Zeno Swijtink
01-05-2009, 10:52 PM
From my friend Stephan Schwartz
***
If I were a Palestinian
STEPHAN A. SCHWARTZ, Editor - The Schwartzreport
I have been following the Palestinian-Israeli relationship essentially all of my life, at various times, a private person, a journalist, a government official, and a futurist. Over that time it has become a ghastly kabuki, played again and again - a cultural meatgrinder. A possibly offensive image, which I use deliberately. I won't go over the details; we all know the chorus.
Watching what is going on now I just wish reality could be edited. All of this death, and injury goes nowhere.
So how can this murderous ritual be ended? Can we finally agree that it will not be by any of the strategies tried over the last half century? That said let me state my goal: a functioning prosperous Palestinian state, in alliance with a prosperous Israel.
When I think about this, it seems to me the power lies with the Palestinians. If I were a Palestinian leader, particularly if I had any secret aspirations to become my people's historical person, this is the strategy I would pursue:
I would very publicly announce that the Palestinians would disarm if an international observer corps was created to oversee this, and the events that followed for ten years. I would ask the world for assistance in creating a health care system, and a non-religious educational system. The euphoria this shift would eventuate would open a flood of aid.
Would it work? The Palestinian diaspora makes it clear that when Palestinians are in a stable environment, and with real opportunity, they prosper.
I have a Palestinian friend who came from Gaza, once an angry man, realized what he now had available to him, and opened a highly successful Mediteranean restaurant where he cooks his grandmother's recipes. He would love to go back to Gaza and do the same thing there, and he is one of thousands.
The results would be immediate in geopolitical terms and, in a generation a Palestinian State could be transformed. An upwardly positive trend that could continue thereafter. The Israelis would have no choice but to embrace this, and many would do so with genuine good feeling. The world would have to support it. All of this good feeling would call into existence a kind of ad hoc Marshall Plan. The first decade of the transformation would be observed by the world, and supported by it. The story line would be Palestinian prosperity. It is easy to imagine the CNN special.
Once the basic structure began to emerge I would develop a massive program that would bring all the Palestinians together with a sense of expectation, and reason to believe it would bring great benefit. There may be several options, but what suggests itself to me is: Water and green power.
Water is going to become the defining reality of the Middle East, as climate change progresses. Anyone who follows this part of the world knows what a ticking time bomb it is. If I were a Palestinian, I would want my people to have a piece of providing a serious solution. Particularly because it is going to produce oil level wealth. If I were a Palestinian I would be planning how to put together a combine with a strong Palestinian presence that would produce water and green power.
I would get the Israelis to provide the engineering, in the process, training Palestinian engineers, and the Egyptians to provide the Sinai. I would see that Palestinians provided much of the work force, which would very quickly create a solid stable middle class, just as the car industry, and everything needed to feed it, achieved this in the U.S. Solar powered desalinization plants and photovoltaic installations in the Sinai could produce the fresh water that will be desperately needed, as well as green power to power a rising quality of life for all in the region. And more than any treaty it would get people to think regionally, and not just religiously.
That's what I would do, if I were a Palestinian.
***
If I were a Palestinian
STEPHAN A. SCHWARTZ, Editor - The Schwartzreport
I have been following the Palestinian-Israeli relationship essentially all of my life, at various times, a private person, a journalist, a government official, and a futurist. Over that time it has become a ghastly kabuki, played again and again - a cultural meatgrinder. A possibly offensive image, which I use deliberately. I won't go over the details; we all know the chorus.
Watching what is going on now I just wish reality could be edited. All of this death, and injury goes nowhere.
So how can this murderous ritual be ended? Can we finally agree that it will not be by any of the strategies tried over the last half century? That said let me state my goal: a functioning prosperous Palestinian state, in alliance with a prosperous Israel.
When I think about this, it seems to me the power lies with the Palestinians. If I were a Palestinian leader, particularly if I had any secret aspirations to become my people's historical person, this is the strategy I would pursue:
I would very publicly announce that the Palestinians would disarm if an international observer corps was created to oversee this, and the events that followed for ten years. I would ask the world for assistance in creating a health care system, and a non-religious educational system. The euphoria this shift would eventuate would open a flood of aid.
Would it work? The Palestinian diaspora makes it clear that when Palestinians are in a stable environment, and with real opportunity, they prosper.
I have a Palestinian friend who came from Gaza, once an angry man, realized what he now had available to him, and opened a highly successful Mediteranean restaurant where he cooks his grandmother's recipes. He would love to go back to Gaza and do the same thing there, and he is one of thousands.
The results would be immediate in geopolitical terms and, in a generation a Palestinian State could be transformed. An upwardly positive trend that could continue thereafter. The Israelis would have no choice but to embrace this, and many would do so with genuine good feeling. The world would have to support it. All of this good feeling would call into existence a kind of ad hoc Marshall Plan. The first decade of the transformation would be observed by the world, and supported by it. The story line would be Palestinian prosperity. It is easy to imagine the CNN special.
Once the basic structure began to emerge I would develop a massive program that would bring all the Palestinians together with a sense of expectation, and reason to believe it would bring great benefit. There may be several options, but what suggests itself to me is: Water and green power.
Water is going to become the defining reality of the Middle East, as climate change progresses. Anyone who follows this part of the world knows what a ticking time bomb it is. If I were a Palestinian, I would want my people to have a piece of providing a serious solution. Particularly because it is going to produce oil level wealth. If I were a Palestinian I would be planning how to put together a combine with a strong Palestinian presence that would produce water and green power.
I would get the Israelis to provide the engineering, in the process, training Palestinian engineers, and the Egyptians to provide the Sinai. I would see that Palestinians provided much of the work force, which would very quickly create a solid stable middle class, just as the car industry, and everything needed to feed it, achieved this in the U.S. Solar powered desalinization plants and photovoltaic installations in the Sinai could produce the fresh water that will be desperately needed, as well as green power to power a rising quality of life for all in the region. And more than any treaty it would get people to think regionally, and not just religiously.
That's what I would do, if I were a Palestinian.