Blue Moon's Peace Framework

[Blue Moon]

I'm fairly new to this forum, and appreciate the responses to my posts, whatever disagreement there may be.

I wanted to propose something. This thread is entitled "Peace Think Tank", yet it seems to be composed primarly of arguments (in which I, admittedly, have participated) regarding who are the bad guys, who is right, ect . . .

Would anyone be interested in actually preposing some concrete suggestions for a long term solution here ? I know that it is difficult considering the large differences in opinions re: factual history. But throughout history, even those engaged in murderous war with each other have realized that they must
forge some sort of truce or both sides will suffer more - - regardless of how close each side believes they are "right."

I propose for purposes of discussion of solutions that we all accept certain things as "facts" - - not because we want to, or necessarily in fact, agree with them, but, but because (as in the case of warring countries who have forged peace agreements) one has to look to the immediate and long term future, not the past. Pretend we are "emergency room doctors" and the patient has been in a horrible accident and will die if we don't get creative. It doesn't matter how the accident befell him, or whether he was at fault or not. Can we save the patient ?

Proposed "facts":

1. There are a large number of Arab people living in the Gaza Strip and the West bank who are not prospering and need a better life.

2. The West Bank and Gaza Arabs referred to in #1 need hope, and need to see immediate steps being taken towards the development of a stable, responsible, and prosperous society.

3. At least part of the foreign aid directed to the area, has, for whatever reason, not always been put to the most efficient use in order to develop the region economically or socially.

4. The U.S. and other foreign countries will increase aid to the region if, it in fact, it will be put directly to use to immediately begin developing the region economically and socially.

5. Both the Jews and the Arabs have historical links to some or all parts of the area.

6. Both the Jews and the Arabs have attached religious significance to one or more sites in the area.

7. Isreal is a nation, a soveriegn.

8. Isreal has the right to protect itself and its citizens against attack and murder.

9. Many West Bank and Gaza Arabs assert a right to occupation AND/OR ownership of not only the West Bank and Gaza, but to the land occupied by Israel proper.

10. With respect to #9, there are a significant amount of Arabs in the region who would accept the establishment of a "Palestinian" state in the West Bank area, and recognize the existance of Israel.

11. Either a combination of certain factors, or all of the factors set forth below (A - H) poses an actual threat to Isreal's security:

A. There are either a significant amount of Arabs and/or organized militant groups of Arabs, who want to see the establishment of an Islamic state encompassing all of the territories, including Isreal proper.

B. With respect to factor A, there are one or more militant groups in the region, who have publicly asserted thaty they will continue to attack Isreali and/or it's citizens, even after the development of a Palestinian state, with the intention of replacing Israel with an Islamic state.

C. One or more of these groups referred to factor A, and/or the nation or nations it/they have associations with and/or receive support from, have publicly dissemiated anti-Jewish and/or anti- Isreali propoganda, intended to incite hatred for Isreal and/or the Jews.

D. The hate propoganda has, at one time or another, been either been taught in one or more West Bank and/or Gaza Arab schools and/or mosques and/or broadcast through one or more public media, such as radio broadcast or television or newspapers or magazines, thus reaching some, or many, or most Arabs living in the West Bank or Gaza.

E. One or more of the militant groups referred to in factor A have some form of association, either direct or indirect,with one or more Arab nations in the Middle East.

F. There are one or more other terror groups from the Middle East who has/have advocated the killing of innocent civilians in the United States and Isreal, and has/have demonstrated the willingness to put such advocacy into action through the recent killing of innocent civilians in the United States on 9/11/01.

G. One or more terror groups in the Middle East may soon have access to one or more forms of a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" - - whether it be nuclear, chemical, or otherwise.

H. One or more nations in the Middle East wish to see the elimination of Isreal, and one or more of such nations is/are currently attempting to develop "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that could be used against Isreal.


13. Isreal as an entity, cannot accept the continued killing of its non-combatant civilian population.

14. Isreal, as a soveriegn state, cannot accept the elimination of itself as an entity.

15. There are a large of number of Israeli's and Jews throughout the world that would accept the development of a Palestinian state if it did not pose a security threat to Isreal itself or it's citizens.


SUGGESTION: WHAT ARE CONCRETE, REALISTIC TERMS NOT JUST FOR PEACE, BUT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PEACEFUL, RESPONSIBLE, SECURE, AND PROSPEROUS PALESTINIAN STATE ?REMEMBER, WE NEED TO ATTEMPT TO (1) AVOID THE QUAGMIRE OF WHOSE RIGHT/WHOSE WRONG, AND (2) WE NEED CONCRETE,
(3) WE NEED BOTH AN IMMEDIATE SHORT-TERM, AS WELL AS LONG TERM SOLUTION.

What do you guys think ?

[Jorge]

To Blue Moon:

Congratulations! Your post of 05-31 is one of the most constructive ones I've
read in this Forum. I particularly like your idea of dropping this endless argument about who's right and who's wrong and try to look forward into the
next steps. Since it's obvious that my views are the correct ones
and that any one that dissents with me has a vision clouded with prejudice and bigotry, I can afford to be magnanimous, stop showing to my opponents
how wrong they are and get into the business of constructive proposals... and the same holds for everybody in this Forum.

If I read you correctly the exercise consists in taking up one or more of your proposed "facts" and put up proposed actions in line with those facts
(I think that statement is a more appropriate word than fact, since statements may be true or false whereas facts may not).


Regarding for instance, your statements 1. and 2:

1.There are a large number of Arab people living in the Gaza Strip and the West bank who are not prospering and need a better life.

2. The West Bank and Gaza Arabs referred to in #1 need hope, and need to see immediate steps being taken towards the development of a stable, responsible, and prosperous society .


As a first stage I agree (someone else might disagree) with your statements that the arabs living there, need a better life, hope and to see immediate steps being taken for…
In a second stage I should propose steps or actions conducing to the goal of a stable,responsible and prosperous society.

The easiest of the three is responsibility . A responsible society needs to be able to make decisions on its own, independently. A child is not fully responsible because his parents take most of the decisions that affect him,
in a similar way a soldier is not fully responsible because he acts on decisions of his superiors and so forth. Thus it appears to me that the aim of a responsible Palestinian society is to be achieved by independence from other
societies and the first step should be the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian State (which is after all the subject of this Forum thread ).

The second of the three is stability. This is more complicated because
it's difficult ascertain steps that will put a country in the road to stability. If one examines this particular region Syria and Jordan, are examples of fairly stable
societies, whereas Lebanon was pretty unstable until it came under Syrian
tutelage. In comparison with the former two, Egypt appears less stable; at the same time it is also more democratic, comparatively speaking. Some say that
stability and prosperity go hand in hand, but this doesn't appear to hold in the Middle East. So given a newly created Palestinian State, in order to ensure
stability the model adopted should be that of a strong authoritarian state and not a liberal democracy. (no point in looking up to Sweden or Norway for examples, this is the Middle East, not Scandinavia)

I would say prosperity is the most difficult of the three. I have recently outlined some short term proposals in the thread " Is Peace really necessary?" but the subject merits a deeper discussion. I leave this to
Forum members more deeply versed in Economics.

Regarding your other statements I hope to set my views in a future note.

[NewsGuy]

Originally posted by Blue Moon
SUGGESTION: WHAT ARE CONCRETE, REALISTIC TERMS NOT JUST FOR PEACE, BUT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PEACEFUL, RESPONSIBLE, SECURE, AND PROSPEROUS PALESTINIAN STATE ?REMEMBER, WE NEED TO ATTEMPT TO (1) AVOID THE QUAGMIRE OF WHOSE RIGHT/WHOSE WRONG, AND (2) WE NEED CONCRETE,
(3) WE NEED BOTH AN IMMEDIATE SHORT-TERM, AS WELL AS LONG TERM SOLUTION.

Regardless of placing the blame on one group or another, the main quagmire is that, as you stated correctly, Israel cannot be constantly threatened by Palestinian terrorism. You also correctly mentioned that certain Palestinian terrorist groups will seek to destroy Israel even after a Palestinian state would be created. This is the crux of the problem -- i.e., that there is no arrangement possible whatsoever if those groups persist.

To get out of the quagmire, the Palestinian terrorist groups must be taken out of the equation. To do so, there are 3 options:

1. The Palestinian governing entity would seek and destroy all the members of those groups by whatever means necessary.

2. Israel would hunt down and destroy all the members of those Palestinian terrorist groups.

3. Those groups cease terrorism and abandon their desire to destroy Israel.

Realistically, I don't believe that those groups will take it upon themselves to abandon their desire to destroy Israel, and so the concrete steps would come from #1 or #2.

Historically, even when given the means and the promise of an independent state, the Palestinian Authority not only has not fought terrorism, but it has incited, trained, armed and provided political cover for terrorism. I am not saying this out of blame, but to arrive at a concrete solution "to save the patient," we need to look at all treatment options and decide which is most likely to be effective.

This brings us to option #3, which is in progress at the moment. Israel alone is fighting against Palestinian terrorism. If Israel is successful, there will be a chance for a peaceful resolution. If Israel fails, then we are looking at a completely different scenario:

A Palestinian state is declared, terrorism against Israel continues, including cross border missiles shot into Israeli population centers (as is happening every day right now in Gush Katif), and then an all-out war ensues. The outcome must be either:

a. Israel re-occupies the Palestinian terrotiries, or

b. Israel finally marches all the Palestinian with their Jihad and their terrorism, into Jordan or into the Sinai desert.

The problem is that neither of these scenarios are desirable in the short-run, but I am concerned that, unless there is a fundamental shift in Arab society against terrorism, this is the unfortunate outcome we will face.

[Mediocrates]

In terms of economics I need to ask another question which is, what is the value of prosperity without a viable middle class? There successful rich nations all over the mid east that use their wealth to develop and support state sponsored terrorism. As a general clause, prosperity in and of itself guarantees nothing since people themselves in the country have nothing to risk and nothing to lose from possible poltical and economic reprecussions.

But if you had a viable middle class - the entrepeneurs and worker bees who have skin in the game and the most of their own standard of living at risk then that is a powerful political force for reform. You see it today in Iran which has a large middle class from which the most potent protest arises. Certainly Israel itself is essentially one large middle class country formed on socialist ideals. It's where the real power lies. I don't think that as a political force there is anything to be gained in elevating the poorest Palestinians or 'refugees' in the camps. To do so is merely a response to fear but has no long term success outside of Palestine itself. Conversely there is little to be gained in attempting to reform the criminals at the top. I just don't see the Dauphin or Marie Antionette becoming Palestinian senators no matter how many Star Wars movies you watch.

[L@mplighterM]

I think their leaders have led the Palestinians down the garden path but I don’t think it has taken much persuasion. Arafat is a puppet for Iran, Iraq, well you might say the whole Arab World.

If the Palestinians are unhappy with his leadership then they should oust him. There’s no possible way the PA could stop revolt if the masses opposed Arafat.

I think it’s outrageous that the US is considering a terrorist as a replacement for Arafat.

I could continue for an hour.


Quite frankly I don’t understand why anyone would start a thread trying to elicit sympathy (#1 & #2) for the plight of the Palestinians living in the WB and GS. Polls have indicated that they support the terrorist attacks against Israel.

They have made their bed so they should lie in it and I would consider it obscene to consider helping people like that.

I think peace might be possible when “Hell Freezes Over” and I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon.
I’ve mentioned on other threads that there are animals in the WB and GS that support the killing of newborn Jewish babies.

Jews die and Arabs celebrate.

[NewsGuy]

Originally posted by Jorge
how wrong they are and get into the business of constructive proposals... and the same holds for everybody in this Forum.

Jorge, do you actually plan on making a constructive proposal? So far, I've seen only a discussion of theoretical societal values, and the only concrete step you propose is that somehow you think that the Palestinians having an independent state will lead them to be "responsible."

FWIW, the more independence the Palestinians have been granted, the more the situation deteriorated. The more freedom was granted to the Palestinians, the more it became evident that they only wanted the freedom to build more missile and suicide-bomb factories in the areas under their control. That's why I think that you are, unfortunately, mistaken.

The second of the three is stability. This is more complicated because it's difficult ascertain steps that will put a country in the road to stability. If one examines this particular region Syria and Jordan, are examples of fairly stable societies, whereas Lebanon was pretty unstable until it came under Syrian tutelage.

"Stability" in the Arab world, as seen from your examples, is only as a direct result of total and complete oppression of its citizens. In Arabs countries where dissidents disappear in middle of the night and are then found shot and mutilated in the streets the next day, there is more stability, if you can call it that. Is this the model you foresee for the future Palestinian entity?

I would say prosperity is the most difficult of the three.

This is where we agree. To build a prosperous society that includes a substantial middle class (as Mediocrates said), there needs to be an emphasis on education, productivity, population control, and capitalism. There also needs to be a competent government free of corruption to make proper use of public funds.

In Palestinian society, like in other Arab countries too, making a living is de-emphasized, while making bombs is held in high-regard. There is a low level of education, a high degree of illiteracy, public corruption, overpopulation, and Islamic extremism. To top it all off, there are no natural resources to trade.

These factors make any future Palestinian state a likely candidate for widespread poverty, because of its societal norms and lack of goods and services to trade. As we also know, poverty leads to more Islamic extremism, and so the circle of Palestinian failure is unlikely to end in this generation. Their only hope is to somehow induce the other Muslim countries to support them as a charity case, or to become an ultra-expensive tourism destination for the petro-dollar sheiks.

[takeo]

http://www.israelforum.com/board/sho...t=takeos+peace





first step: talks with Arafat in Jerusalem about the preparation of a peace-conference in Europe or Washington, with lots of international donors. Israel would withdraw its forces from all the territories belonging to the PA . Make your plans public about your intentions to stop all occupation.

second: stop terrorism: expose the plan to stop the occupation and secretly ask the approval of Hamas, PFLP and Jihad. Probably only Jihad, and perhaps hamas would refuse. If they refuse than joint actions between PA-police, israeli army and secret service, in cooperation with international forces (US and European) to dismantle all organisations who still commit violence and refuse to benefit from an amnesty if they give in their weapons (as happened in northern ireland). This would most probably make an end to at least 90% of the terrorist activities.

thirth: permanent withrawel from israeli forces and install international troops and protection to protect the borders of israel and the remaining colonists.

forth: peace-conforence in which israel offers a full independant palestinian state and promise to take in a certain number of refugees (not more than 1.5 million). in return Arafat should sign a peace-treaty with Israel, recognise it, promiise security-cooperation, and allows continued international presence at the borders. Most likely Arafat would accept. Jerusalem would be divided and the holy sites in Eastern Jerusalem brought under international protection and maintained by a board of jewish and Islamic clerics. Europe and the US will promise to take in the rest of the refugees and pay for the resettlements of jewish settlers and palestinian refugees within Israel.

Separate negotiations with Israel and Libanon: the Holan-heights and pre-1967 border in return for a peace-treaty and recognition of Israel. Syria promises to keep the Golan as a demilitarised region. Other Arab countries would be very tempted to recognise Israel as well and do business with it. Israel would recover very fast and instead of being a military middle-eastern power it would be an economic tiger of the middle-East.

Arafat and the PLO would be treated as heroes for bringing liberation (as in 1993) and the moderates would easily win the election.

[elke]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo
http://www.israelforum.com/board/sho...t=takeos+peace
first step: talks with Arafat in Jerusalem about the preparation of a peace-conference in Europe or Washington, with lots of international donors.

Donors of what? Blood or organs?

Israel would withdraw its forces from all the territories belonging to the PA . Make your plans public about your intentions to stop all occupation.

And define "all the territories belonging to the PA". These are part of the negotitations.

second: stop terrorism: expose the plan to stop the occupation and secretly ask the approval of Hamas, PFLP and Jihad. Probably only Jihad, and perhaps hamas would refuse.

Hahaha!!!!!

If they refuse than joint actions between PA-police, israeli army and secret service, in cooperation with international forces (US and European) to dismantle all organisations who still commit violence and refuse to benefit from an amnesty if they give in their weapons (as happened in northern ireland). This would most probably make an end to at least 90% of the terrorist activities.

Well, that was the plan at Oslo...

thirth: permanent withrawel from israeli forces and install international troops and protection to protect the borders of israel and the remaining colonists.

Any volunteers?

forth: peace-conforence in which israel offers a full independant palestinian state and promise to take in a certain number of refugees (not more than 1.5 million). in return Arafat should sign a peace-treaty with Israel, recognise it, promiise security-cooperation, and allows continued international presence at the borders.

Tried at Camp David and Taba...

Most likely Arafat would accept.

Hahaha!...NOT!

Jerusalem would be divided and the holy sites in Eastern Jerusalem brought under international protection and maintained by a board of jewish and Islamic clerics. Europe and the US will promise to take in the rest of the refugees and pay for the resettlements of jewish settlers and palestinian refugees within Israel.

Tried at Camp David and Taba...

Separate negotiations with Israel and Libanon: the Holan-heights and pre-1967 border in return for a peace-treaty and recognition of Israel. Syria promises to keep the Golan as a demilitarised region.

Promises, promises...

Other Arab countries would be very tempted to recognise Israel as well and do business with it.

When hell freezes over... At this point, it would be a miracle just to get them in the same room!

Israel would recover very fast and instead of being a military middle-eastern power it would be an economic tiger of the middle-East.

It already is...

Arafat and the PLO would be treated as heroes for bringing liberation (as in 1993) and the moderates would easily win the election.

Election for what?

Clap...Clap...Clap... Sorry, no can do with only one hand.

[takeo]

nothing like it has ever been tried, this combination of factors that is acceptable to both sides (unlike camp david), but if you think the current situation is better than to try anything new than of course i won't argue with you.
foreign troops, i think the us or some european countries would be prepared, and Arafat, syria, etc. even the pflp have already said they would stop violence and recognise israel on the conditions which are met in this plan.
if israel offers something real, and unlike oslo in the near future, palestinians will be willing to offer peace to israel.

i mean in the first fase before negociations start withdrawel from territories belonging to the pa according to oslo.

[elke]

Originally posted by takeo
nothing like it has ever been tried, this combination of factors that is acceptable to both sides (unlike camp david), but if you think the current situation is better than to try anything new than of course i won't argue with you.
foreign troops, i think the us or some european countries would be prepared, and Arafat, syria, etc. even the pflp have already said they would stop violence and recognise israel on the conditions which are met in this plan.
if israel offers something real, and unlike oslo in the near future, palestinians will be willing to offer peace to israel.

i mean in the first fase before negociations start withdrawel from territories belonging to the pa according to oslo.

A combination of most of what you spoke of has been proposed between the Camp David and Taba. According to Dennis Ross, the trouble was that Arafat did not want to sign on the dotted line, where it said "end of conflict". I have heard him say so with my own ears.

A more foolhardy way of dealing with this situation, than withdrawing troops prior to any negotiations, would be hard to find. And WHEN and WHERE has PFLP said that it would stop violence? Let alone that they are not the main perpetrator anyway.

US and Europe are having trouble finding peace-keepers for Afghanistan. Nobody volunteers, for some reason...I wonder why? Do you really, honestly think that it would be as simple as that to find peacekeepers for the MidEast?

You see, Takeo, we all may care about Israel, the Palestinians, whoever. But remember: it's not our children under the gun, it's the Israeli and Palestinian children. It is not up to us to decide the fate of these people. They have to look after their own. Given the grisly history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, I don't see how anyone can expect Israel to just pack up and leave. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you can't clap with one hand.

[takeo]

The us wants an end to the mideast-war, i'm sure the us would be willing to send troops, france as well, french troops would be trusted by the palestinians while american troops by the israeli. we have send troops to much more dangerous areas in Africa. And Kosovo isn't disneyland either.

Arafat did not want to sign for some obvious reasons, such as the refugee-question was not solved, israel would controll the border with Jordan, israel would still maintain 8 percent or more of the Westbank, etc. He wanted to negociate the matter but, as Dennis ross said himself, it was a "take it or leave it" proposal.

about the pflp: this is from the pflp-website:

"The possibility of peace still exists if Israel is willing to comply with international law and convention which specify Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory to the borders of 1967, the recognition of the right of refugees to return, and the right of Palestinians to establish an independent and sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. "

http://www.pflp-pal.org/faq.html

[elke]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by takeo
The us wants an end to the mideast-war, i'm sure the us would be willing to send troops, france as well, french troops would be trusted by the palestinians while american troops by the israeli. we have send troops to much more dangerous areas in Africa. And Kosovo isn't disneyland either.

While US wants an end to the ME war, I don't know that they would be willing to put actual "boots on the ground". There is much controversy about it here, but the general concensus seems to be "NO".

The reason is very simple: they tried it in, I believe, 1982 in Lebanon and paid 241 lives for the pain, thanks to Hisbollah. Given the strong anti-American feelings in the ME, it's doubtful that US will relent. And please, don't tell me that once a Palestinian state is established, everything will be different. It won't. France may be willing to risk its people this way, but I really don't think that US is.

Arafat did not want to sign for some obvious reasons, such as the refugee-question was not solved, israel would controll the border with Jordan, israel would still maintain 8 percent or more of the Westbank, etc. He wanted to negociate the matter but, as Dennis ross said himself, it was a "take it or leave it" proposal.

The refugee question solution was offered, and a reasonable one at that. The offer was for Israel to accept a small number of refugees under certain circumstances, - e.g. those who had families in Israel, - and the rest would have a right of return into the newly-minted Palestinian state. There was indeed an obvious reason Arafat did not want to sign: it's because there was the "end of conflict" condition in the contract.

According to Dennis Ross, many in the Palestinian delegation wanted to accept this proposal, but they were overruled by Arafat. It may not have been entirely his fault, since apparently he was told on no uncertain terms not to accept by Egypt and the Saudis (I haven't independently confirmed this part, I just heard this in a couple of different places)

about the pflp: this is from the pflp-website:

"The possibility of peace still exists if Israel is willing to comply with international law and convention which specify Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory to the borders of 1967, the recognition of the right of refugees to return, and the right of Palestinians to establish an independent and sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. "

http://www.pflp-pal.org/faq.html

I won't even go there. If this is not the case of a "pot calling a kettle black", I don't know what is. But again, just "please recycle" prior discussions.

[Blue Moon]

Response to post #5: re: reason for the post.
Of the various different forums, this one is called "Peace-Think Tank". I just noticed that many posters (including myself) were engaged in historical debate, rather than setting forth some concrete crisis solutions. I think from my previous posts, it is already clear what I think of the situation. But my personal thoughts about who is right here does not necessarily help me to really focus on an emergency strategy to avoid all out war.

To me, there will be only two choices here: 1) All out war, or 2) immediate implementation of some sort of emergency plan, followed by a long term solution. Do I doubt the viability and possibility of #2 ? Of course I do. But, even if the chances are remote, maybe someone or somebodies can think of something that hasn't been thought of before. Why is this important to Israel ? Because although Israel would easily win an all out battle with the West Bank and Gaza Arabs, and probably win even if faced with attacks from neighboring Arab countries,
it has a lot to lose.

Israel is obviously better off with strong U.S. support. The American people, however, tend to gravitate towards the underdog. Moreover, the mainstream media over here are
generally ignorant regarding Mid-East history, and expound moral equivalency - - if this was WWII, Japan would not have needed a "Tokyo Rose." The coverage of "Operation Defensive Shield" might as well have originated from Saudi Arabia.

Back to my point. Does Israel need further isolation from the world; and, unless it absolutely has to, does it want to risk
losing a great deal of support from the American public, which in turn, influences those in power ??? You see, an all out war would result in thousands and thousands of Arab casualties. You should have seen our media coverage of Jenin; and you should have seen the effect on many people. I don't know that our hand-wringing, spineless liberals over here could stomach a real war - - it would be to upsetting to them. They would have a hard time digesting their goat-cheese, mixed baby-green boutique salads, and it might cause them to pay more to fuel up their soccer-mom SUV's.

In addition, in case of an all-out war, Israel could face economic sanctions from other countries, no ????

Don't get me wrong. Israel must do,whatever it must to survive.
However, all out war may have extreme costs for it.

With all this in mind, is it worth it to try to brain-storm to maybe come up something, that maybe others have not ???

By the way, I've already observed a few cynical, sarcastic
posts. Again, I have posted my fair share. But, JUST FOR THIS PARTICULAR FORUM, is anyone interested in taking an "objective" view here - - i.e. pretenting, to not have any personal interest here. You know, a good trial attorney always views the case from the other side in order to prepare and see the holes in his/her own case. Would it not be somewhat interesting and personallying challenging, in order to hammer out a possible plan, to assume, just for a moment, the role of the other side ?
Or, at the very least be neutral: Ever see "Star Trek", remember "Mr. Spock" ?

Wadda ya think ?

[Mediocrates]

BTW that hand sign is Kabbalistic, did you know?


I don't quibble with your facts. In fact I skipped over them, more or less- they seem pretty reasonable. My basic premise is that this is a civil war.

Clearly an Alsace-Lorraine solution is not viable. One way or the other the borders between countries have to be set in stone (unless, like Yemen no one really cares where they are). Just as clearly though a divided state might not have any viability. So for a divided Palistan it is not entirely beyond the Pale (sorry - sometimes I just have to be ironic) that Gaza, which houses most of the 'refugees' could become the Palistanians' own underclass dumping ground. "Lose your job? Go to Gaza!" "House got knocked down - emmigrate to sunny Gaza".

At any rate, a framework. Maybe a continuum of transactions then. We can accept each condition as a null state with a sliding scale in one direction toward less compliance and the other direction toward more compliance. For example - the issue of Palestinian immigration into Israel. Start from a position of zero. Couple that goal to 2 distinct processes, one from each side. Compliance with those processes slides the scale one way or the other. So for example if the PLO wants to slide the scale toward more Palistanians moving back over the Green Line then it has to comply with some other link proposition and the Israelis have to jointly comply with another linked proposition.

Similarly they could draw up a detailed list of say 20 priorities and rank them. For each objective, couple it to at least 2 linked sub objectives - one from each side. Each priority has requirements assigned to it that have to be met.

Treat each tuple independently so that there is not requirement to do anything in any order or to have completion of the tasks in any order.

The definition of completion will vary with the definition of the task. In some cases it will be an action in others it will be an agreed to plan of action with dates and times and milestones.

Draft up a preliminary treaty that assigns success criteria to the completion of some subset of the total list. So out of the 20, establisht that critical completion is gained when 15 or whatever number of the shared objectives are met. Leave the remainder to be dealt with as an agreement between 2 different countries.

Anything not on the list is ignored by both parties. Nothing on the list can alter or require changes in the internal political structure of either party. That is, in exchange for allowing Arafat to be the only representative, nobody has any say at all about the makeup of the Israeli government, other than the Israelis themselves.

Put a sunset date on the process. Exceed the date and the process starts over from zero.

Eliminate all of the postcolonial rhetoric from the discussion.

[Mediocrates]

I didn't want to leave that last sentence dangling. Postcolonialism as a body of thought, a modern sociopolitical study that assumes that everything 'western' is bad and lies at the root of most things related to the 'oppression' of other peoples. For a good 4 pages on postcolonialism take a look at:

http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000006D90C.htm

The basic question and the one most fundamental to the solution of this war is - do the Palestinians themselves see their problems as irresolvable? Do they see their lot in life as moving toward or away from something or do the view themselves as permanently different? I think if you can answer that question then you can also answer the cult of death question.