by Richard Marcus, Stevensville
Here’s my simple plan to have peace in the Middle East: CREATE A NEW HOME FOR THE PALESTINIANS!
Modern Israel is 8,470 square miles (smaller than New Jersey). The Arab-occupied land we refer to as Palestine is 2,412 square miles. The Arab/Muslim countries that surround Israel, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean which we generally refer to as “The Gulf States” are 2,471,590 square miles (almost 300 times larger than Israel). If you want peace, the Arab/Muslim countries must agree that one of them give up an equal or greater piece of land (2,412 square miles) to create “New Palestine.”
Some background: Since 1948, the U.N. recognized re-affirmed date as Israel’s (the Jews) ancestral homeland, the surrounding Arab/Muslim countries simultaneously declared war with Israel threatening their complete annihilation, and have exiled Jews from their countries. For simple purposes the Jews were told to leave everything behind and go now, or be killed.
People of Christian/Judeo European and American backgrounds tend to lump all Arab/Muslim people into one homogeneous group. That’s like categorizing all American Indians as one people. Clearly they are not. The surrounding Arab/Muslim countries in the Middle East in reality don’t care about the Palestinians because we as people are still basically “tribal” in nature and they don’t want peace. Why? The answer is that THERE IS PROFIT IN CHAOS. You can control your country’s natural resources (like oil prices) and your population by managing a perceived national threat.
Getting back to my solution. It’s pretty clear that Arabs and Jews don’t play well together and shouldn’t be forced to occupy the same tiny piece of land. One of the Arab countries should give up some land to create a new home for the Palestinians and I’m sure that other countries around the world would pitch in resources to make that happen and then there would be peace in the Middle East.
Craig L Johnson says
Wow! so much ignorance in this letter. Arabs and Jews lived just fine together until zionists appeared. Why should arab countries give up land? why doesn’t the united states give up land for the european jews? there’s no such thing as a “promised land”, christians have been brainwashed by the scofield bible.
The solution is pretty simple. vacate all illegal settlements, go back to the 1947 partition, vacate the golan heights, no more aid of any kind to israel, and make them reveal how many nukes they have and have them follow all other nuclear country rules. if they refuse on any or all of this you impose economic sanctions and blockade.