The basic issue comes down to this… the Israelies had the poor manners to occupy Muslim territory. Granted, it was Christian territory before the Muslims conquered it, and Roman Pagan territory before the Chistians conquered it, and Jewish territory before the Romans conquered it… but apparently Muslims are real twitchy about Muslim territory being made “not Muslim territory anymore.” The consequence of this is that the Israelies are forever going to be in a state of siege. It doesn’t help that both sides see that little scrap of land as their Rightful Gift From God. When people are convinced that their God wants them to be someplace, they’ll often enough make some effort to actually be there.
So, what to do? I have a suggestion. It would work. It only has one serious flaw.
It boils down to this: give up on the scrap of land currently known as “Israel.” Pull the Israeli people out, put them somewhere else. However, the entirety of land area on Earth, except for Antarctica, is owned by somebody. So, whereever New Israel might be, is currently already somebody else’s. At first blush, that means the problem has not been solved… same issue as with Israel/Palestine. But here’s the thing: most people on Earth are sane enough that they can be bought. This was not the case in the Middle East…. they’s crazy. But there are lots of scraps of land that can be had, if you just know how to bargain. And I have just the scrap of land: northern Mexico. Specifically, a strip along the US/Mexico border, 50 miles wide, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.
A few questions:
1) How much would this cost? I have no friggen’ clue. Probably a trillion dollars or more.
2) Who would pay for this? I’d suggest a split between the US and Israel, both governmental and private donors. I’d suggest that the bulk of it come from the US, and be paid to Mexico over a period of, say, thirty years. Israel would be on the hook to repay the US over the following thirty years or so.
3) Why would the Israelies want this? They’d have their own spot of land for Nuevo Israel, with an ally on one side, and on the other… someone who at the very least doesn’t really give a rats ass.
4) Why would the US want this? Several reasons. For starters, we could finally tell the Middle East to go piss up a rope. The ME’s troubles are hardly going to go away if the Israelies bug out; the local Arab governments are simply going to have to scramble to find some other bullshit strawgoblin to rattle their populace with. Second, having Israel on the southern border would mean nothing but goodness for the US. Illegal immigration would slow to a crawl; the drug trade would be similarly stymied. Cross-border crime from Mexican drug gangs would be a thing of the past. Any drug gangs on the Mexico/Nuevo Israel border who to tried to cause a ruckus would find out that the IDF is not as hand-tied as the US border patrol. The costs involved in this land purchase would, in the long run, be a pittance compared to the savings to the American penal and health care systems, never mind the economy in general.
5) Why would the Mexican government want this? Buckets of money.
6) Why would the Mexican people want this? Many probably wouldn’t… but again, there’s that “buckets of money” thing. The deal could ladle out large sums to Mexican families currently living in the strip to move south. Mexicans who don’t want to leave could be incorporated into Nuevo Israel, much as many Arabs were integrated into Israel. Those who stay would find that their surroundings would get vastly better. Instead of corrupt Mexican cops and government, there’d be the NIDF forces. Criminals would very quickly find themselves deported to Old Mexico.
OK, here’s the big, HUGE stumbling block: God. Getting God’s Chosen People to clear off of God’s Chosen Real Estate could be trouble. Still, the majority of the Israelies seem like reasonably reasonable folk… just as reasonable religious folk see Genesis not as literal fact but as allegorical, so could the idea of “Israel is wherever the Israelies are” be spun.
Also, there are a whole lot of Christian and Jewish “holy sites” in the current land of Israel. Well… presumably they’ll still be there, even after the Palestinians sweep in and loot whatever the Israelies leave behind. And once the Israelies are gone, the Arab world (along with the rest of the world) will stop giving a damn about Palestine; after the famine and general pestilence passes through and burns out the whackadoodle element, the tourism trade will be all that’s left, and should do brisk business with Nuevo Israelies visiting the ancient homeland once or twice in their lives. Practically, this should be doable… after all, all Muslims with the means of doing so are supposed to visit Mecca at least once in their lives, but they seem to be fine with going back home to Indonesia or Canada or wherever once the visit’s over.
And hey… if as the Israelies are packing up and leaving they dig up the Temple Mount and ship it across the sea… who’d notice?
Below is a map showing the rough geometry of Nuevo Israel as a 50-mile-wide strip. There’d be some good seashore for ports, both east and west. Off in the Pacific is the current state of Israel for scale. Clearly, Nuevo Israel would be vastly larger. Lots of room to grow… and seeing what the Israelies did with the Negev desert, it would not be shocking if, a century or three down the line, the US/Mexico border is easily seen from the Moon as a verdant belt fifty miles wide.
14 Responses to “A Proposal to solve the Israel/Arab problem”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
ROFL!!! Perfect. Saves the money of creating a five mile wide minefield / kill zone across the Southern border. I still think my idea would be cheaper though – $1000 a head.
My plan was to “discover” the Ark Of The Covenant in the desert outside of Las Vegas, and move the whole Jewish population of the place to the Promised Land of that city and its suburbs.
Not only would the climate be similar to Israel, but Las Vegas already has a large Jewish population, so they would feel right at home.
Also, parents would have the advantage of telling their children of the Hard Egyptian Bondage while pointing at the Luxor Hotel and saying “You see that thing? Does that look easy to build to you? Well, you just imagine building all that out of solid rock sometime! But way back when, your great and beloved ancestor Murray Silverstein-Ho-Tep was forced to build a thing like that out of rock.
So where do you get off telling your mother that you have no time to clean up your room after school? Murray would have _loved_ to be lucky enough to clean up a nice room like you have instead of busting his balls moving all those rocks around. And if he got out of line, do you think the Pharaoh would ground him? Oh yeah, he’d ground him alright…he’d ground him six feet under, that’s what Pharaoh would do!” 🙂
Well, there’s always this place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
Bigger than Israel to boot. Shame about the climate.
I see a problem: Baja is still Mexican, but it’s cut off from land travel to the rest of Mexico. I suggest a modification: a narrower strip along the border above Baja.
Other than that, I visualize only good coming from this.
One problem: Mexico isn’t the Promised Land. It’s not Israel. The Jewish people are in Israel because the land is considered sacred, not because they like the scenery or their neighbors. There is no NO other place that would do for them.
This would never, ever work.
> Mexico isn’t the Promised Land.
Which I why I pointed out “God” as being the big problem here. However, as the Old Testament points out quite clearly, Jehovah is a pretty damned flighty sort of god, forever changing his mind about this or that. Consequently, someone could, I imagine, make the arguement that “the land of Israel” does not *necessarily* denote a specific set of map co-ordinates. In the 19th century, Christians in the US were forever declaring that this spot or that was the new Jerusalem or some such.
If a Neuvo Israel movement got off the ground, the Arabs nuking Tel Aviv and irradiating the rest of Israel might prove a valuable motivator to the idea that “You know, maybe that place over there might not be so bad.”
> The Jewish people are in Israel because the land is considered sacred
Actually, I suspect the main reason why Israel is Israel is because that’s where the British said it was. Numerous other locations around the world were considered for the “New Jewish Homeland” prior to 1948. Had a few decisions been made differently, New Israel might have been in Madagascar, Alaska, wherever, with Palestine being little more than a theological amusement park.
> I suggest a modification: a narrower strip along the border above Baja.
A counter-proposal: build a big-ass bridge/tunnel/ferry system across the gulf, going from the mainland to Isla Tiburon to Isla San Esteban to Isla San Lorenzo to Baja. Looking at the maps, that would make the most likely-seeming trips that much shorter anyway. A bridge system would be a fairly substantial project… but if it’s a mix of bridges and ferries – such as the hovercraft ferries that used to go between britain and France – it’d probably be fairly easy. Relatively. Compared to getting the Arabs to stop rocketting the Israelies, at any rate.
In 1990, I converted to Judism so my Jewish girlfriend and I could get married in the Temple she was a member of. I consider myself spiritual, I always wanted to start my own religon, “the church of the somewhat vaguely dissatisfied”
The Rabbi who taught the class neccessary to convert felt that the Jewish religon would be basically extinct in a few generations, the Nazi’s damage being the primary cause. What I liked about the Jewish religon is that they must try thee times to dissued you from joining, (sorry about my spelling)
I had to go in front of three Rabii’s and answer questions about things…who was Moses? what’s a Sadar? nothing too deep, one of the Rabbi’s was about two or three hundred years old and asleep after he sat down. At the end they put me in the ceremonial pool, that day the heater was broke… “Oooiii if itwas any colder I’d have a vagina!!!”
The holy land is whereever you are, not a place on a map, so I could see Baja as the Nuevo Judao, one small border and no enemies for quite some distance. They’ve even got pyramids not too far away…
I think the move will be easier once the holy lands are vaporized and the oil supply runs out in the next generation or two. Global warming should put the rest of the holyland underwater.
I never understood why we didn’t pull out completely and put a billion dollar bounty for Osama’s head on a platter. or offer 73 virgins for those who captured and stopped any suicide bombers.
Hey, Happy New Year everybody!!!
I can’t work out if this is a joke?
Mass human movement is a pretty normal and natural part of our life on this planet though it is often very unpleasant for many involved in it at the time. Look at all the Europeans who moved to North America, all the people moving now to Europe from Africa and the Middle East, the migrations of the Germanic tribes and of course the back and forths of the Hebrews (and so on). But you are never, ever going to convince the six million Jews living in Israel to pack up and move for deserts of Mexico or even somewhere really nice like Hawaii. Nothing short of nuclear war (and even then it’s unlikely) will lead to them moving unless they are forced too.
It’s not about religion it’s about roots. If you travel to Israel you’re notice they’ve been very busy and have built a lot of stuff. Could the Americans be convinced to leave California because someone works out it was never officially transferred from Mexico or something? No religion involved in that but millions of people’s lives, homes and histories.
The real solution to the problem is finding the right accommodation between the Arabs and Jews over Israel and Palestine. The Palestinians have been offered the West Bank and Gaza (with corrective land swaps for some territory in the West Bank with some territory in Israel) and tens of billions to sweeten it. They turned it down and cling to the idea that they can force the Jews out. This will never happen now and in the future.
The Palestinian Aras cling to this fantasy that in 50-100 years they will outnumber the Jews 3 to 1 and can invade at their leisure. Unfortunately they will be even poorer then than now (unless the make peace) and there won’t be any Arab money because oil will no longer be a crucial commodity in that timeframe. Despite a potential population advantage Israel’s advanced weapon systems will even the gap as they do now.
Not much about all this has to do with religion. Religion is simply the manifestation of people’s community identities. Though there is religious motivation in the more extremist Khamas movement compared to the PLO this is no different to the extremist political motivations of the PFLP and other Palestinian militant factions.
Despite the bleeting of much of the anti-Israelis in the world over the current bombing campaign there has been real progress in the West Bank in the past year or so. The combination of the barrier and the death of Arafat are leading to a strong move for accommodation. The Israeli campaign has a lot to do with weakening Khamas at the vital moment when they had declared they were going to challenge Abu Mazen’s PA presidency and possibly even allowing for a Fatah re-invasion of the Gaza strip after the next elections (which Fatah are widely tipped to win by a landslide). Even if none of this happens there may soon be a three state solution for Israel with the West Bank becoming a de jure Fatah state and Gaza remaining a de facto Khamas state under siege by Israel and Egypt.
Anyway I would advise strongly against simplistic population transfer ideas. If you do want to move anyone the two million Arabs in Israel/Palestine should be relocated and integrated to the other Arab states. In the same way the Germans were kicked out of Eastern Europe where they had lived for thousands of years it would ensure long term peace in the region. The irony of it is the families of most so-called Palestinians only migrated to Palestine in the past 100 years because Jewish migration was creating lots of employment and injecting lots of cash into the region.
>I can’t work out if this is a joke?
Then my job is done…
> Nothing short of nuclear war (and even then it’s unlikely) will lead to them moving unless they are forced too.
And there are a better part of half a billion Arabs who, if they’d simply get their act together, could do precisely that.
> Could the Americans be convinced to leave California because someone works out it was never officially transferred from Mexico or something?
No, but if the Americans in California were surrounded and outnumbered by enemies a hundred to one or so, and those enemies made it increasingly clear that the mere presence of the Californians was cause enough for genocide… who knows?
> The real solution to the problem is finding the right accommodation between the Arabs and Jews over Israel and Palestine.
Ah. And what “real solution” is that? The only one the Islamic world seems to see as valid is the *extermination* of jewish power in the region.
A rational worldview is that a plot of land, even if it is your HOME, is, in the end, just a plot of land. America is filled with people who decided that Home was sufficiently full of suck that abandoning it was a good idea. Any future off-world colonies will be the same.
As for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, that might be a suitable place to relocate the Palestinians, if Russia could ever be induced to agree. It is true that as long as the Ark of the Covenant has not been found, though, the Temple cannot be rebuilt anyways, and so the need of the Jewish people for the Promised Land is less pressing.
There is also the area between Poland and Germany that Poland has as a replacement for the Western area seized from it by Russia. When Poland is returned to its pre-war borders, instead of giving the area back to the Germans, it could be used by Israel.
> that might be a suitable place to relocate the Palestinians
That’s way beyond nutty, far more so than packing up the Israelies. For this simple reason: the Arab world *needs* the Palestinians to stay exactly where they are, to keep them vistims as propaganda tools against Israel. Once Israel has been wiped out, the larger Aran world could hardly care less about where the Palestinians go, but for now they need to stay put.
> the area between Poland and Germany
I have the feeling that Jews would be less than thrilled at being wedged between the Germans and Poles.
Short post on an old subject but regarding “Palastine” that the Arab world argues should be “restored” to it’s rightful people. (The Palastinians)
Have any of you folks taken a look at maps of the “area” prior to the British partioning? How about the “mandated” UN territory partitioning? Compare them to current maps and you’ll probably be “surprised” to find that when the “Arab League” launched its first attack on Israel the various “League” members snatched up enough of the pre-attack “Palastine” to give the Palastinian’s more land than if they actually were GIVEN Israel! Of course that would mean someone other than the Israelies would have to give up “their” land….
As Scott noted, it’s not about “giving” the Palastinians anything, but useing them for other purposes which have nothing to do with any supposed ‘home-land’
(Hmm, Israel as an ocean based surface colony? A Lunar or Martian colony? If we could just find that stupid warehouse, we could sneak the ark on a rocket at the Cape….. :o)
Randy
>I can’t work out if this is a joke?
I think something similar was proposed as a joke on an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”. Nuevo Israel sounds awfully familiar.
Personally, I kinda like the idea.