To: College Presidents, Faculty, Students, and Alumni
From: Doug Dix, Ph.D., Think Tank for World Peace at thinktankatmoms.org
Subject: Toward a United College Plan for Enduring Peace in Palestine
Date: November 5, 2023
Academic freedom is about finding truth in the clash of ideas. Hence the priority on freedom at college (Connecticut colleges make stand for academic freedom, Hartford Courant, 11/3/03). See the Veritas at Harvard and the Lux et Veritas at Yale. The clash of ideas has never been louder. Some students are mourning innocent Israelis killed by Hamas, while others are mourning innocent Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF), while others are justifying terrorism as a response to Israeli oppression, and others are regarding all Palestinians as terrorists (Lexi Lonas, Tensions rise on college campuses as students react to Israel-Hamas war, 10/10/23, The Hill.com). Such discord reflects the public’s confusion, as each side of this conflict tells a different story. We, the reasonable people, have heard the ideas and felt the agony on all sides. It’s time for colleges now to tell some truth. It may not be possible to tell the whole truth, but I suspect reasonable people can all agree on this: Israelis and Palestinians have been at war before. And if this war ends as others have, they’ll be at war again. If we, the reasonable people, want lasting peace, we’ll have to write a different ending, and, then, teach it to the world. Truth is the means to peace, and academic freedom the means to truth. Can we teach this lesson now as a United College Plan for Enduring Peace in Palestine? I offer the attached as a first draft to share with faculty and students, and discuss, debate, and modify as you all wish until we achieve a consensus that we want to teach to the world. If you think this effort has merit, please invite presidents at other colleges to join, particularly those in Israel and Arab countries. I’m eager to help in any way. Thank you for considering.
Reply to: thinktankatmoms@gmail.com
United College Plan for Enduring Peace in Palestine, first draft
To be effective, the Plan must make peace so attractive to the vast majority of Palestinians that they stop tolerating terrorists in their midst. Is that unrealistic?
Does Israel’s total siege of Gaza preclude detente? Thousands of innocent Palestinians, many women and children, have been killed, tens of thousands have been injured, a million have been displaced with no safe refuge. Food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity were cut off. Residential neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. And Israel is threatening to launch a sustained ground attack. Clearly, the innocent survivors of this carnage will be primed for righteous revenge. Without an effective plan for peace, post-war recovery will be slow and painful, giving hatred abundant opportunity to fester. Without an effective plan, the cycle of violence and retaliation will continue. A plan is the only realistic hope for peace. But no such plan is on the table. Biden and others are calling for “a two-state solution.” Fine! Let’s be for that, but “a two-state solution” is a sound-bite, not a plan.
On October 18, 2023, ABC news reported Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, as saying “Anyone thinks this is a situation under control for which you can plan and implement they are making false and irresponsible assumptions. This is the kind of war where you will know how it starts and have no clue how it ends.” Two days later, Israel Defense Minister, Yorv Gallant reported on the PBS News Hour that Israel had no plans to control Gaza after the war. Gallant’s report followed President Biden’s caution to Israel against controlling Gaza after the war. But without a plan for Gaza after this war, it will end as all other Israeli-Palestinian conflicts have ended, as the prelude to the next one. And that is the irresponsible strategy. Apathy is unacceptable. Too many innocents on both sides have died. It falls to us, the reasonable people, to prevent it from ever happening again.
Look to post- WWII Japan for precedent. The firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians in one night. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more instantly. There was plenty of reason for anti-American hatred in August of 1945. And after the surrender, Japan was a heavily armed camp. Soldiers could have kept that war going. Yet the MacArthur plan worked. Why? Because it was good for Japan, and that benefit was so conspicuous that even enemy soldiers could see it. They disarmed, embraced the new Constitution, and seized the opportunity for renaissance. Within five years of surrender, Japan was a self-governing force for world peace. The same will work in Palestine if the plan is conspicuously good for Palestinians. And if it is that, it may hasten the end of this war. Making this good plan is our mission should we, the reasonable people, accept it, and our shame should we not.
Here’s a first draft: Gaza consists of 2.3 million people on 90,000 acres of desert between the Mediterranean and the Negev. Put a maximum-security fence around 86,000 acres encompassing the sea coast, the world-class wadi wetlands, and the northeast border with the Negev. Next, offer the Palestinians a Constitution based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Declaration was approved by the UN General Assembly without objection in 1948. Give Palestinians the choice to live under this Constitution or not. Invite those choosing affirmatively to pass through airport-quality security into the newly fenced Free State of Gaza. Let these pioneers occupy temporary housing with donated necessities while they study various options for developing their new country, and, eventually, choose among them by referendums. Create a K-16 public school system focused on academic freedom as the means to truth, and truth as the means to peace. Call it SAFEGUARD, Students, Alumni, and Faculty Engaged in Gaining Universal Access to Rights and Democracy. Inspire graduates to teach Palestine and the world “to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). While Palestinians ponder their future, hire them to clear rubble and begin building their new country.
Put a second fence around 4,000 acres in southeast Gaza bordering the Negev and Egypt. Require all who reject the offer of peace to pass through airport-quality security to become residents of this Transition State of Gaza. Let them occupy temporary housing with donated necessities while they contemplate the advantages of accepting peace and applying for admission to the Free State. Let the citizens of the Free State decide upon criteria for accepting applicants for admission. Connect the two States of Gaza by a single road with security screening stations at both ends.
Citizens of the Free State will have the right to travel except to the Transition State. Residents of the Transition State will not travel except to the Free State upon acceptance for admission. Maintain a “no-person land” between the two States analogous to the DMZ between the two Koreas. But monitor the two States, and intervene instantly should any threat to peace emerge in either. Petition the United States, or the UN, or NATO, or hire a private agency to manage this Plan until the free Palestinians are ready to govern themselves. Petition the above groups or hire the agency to provide armed police and military protection, so that private weapons can be banned from Gaza.
On the matter of development, citizens of the Free State might consider creating solar farms, solar desalination, schools and a university, hospitals, medical and dental offices, markets, restaurants, a museum, a radio/television station, a newspaper, a bank, and hotels. They might consider a long wharf for a hospital ship and school ships and research vessels and tourist ships. They should create a soccer league where Israelis and Palestinians can play on the same teams, and a symphony orchestra with the same option. Palestinians should protect an area along the northeast Gaza border with the Negev as wilderness. They might build a desert observatory, and an historical museum dedicated to the desert, its spectacular night sky, and its people. They might teach navigation by the stars, and the role of the camel in Middle East history, and, perhaps, a museum dedicated to the three Abrahamic religions. Gaza along with the West Bank, Israel, and Jordan are the Biblical Canaan. Perhaps invite Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, to join in this effort, and in exploring and preserving the Negev.
Replicate creation of the Free and Transition States of Gaza on the West Bank, join the two Free States as the one Free State of Palestine, and apply for its membership in the UN. Freeze Israeli settlement on the West Bank and hold current Israeli settlements for resolution after the Free State of Palestine becomes a self-governing force for peace in the world.
Doug Dix, Ph.D.,
Secretary/Treasurer at MOMS: The Fund for Mothers with Young Children (thinktankatmoms.org) (thinktankatmoms@gmail.com)
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