Seriously, how about some peace in the Middle East?

The enmity between Jews and Palestinian-area Arabs goes back farther than the United States can conceive. It goes back to a time when Rome was just beginning to expand, or maybe even farther. The mighty Anglo-American Empire Builders were grunting savages just figuring out what to do with those rusty-looking rocks, and Egypt wasn't the center of all civilization, it was all civilization in almost all it had contact with. Moses was a newbie on this little problem. He missed the first couple of innings of the pennant game.

So it requires just a tiny bit of hubris to propose any sort of solution that will bring peace to the region — in time for the November 2006 U.S. elections. (Let's not forget our priorities, after all: how will peace in the Middle East affect the balance of power in Congress?)

The way I see it, there are two obvious paths available to the Pisralestini people.

1. Continue confronting each other militarily and with guerrillas and terrorists or with terrorists in uniform flying in Army helicopters, or whatever the hell you want to call what the other guy is doing. Let's see — that's worked out how well, over just about any time scale you want to talk about? Last 10 years, definitely the Jews in the lead, but with a heavy toll in injuries and death, and a certain measure of recovery for the Palestinians from their losses of the previous couple of decades. Last hundred years, nobody wins, but lots of people die and get forced from their homes. Last thousand years, Arabs had a strong start (I mean, seriously, do you think that the ability to READ — much less do math — would have survived Europe's "Dark Ages" without some outside help from, oh, I don't know, maybe the ARABS? Sounds like a load of ᡂᡔᢇᢇᡙhit to me.) but hit a wall at about the 40km mark of the marathon race.

Gee, do you think that maybe the fact that we insist on thinking of a marathon as 26 MILES instead of 42,195 mètres could just maybe be at least a symptom of the reason that so many people want to Kill Americans? No? The fact that we're so arrogant wouldn't have anything to do with people loathing us? Doesn't wring any belles?

but I digress....

2. Give up entirely on the idea of a Palestinian Homeland. Also give up entirely on the idea of a Jewish Homeland. They're just not going to happen. Look guys, I'm sorry, but it's been like half a million hours already and you're not done with this little blood feud yet? To put it in terms of the ultimate arbiter of human civilization (and I do not mean civiliSation, thankyouverymuch) American so-called reality TV, YOU'RE FIRED! We're going to abolish Israel and the Palestinian Authority and replace them with a single completely secular nation of Pisralestine, where Jewish and Moslem beliefs, as well as Christian and Zoroastrian and Falun Gong and Seventh-Day Adventist and Mormon and Moonie and wiccan and Satanist and even Southern Baptist beliefs are viewed as equal before the law. Those sites in Jerusalem (or Bethlehem or Nazareth, etc., etc.) that two or more religious traditions regard as sacred, those sites will all be properties of the state, operated by the national parks board, with anybody who wants to do so being allowed to build a chapel near a park that is in one of their holy sites. Special attention must be paid, however, to Christian holy sites, especially holy sites revered by American wacko Christians. Those Christian sites will always be first in line for the park service budget. The Wailing Wall is crumbling from acid rain? Too bad; the Manger needs a new gold-plated toilet handle. The Dome of the Rock is falling apart because a commuter train runs not 10 cm from its walls? Tell it to someone who cares — the flowers at the crucifixion site died in the drought this spring, so we're having cut flowers flown in from Paris every day. That crown of thorns has to be FRESH! And no, we're not going to make the security guard at either site stop eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches, because it's his Jehovah-given right. Face it, Jews and Moslems, you're our bi-atches.

Not only that, but those beekeeper suits and the Abe Lincoln hats with the long beards and the bobbing like a pigeon all the time, those are just illegal, because, like, for real, they're totally, like, gay and all. (Look at the intelligence and wisdom of the current President of the United States and ask yourself if maybe he's going to appoint John Bolton as your new imperial overlord. All the unreality of a Valley Girl with the temper of Mike Tyson! What a great choice for a diplomat.)

Gosh, but this blog is called LincMad's "The Third Path"; what does that mean?

It means that maybe there's another alternative besides those two icky-nasty-ugly choices.

3. Sit down and figure out some way to stop throwing rocks at each other and play nice at recess not just today, but all week. Both of you. You have to figure out something that the Jews will accept as better than fighting and dying, and that the Palestinian Arabs will accept as better than fighting and dying. And you know what, American Jews and non-Palestinian Arabs don't get a vote in this one, the United States doesn't even go near it, you have the peace conference hosted by Tuvalu or Nauru or Kiribati (fully paid for — lock, stock, and barrel; caviar and champagne, or whatever Kosher and/or Halal delicacies you want — by the United States taxpayers, blank check as long as you're making real progress — including a cease fire that will hold as long as it takes for the talks to take root) or whatever other absolutely neutral country has nice beaches. Or you can do it in Siberia in January if you think that would somehow warm relations. I don't care. Just sit somebody down on each side — and that's way more than just two sides, by the way — with the combination of ego, knowledge, wisdom, and humility to commit to resolving this issue. I'm not pretending that it will be easy or nothin', or that loser guy/chick that was your predecessor would've done it already.

But really, I'm an American, goddammit, and I'm bored already with this Middle East conflict. I want to see what's on the other channels.

Oh, and by the way, I think that America should pick something closer to #2, because that's like all the spirit of the intention of the Founding Fathers and all that. But #3 is also my answer to addiction. Kayfine. I'm just annoyed because I don't have time for an episode of Danger Mouse (just out in the US on DVD!!) before I have to run to the theatre for the gay Jewish films. (Yes, in fact I have also gone to gay Palestinian films.) Oh, thank the goddess my TiVo is catching DeGrassi!