The Some proposed solutions to the war in Palestine, which surely would please Melchizedek and Father Abraham post introduced a fellow from my class at Crestline Elementary School in the “poor side” of Mountain Brook, aka The Tiny Kingdom. I had not seen or heard from him since then.
Here is our private message conversation after I published his proposal for ending the war in Palestine.
Peter
One must wonder how many decades people will cling to the vision of a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians while the facts on the ground move continually in the other direction. Nor is a one-state solution any more plausible. Time for a new idea. The fundamental problem for Israel and the Palestinians is that there are 5 million stateless Palestinians and Israel will never accept them as citizens because they are not Jewish. Historically no Arab country has welcomed them either.
In the past month, both Jordan and Egypt have repeatedly declared that their borders would not be opened to receive even one Palestinian—not as a way to deny humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under attack but rather as a countermove to deny Israel the opportunity to empty the West Bank and Gaza of as many Palestinians as possible. Jordan’s fears are not unfounded, and its redline of refusing to admit Palestinians remains unlikely to change for several reasons.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/11/21/jordan-s-redline-on-admitting-palestinians-is-unlikely-to-change-pub-91077
Without a country, the Palestinians will never be free. I see one possible solution: the world should buy a country for the Palestinians. It would not be cheap. Rebuilding Gaza after Israel destroys it will also not be cheap, but the world will pay for it. Here is my proposal. The idea when first proposed was to buy a less-developed part of Sudan bordering Egypt with a size close to that of Israel. A refinement is to negotiate a deal with the micronation self-proclaimed as the "Islamic Republic of Hala’ib Triangle". This entity covers 7,950 square miles (20,580 sq km), comparable to the size of Israel (8,630 sq mi).
https://micronations.wiki/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Hala%27ib_Triangle
Set aside the claims of Sudan and Egypt for this area, and focus on justice for the current inhabitants which number about 1500. I'm proposing a payment of $1 million US per resident, infants included. The nominal cost would be $1.5 billion, about the cost of 2 to 3 weeks of bombs to be dropped on the Gazans. Also a grant of ten acres of their choosing per resident. Hala'ib lies between Sudan and Egypt and borders the Red Sea to the east. I believe the best approach is that the current residents, mostly Bedouins, would have citizenship in the new country along with the Palestinians. They would be suddenly rich, of course, which would not be a new phenomenom for Bedouins.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1982/01/31/saudi-arabiafrom-bedouins-to-oil-barons/bef09597-7dd2-481c-9a85-1041320e0a63/
The 1500 rich Bedouins and the five million not-rich Palestinians would be the citizens of the new country which might be called the Hala'ib-Palestine Alliance. Hala'ib-Palestine would be far enough away from Israel that continued hostilities would be unlikely in addition to being pointless. Many persons claim that the Palestinians would never accept the idea of moving away from the birthplace of Islam. Not living in the birthplace of Islam does not seem to be a problem for the rest of the nearly 2 billion Muslims. A quick poll of the Palestinans in between bombardments and sniper attacks could resolve that question. There would need to be a threshold for final approval on both the Hala'ib and the Palestinian sides.
Of course a proposal which looks very good to those directly involved will probably be repugnant to Sudan and Egypt, so those countries must be dealt with. One possibility: offer to redirect the aid that the US gives Israel (approximately $4 billion per year) for ten years: $2 billion per year to Sudan, and the same for Egypt. Set a one-year deadline for agreement: if either country does not agree, all of the money goes to the other country. Regardless, the establishment of the new country would proceed under UN and US protection.The new country should include a nature preserve for the Nubian wild ass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_wild_ass
t should also include a large interior area which is reserved for nomadic occupation only. In addition a strip of land one mile thick along the Red Sea plus land for an airport and various parcels for government installations should be under permanent government control. The oceanfront area could be leased for resort development. The land remaining after the grants to the original Hala'ib residents would be divied up among the Palestinians. Enlist a coalition of nations to build a new Palestine in the new country. The US can contribute the money it would otherwise spend replacing the buildings and infrastructure in Gaza that Israel has turned into rubble. Israel can rebuild what it has destroyed in Gaza.
SB
I will say this one more time. What is going on in Palestine is a religious war, and religious fanatics are driving it, and have driven it for a very long time. I tell you this again, because I have dealt with religious fanatics for a very long time, and they are deranged and cannot be reasoned with. You see how nuts some people I engage at Chris Hedges and Caitlin Johnstone’s substacks are. They are fanatics. Certain they are right. No chance of thinking they are wrong. That said, I encourage you to present your proposal into both of those forums, yourself, and into any other forums in which you participate, and get it to President Biden, if you can, and to the the top dogs in the US Senate and House of Representatives, if you can, and to Al Jazeera, maybe they will publish it, which would be terrific. And to NPR All Things Considered, and to Fareed Zakaria at CNN, and Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett at CNN.
Peter
Wow! Well, I updated Caitlin. Paso a paso.
SB
This is your project, and it’s a good project, and I think you need to present it everywhere you can, after you see how Caitlin’s place responds to it, which might help you tone it up again.
Peter
I'll certainly try to keep on improving, and looking for new places to post it.
Pretty crazy folks over at Caitlin's blog. They think the Israelis are going to move somewhere else.
SB
Here’s my take on them, which is not meant to diminish what Israel is doing, which is terrible. Caitlin and most of her followers were terribly abused in childhood. They identify with the people of Gaza, and with the Palestines generally, as if they are the people of Gaza, and the Palestinians. Hamas are the protective the good parents they never had growing up. Thus, it is not possible for them to entertain even a sliver of thought that Hamas has done this to them to gain favor in the world and for Israel to lose favor.
Peter
Certainly possible. It's more in the psychological realm than I normally go. I see a lynch mob. Lynch mobs are seldom angry about nothing. The focus of their anger has transgressed in someway, and for sure Israel has transgressed. Mobs are not interested in moderation. They have one goal in mind and that is to exact justice as they see it as quickly as possible. Calm voices and seeing both sides are not appreciated.
Mobs make all of the members feel powerful. Almost all humans enjoy feeling powerful.
SB
Lynch mob is a good assessment, but in this case, the people leading Israel and IDF need to be lynched. So I give Caitlin and her followers attaboys for that. But why can’t they see the whole picture? That brings in their psychology. That’s the last thing they want to hear or deal with, and if I drop that on them, I would not be surprised if they try to lynch me.
Peter
I understand these motivations, they don't bother me particularly. What dismays me about Caitlin's group so many like it is the attachment to unreality. They don't like my proposal because the Palestinians have to move. They want the Israelis to move. Well a case could be made that that would be more just, but it's a complete fantasy. They imagine some combination of forces will impel this to happen. I ED what if Israel says that have any NATO country attacks them they will respond with nuclear missiles. The answer was "return fire". So they would torch the world and the Palestinians from their mob mentality.
Some of them immediately turned on you and me as well. I'm not slow to block the worst cases.
SB
Israel definitely will use it nukes, if it feels sufficiently threatened, and I have made that comment several times in Hedges and Caitlin's forums, and it doesn’t faze them. Here’s the deal, though, When I see someone obsessing over something going on a long way from where they are, as if their very lives are at risk, too, then that’s the tip-off that they identify with the victims, whose plight punches every one of their internal wounded buttons, and they respond accordingly.
Peter
Thumbs up
SB
This is what Hamas did to Israel on Oct 7. Israel went insane. Here we are, and Hamas is pleased, it got what it wanted to get.
Peter
Thumbs up
Peter
Some day the historians will see Oct 7 as a brilliant stroke. I think we are going to see some real change now, which has not happened in 75 years.
SB
Psychiatry and Psychology call what the remote obsessors are doing, projection. I don’t yet see how real change is possible. Hamas gambled the entire farm that Israel’s reaction would turn the entire world against it, but Hamas did not factor in America, and especially, the American right, but even Joe Biden is furious with Hamas, but he does not really know why. Israel is sitting on huge stockpiles of American weapons and munitions, put there by America for its own military, but Israel controls the warehouses and is drawing down the inventory to pursue this war. Biden was worried the war In Gaza would expand, and it is doing that. Biden beefed up the US Naval presence there, and now look what’s going on in the Red Sea. And at the Lebanon border. We soon could be in WW III. Thank you, Hamas, a brilliant strategy. Thank you, Israel. Thank you, President Biden, Donald Trump, the American Christians and Jews for Israel. Well, that would be serous change.
Peter
You blame both sides and I don't blame either side! I'm probably angrier with Israel, but that is emotion, not rationality. All this leaves you and I in a place where we can communicate.
America and Israel are becoming isolated. I don't think there is any other country in the world where the general public supports the US and Israel.
SB
I blame both sides, because both sides contributed to where we are now. I blame America, because it should have kept its nose out of Palestine and the Middle East altogether. I have been around the Globe twice, and have traveled in Europe and the Caribbean, and Americans, in the main, don’t know, and don’t care, how the rest of the world views America. America really needs to turn inward and look at itself in the mirror for a good while. But projection and finger pointing are so much more comfortable and fun and exciting. Joe Biden sucks. His son sucks. The Democrats remind me of the mythical Fulakwi tribe, forever getting lost and gathering in a circle and sitting down and holding hands and closing their eyes and chanting, “Where the fuck are we? Where the fuck are we?" Donald Trump and the MAGAs and the Republican Party and the Christian right Supreme Court Justices are something else entirely. They are America’s blossoming version of The Third Reich.
Peter
Thumbs up
SB
Be thankful you are able to live in the Dominican Republic. My younger friend, who does the tech work for my books and our podcast told me last night that he thinks he will be happier, and safer, living somewhere else, but other countries, including Mexico, don’t want any more American ex pats.
Peter
Most people are friendly to me here.
SB
I’m talking about the governments of other countries, they don’t want more American ex pats. I spent a lot time on Tortola and Dominica in the Caribbean, in he latter 1990s. Loved it. I no longer have a passport, and am not well enough to leave America anyway. I’m gonna go down with the ship. I worry for my children and their families.
Peter
Yes
Peter
My health is remarkably good. I haven't been to a doctor in at least 5 years probably longer..
SB
I’m jealous of your good health, and also happy for you.
Part of our last podcast is about Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. My tech friend gathered enough evidence to persuade the Feds to prosecute Meadows for faking where he lived so he could run for Congress there. Some Rumble clients learned of the podcast and cut out clips of it they especially didn’t like and posted the clips at Rumble and Rumble took the clips down. Rumble is very right wing. You Tube never gave us a link for that podcast. Lots of people who piss off Trump start receiving death threats, is what I’m getting at. So it won’t surprise me if I am made extinct. That’s why viewers of he podcast can see only me, and why Bob is not Bob’s real name.
Peter
My memory is terrible, but it doesn't seem to be getting a lot worse. I'm actually learning tricks such as when I lay something down I try to visualize it in my praying for about 10 seconds after I let go of it. If I do that I can pretty much remember where I put it.
In my brain
I hope the best for you. Of course both of us have already beaten the averages.
SB
Lucky you, when I had vertigo about a year ago, and an ER did an MRI to see if I had a stroke (no), they called the government, because they had never seen anything like my brain. I snuck out of there and changed back into my usual shape and drove home.
Peter
Lol
SB
https://tinykingdomblacksheep.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-more-books-he-writes-ant-longer-he.html
"Grandfossil’s tales to his grandchildren, a different sort of last will and testament"
Peter
Thumbs up
I received no useful feedback at Caitlin's substack. Sad.SBCults, or if you wish, religions, are not open to change, or to anything that challenges their views.PeterThumbs up
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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