Why not another idea?

Submitted by V. Thogersen (United States), Feb 4, 2003 at 17:35

Many plans for solving this problem have been presented and all rejected. However, the plan for an integration of both cultures, Israeli and Palestinian, in a consolidated state I have not seen explored. I guess this is because all sides would immediately reject it out of hand. But cool your heels and consider it for a moment. Why not? Every idea has been rejected. So here is a new one. (At least I haven't seen it before.)

Consider a Greater Israel, democratic, secularized, composed of an integrated population of Jews, Arabs, and Palestinians. It's not so wild an idea when you consider that a similar hodge-podge of religions and cultures is envisioned in the about-to-be-liberated Iraq.

I have no idea how such a change could get started, but why not by offering citizenship to those individual Palestinians who renounced violence and pronounced a desire to live in peaceful co-existence within the state of Greater Israel?

Why not open secular schools in the West Bank? Educate the children in both languages, give them arithmetic and history, science and art. Teach them that living in peace is better than living with hatred. Give them a new way of looking at each other, not as infidels but as human beings.

I know this sounds very impractical given the hatred that Muslims have towards the Jews and the distrust that Jews have towards the Palestinians. But all the ideas coming out of the State Department are equally impractical.

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