Nov. 28—The temporary truce continues to hold in Israel-Palestine, with the ongoing release of Israelis and Palestinians, and the continuing flow of supplies. But what does the future hold, and who is responsible for shaping it?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts to his fellow party members that he has the strength to defy the U.S. and that “I am the only one who will prevent a Palestinian state in Gaza and [the West Bank] after the war.” Is he at fault? Certainly he bears guilt for his barbaric actions that have taken the lives of over 20,000 in Gaza. But is Netanyahu responsible for the current conditions?
This conflict is not regional—not simply because it threatens to spread beyond the region, but because the region’s existence as a conflict has been an intended policy of the British Empire for a century! The entire aim of the British doctrine of geopolitics has been to prevent cooperation and development across Eurasia, by maintaining a system of conflict that prevents connectivity and cooperation, engenders disputes and fighting, and shifts what trade still exists towards the sea rather than land-based transport networks that improve the economic value of the land they are built upon.
Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent are one side of this zone of conflict, which stretches through Iran and Iraq to the Levant and the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The goal of geopolitics is not that a decisive victory be achieved in regional conflicts, but that they be maintained, in potential if not always in fact.
Has Ukraine benefitted from the “aid” and “assistance” it has received in arming its young, and, increasingly, not-so-young men and sending them into harm’s way? No, it is a tool for a fight against Russia. Would Taiwan benefit from military “help” from the U.S. were it involved in a provoked war with Beijing? No, the people of that island would be used as expendable soldiers on behalf of the Anglo-American world order. Does Israel truly benefit from the carte blanche military “support” it has received from the United States, allowing it to drop as many bombs on Gaza in a week as did the United States in a year on Afghanistan? If you provide friends with weapons to commit unjust acts, are you helping them?
Turning our focus to the situation in Israel and Palestine, how can decades of hatred be overcome? By refusing to play the British game! By looking instead to the future.
In the 1970s, Lyndon LaRouche and his movement put forward an “Oasis Plan” (featured in a recent mass publication from The LaRouche Organization) for development of Southwest Asia, including massive investment into fighting a common enemy: the desert. By building canals between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, and between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, by way of the Gulf of Aqaba, and equipping those saltwater canals with desalination plants, the agricultural and developmental potential of the entire arid region would be tremendously improved.
Are there political issues to resolve as well? Yes, of course. For example, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank has been intended to produce a fait accompli, spiking any potential for a true Palestinian state. This must be addressed as a major issue among many others.
But without a program for development, a program that must carry the support of such major nations as the U.S. and China, peace would be impossible.
This Friday’s meeting of the International Peace Coalition, the twenty-sixth such meeting, marking a half-year of consistent deliberation, will feature a presentation by EIR’s Marcia Merry Baker on the prospects for a durable and meaningful peace in Southwest Asia, made possible by a successful fight for a new paradigm to replace geopolitics.
No longer will the people of Israel and Palestine be victimized by a strategic framework that sees them as explosives, to be detonated when needed. Because that conflict, while appearing local in scope, will be solved by a global intention.
