source for this idea?)
Your thoughts/suggestions?
It might be interesting if you found a way to throw the USS Liberty Incident or the Ringworm Affair into there. Rothbard might be a good source as well.