Coercion Essay Example

According to the article, Israel on Friday announces it was going to release funds belonging to the Palestine government, “Israel suspended the payment in response to the Palestinian move to join the International Criminal Court” (Kershner, 2015, p. 1). This was the bid by the Israel government, “to see if the Palestinians follow through on their threat to file a complaint against Israelis in the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes” (Kershner, 2015, p. 11.)
The concept which is clearly brought forward by the article is coercion. Coercion is the use of fear to discourage opposition, and is a means for maintaining control (Hoard, 5 Mar. 2015).
This is a good scenario that depicts coercion in field of comparative politics by the Israel to withhold Palestine tax revenue from December to end of February in bid to pressure the Palestine to accept their terms. Additionally, the move was geared towards paralyzing the Palestine government since according to the article the Palestine government was struggling to make payment to its workers.
The US tried to brokered peace negotiation between the two countries but all was in vain. The Palestine authority has termed the move by Israel ’piracy’ and interference of their sovereignty (Kershner, 2015, p. 7). This is because the move by Israel could lead to the collapse of the 20-year old Palestine rule (Kershner, 2015, p.7). Israel withholding those funds has caused the Palestine a lot of economic problem since the tax revenue make a significant portion of Palestine budget. With the fund withheld the Palestine government is in the mercy of the Israel. Thus, the Palestine government cannot file the case since its means the collapsing of the Palestine government.
The article shows the example of how nations are using their military strength and their influence to coerce other nations to do exactly what they want. Additionally, this helps these nations to remain in control of the status quo.

References

Isabel Kershner. (2015). Log In - The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-palestinians-tax-revenue.html