Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Middle East Peace: A Call for Proposals

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is initiating another round of talks between Israelis and Palestinians. You may be optimistic or pessimistic about the chances of anything coming out of these talks, but I'm curious about how you would solve the problem.

Imagine you could impose a peace deal on all parties. I say "impose" so you won't have to explain how you would negotiate your ideal settlement. Just tell us what you think that settlement should be: one state, two states, no states and just dump the whole mess on the British who made it, or what?

I look forward to reading your responses. And please feel free to respectfully respond to those of others.

7 comments:

Erick Reynolds said...

I think we need to convince Putin that he needs to create a new Soviet Union. Encourage him to annex entire Middle East, Iran, Iraq , and Afghanistan. Then it's the Russian's problem. And we can take the moral high ground protesting the outrage. AHH!! I miss the simple days of the cold war! We knew who the bad guys were. :-(

Mordechai Ben Nathan said...

Surrounding Arab states should absorb the Palestinians. There are about one and a half million Arabs in Israel.

When India and Pakistan broke into two countries millions of Muslims living in India decided to move decided to move to Pakistan. Millions of Hindus living in the Pakistani areas decided to move to India.

Muslims are not happy in Israel. The ones who want to stay should be permitted to stay. The ones who do not want to stay should be induced to leave through a cash payment of $25,000 a person.

Israel should keep all land secured during the 6 day war. After all I think we all know what would have happened to the Jews had the Arabs won the Six Day War.

Mordechai Ben Nathan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Not sure why the surrounding Arab states don't just absorb the Palestinians. Seems quite sensible to me. The Iraeli-Palestinian problem has going on for 60 years now. I have to believe neither side wants to end this. There must be a payoff that isn't being talked about. I agree with Rabbi Rami when he said when Biden was trying to start peace talks and the Knesset announced more settlements the next day that that was the time to push back his chair and leave Israel and give Israel an ultimatum. Must be more to the situation that what is being said.

I also like Mordechai's solution.

Ok, give them both an NFL team and give them a bye to the playoffs for 10 years. Hope this helps.

Barry said...

Three states - one run by the Haredi, one by the Islamists, and one open to Arabs and Jews where women have equal rights, same-gender marriage is allowed, and the bars stay open all night. The Haredi and Islamists can split Jerusalem, or fight over it, the non-sectarian state gets Tel Aviv, Haifa, and maybe Beirut.

Fraser said...

If I could impose a deal and have it work I would eliminate all the borders and walls and have a single Israel with both Palestinians and Israelis living in the same communities. I would impose laws that allowed for equal rights and access to food, water, work, education and medical care. If I could I would would have the deal based on the understanding that the Jewish people were there to stay and that the Palestinians had a right to be there.
In reality I'm not sure either party are open to this deal so I would, unlike the absorbing ideas here, impose a recognition by Israel of it's responsibility for the refugee problem. Given that the central obstacle to any real Palestinian state has been the Israeli settlements I would impose complete withdrawal from all of them. I would impose withdrawal from 90% of the occupied territories allowing for negotiation on the most populous 10%. I would create a Palestinian autonomous state that had real borders to other countries that were not monitored by Israel in any way. This would allow for real land for a society to recover and begin functioning again. I would impose serious consequences for anyone who broke this arrangement on both sides. Lastly I would impose an enormous financial penalty on the Americans and British to be paid to the Palestinian State to compensate for their part in allowing them to be brutalized for 50 years. This could be used for creating housing for all the refugees to return.
I think that is all for now except the imposition of mutual love and respect.
Oh and saying "Muslims are not happy in Israel" is a bit like saying Indians were not happy at Wounded Knee.

Fraser said...

UN Security Council Resolution 242, the June 4 1967 lines would be the basis for the borders between the State of Israel and Palestine.