This latest cycle of mortal conflict has also once again pushed aside a key
question of long-term stability in the region: who will teach the best and
brightest among the Palestinian youth?
Palestinian schools are too poorly staffed and funded for the task. The local
economy has collapsed and violence permeates the culture. Cash gifts from Arab
states and radical Islamic groups still tend to come with religious fanaticism
attached despite repeated efforts to stem the flow. Iraq no longer sends such
money but Muslim anger over the Iraq War may well lead to more net cash for
terror.
And the plain evidence of the past suggests that the conflict with the
Israelis may take years or even decades to resolve. Islamic militants still want
to destroy Israel and "drive the Jews into the sea." But the Israelis have over
200 Jericho ballistic nuclear missiles that can incinerate all the Arab palaces
and Iranian command bunkers. Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres summed up this
strategic stalemate: "Give me peace and I will relinquish the atom."
The result is bleak for young Palestinians. Half the population is no older
than 17. These young people are far more likely to waste their precious human
capital than receive a quality education by Western standards.
So why not give the very brightest Palestinian teens a quality Western
education?
Educational vouchers can serve this end. They are tuition-and-costs coupons
made of tax dollars. A pure principle of non-aggression (all initiation of force
is wrong) will not support this or any voucher proposal because of the coercive
nature of taxes — even taxes that pay for public goods such as national
defense. But rule utilitarianism can support targeted vouchers if the expected
long-term benefits clearly outweigh the long-term costs.
Palestinian vouchers would pay for a complete Western education. Only teens
who scored highest on an entrance exam could receive a voucher package. It would
allow them to live in the United States and study at an accredited college or
university. The package might also include support for learning English and
advanced high-school training.
| A pure principle of
non-aggression will not support this or any voucher proposal because of the
coercive nature of taxes. |
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Successful graduates would have the training to be leaders in their homeland
or in this country. They would carry with them the law-and-markets stamp of
modern Western liberalism just as do many Arab elites who used oil wealth to
attend our top universities. These Westernized leaders would stand at the
troubled intersection of two cultures and could help each side adapt to the
other.
The graduates would also have valuable human capital to invest in their
homeland and abroad. Their training would let them start companies and improve
Palestinian hospitals and schools and strengthen the infrastructure on which
civil society rests.
Palestinians now export less than a half billion dollars in goods each year.
The Israelis export more than 50 times that. Israel's economic miracle in the
desert does not stem from oil reserves or from religious nonsense about God's
"chosen people." It stems from the vigorous practice of Western law and markets
and secular education despite the labor socialism of Israel's founders and the
ongoing religious dogmatism of the ultra-orthodox. The same social principles can
produce a like economic miracle for a Palestinian state.
Security is the clear problem with any such voucher system. The scheme has the
potential to place Islamic terrorists in our midst and make us pay for the
privilege.
But voucher students would be aliens and not citizens. This is a subtle point
with potent constitutional consequences. Article I of the Constitution gives
Congress express plenary power to regulate alien immigration: "Congress shall
have power . . . to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." The Necessary
and Proper Clause of the same Article gives Congress broad implied powers that
are reasonably necessary to carry out its express immigration and naturalization
power: "Congress shall have power . . . to make all laws which shall be necessary
and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."
| The full cost of a
large-scale voucher and security system could exceed $100 million a year. But
that is a small fraction of the billions that each year we give Israel and Egypt.
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This federal power over aliens is extensive. The United States Supreme Court
has repeatedly held that the Article I express and implied federal powers over
aliens exceed any implied powers over aliens that the 50 states may have retained
under the 10th Amendment's Reserved Powers Clause. That is why an immigration law
can be unconstitutional if California passes the law or adopts it by ballot
measure but the same law can be constitutional if Congress passes it and the
president signs it. This holds in turn because 20th-century jurisprudence
produced different and controversial tests of constitutionality that all laws
must pass if someone or some agency challenges them in court. The tests depend
both on the content of the law and on the state or federal status of the
lawmaker. The California state law must pass the usually fatal test of so-called
"strict scrutiny" (the law must be necessary to achieve a
compelling government interest and there can be no less severe remedies
available) while the same federal law need pass only the usually successful
means-end test of so-called "rational basis" (there must be a mere
legitimate government purpose that the law could at least conceivably
advance).
The upshot is that the federal government has more than adequate
constitutional powers to put stringent safety conditions on an alien voucher
program — even if Congress had not passed the USA PATRIOT Act. The federal
government could screen and monitor these Palestinian-voucher aliens as
intrusively as it pleases and could deport them for cause.
There is also the problem of funding. The full cost of a large-scale voucher
and security system could exceed a hundred million dollars a year. But that is a
small fraction of the billions that each year we give Israel and Egypt and the
many billions more we pay for defense related to the Mideast. Such a voucher
investment might well reduce the long-term cost of Mideast foreign aid and
defense. And targeted voucher funds would go directly to the poorest members of
society and not go in bulk to the strongman of the day. So the total expected
costs appear small compared to the total expected benefits.
The least problem is the old political controversy over vouchers themselves.
Many on the political Right have arguably pushed vouchers to attack public
schools and to promote religious education. And many on the political Left have
arguably opposed vouchers to protect teachers' unions and to promote an outmoded
anti-market ideology. Both sides can view Palestinian vouchers as a form of
national defense or foreign aid and as a new social investment in domestic
education. Palestinian vouchers would be focused and secular. They would pose no
threat to teachers' unions or to the separation of mosque and state. So either
major political party could in principle support such targeted vouchers even
though they would likely do so for different reasons.
A more vexing problem is what psychologists call omission neglect: we
tend to discount or ignore relevant data that we do not see. This is an
unintended consequence of TV and print media that focus on Mideast violence and
on the clashing views of political leaders. A bloody suicide bombing will always
produce more gripping images than will the abstract supply and demand structure
of the Palestinian education market.
But even media-induced omission neglect cannot change the facts: someone will
train the intellectual elite among the young Palestinians. Someone is training
them right now. Vouchers would let the West compete with Islamic radicals for
that defining task.
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