Gaza as Microcosm: A System Dynamics Perspective

[GliderGuider]

This is an article I wrote yesterday as my contribution to the Middle East commentary. It may be too abstract a view for some, but it's how I see the situation.

Here's a short look at Gaza through the lens of system dynamics.

I see the Gaza situation in terms reminiscent of the theory of social evolution proposed by Andrew Schmookler in his 1984 book, The Parable of the Tribes. The bare bones of Schmookler's theory are this:

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. If one tribe becomes expansionist however, a neighboring tribe faces one of four possible outcomes:

1. It may be attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors.
   
2. It may be defeated and have its people subjugated by the conqueror.
   
3. It may flee from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe.
   
4. It may arm to defend itself. If it is to be successful in this, it will discard its previous pacifism, and adopt many of the traits of the aggressor tribe.

Unfortunately, option 3 is not open to the Palestinians – they have nowhere to flee. They have tried option 4 - armed resistance - but the power balance appears to be too asymmetrical for success. The state of Israel seems determined to force one of the first two outcomes, and my current suspicion is that they’d be happiest with the first.

Now, to a first approximation, all wars are about resources – raw materials, energy or land. Those are the basic elements needed to create new social structure. Any society that runs short of resources must find new sources or face dissolution. That applies whether the new sources come at the expense of a previous owner or not.

Societies that control resources that are coveted by an expansionist neighbor will almost always resist. It’s the way life works among social animals. The greater the threat, the stronger the resistance.

Israel’s willingness to use utterly disproportionate force (from the Dahiya Doctrine they are employing in Gaza up to the Samson Option) is the result of similar dynamics. They perceive an existential threat to their social group and are determined not to give it a toehold.

All the historical and moral justifications that are painted onto such conflicts are simply social group-integrity techniques (aka political messaging, aka propaganda). They have nothing to do with the actual roots of the conflict’s dynamics, which is generally found in survival issues like resource shortages or external threats.

IMO the rise in oppression and warfare we are seeing around the world right now is the direct result of a buildup of pressures that can be predicted from Schmookler’s option 3. The world is now full, and there is no free space left for expansion. Increasing pressure for resources is causing encroachment of all kinds on others, at every level from the individual to the national. Those who are encroached upon have nowhere to flee because the world is full. That leaves resistance as the only option, and the resistance or its possibility creates oppression. In this sense Gaza can be seen as a planetary microcosm - a small-scale version of the global situation, a single element of the fractal system of human civilization.

And speaking of oppression, I see institutions like the NSA as logical and perhaps even inevitable outcomes of the system dynamics of a globalized civilization that is hitting its limits. If we do manage to rein them in, other similar institutions will simply arise to fill the need.

It's all as natural as night following day…