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The End of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict can last forever, or it can be solved. Peace can reign.

There are 5 possible solutions:

  1. Kill most or all of the Israelis, or some other way teach them that they must give all or most of the land back, that they must relinquish their dominance. They must give up their many stories that the land is rightfully theirs and that what they're doing is not oppression.
  2. Kill most or all of the Palestinians, or some other way teach them that they must accept the lands they've been given and be happy with them in peace. They must give up their many stories that they should continue to fight and die resisting Israel, that Israel is an unjust oppressor.
  3. Continue to live side by side alternating between a fragile peace and skirmishes and battles, plus the jailing of terrorists, kidnapping of soldiers and civilians, continually feeling fear, anger, insecurity and hatred. Everyone gets to keep their stories.
  4. Have your leaders and teams of negotiators talk, negotiate, and compromise toward creating a lasting peace, but this also means giving up the basic hatreds of your peoples. This has been tried for over 50 years. At times there was peace and even a plan to go forward. But too many hung onto the hatred, and it was taught especially to youth. With societies hanging onto their hate, it was too difficult for leaders to keep the peace. They succumbed to the hatred or were replaced by haters who only used the peace to re-arm.
  5. Have your leaders and teams of negotiators talk, negotiate, and create a vision of a desirable future together, and then involve your people in building it, including giving up the hatred. This is a much more viable plan, and is discussed below.

We've tried #4 many times. But plans of compromise were bitter pills to swallow- a story of severe compromise with a hated enemy. Yuk!

And, the plans never included ways to give up hatred, and the stories of history that fueled them. So they failed, and turned into #3, periods of uneasy peace between wars.

Instead, try #5- create a vision of a paradise- healthy, wealthy, full of love and song, worthy of both religions' visions of God's love. Paint a future where both peoples are happy, appreciating the others contributions and efforts.

First you create the vision, and then the path. And then you have to share it with all the people. And part of the vision must be of a future where the two peoples have no animosity, no hatred left, not even frustration or regret or resentment. Realizing the plan may take generations, but if the end-goal is desirable enough, people will undertake it. It must be a future people feel really good about.

You might say, "No, this wasn't done in South Africa or Ireland." In some respect that was true, but the people were beaten and suffered greatly and peace itself was enough of a reward. I see this with Israel, but not with the Palestinians. To me, there are just too many of them that have too much hatred. However Israel is behaving, very few of them are teaching their kids to hate Palestinians the way the Palestinians regularly teach hatred of Jews in many of their schools (unless, of course, the stories I've heard are wrong.)

Plus, the Israelis are propped up by the US and the Palestinians are propped up by many nations. So even when the people are beaten and ready to compromise, the leaders and extremist groups supported by outsiders are willing to fight on, to keep their hatred alive, even to pass it on to the next generation.

So create a vision of a future where there's no longer hatred. Then building a path to that is a mere engineering effort. How do you get from a society of hatred to one without hatred? At some point you must either give it up, or at least stop teaching it so a generation of non-haters can gradually take over.

We standardly hold human life to be sacred. Except we don't during war. I say it's not war that makes human life expendable, it's hate. While hate is using your life, you're expendable. The only thing worthwhile about a life devoted to hate is the possibility that the person can escape hate's control and do things of value.

While hate is using your life, you've forsaken God. Muslims who hate, who believe in destroying Jews or Israelis are not true Muslims. Jews who hate, who believe in settling lands reserved for the Palestinians, making peace harder, are not true Jews.

Hate, whether in extremist American political dialogue or in the words and hearts of Israelis and Palestinians is evil, an affront to God. If this is what fuels you, may the war take your life swiftly.


Any workable peace plan must have 4 things:

  1. A starting point rooted in the present, today, the way things are right now.
  2. A desirable, or highly desirable, end point. This includes how people think and feel and live at the end point, not just who owns what land.
  3. A workable path between the two.
  4. Buy-in from a sizable majority of people involved.

One of the big failures of previous peace plans is that the people didn't believe in it. They didn't want it enough.

The design of PeopleCount.org can help with this. With it, all people can say what they want and how much they want it. And they can see how it compares with what the other side wants, so everyone can see a desirable future enfolding, and say how much they want it.

So I invite both governments to talk to us at PeopleCount.org, to learn how to use our technology to transform society.

Use it first to thoroughly know the current situation, how people feel now, as well as to educate your people on how they feel.

Then use it to discover what would be acceptable to your peoples, and not just acceptable, but desirable. Plus for your people to know that when a desirable plan is created, they can truly see that it's desirable.

The other big failure of previous peace plans is that they didn't include a workable plan to change societal beliefs and emotions.

As you create plans to get there, again, use PeopleCount.org's designed reporting plans to educate people about it and get their feedback about whether it'll work.

When you're done with these steps, you'll have a future people want more than they want war, and you'll have a plan that people believe in.

Part of PeopleCount.org's design is accountability. People can receive reports every step of the way to be reassured and see that their dreams will be fulfilled. Sure, there'll be setbacks at times- weather it's due to climate change or a nearby war and influx of refugees. But then the plan can be reworked and you can get back on track.

I apologize that I haven't been successful sooner in getting America to use PeopleCount.org to solve our own problems in politics and government, including the huge amounts of hatred many express about other Americans. But don't let that stop you from making progress.

Use our new ideas of communication and accountability to create a future without war.