New Rule: What the Middle-East conflict needs is a good comedian-statesman-diplomat-therapist, like a Henry Kissinger but with better empathy skills. And more comedic talent. All right, maybe he's a poor start.

Obviously the first thing on the agenda is to get the Israel issue solved. For one, although the U.N. is a hideously hypocritical, bordering on powerless entity, the conditions in the occupied territories have been declared a human rights violation about 537 times. At least a few of those sanctions are appropriate. I think the wall is a necessary measure, but it has cut off and dismembered numerous Palestinian (and Israeli) communities, through no reason other than the farther east the wall extends, the more security Israel has, and the happier Israel's territorial maximalists are. The IDF has done bad things, and this happens with any army. However, the objection is legitimate that army oversight in the territories is the real policy at issue here, not the behavior of the army in general. This is a complicated issue, because military occupation of the adjoining territories is arguably a necessary security policy when those territories have no centralized power capable of controlling and eliminating rogue and extremist terrorist organizations that would otherwise take over the area. Nonetheless, the effects of fifty years of occupation are undeniable. Like all other arab peoples, Palestinians have their own national identity and aspirations, which actually reached maturity in the 1960s with the newly minted Arafat and the PLO, before it assumed a non-negotiable stance. The inability of these aspirations to reach fruition in even the slightest extent is no doubt humiliating in itself. Poverty, which has much less to do with Israel than a non-existent infrastructure, also has its well known implications. And of course, no one likes to live under military occupation.

Don't get me wrong, the way the Israeli army conducts itself is incomparably better than the way an Arab army would if the situation was reversed. But the situation in the territories is becoming a worse and worse human rights problem, and a legitimate grievance, and I think even Israel's hardliners are realizing this. A solution to the problem is complex, but I think most mainstream people are currently putting their bets on a push for democracy and control in the Palestinian Authority, and a simultaneous disengagement from the West Bank. Of course, I am not counting on any of the West Bank settlements being relocated before or after then. And the wall will probably stay up for a while. But it's different when the Palestinians have their own sovereign nation. Then, instead of dividing its constituents, Israel is exerting its sovereign right to build a wall on its territory wherever it wants to, just like I have the right (well, when I own a piece of land) to erect a wall between me and my neighbor's house, as long as the nice part of the wall faces outward. (That's seriously the law. Check it out if you don't believe me...)

The Palestinian issue is a huge bugaboo and, I would argue, prohibitive barrier to any steps toward reconciliation between the West and the Arab world. We all know it's exploited disproportionately by leaders in Arab countries. For instance, just yesterday, Iran's hardliner president stated that Israel's existence was an affront to Islam, put in place by the West to oppress Islamic states. Of course, the speech concluded with saying that Israel must be wiped off the map, and any Islamic state that negotiates with it thus recognizing its existence is committing treason. The name of the conference was "A world without Zionism. You have to give extremist Islamists credit: they don't beat around the bush. Two summers ago, the Egyptian "media" made real press by asserting that all terrorist attacks around the world were perpetrated by Zionists. I'm not kidding about this. This is an even more ludicrous extension of the idea, also popular in Egypt for a time, that Israel perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, or less extremely, knew about it days before the fact and failed to notify the U.S. Of course, every one of these allegations is untrue. The establishment of Israel, which was in effect granted by the British, was hardly more divisive than the arbitary apportionment of nation-state boundaries in an area of the world that has always been ruled by single empires. This should go without saying but, Israel is not an affront to Islam, any more than Arab nations are an affront to Judaism. Both arguments can be made from each respective religion's holy book, and this is just silly. The allegation that Israel was involved in carrying out the 9/11 attacks is an insult to the intelligence of Arabs everywhere, because not one piece of evidence exists to my knowledge supporting this assertion. I am aware of the rumor that Israeli diplomats left the country at a time that suspiciously preceded the attacks. This is probably bullshit, but even if it were true, it hardly suggests Israel undertook the attacks in the face of massive evidence to the contrary.

After this is accomplished, the Middle East and a few western countries ought to enter some serious therapy to work out these issues with the mysterious entity known as "The West." What is "The West" and what did it do? Is the West the victors of WWI and particpants in the Sykes-Picot agreement? Or is the British, who were assigned the Mandate of the area under that agreement and it is fair to say are fully responsible for granting the state of Israel existence? Is the West the United States, which tacitly supported all of these historical steps, and is currently by far Israel's biggest financial and political supporter? Maybe if we could figure out what "The West" is, and what it did, we could take steps to act constructively about it.

There's more to say, but I'll have to say it later.