Give a mouse a cookie...

I'm sure many of you heard about how Palestine was recently awarded nonmember observer state status(I think that's the correct terminology for their title now) in the UN. The vote was quite a win for Palestine, with a large majority voting yes to change its status. Britain, and several others, voted yes on condition that Palestinians would stop trying to advance it's status in the UN and return to peace talks with Israel. The successful attempt at advancing the Palestinian status reminded me of last year's similarly successful status advancement. It seems to me that the Palestinians are playing a smart game of using the UN's negative reinforcement against them. The UN attempts to placate the Palestinians by giving into their current demands, thereby stopping their pestering, for the moment at least. Their negative reinforcement is akin to that of a parent appeasing a child just to stop it from whining. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are receiving positive reinforcement. They are the child who gets what he wants when he whines. The Palestinians have learned, via operant conditioning, that if they push the UN will deliver. It will be interesting to see what will happen next year and to see if the behavior has been learned.