If this sounds far-fetched, you’re in for a shock: it’s the most common type of control-enhancing mechanism (there are quite a few other types as well), and it is in use in quite a lot of places. And it can be made still more powerful through the creation of special types of shares, that have more voting rights than other shares.

Taking a small amount of power and leveraging it so that it works just like a large amount of power is common outside the corporate sphere, too. One real-world “control-enhancing mechanism” can be seen in political systems: for a topical example, let’s consider Alaska. We’re all wondering at the near re-election of Ted Stevens in Alaska, but the crux of it lies in the fact that quite a lot of Alaskans will vote for any candidate, as long as that candidate is the Republican nominee.

This means that to become Governor of Alaska, the trick is not to win over a majority of Alaskans, it’s just to become the Republican nominee for Governor. And THAT becomes a lot easier once you work out that, by presenting yourself as the only Christian candidate, or the most Christian candidate, you can capture uncritical evangelical support that is already disproportionately influential within the GOP nomination process. Evangelical support is like ownership of Company A. It can go a long way to getting you the Republican nomination. Once you’ve got that, you have the default support of a large segment of the statewide population, including a hell of a lot of people who aren’t in that tight Evangelical voting bloc. Your grip on Company A, the evangelicals, gets you a grip on Company B, the Republican party, which pyramids on into control of Company C, the great State of Alaaaaska.

There’s something else to note about that Evangelical support. It’s leveraged partly because Evangelicals vote largely as a bloc, on issues that are not the main issues for other people voting in a primary. This means that all the other candidates for the nomination are being scrutinised on a much wider range of attributes than just their evangelical Christian bona fides, which inevitably leads to split support from the less unified, more analytical remainder.

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What does this have to do with Israel and the Palestinians? Bear with me a little longer.

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When I was still a teenager, and long before law school, I undertook “work experience” with our state Department of Public Prosecutions. It was interesting and a little inspiring; I even found a discrepancy in a witness’s statement that turned into a courtroom question from the prosecutor! I still have a memento of this experience: a letter from the DPP saying that I “showed great aptitude for criminal matters.”

Anyway. I don’t know if I really have an aptitude for crime, but if I were going to be a criminal I think I would want a band of intensely loyal henchmen. Why? Because criminal gangs use something like control enhancement mechanisms to give themselves power that’s disproportionate to their numbers. They rely on things like strictly enforced loyalty and secrecy. Even more importantly, criminal groups possess a willingness to do things that the broader population isn’t willing to do - like stealing, lying, and committing violence. Or to put it another way, a set of values that is radically different to the majority’s.

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I will get to Israel and the Palestinians, but first let me relate a chat I had with my brother-in-law, Al, about the war in Iraq - sadly, it is not transcribed on OS, so here’s a very rough version that may make me sound like I exclaim more than I actually do:

Jason: This war in Iraq is mostly about making money for Americans.

Al: Come off it, the war is costing America a fortune! It’s a huge drain on the US economy.

Jason: True! The idea that embarking on a war boosts a country’s economy is clearly a myth. But... the war in Iraq is still mostly about making money for Americans!

I don’t think that most Americans - even those who still support it - actually believe that the Iraq war is, or should be, about money. It was never presented to them by their leaders as being about money, either. But there is no doubt that it is generating an enormous amount of money for some people and some companies.

How many people does it take, and where do they need to be positioned, to cause a war to start, for their own personal gain?

I don’t know. I suspect it’s not many, though. I suspect that a cabal of people that was really quite small in numbers could, with a malleable enough President and an “opportunity” like 9/11, start a war that looked like it was about WMDs or terrorism or whatever, but that was really just about boosting their business prospects. In those circumstances, it doesn’t matter if the war drags down the US (or even world) economy as a whole, or if it makes millions of people worse off - it can STILL just be about making money, for those few people who are scoring. All it has to do is benefit just enough of the right people to cause them to use their influence.

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Which brings me to the question of whether it can be said that Palestinians “don’t want peace.” I was prompted to think about this by a couple of posts here on OS - there’s this one from davidjaku, and another from Dr Amy, which both refer to this notion: Palestinians “don’t want peace.”

The link I see between all these things - the idea that Palestinians don’t want peace, the way Alaskans voted for governor, the origins of the Iraq war, and my occasional musings about the how to run a good Mafia - lies in noting the power of small groups but cohesive groups to amplify their power.

To my eyes (which have never been to the Middle East), it seems like there is some basis for saying that, each time peace draws a little closer, one side or another (perhaps usually the Palestinian one) shatters the prospect with an act of violence. But this doesn’t lead me to accept that Palestinians “don’t want peace”. Just like anywhere else, the Palestinian community is a place where a small number of people who are unified in their goals, and who are willing to do things that the rest would not do, can steer things in the direction that suits them. How many villains would it really take to derail the peace process with an act of violence, every time the peace process looks like it might be working? Not too many; just like America and the Iraq war, a wider population can be dragged along a course of action that doesn't benefit them at all, just because it benefits a few.

So my suggestion is that, perhaps, evidence suggesting that Palestinians “don’t want peace” is probably evidence only that a small number of Palestinians don’t want peace. It’s hard not to suspect, as well, that in the same kind of way, “Israelis don’t want peace”, either.