The d’blank Middle East peace plan

Once, in a discussion of the never-ending conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, a friend asked rhetorically, “How can there be any rocks left on the West Bank? Haven’t the Palestinians thrown them all by now?”

This dispute is the root of all of our problems in the Middle East. Yes, I know, there’s oil, but that’s just money and there is always a way to divide up the money to make everyone reasonably happy. But Israel/Palestine is about blood and land, and it isn’t going to end until one of these parties is just gone.

So in my plan, we (the U.S.) would act as the broker, selling Israel to the Palestinians. They, of course, have no money, so they will have to get it from the Saudis, the other Arab oil states, and from Western European countries that depend on oil from that part of the world. And they will want to pony up because Part II of the plan is we move all the Israelis to the U.S. and leave present day Israel to the Palestinians.

This will end the conflict completely and for all time. It will require some negotiations on access to Jerusalem and other holy sites, but that can be worked out.

This plan may sound impractical, but it these days of multi-trillion dollar bailouts it isn’t really too big a task. There are only 7.1 million people in Israel, and at $100,000 per person in relocation expenses, it would cost only $700 billion to move everyone and set them up with a decent start in America.

Seven million people won’t upset the political order here, and the Israelis live on fewer than 8,000 square miles now. That’s smaller than New Hampshire, and since they’d probably prefer a desert climate it shouldn’t be hard to carve out space for them in the far west where the government owns millions of acres, and where a middle-sized state like New Mexico occupies 122,000 square miles – more than 15 times the size of Israel alone – and yet has fewer than 2 million inhabitants.

Hell, Ted Turner personally owns almost 5,000 square miles of U.S. real estate and he has a powerful need to save the world. I imagine we could work something out with him.

This plan would not only create peace, it would be a good deal for the U.S. economy. Those 7 million Israelis grind out an annual GDP of more than $164 billion from their sun-blasted, resource-poor piece of rock and sand, while fighting a never-ending war and devoting significant sums to defense. While well below the U.S. and Western Europe’s per capita GDP, it is first among the next tier; ahead of South Korea, more than double Russia’s or Brazil’s, and dwarfing either China’s or India’s output. They’d be a great addition to the U.S. economy. I say this is a bargain compared to the Wall Street bailout.

Does anyone have BHO’s email address?