Israel & Palestine: Pt.1 — The Hawk-Dove Model
By Satya Pratik, Sneha Tiwari, Paarth Chhabra, Daksh Goyal
As the tension between Israel and Palestine is rising people around the world are learning more about this issue which is widely considered as the biggest dispute post World War II and still enduring. The dispute has resulted in many casualties over years resulting in strong political movements and debates among people. Since most people are reading history of the issue, understanding the issue with game theory will make their hold on it even more comprehensive.
Hawk-Dove model
The Hawk dove model is used to analyse disputes over resources between parties. Each party chooses whether to fight for some resource or concede, which is equivalent to choosing whether to play Hawk or Dove. If one agent fights and the other concedes, the fighter claims the full resource, worth v. If both fight, each has equal probability ½ of victory, while both pay a cost of fighting, c. Thus, in expectation, each will earn v/2 — c. If neither fight, the pair splits the resource and each claim v/2.
When v/2 < c, the only Nash equilibria are those in which one player fights and the other concedes (the assumption made here is from observing natural phenomena that in order to attain a resource a party is likely to lose more than gain through aggression).
We can deduce that an individual’s optimal strategy is to assume the opposite role as their opponent. Thus, so long as fighting is relatively costly (v/2 < c), an individual can never benefit by deviating from this equilibrium strategy, constituting a Nash equilibrium.
The conclusion we can draw from this model keeping the assumption in mind is that for optimal results a party should try to anticipate the opposition’s move and accordingly try to establish Nash equilibrium.
Till now the theoretical aspect of the Hawk-Dove model has been discussed. Now moving onto its applicability on the actual issue.
Analysis of Israel-Palestine conflict history
By the theory of the model that for a conflict to stop there must be a mutual agreement and one must relatively act like dove and other as hawk. So it is clear that both the parties have been acting like Hawk in most of the issues becoming the hurdle between them and peaceful agreement. Now through following historical instances one can establish the relation.
National Narratives of Incumbency
The Israelites, predecessor to the Jews, were among the ancient inhabitants in the land of Palestine. However, through military conquest, religious conversion, and mass migration, the Jews became the minority in the land. Subsequently, the land attained a Muslim Arab majority by the middle of the 9th century CE. Given the intuition of the Hawk-Dove model, one would expect the Palestinian community, having lived as the clear majority in the region to assume the role of Hawk. Conversely, one would expect the flood of new Israeli immigrants to assume the role of Dove. However, history tells a different story. In reality, both factions asserted a national narrative of incumbency, and the seeds of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were sown.
Land Deeds v. Squatters Rights
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Zionist organisations purchased large tracts of Palestinian land from absentee landowners to support Jewish migration to Palestine.
On the other hand, Arab tenant farmers subscribed to a Middle Eastern conception of ownership, which was constituted by living, working, and investing in one’s land. Thus, each faction touted what they believed to be verifiable justification for rightful ownership while rejecting the claims of their opponent resulting in both parties pursuing the role of hawk, and thus as predicted by the hawk dove model violent clashes ensued.
British Promises
Throughout the course of WWI, Britain solicited political and military support from colonised peoples across the globe. For instance, in exchange for support in the war effort against the Ottoman Empire, Britain promised both Arabs and Zionist Jews political independence in the land of Palestine.
The crumbling Ottoman Empire ceded control of Palestine and thus resulting in the revelation of contradictory promises to Palestinian Arabs and Zionist Jews.
The British instituted strict colonial rule after WW1, precluding either nationality from asserting autonomy as promised. Thus, conditioning on the contradicting promises of independence made during the war, both factions began to incite violence against one another and their British colonial rulers. The failure of the British government sowed the seeds of the emerging Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Authority of the UN
Israel, citing the legality of a vote by the international community, declared itself an independent state. Meanwhile, Israel’s Arab neighbours rejected the notion that an international body might determine sovereignty in the region.
The Arab nations moved to quash a state they believed had no legitimate right to exist. Disagreeing over the validity of the uncorrelated asymmetry of Resolution 181( passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states), both sides mobilised to defend their perceived legitimate claim, consistent with the Hawk-Dove model.
Contemporary Study
The Hawk-Dove model is really crucial for awareness on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this model also provides perspective for contemporary study. Following are some case studies analysed using the Hawk-Dove model.
Land Swaps and Loss Aversion
Precise Land swaps are one of the key moves toward peace agreement but certain circumstances have posed difficulty.
This can be explained by two psychological effects used in economics,
⦁ Endowment effect: It is the finding that people are more likely to retain an object they own than acquire that same object when they do not own it.
After the state of Israel was finally established, by acquiring land in the peninsula, it was their instinct that influenced them to protect and defend their territory which they possess. This human instinct can be explained by the Endowment effect, which further prevented them from renouncing the land or conducting land swaps for peace.
⦁ Loss Aversion: It is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains.
In the case of Palestine, after the announcement of the state of Israel and the Nakba war of 1948, quite a number of Palestinians were displaced. They demand their right to return to the land. Consciously they feel that their land was stolen and they lost the land in hands of the colonisers. This conscious feeling can be associated with the loss aversion effect for which they feel it is justifiable to seek the land by any means possible which yet again prevents them from conducting a peaceful agreement.
International Borders and the Green Line
A well defined border allows both the parties involved to find an optimal outcome and thus establish a peaceful relation since it helps in defining the role in Hawk-Dove model and therefore subsequent actions can be taken in mutual interest.
Currently, The Israeli and Palestinian communities have no such well-defined border. So far the green line which was drawn for the sake of making one after the 1948 war appears to be the least disputable international border in the future on a peaceful agreement.
To be consistent with the model the border should not be flexible and ambiguous which again doesn’t seem to be the case with Green Line specially after the actions of both sides post The Oslo Peace Accords. Currently the green line seems like a deception for equilibrium dynamics and unhelpful in defining the rules.
Policy Implications
- Removal of illegal Israeli settlements.
- Removal of Israeli Forces from West bank
- Setting out a detailed border
Israeli settlements in the West Bank problem is increasing day by day. The official figures estimate ( due to security barrier controversial for its exact positioning between Israeli and Palestinian territory) about 15% of the security barrier runs along the Green Line, while 85% cuts into West Bank Palestinian territory, encircling major Israeli settlements. The UN estimates that a projected 191,000 acres are enclosed between the security barrier and Green Line, comprising roughly 14% of the West Bank.
This only increases the ambiguity further making the job of finding an optimal solution out of question. Also unwanted militarisation further makes the job tougher.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tried to form policy which are suggested above (observing the situation through Hawk-Dove Model) but on both sides it gets tougher to implement these strategies with extreme opposition from both Israeli and Palestinian public as well as international bodies whenever a policy requires some sacrifice like discussed in Land swaps and Loss aversion. Also with illegal Israeli settlements the hope for green line to act as proper border is only blurring day by day. But the whole analysis suggests that a detailed national border and properly assigning role according to the Hawk-Dove model will only help in establishing a Nash equilibrium or say peace.
Bibliography
Dobrushkin, Eryk. 2019. A Game Theoretic Approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bachelor’s thesis, Harvard College
