(Mensaje se repite en Español)
Although I am at best an agnostic, I find the biblical notion of Armageddon a fair explanation for what humanity now faces in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. However, I don't see the annihilation of humanity as inevitable, but rather as a choice that G-d has always offered us between making life on earth either heaven or hell. Since I've had a relatively good time on this rare green orb and would like our children to have the option of doing the same, let me make a modest proposal for achieving peace in the Middle East.
While one has heard a great deal about a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that never seems to go anywhere, I think a three-state solution would be more appropriate: one state for crazy Palestinians; one state for crazy Jews; and the third far large state for the vast majority of Arabs and Jews who can live together in peace, salaam, or shalom. When the anachronistic interests of Arab monarchies coupled with Western oil hungry neo-colonists- who remain oblivious to global warming- is taken out of the picture, an equitable solution for all concerned is more than possible. For those Jews and Arabs that want to continue threatening the majority on both sides that want peace, I would offer a solution suggested by the tongue in cheek 1965 Italian film, The 10th Victim, starring Marcello Mastroanni. In it, a bellicose socially destabilizing minority bent on destruction are allowed to make a financially incentivized war game among themselves, where the first to kill 10 others playing the game wins- the rest of their society is left in peace. Although Israel-Palestine is small, we might set aside a piece of presently desolate land in the Negev desert where these testosterone driven games might take place in a more unobtrusive manner. Clearly the television ratings would be awesome, but at the very least, it might weed out some of the more violent tendencies from the respective Israeli and Palestinian gene pools.
