This isn’t the latest from Victor Davis Hanson, but I just recently came across it- “A Modest Proposal for Mideast Peace”.
“Perhaps we ought to broaden our multinational and multicultural horizons by transcending the old comprehensive settlements, roadmaps, and Quartet when dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a dispute which originated with the creation of Israel.
Why not simply hold an international conference on all of these issues — albeit in a far more global context, outside the Middle East?
The ensuing general accords and principles could be applied to Israel and the West Bank, where the number of people involved, the casualties incurred, and the number of refugees affected are far smaller and far more manageable[...]
Professor Hanson then proposes five panels that would study each of the major grievances and demands made in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of how they have (apparently) been successfully resolved elsewhere in the world. As he says:
“In other words, after a half-century of failed attempts to solve the Middle East crisis in isolation, isn’t it time we look for guidance in a far more global fashion, and in contexts where more lives have been lost, more territory annexed, and more people made refugees in places as diverse as China, Russia, and the broader Middle East?
The solutions that these countries have worked out to deal with similar problems apparently have proven successful — at least if the inattention of the world, the apparent inaction of the United Nations, and the relative silence of European governments are any indication.”
Read it (in fact, read anything by him!)
Filed under: International affairs, Islam, Israel, Mideast peace, Pakistan, Palestine, Terrorism, Jihad
