by Gary Berg-Cross
Having
outrageously dispatched 2 global problems in prior posts on Climate Change and
the Wealth Gap, we can try some simpler regional problem like
Israel-Palestine (I-P). Well to be fair as a
child there were 3 intractable disputes: South Africa, Ireland-Northern Ireland
and Israel-Palestine. With difficult 2 of these have been handled and the
tougher nut is left.
You might say that the Irish issue goes back pretty far
and has called for outrageous, but modest proposals for solution. In 1729 Jonathan
Swift anonymously & satirically published “A Modest Proposal for
Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or
Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. It took a while to settle that one, and the I-P conflict goes back to
an even earlier invasion.
Even
Jon Stewart can’t solve this one, although he has some modest proposals, like
fewer weapons sent to the area. Seems like an important ingredient but this has
already gotten him criticized so we have to step delicately here too and note
that the problem is dynamic and when something is tried such as things that
worked in either South Africa (boycotts) or George Mitchell diplomacy (Ireland)
there is blockage even if some negotiations start. Unfortunately I-P
negotiations aren’t between the likes of MLK and Gandhi. It’s more like warlords. As with the wealth
gap there are asymmetries to the situation. One side has the power and uses disproportional
responses. So the other side uses unconventional means. Both seem to be criminal in their own way.
In
I-P the key folks know how to bollix things up.
There is, for example, Israel's sequence of reasons offered for
attacking Gaza – see video
report. So maybe sidelining them is a solution ingredient.
The
usual approach of first diagnosing the problem of being responsible, as well as
fact based and settling into hard negotiations over a long time. But you know
understand the situation hasn’t been fruitful. The problem is as emotional as
they come. Revenge seems an important ingredient.
At
first blush, since the problem of land control disputes and conquest goes back
thousands of years (per the previous upsetting animation on the history of
conflict in this land) we might try some older techniques. I was thinking of the old royal hostage
exchange.
“In medieval Europe hostages were given, not taken. They were a means of guarantee used to secure transactions ranging from treaties to wartime commitments to financial transactions. In principle, the force of the guarantee lay in the threat to the life of the hostage if the agreement were broken but, while violation of agreements was common, execution of hostages was a rarity. Medieval hostages are thus best understood not as simple pledges, but as a political institution characteristic of the medieval millennium, embedded in its changing historical contexts.” From Hostages in the Middle Ages Adam J. Kosto
The
idea is that each side offer some of its elite children, who would grow up in
the others land and help preserve the peace. We’d have to put Jewish children
near the Gaza border, for example, so that their presence would stop the type
of bombing and destruction we saw as IDF troops move in. Palestine would be raised in Israeli cities
and towns and…
you know this isn't going to work.
There is not much risk to their being killed
by small rockets or suicide bombs. The
previously mentioned asymmetry of the situation doesn't make this outrageous
approach feasible.
Back
to the sketchy pad.
So
again we need something simple and bottom line. Something like getting a bunch
of the war crime responsible parties before the International Criminal Court ICC. Human
Rights Watch for example is for this. This would give some space for
moderates.
What
to do next as past crimes are being prosecuted and each side has
How
to get around that blockage? There is
the simple idea again of using a moral argument. We’d have to reinforce it maybe with ur
secular religion (see part 2 of outrageous solutions). It should help promote
the idea around the world, and recall we already talked about UN and ICC
backing. With this in place we argue that it’s just seems fair that from now on
with the ICC going parties responsible for any new damage should pay for them. I mean financially sort of like implied by
the “your break it, you bought it idea.”
It’s bottom line stuff that everyone can understand. Jewish author and scholar Norman Finkelstein, touched on
this briefly in an interview.
“It’s really a kind of
weird conflict. I mean, there are so many weirdnesses about
Ok, so
we have some American Jews buying in. But Palestinians have to pay for the damage they
cause too, just as the relevant people have to go to the ICC for war crimes. Let’s
say that we could agree on making the groups doing the damage responsible for
them.
Now asymmetry
works to dampen the damage. And throw in
the idea that the US will allocate $$ from the 3 billion a year it ships
over. So if we have a $5 billion or so
conflict in Gaza with Israeli weapons that’s almost 2 years of the money Israel
normally receives.
This
is getting a bit complicated, but we need one more outrageous idea to make this
work.
There will be lots of legal
wrangling over this. Like Oslo this process would be gamed. So we need a good legal team with the right
experience to manage this. It has to be
better than what was done in Oslo. I
think that we need a team of LA divorce
lawyers to handle the negotiations. It’s
probably the only group that has the experience and tenacity to handle the egos
involved. Too bad that Donald Sterling won't be available.
One thing though. Can we afford these lawyers with just 3
billion or so to work with after damages?
