The Disaster

It is certainly true that the holocaust was not a creation of the Moslems, but I think that Muhammad would have welcomed the Jews to settle peacefully in Palestine. He and his followers had suffered terrible persecution in Mecca (though the Jews seemed to have suffered much worse persecution) and he would have felt compassion for them. Had they been welcomed to Palestine, there likely never would have been a Jewish state but instead an ecumenical state with Arabs as the dominant cultural group and Jews as an influential and respected minority.

Of course 'The Disaster' was really a creation of our parents and grand parents, but that still leaves the problem of how to resolve the needless animosity and violence which has become so prevalent in the Middle East. It is not as simple as it was in the 50's as all the parties are hardened in their positions.

I would recommend that Palestinians become a mirror of Israel. Just as Israel follows Jewish law as reasonable and allows any Jew to immigrate, Palestine should follow Islamic law as reasonable and allow any Moslem to immigrate. As Israel has a mandatory draft for all young men, Palestine would have a mandatory draft. This is important as it would provide the Palestinian government with the strength to really fight the terrorists while at the same time removing the source of the unrest, unemployeed young men. Military service also has the added bonus of instilling self discipline and self confidence. These virtues can also permit the development of humility which would greatly alleviate much of the unrest in the region¹.

While it is certainly easy to train soldiers to be good soldiers in a year, the more difficult and prerequisite task is developing an effective officer corps (which includes both commissioned officers and senior non commissioned officers). It takes decades to develop a really effective officer corps. However, if the Palestinians were realy committed to a peaceful and prosperous life, it would certainly be possible.

For that purpose, training with outside assistance would be most helpful. While the U.S. certainly has a fine officer corps, other options which might be more useful are Israel (which has an excellent officer corps), Turkey, and Ethiopa. All have vested interests in peace and stability in the Middle East as well as relatively well disciplined military with a strong tradition of rule of law. Other countries have a strong military and officer corps, but lack the trasition of a rule of law and their influence could be a risk to the well being of the Palestinians. If they wanted to go further afield, India and Japan would also be good candidates with added cultrual diversity.

The Israelis could be invited to help with the operations to root the terrorists out of Palestine as well as Palestinian border searches to prevent the terrorists from attacking Israel. Once the Palestinian military can guarantee peace, the Palestinians could insist on patrolling those parts of Palestine with the Jewish settlements beyond the 1967 borders, guaranteeing the safety of all residents of Palestine. Then the Paletistinians could offer to allow settlers who did not get immigration approval from Egypt, Jordon, or Palestine (which would be virtually all) to become citizens of Palestine and remain in Palestine in exchange for Palestinians (and their families) who wish to be repatriated to Israel being granted Israeli citizenship.

The point would be to establish Jews as respected citizens of Palestine as well as hastening the day when Arabs are the majority in Israel (which appears to be the likely outcome in any case). When those events occur, a merger into a united ecumenical Palestine where all religions are respected becomes a realistic possibility. Wouldn't that be wonderful!

1 Humility is a deep seated feeling that all people are worthy of respect and consideration. However, without self respect there is little hope of honestly and openly respecting others. That is why the self discipline and self confidence which military training helps develop can lead to the valuable virtue of humility.