ROUND AND ROUND IT GOES
(an insane carousel of mutual dishonesties)

President Obama’s recent comments concerning what the respective boundaries of a two- state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict should be, is one more example of just how useless third party involvement in this matter can be. In this instance it has created a firestorm of negativity both over there and here at home.

For the past sixty odd years, both the Israelis and the Palestinian have been hammering at each other, like two pit-bulls fighting over a bone (the bone being the territory of what was once called Palestine under the British Mandate established at the end of WWI, and which the UN divided between them in 1946-47). And to this day that conflict just continues to go round and round, an insane carousel of mutual dishonesties.

I say dishonesties because, whenever there is any kind of progress towards some kind of peaceful resolution between them, one or the other either allows, or creates, an event that throws a monkey-wrench into the peace process, bringing it all to a screeching halt….once again. All of which suggests that neither party really wants peace preferring, instead, to engage in stealth maneuvers of one kind or the other against each other. The Israelis, with their creeping settlement works, to leach away as much of the previously captured West Bank territory as possible, while the Palestinians, resort to rockets and suicide bombers, to make the cost of that Israeli strategy as painfully expensive as possible. Simply put, neither party is willing to let the other have what it wants for itself, with both, apparently, preferring an ultimate and mutually assured destruction instead.
If that’s not insanity….what is?

Perhaps what is needed now is for both the Israeli and Palestinian youth to emulate what has been happening all round them in the region, with the so-called “Arab Spring”, where all over the region, it’s youths have risen against their elders saying….enough already! Get out of the way, and let us do the job you old farts can’t seem to accomplish. In this instance it would clearly show that their generation is tired of fighting and dying for old men’s wars.

Well, instead of continuing to ride such an insane carousel of never ending conflict, perhaps there may be some real statesmen among those old farts. Statesmen, both able and willing, to honestly sit down with their opposite peers to come up with an equitable and a real resolution to this conflict.

To that end, it would be to the Israelis’ advantage to take the initiative by having its Knesset, as the ultimate political entity representing their people, make the following overture to its Palestinian Parliament counterpart:

1) An immediate freeze/temporary truce of all hostile or encroaching activities for six months.
2) Mutually agree to the establishment of a joint Peace Commission composed of 15 of the youngest members of their respective Assemblies, tasked with developing and preparing a definitive settlement agreement within ninety days, and presenting it for referendum to their respective peoples for acceptance and ratification within another ninety days. Said Commission to be sequestered entirely while it is accomplishing its task. Perhaps sent off to either the Grand Canaries or the Seychelles for that purpose (with no external contact or communications for the duration of their work).

3) If ratified by two thirds of their people, the agreement would become the charter for the following immediate actions:

a) The State of Israel would formally sponsor the admission of the new Palestinian State to the United Nations, under the terms of settlement reached.

b) Both would mutually recognize each other’s right to exist as members of the United Nations, and formally establish diplomatic relations with each other.

c) Both would declare Jerusalem to be a mutually held autonomous capital district (analogous to Washington D.C), under a composite administration subsidized by both states, and composed equally of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian members. It would also declare Jerusalem to be an “open and undivided” city, while retaining its traditional “quarters”, with both nations calling it their capital, where both could have it as the seat of their respective national assemblies. Their respective government offices and operating offices could be located elsewhere. For example, while the Israeli Knesset and the Palestinian Parliament might be located in Jerusalem, the Israeli government departments would operate out of Tel Aviv, and the Palestinian government departments out of Ramallah.

d) Both the State of Israel and the Palestinian State would immediately negotiate and establish the terms for the formation of a regional Middle Eastern Union, of which both would be the core units, with Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, invited as associate members, once these had resolved their own internal situations. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia and Syria might also be invited to become part of it as well. Such a union to be primarily focused on economic and mutual defense assistance.

e) After a five year period, citizens of both states would be allowed to freely live, work, and/or engage in business within each other’s territories, subject to observance of their respective local laws.

These are the preliminary parameters for achieving a real and lasting peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinians. One can only hope that there are true statesmen among them, able and willing to abandon that old carousel of insanity, and create something sane for both their peoples instead.

CENTURION