Published: 11/5/2025, Work In Progress
In the 21st century, few have damaged the public perception of Israel as much as the current government of Israel has. I pray for the discernment of future generations - that they remember that distinctions between Zionism, non-Zionism and anti-Zionism exist.
The Palestinian people deserve a state in a reformed nation-state system and United Nations, they deserve the same dignity and human rights as everyone else. Our languages were not designed to communicate the depth of horror, loss and pain that we've witnessed, though the suffering of the Palestinian and Israeli people considerably predates the Hamas October 7th massacre.
If you're still refusing to take the birds eye view of the situation, or to consider that Jews and Arabs lived in peace before European presence in the region you need to seriously reexamine your upbringing and/or sources. This publication is a work in progress because I understand that this conflict affects the entire region, not just Israel and Palestine and am not yet sufficiently informed to consider all conceivable variables and perspectives and how they interact.
Since WWII the international community has failed on dealing with the polycrisis of several genocides (several of which are ongoing), wars (two of which - the war in Myanmar and the Israel-Palestine conflict are still ongoing since 1948), ecocides as well as economic and many other forms of injustice. It didn't take long after the formation of the United Nations for this to occur. Here my focus and intention is on the Arab-Israeli/Israel-Palestine conflict, some of the context around it, and to share a pathway to gradually, iteratively and permanently solve it in good faith, which could be acceptable by all parties and, I hope, serve as a basis for solutions of similar conflicts. "If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth." - Julian Assange
There is currently an ongoing genocide in Gaza, but also in many other places around the world. I outline what constitutes a genocide and why this is a genocide in an upcoming publication "On Genocide". I was truly hoping that the Israeli government and Hamas would have worked out a permanent settlement by now, over a year on since the October 7th terrorist attacks and the subsequent genocidal war in Gaza, the ongoing suffering of the Israeli hostages and the ongoing ruthless settlement activity in the West Bank and the international protests against this war, against war in general, and against genocide around the world. It appears that there have been several attempts at a peace agreement since October 7th with varying success, but they have all ultimately failed and it is all so traumatic and sadly back to square one.
Frankly, I really, really didn't want to publish this, partly because of risks to my personal safety because there's a history of retribution towards people who are trying to solve it, and partly because of the potential undesirable consequences, whatever they may be, so it is, as all attempts at peace, a leap of faith. I've spent a considerable amount of time in despair and mourning what is happening, praying that it will stop, with disbelief in how something like this could be possible this far into the 21st century. While I can't be completely exhaustive and don't have the time to pepper this publication with hyperlinks, the intention of this publication isn't to make everyone completely happy (but it is a hope), but to give a long-view vision for a permanent end to hostilities in the Middle East, with a maximally clear head, while taking everyone's interests and the many implications and perspectives, as well as the realities on the ground into consideration as much as I can. This publication should be read in concert with several others that are published, as well as those that have been published before and will be published later giving them their overarching vibe.
I hope that this will provide some groundwork to permanently reverse the cycle of violence in the Middle East and that it will contribute to ending the cycles of violence in other places around the world, by providing mutually agreeable pathways to peace and a towering framework that the parties to this conflict and the reader can scrutinize and pick apart. This is what I feel has been missing in the peace negotiations in this conflict, and in other conflicts because the old men who run this planet are putting forward impossible, mutually exclusive and fundamentally irreconcilable negotiating positions, in a century where there basically will not be military solutions to political problems. In other words, the aim of this publication to invert the escalation ladder by forcing counterparties to put everything back on the negotiating table.
I've tried this before to help end the war in Ukraine on multiple occasions, but this has not materialised. The situation in the Middle East and particularly in Gaza and the West Bank is putting the world on the brink in the same way as is the war in Ukraine. I live in Australia which just had an election with a historic result, and I would like to dedicate some time to the problems in my country, and climate change, but I struggle to shift the focus of my empathy away from what is happening overseas, with the existential threat of climate change (which will disproportionately affect the Middle East) overarching it all.
This also raises questions about the long-term planning of the parties and great powers involved in trying to solve it. In other words, one of the forces that have prevented this conflict from being solved is the nature of great power competition itself, and the desire of great powers and their leaderships to ensure peace only on terms that would benefit them in the long run. This will be a long article, but considering the pain and duration of this conflict I can't publish something like this without detailing many of the considerations that have led me to put a solution pathway together.
Historical and Ideological Context
I've felt my soul crushed by the October 7th massacre and the subsequent genocidal war in Gaza which has caused famine and immense suffering and ecocide, firmly embedding it into my constant awareness of the reality that there are countless other conflicts like this occurring around the world, which have been receiving a fraction of the attention, reviving the normalisation of public officials consistently expressing dehumanising and genocidal rhetoric which should have been left in the 20th century. Admittedly, I've paid little attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict before the 7th of October (or for much of my life), but I was aware of the interconnections between this conflict and dynamics in the regions at a higher level, just not as much as I am now. I was paying close attention to developments in the Voice Referendum debate in 2023 while also being consumed by trying to better understand and find ways to contribute to the Voice referendum in Australia and help end the war in Ukraine - the original and main reasons why I started this website in the first place.
Watching these developments as the clock to do anything meaningful about climate change is ticking has been profoundly disempowering and maybe even paralysing to say the least. The Israel-Palestine conflict has lasted for so long, and is so complicated when you consider all the levels of politics that, just like with the war in Ukraine and other humanitarian crises, it makes your head spin. Having absorbed a lot of information from various sources I will try to provide a summary of the complex chain of key events that led to the inhumanity in Israel and Palestine we've seen before, during and after October 7th and the horrors we've seen in Gaza since then. I also want to preface this with the fact that, in my perspective at this point in time, the proper way to understand conflicts is to consider all the perspectives from which a conflict is framed as well as the power dynamics of any part of the world, its relations, and the on-the-ground sentiments of the people and unfortunately the material interests of the governments involved. Below is a set of just a few framings for conflicts, which I consider to be important;
The geopolitical view - local, state, national and international policies are all subject to the influence of great power competition, financial systems, ideologies, capitulatory logic and disagreements in areas which are seemingly unrelated to the issue at hand due to transference of principles and concepts such as precedent and double-standards in inter and intra state affairs, prior agreements and attempted agreements, potential opportunities and control over territories, populations and resources. I'm still figuring all this out myself, as I don't like determining a position on something unless I feel like I've sufficiently prodded the thought and information space around an issue and how it may affect other issues. This is exceptionally hard in a world of war propaganda with seemingly unlimited, but actually limited scope in reliable information sharing. The geopolitical view is still unfortunately the most influential view of all in international affairs. There is indeed an intricate web of interrelated interests, principles, ideological frameworks and international laws which I still don't feel like I properly understand to meaningfully comment on this, but I'm trying. I never liked Lenin, but his phrase that "Imperialism is the final stage of capitalism" is particularly resonant at this point in time (and this would be a Marxist view) - a lot of money, power, national pride and prestige (with both of these latter concepts often being integral parts of nationalist views) is at stake for many governments and their financial systems in every conflict. This sort of corresponds with the "Realist" school of international relations.
The historical view - often involving concepts like guilt, innocence, historical injustices and memories, vindictiveness, retribution, and redress because of events that occurred in the past or in the present because of the past, whether determined by an individuals and groups, or as a matter of government policy. This view can neglect a sense of a better future, and raises the question of how far back do we look when setting a point in seeking to correct a historical injustice by whichever means. This view emphasises historical memory, is a key pillar for nationalism but also does not necessarily have to invoke it and can exist in unison with the below views and the above views. This is why historiography and agreed facts are important (but nonetheless undermined over the last few decades to differing degrees due to the power of education systems in shaping children's opinions about their countries and other countries). People and governments could agree on events, and disagree on their interpretations and implications, and exploit them for exclusively their narrative or framing while denying the narrative or framing of "the other side(s)". This is also part of the basis behind various attempts at historical suppression, negation and revision around the world as well as why in many countries historiography, usually for national security reasons and to ensure a compliant and working population to continue advancing the 'national interest'. For clarity, in my view, negation is bad because it denies historical facts while revision may be good in some cases - if it reveals historical facts that were previously suppressed, and suppression may be good - or so conventional government logic says - to ensure there's a due process to enable the release of top secret and classified information to the country's public (and therefore the global public). This sort of corresponds with the "Constructivist" school of international relations. We can point fingers at what someone did yesterday, why its a mistake or why its immoral, and why we disagree with them on something, but this perspective misses the sequence of events, some which occurred before we were even born that give rise to the circumstances that we find ourselves in (on any given issue, including armed conflicts), neglecting the chain of events that is often behind the root causes of various problems. We can keep advancing into the future and creating new facts on the ground, but unless we collectively address the questions of the past and set a unifying visioning point for the future, the future will be in jeopardy because many of those who were shortchanged by history, the lottery of life, and subjugated by the might is right logic will sustain a sense of resentment towards the systems and structures that don't serve them when they are supposed to or as they are supposed to.
The futurist view - often involving concepts like forgiveness, unity, harmony and 'drawing a line' (such as the many "resets", "restarts" and "detente's" that the governments of Israel, Palestine, Soviet Union and later Russia and America, and many others have tried with each other. This view often undervalues the many current and historical grievances that different peoples have either against each other, against other governments, or even their own government - a belittling kind of "aww you poor little thing, well that's in the past now! It doesn't matter, focus on what will happen next, that's just the way it is". This sort of corresponds with the "Liberalist" view of international relations but also due to globalisation with the "Globalist" view in whos financial interest is it to quickly wrap things up and move on to a new topic, market or investment 'opportunity'. Inversely however, revolutions, insurrections and various movements have frequently found themselves becoming assets for neocolonial means by various ideologies (such as Liberalism and Communism during the cold war), leveraging discontent within a country for purposes of regime change and vassalisation. Our world is effectively getting smaller due to technological advancement and unprecedented access to information, which is making our individual mind-world bigger and incredibly complicated, for those who are curious and have the time and desire to be informed, and are also emotionally resilient enough not to completely break apart when observing these cycles of violence unfold around the world. We can spend our entire lifetime studying the details of any single particular conflict or topic, and we may never get to a position where we feel like we understand all of its dynamics, while all the challenges that this learning could be useful for remain unsolved. We can also prosecute questions of historical injustice ad-infinitum, but that won't change the fact that we are on the verge of militarising space (if we haven't done so already), great power competition (between political and financial systems) is out of control and is destroying peoples lives and the habitability of our planet and is another root-cause driver of genocidal wars around the world. There is indeed a critical need to a permanent ceasefire (as in the war in Ukraine), rebuild and commence the process of correcting current and historical injustices and the ecological trajectory so we can move on to building our many utopian visions for our homes, societies and the planet. It appears though, the reasons why there are still no ceasefires is because the counterparties don't even sufficiently share a framework to start good faith negotiations.
The humanitarian view - often exercised by well meaning people who are sometimes ill equipped, don't want to or don't have time to reach into the beginning or the end of a conflict, or to see it from all of its angles, to seek answers for the legitimate questions that may have even enraged them, such as "Why are so many people suffering?", "Why is the planet suffering"?, "Why can't we stop it?", "Why is it all so broken?", "How can we fix it?", "Can't these fucking idiots just put their ego aside and work together to fix it all?", "What can I do to stop it?". I think this is the right first perspective to take, and to maintain as a baseline for inquiry into every geopolitical question, but unfortunately well meaning people who correctly hold this as the baseline position often get exploited to quickly "pick a side" and "be counted" - by those who are significantly more informed and already operate from a baseline of the geopolitical view, the historical view and/or the futuristic view or a conjunction of these and other views, even when there are no sides, where the sides are different to what first appears or is presented, when the sides can be framed differently to how they are presented, or indeed when there is a right side of history to take. There's also often (but not always) a nationalistic or a financial vested interest at play on the part of those seeking to force others to "pick a side" or expressing that "you can't have it both ways" - its a form of seeking to compel someone to suspend their own free and critical thinking and fully subsume their judgment to some kind of authority and (to the individual mind, an often unexamined evidence base) of a particular "side". "They're the bad guys - just trust me bro!" It is still possible I feel, if you know how much you don't know about something, to maintain the humanitarian view without cognitively tethering yourself to any particular kind of framing (knowing that we, the average people, rarely have access to perfect information). This does not negate one's right to stay connected to one or a set of moral foundations such as not wishing to see others suffer, not wishing to be in their position, seeing the efforts that cause the suffering as being a misplaced use of resources,
The physicalist view - one which bases itself in the understanding that colour is not light, its the human perception of light and science is advanced enough today to enable us, with the knowledge of the functions of scientific instruments (even when no scientific instruments are present), to infer that wherever there is light there is also infrared and ultra-violet light - the kinds which we can't directly observe. Within this view, there are no countries but there are flags and large buildings, no nations but there are tribal associations, no borders but there are walls and people with weapons and flags on their clothes killing each other so that other people have some sort of control, there is no money but there is paper, metal circles and electronic signals, and so on. While this view is exceedingly academic and impersonal for those who don't study conflicts it can also accommodate moral nihilism, moral relativism but also moral sentimentalism or moral universalism.
There are countless other "views" and philosophies to look at the world from, many highly relevant and useful to consider here. Some worth looking into (or at least those often float around in my mind) include John Rawls, Jacques Derrida, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Noam Chomsky, Laozi, Menzi, Confucius, Alan Watts, Michel Foucault, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Thomas Aquinas, Marcus Aurelius, the Charvaka school, Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, Immanuel Kant, Peter Singer, Elizabeth Anderson, Miranda Fricker, Edmund Burke, David Hume, John Dewey, Rosa Luxemburg, Charles Sanders Pierce, Bertrand Russell, Jurgen Habermas, Max Weber, Pyotr Kropotkin, Baruch Spinoza. I haven't read all of the works any one of them has published, and for many of them, their views changed throughout their life. I've sought to try to focus on understanding the essence and trajectory of their ideas, and see whether and how they materialise in our world as they often do, as do the works of many other people, including the average person.
With the above in mind, below is a list of events and ideas which are critical to the development of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. This is not supposed to be an exhaustive or all-encompassing list, just the things that I think stand out:
The ideas of nationalism, which emerged from Romanticism and spread across the whole world including both the Jewish and Arab communities, and still affect it, in part leading to the lower-secondary history curricula of many countries omitting key historical facts about their country's foundation, its relationships with its neighbours and the pain involved in the process of reconciliation, which is often sabotaged by great power competition, and corrupting financial interests which affect all countries. The reason why people get drawn to nationalism is because it creates a romanticised vision of a better past or a better future for a specifically defined group of people at a time of need, infusing a story of the struggles of a particular group of people with domestic and foreign policy objectives. Nationalists in societies with ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural diversity quickly find themselves stuck when faced with a group that doesn't see themselves as a part of a particular establishment's vision of "the nation" (as Boris Yeltsin once did upon the emergence of Russia out of the Soviet Union), leading to xenophobia and the kinds of separatist movements that led to many wars after various soft and hard line nationalists took over power in former Soviet Republics after the dissolution of the USSR. In some cases, xenophobia against a part of the population is intentionally inflamed to either create a scapegoat or divert attention from other perceivably inconvenient or humiliating reasons for a given historical circumstance or set of decisions for a country, or to create a stronger position for future negotiations. I used to be a nationalist when I was a teenager, and I still remember what it thinks like. As a child I read about the kind of weapons states use, because it was one of the few domains that my motherland could still compete in, when it was progressively disintegrating. I also started reading about the history of my motherland and other countries to justify its sphere of influence so I had the evidence to defend it in the face of a daily media-driven onslaught which was sometimes directed at me via my classmates. Nationalism is a concept that is very attractive to young men because it subsumes concepts such as power, protection, unity, and "the other" (which is to be persecuted, whether its immigrants, religious minorities, queer people or other marginalised groups), and can be fused with other concepts and isms to shape individual and group identities.
A distinction must be drawn between patriotic and nationalistic sentiment. In my view, in an ideal society, patriotism could be a default sense of being (founded in one's relationship to their home town or town of residence or a group of people, the region, country or the supranational union that its a part of, or even as a human being and a global citizen - aka "think global act local" or inversely "think local act global"). Genuine patriotism requires one to feel "pride" on a supermajority of measures by existing and/or aspirational standards and/or a sense of affinity and belonging to some or all of the aforementioned concepts as they emerge from patris - the fatherland/motherland in question. If a society's measure is how it treats its least well off citizens and residents, and if they all have the tools to succeed in life, there would be no oxygen for nationalism to flourish, because there would be little incentive to prove the moral desert of one's people over "the others" (whether within or between countries), no reasons for separatist sentiments, and no basis to 'other' fellow human beings and flags and national anthems and any kind of prejudice, especially on the part of public officials would be reserved for cheap shots in commentary about recent sporting matches. The outright denial of unreconciled historical injustices by one people against another, or a sense of oppression or subjugation by one people over another leads to the fragmentation of cultural narratives, fueling nationalism, separatism as well as radical, revolutionary and extremist movements as a reaction to what a group perceives as unjust power structures (aka - "the establishment").
At its core however, all forms of nationalism and patriotism rely on a sense of metaphysical realism - that immaterial things such as "a nation" are as real as material things. A nation, a state or a country therefore are organisms in and of themselves (within the geopolitical system), with institutions and their constituents being a part of this large organism. In other words, tables exist - its not just wood and steel arranged in a way that resembles a model of a table. Therefore nations are as real as are tables as is matter such as wood and steel. Materialism disagrees with this - they think that matter is real whereas "a nation", "a country" or "a people" are imagined for the purposes of giving a sense of identity for a group which shares common properties, or to rule them and keep them in a state of antagonism with some 'others' who are not a part of a nation/state/country/religion/ideology/identity group. In other words, there are no tables and there never has been any object that we call a table - there is just wood and steel, and there will always only ever be just wood and steel, but we have to use the word table for convenience to distinguish other arrangements of wood and steel such as chairs. Therefore nations are not real, they do not exist in the same way as wood and steel exists, and they never really existed despite us using the words nation/state/country. There are however languages (ways of communicating through sounds and writing), people (physical persons), cultures (ways of doing things) etc. Functionalism has another take, which is that something exists/is real if it fulfils the criteria for the functioning of a particular object (whether material or immaterial). If a group of people functions as a nation/state/country and fulfils the criteria for one - it is one (regardless of that the criteria may be). In other words, if you put your plate on a chair at mealtime - the chair is/becomes a table because it is being used as a table. When you remove the plate off the chair, it stops being a table. The same can be said for the floor or any other object that the plate is placed on. Therefore a group of people are a nation/state/country only if they function as a nation/state/country (regardless of anyone's opinion or recognition on the international stage), thereby giving it a sense of being real even if it isn't material. The purpose of expressing this is to communicate some of the complexities when considering the ideas of nationalism and patriotism, and how people can use these concepts as well as the purposes for which they are used.
The mechanics of this discourse seem to be most often used by governments and their representatives and it could serve as an underpinning of why they wish to make one argument seem more valid over another for the purposes of determining power and resource allocations, while these concepts themselves seldom cross the mind of a person on a day-to-day basis, but are indeed used to define their allegiances in the same way that religious, tribal and feudal institutions used to before the nation state system emerged. The concepts of belonging, group identity, the sense of a threat and the need for security are all the root causes of nationalism (in this case expressed as Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Arab Nationalism and Islamism) which, as opposed to patriotism is ideologically and conceptually speaking, the root cause of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict - there are two groups of people who both claim the same territory and for geopolitical/security/group identity/historical injustice reasons defined themselves in opposition to each other. This is clear when considering the slogan "From the River to the Sea" is used by both Zionists (and is in the Likud charter), as well as by Palestinian resistance movements and Hamas.
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was the material root cause of WWI
the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent colonisation of its former territories by Western powers
the dissolution of the Russian Empire and the beginning of the Russian Civil War which ended the Russian Empire, resulted in the formation of the USSR which the much of the 'Western' world tried to stop, even though only a few years before this point the ANZACs were ordered by British generals to unwittingly sacrifice themselves at Gallipoli so that the Russian Empire could make gains against the Ottoman Empire in the Caucuses during WWI
the treaty of Versailles which was an attempt to diplomatically humiliate Germany and strongly contributed to the later rise of the Nazi's to power in Germany, and therefore World War II. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk is seen by many in Russia in very much the same light.
the division of the Middle East by European powers after WWI, and beginning of neocolonial control of the West's former colonies in the region and around the world after WWII under the effective leadership of the United States of America. The geopolitical advance of Communism followed a similar pattern, and tethered itself to the decolonisation movement, a part of which formed a third and weaker geopolitical force known as the non-aligned movement which still exists to this day.
the legacy of antisemitism in Europe, particularly in the Russian Empire and the subsequent ambition of Zionists to establish a home for the permanent protection of the Jewish people, which became a settler-colonial apartheid ethnostate, and has become increasingly genocidal since its founding
the Zionist insurgency in Mandatory Palestine prior to the Balfour Declaration and the British Hotel bombing in 1946 which resulted in the violent creation of Israel (unfortunately consistent with how many other states have been created in the past) to facilitate the right of Jews to return to their "Promised land". Although many Zionist leaders at the time were secular and were from Europe and the United States, they argued that they are indigenous to Palestine (which also had small numbers of Jews living there and around the Middle East at the time) on an ancestral basis dating back to the Kingdom of Israel
the coalescence of these factors, and other influences, resulted in the Nakba (ethnic cleansing) and 75 years of suffering for the entire region, including the exodus and expulsion of Jews from across the Middle East due to the Palestine war (which consolidated a Zionist insurgency force into the IDF, and led to the creation of the State of Israel and the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948). The creation of the State of Israel and the subsequent Nakba also had the green light from the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Of all the facts, this last one is probably one of the most important to bear in mind when considering who is most responsible for the gravity of suffering the region has seen for the last 75 years. Unfortunately the State of Palestine, even though promised by the United Nations in resolution 181, did not materialise at the same time.
The Suez Crisis of 1956 which first demonstrated the geopolitical dimensions of this conflict
The Six Day War of 1967 which resulted in the expulsion and/or exodus of Jewish people from around the Middle East and their immigration to Israel, as well as a worsening of relations between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world, which contributed to AIPAC receiving sufficient power within the USA to sway Congressional voting direction and representation in the US Congress
The Fourth Arab-Israeli war which led to the OPEC oil embargo and the subsequent establishment of the petrodollar - a current account financing system for OPEC countries which would provide them with immense wealth for development and cement the commercial dominance of the USA in the global economy
The announcement of the Pope Francis of the Vatican on the repudiation of the "Doctrine of Discovery" and the implications this has for the world order, and countries that were established in the process of colonisation and the subsequent decolonisation which essentially resulted in neo-colonialism. This renunciation means that to re-affirm their legitimacy, countries which have not made treaties with their indigenous peoples must make these treaties and intergenerational social compacts to redress the historical injustices at the times of their formation. This should be seen as an opportunity for reforming Western and other settler-colonial states that were formed after Dum Diversas for the 21st century and beyond. It means that according to the Pope, and therefore the Catholic Church, slavery and any other kind of subjugation is evil, formally ending the mandate to subjugate any and all people, whether Muslim, African or First Nations, previously or currently subject to any kind of subjugation by the descendant states of any former (or current) Christian Monarchs. The materialisation of this, should it occur needs to be a process and must occur in a civil way. Its worth noting that the Pope is not the sole spiritual authority on our planet, any kind of subjugation comparable to that expressed in Dum Diversas and the Doctrine of Discovery is, while reflective of sentiments across the world at the time, is something most publics (in my view) have come to consider as evil independent of their religious, spiritual and political convictions.
Palestine and Israel have overlapping sovereignty claims to the same territory. The slogan "From the River to the Sea" is used by supporters of the Palestinian and Zionist causes, and can be expressed by a view of a "One State Solution", when it comes from the perspective that one "side" should be able to fully dictate its terms to the other.
The Palestinian and Israeli people are multi-ethnic and multi-confessional but also overwhelmingly Arab, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, with Hamas being an Islamist and Palestinian nationalist de-facto governing organisation (of terrorists or resistance fighters - depending on your frame of reference in relation to "the right to resist", which also has civilian governing functions) and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank a secular governing authority which has avoided exercising its right to resist and governing power to the Israeli government. Any solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the broader conflict in the Middle East must take into consideration the circumstances on the ground, the current geopolitical moment, historical attempts at peace as well as the historical sequence of events that led to this moment. Its also critical to note that Hamas emerged as a peace movement in Gaza with the support of Israel, having the effect of supressing the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and dividing the Palestinian cause between Gaza (which eventually tended towards Islamism and Nationalism) and the West Bank (which eventually tended towards Secularism and pan-Arabism).
Representatives of various governments at various levels consistently omit the inconvenient details which undermine the policy positions of their governments, because they are afraid of the judgment of history, and todays youth and future generations who will inevitably shape it. Indeed, history is often inconvenient, and can undermine the "national interests" or historiographical narratives of various parties in negotiations, and it can lead to conflicts within families and communities when topics relating to politics, history, philosophy and religion arise.
What we're seeing in the Middle East and around the world appears to also be a spiral of risks due to the logic of consequences based on rational choice theory that politicians and their advisors often rely on to determine strategies, likely and possible outcomes. Electoral terms, global public opinion, and the opinion of the global youth as well as the self-interests of particular governments, their financial backers as well as their access to various forms of privileged information contribute to;
short-sighted decision making, resulting in a presentist bias which discounts historical memory, future outcomes, and undesirable consequences (we can see also this playing out with catalcysmic climate change)
Distortion of the on-the ground facts to establish control of the narrative by re-framing of current and historical events or omitting on-the-ground reality to generate the appearance of a stronger negotiating position, relying on the working people who don't have time to do their due-diligence to 'pick a side' and provide a sufficient mandate for some form of action so that they can withhold information critical for the public or representatives to be able to make an informed decision on their stance
Coercion to supress the emergence of nuanced, inconvenient and/or more accurate narratives (sometimes expressed as "not being able to have it both ways"). In other words - "we're always right, you're always wrong, and you should lose". This is always in the interest of the more powerful country, political or financial bloc as it has the ability to shape the facts on the ground and affect outcomes in other ways
The effect this has is a devolution of some governments into a feudal logic of the Westphalian era - thinking that pressure works, and military pressure in particular and will have the effect of subjugating others, or will result in more favourable outcomes for their side, and that "creating new facts on the ground" will somehow make the world more sympathetic to a 'side' that is in a position of material strength, with 'the other side' being accused of guilt tripping, empathy farming and whatever else in seeking support for their cause. Later in this publication I will try to show how the scales of moral gravity look in relation to the current geopolitical moment.
"War is the continuation of politics with other means" according to Clausewitz - physical war is also psychological warfare against the counterparts on 'the other side', but also bystanders and observers. It seeks to "exact a cost" via human life as a means of pressuring the other side. Let me ask you then - is it working? In a globalised world with the internet, these effects also greatly affect sensitive and empathetic people, many of whom struggle to understand what is happening, why it is happening, feeling anger at the injustices they see, and strong desires to do something about it, or disconnect. With little medical experience, I'm confident that this has a strong effect on anxiety, depression and anger within myself, which has a cyclical flow-on effect on other issues in my personal life, and I'd wager that the awareness of the frequency, intensity and duration of the various conflicts (irrespective of whether they are proxy wars or not) greatly affects our wellbeing. In my view, the two most effective things we can do to improve global mental and physical health as well as life-outcomes, is ending all of these stupid wars and genocides, and starting to seriously focus in a truly collaborative way (even if it means with elements of competition), on reaching net-zero carbon emissions via outcome-focused targets and development in countries which are currently industrialising on John Rawls's principle that any "investment" or inequalities can only be morally justified if the provide the greatest difference for the least advantaged people. This is who we are doing it for, don't forget it.
The technological advancements and interconnectedness of the 21st century render this Causewitz's view basically meaningless. The military strategists will inevitably disagree with this to justify their own existence. The horrors we're continuing to witness have inspired consistent moral outrage across the world, but has also led to the re-emergence of anti-semitism, to the extent that the US Congress and other American institutions are making decisions that contravene the American constitution, on top of the constitutional crisis over the legitimacy of Joe Biden's 2020 election and subsequent impeachment hearings as well as Donald Trump's conduct and licensing the riot/demonstration/insurrection on the 6th of January 2020 and the subsequent re-emergence of degrees of political upheval within the United States of America that are disturbingly starting to resemble a civil war or a revolution. Small countries and even resistance/terrorist groups are going to become increasingly more powerful this century. Not negotiating with "terrorists" however you determine who "they" will become an increasingly less viable option, especially in lieu of functional international institutions, and I do not apologise for trying to see things from their perspective as well as the perspective of various world leaders, whether they are seen by others as warmongers, war criminals, proxies or genocidal maniacs. This does not give any of them a just cause. I am a pacifist, I made this principled and deliberate decision after years of studying just cause theory, but if you are interested in trying to understand how security interventions should be facilitated please read this publication: Pathways for Great Power Competition.
Like parents arguing over money, in many cases governments are protecting their financial systems against the inevitable reckoning of who will be paying for all of this (in my view absolutely needless) suffering caused, and the reconstruction efforts (whether by these genocidal wars, or climate change both of which disproportionately affect our planets neediest people), the appropriate proportion and the subsequent allocation of control over resources and geopolitical influence to have a greater role in shaping the course of history and our future.
The war in Ukraine as well as the conflict in the Middle East are both examples of this, with NATO and G7 aligned countries (a security and an economic bloc) on one 'side' and SCO and BRICS aligned countries (a security and an economic bloc) on the other and the non-aligned movement doing its best to try to stay out of it - these organisations do however have membership overlaps. The foreign policies of countries within both sets of blocs are not always aligned and their cross-bloc foreign relations also differ.
NATO-aligned countries (generally 'the West') consider themselves to be 'Liberal Democracies' and are also considerably wealthier due to their status as beneficiaries of often unacknowledged historical injustices and exploitation, which they've utilised to grow their economies through oligarchs in the private sector in collaboration with the military-industrial complex, seeking to maintain unipolar global control through 'Washington Consensus' institutions with the backing of the most powerful armed forces and financial systems in the history of the planet and the 'petrodollar' for the stated purposes of 'spreading democracy' - the official basis for many of their foreign policy objectives, which are generally more united in their foreign policy with the leadership coming historically from the USA (often involving criticism of the internal affairs of non-Western states, often generating just causes for wars, in the past, involving the utilisation of double standards as it designed the "rules based order" through American unipolar hegemony for the last 30 years). The Soviet Union was doing the same same thing with different ideological underpinnings during the Cold War.
While the Marshall Plan successfully democratised, liberalised and rebuilt Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and other states after WWII (at the cost of subverting elements of their economic, defense, foreign and economic policies, the West consistently failed to achieve the same outcomes in other places around the world while simultaneously providing the West's financial systems with new captured markets to secure global hegemony resulting in millions of deaths and many divided and destabilised countries as well as a lot of profit and stimulation for economic growth. Notably, in some former Warsaw-pact countries like Poland - economic assistance was provided, making it one of the strongest growing economies in Europe, while others such as Russia and Ukraine never saw such assistance, despite advisors like Jeffrey Sachs calling for it to smoothen the 'shock therapy' of turning their rigidly state planned economies into market capitalist economies. Living standards are considerably better in liberal democracies, and its generally easier to make a buck. On an ideological level this is what has often been used to promote "regime change" in dictatorships and countries which don't respect the rule of law or don't defend the West's interpretation of human rights, or other concepts. This is often defended through democratic peace theory between democracies. Freedom and prosperity brings peace (or it's supposed to), but it hasn't been doing that so well lately, with unilateral "Democratic" interventions seeming to be as anything but. This is one reason why I actually appreciate Donald Trump's raw honesty, as uncomfortable as it may be to hear. He doesn't coax his foreign policy intentions under a flimsy ideological veneer, and therefore it is much easier to understand what his geopolitical intentions are for an average person like me.
While they consider themselves Liberal Democracies, their inability to tax their elites and provide for their neediest and working class citizens, the enablement of their military-industrial complexes and techno-feudal corporate establishments which buy politicians and blackmail them through the media with real and contrived compromising material to rule public opinion makes the more accurate term to describe the political systems that many of them have evolved into as Neoliberal Plutocracy or Oligarchy, with generally American corporations serving as creditors to the $37tn indebted US government, lobbying for policy change and funding political outcomes at home and abroad (and this doesn't even begin to consider the comparable levels of debt in private equity and personal consumer loans and the implications this has for America and the world). The United States has become a utility monster, with profit being its primary utility function which even Donald Trump is struggling to control. I'm not American, but this needs to change. The West also generally has more technologically developed economies, and a higher proportion of renewable energy as a share of their energy mix as well as greater degrees of personal freedom in private and public life (although this too has been increasingly under threat for a long time via the persecution of investigative journalists like Julian Assange, protestors, whistleblowers and even the banning of books as well as the detention, fining and jailing of people for expressions of what to my mind in many cases seem as entirely reasonable, anti-war and anti-genocide free speech).
The BRICS and SCO aligned countries constitute the global demographic majority, have reached relative parity with the West on the highly fallible measure of a society - the Gross Domestic Product (GDP - which is a term that actually subsumes 3 separate measures, as opposed to measures of sustainable and pro-social growth). BRICS and SCO aligned countries also have an agreement on mutual non-interference in internal affairs (even when there are abuses of human rights), generally do not seek to promote democracy or any other ideology outside of their countries and generally appear to have more vertical and more authoritarian governance systems and varied ideologies, albeit with considerably lower degrees of corporate influence on their leaderships, and higher degrees of influence in the economy by their top political leaders. By conventional measures, the BRICS nations also have, generally and on average, lower levels of human development (however reasonably this measure is calculated), lower per-capita incomes, higher manufacturing, agricultural and goods mix in their economies, lower material living standards and higher levels of personal risk for individuals seeking to make a political impact outside of established power structures, less 'developed' economies and have a higher proportion of fossil fuels in their energy mix and larger populations in comparison with the 'West'. BRICS countries are also taking steps to trade in their own currencies and back their trade with gold. They also generally enable lower levels of personal freedom, present a higher risk for individuals who seek involvement in politics and protest outside of established power structures, and generally start fewer wars than the 'West'.
What it does mean, when the USA as the sole remaining superpower, instead of helping Russia and Ukraine stabilise their reforming economies as it did with Poland, choose to finish Russia off by playing a long geopolitical game to ensure that the "End of History" is assured (and with it the perpetual hegemony of Western capital and capitalism through yet again attempting to subjugate Russia to its financial system or via a set of humiliating terms like in the treaty of Versailles or Brest-Litovsk through the war in Ukraine, hoping that everyone would forget how that conflicts got to this point, or what the propaganda landscape across the world has looked like. It means that the government of the USA missed an opportunity to turn our planet into a utopia, resulting in an opposite outcome. Without an exhaustive understanding of the intricacies of every intervention that the US was engaged in since 1991, it is also clear that the US struggled to balance pro and anti interventionist political forces within its polity and across its alliances. In a unipolar world, its sort of the default that the sole superpower is expected to intervene everywhere but also receives conflicting advice as well as blame when literally anything goes wrong, and then American leaders (I hope) and the average American (unfortunately) feel shame and guilt about the role of their country in geopolitical affairs and conflicts around the world. In publishing this as bluntly as I am, I am attempting to create the conditions for an opportunity for peace again, in a way that hasn't been done before and in a way that could hopefully help de-escalate the same recurring cycle of geopolitical rivalry and violence which has commenced since the industrial revolution via the Great Game, which is similar to the rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael, and to most other tribal and nationalistic conflicts. As an Australian-Russian dual citizen, it does sometimes feel like there was no Cold War at all, and that the Great Game never ended.
How is any of this relevant to the war in Gaza?
The USA is Israel's main ally in the UN, and Israel receives substantial support from countries in the European Union. The cause of the Palestinian people - the pursuit of their statehood - is supported by most BRICS and SCO countries and the global majority in the United Nations and most importantly, in my view, by my generation, the next generation (the zoomers) and average citizens across our planet, including within in the 'West' itself.
In an idealised form, the cause of the Palestinian people represents of the resistance against systemic oppression, apartheid, historical injustice and genocide as well as justice, human rights and dignity for all based on the deprivation of their statehood for the last 75 years. The means used to oppose successive Israeli governments have often involved political violence against the State of Israel, and even many innocent citizens such as on the October 7th massacre. The resistance to their treatment has also involved peace movements as well, with varying degrees of international solidarity. Historically, the cause of the Palestinian people shifted between different ideologies - initially from Pan-Arabism eventually to Islamism, sometimes involving extremist interpretations of Islam to justify peaceful actions but also political violence in various forms, including the October 7th massacre and other violent uprisings and acts of terror. The cause of the Palestinian people, in pursuit of a sovereign state also contains the spirit of romanticism which is often interwoven with a sense of injustice of their treatment since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and their culture has become synonymous with the spirit of resistance against oppression and occupation. Nationalism evolved out of romanticism, in part, and to my understanding was initially championed by Hegel and Napoleon, as an anti-monarchist force. Before 2017 the cause of Hamas - the defacto government of Gaza which has not refreshed its mandate since 2007 - explicitly included anti-Semitism. Since 2017 their cause officially became anti-Zionism instead of anti-Semitism. The extent to which this is true is for the reader to judge, and while I've interacted with Hamas-sympathetic and Zionist people in Australia, I'm 13,000km away from the location where this is unfolding and have never (knowingly) interacted or communicated with any members of Hamas or Zionist organisations to verify their intentions for myself. The internet, literature and my personal experiences with Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists as well as Arabs and Muslims are my only tools to understand the realities on the ground.
In an idealised form, the Zionist cause represents a materialisation of Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis (although it was written many years after the foundation of the State of Israel) with a sense to territorial entitlement interconnecting thousands of years of narrative and history, justifying the West's unipolar hegemony around the world after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, often providing the West with "just causes" for regime change in regimes which harm their own people or the people of other countries, the securing of the existing order and control of royalties over trade routes and key resources transported across those routes, as well as a physical platform for the advancement of those causes. The Zionist cause also has given near theological backing to Western institutions to help determine the rules of the world order, material establishment of 'new realities on the ground' as exemplified by the aggressive and militarised settlements in the West Bank as well as the settlement of disputes between varying interpretations of international law. While there have been moments of rapprochement initiated by Israeli governments and various Palestinian movements, they've often occurred in parallel with a divide and conquer strategy historically used by the 'West' and other imperial powers such as the Soviet Union. The Zionist cause also contains the spirit of romanticism which is often interwoven with settler-colonial projects, which is similar in kind to the narratives that surround ideas of a return to the 'promised land' - a similar kind of romanticism one can feel when considering the prospect of space exploration, and the idea of discovery new and long-lost worlds. While I have interacted with Zionism-sympathetic people, I've also recently understood the degree of planning that elements of the current Israeli administration have gone to to fragment the Palestinian cause, which has included funding Hamas.
In reality, the cause of the Palestinian people has continuously suffered from various 'divide and conquer' strategies deployed by Israel and the West to secure its unipolarity and enable it to set the moral dictum on various matters, which often happens predominantly to the benefit of its own neoliberal plutocrats with some trickle down for its neediest and working class citizens. This is also what we've seen play out in Palestine over the last few decades. Divisions among the Palestinian people have also been caused by internal rifts about the terms that they should find agreeable as well as lack of unity over other aspects of their group or national ideology. The awareness of this fact in the Arab and Islamic world and many other countries has rallied the support of the planet behind Palestine, despite the deployment of inhumane means and measures against innocent Israeli civilians by various Palestinian resistance/terrorist groups, including Hamas such as the massacre on the October 7th. Nonetheless, the leaderships of some of these governments have rightly tried to balance their empathy for the Palestinian cause without severing their diplomatic with Israel. This is not appeasement - it facilitates "off ramps" to enable the stronger party to realise what its doing and take a different course of action, not only because it de-escalates the situation and is the right thing to do, but also to save their ass in a way that is consistent with the administration of justice and fairness. Having said this, there is some merit to sanctioning states which persist in expansionism and "security interventions" without regional or global consensus. The exception to this is supposed to be "the responsibility to protect" - a core but long-forgotten principle of the United Nations, and a moral source for the Security Council having the right to authorise security interventions.
In reality, the cause of Zionism is a settler-colonial one, which relies on narratives of the rejuvenation of a culture which has itself experienced millennia of systemic oppression which is deeply rooted in the historical memory of many religious and secular Jews, the materialisation of Moses' prophecy of a Jewish "return to the promised land", despite there being no international consensus among the Jewish people on the minimal and sufficient conditions for someone being "Jewish" - there is a religious component, an ethnic component, an ideological component and a geopolitical one - the latter three seem to be dominant. The causes of Zionism has also resulted in the evolution of the State of Israel into an apartheid state which has dozens of laws which make the Palestinian people within Israel and in Palestinian territories over which it exercises an overwhelming degree of control, contributing to the immense human suffering since the Nakba.
The Israel-Palestine conflict also has a territorial dimension, the solution of which either could or must create of a set of precedents in relation to the resolution of other conflicts involving territorial disputes, overlapping sovereignty claims, apartheid-like systems, systemic oppression, legitimacy of armed resistance, rights to land as well as autonomy, sovereignty and independence in other conflicts. Whether it is a "could" or a "must" depends on one's answer to the "is-ought" problem, and other philosophical problems but this one alone can have lifetimes of exploration dedicated towards it.
This conflict also has a moral dimension as any solution to this conflict must, in my view, also consider the transference of the principles along which its solved to our approach in dealing with other conflicts and any extraterrestrial civilisations that may wish to interact with the internal affairs on our planet (or have done so already, and potentially seek our free, prior and informed consent to settle on or interact with parts of it, or with it as a whole), as well as our approach to any sentient and/or sapient beings we may encounter if (and, hopefully, when) we become a spacefaring civilisation, on other planets, which would compel us to seek their free, prior and informed consent before we seek to settle their home worlds, but also any sapient beings that may already be here, other animals which may in time grow to demonstrate sapience and development of 'societies' as well as our treatment of sentient beings and ecosystems on our own planet (even if they are not yet sapient, or capable of being represented by our governance systems). There is also a deeper question of the moral gravity of individual events vs the moral gravity of historical events or sequences of events, and the effect of time on the weighting of moral gravity under the different value systems of different groups.
For example, the film Independence Day involves an alien invasion against which humankind unites to resist (the bit where this starts happening is one of my favourite parts). My mind is still open in relation to the revelations of non-human intelligence and biologics as well as recovered craft being present on Earth as either a psyop or a legitimate revelation, because no incontrovertible evidence has yet been publicly presented to humankind about the verity of these extremely serious claims. This is an ontological shock regardless of whether it is true or not, but I am still leaning on the side of it being true because many courageous and seemingly credible people have spoken publicly about this and have faced unnecessary and unreasonable consequences for expressing their speculations, observations and hypotheses about the evidence and testimonies that they've seen or heard.
In other words, if you don't want aliens (or any other non-human intelligences) to treat us like an occupying power, or like the State of Israel treats the Palestinian people within Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, you should support the outcome of the Palestinian people having identical rights and equities to those enjoyed by the Israeli people (regardless of the kind of solution you think is the best solution for this conflict). This should include those rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by the UN Charter of Human Rights, International Law, and any other covenants that may apply (noting that in some cases they may conflict, and that there are societal and academic disagreements about the contents and ordinality of human rights). Supporting people having identical rights does not require one to support Hamas or terrorism, but it does require the recognition of the humanity of 'the other', consideration of their perspectives, and trying to walk in their shoes (at least psychologically, and even the most extreme elements of their societies). Another dispute that may need to be factored into this reasoning is whether it is the Jewish or the Palestinian people who are the "Indigenous People" of the former British Mandate of Palestine as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People may apply to either, both or neither
This consideration requires the uncomfortable questions of:
which other Indigenous Peoples deserve greater autonomy or independence, and by which criteria (temporal/historical, spatial/territorial and other) should that be decided?
is ethnicity an appropriate basis for a national identity?
is the nation-state system functioning as effectively and transparently as it should?
My answer to each of these questions is:
Indigenous peoples deserve greater autonomy because the Vatican retroactively repealed the Doctrine of Discovery in early 2023, and because it is sensible. They may deserve independence if they refuse a treaty and/or if the occupying power refuses to be 'Ejected', but this is indeed not an approach that will build harmony or cohesion. At the end of the publication "On the Spirit of Australia II" I've outlined how this could work peacefully in Australia as a parallel to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Ethnicity is not an ideal basis for a national identity (in my view) because it privileges a genetic connection over other kinds of connection, and in my view, necessarily leads to forms of systemic oppression, assimilationism and forced assimilation, sectarianism, separatism and conflicts.
The nation-state system has facilitated political, cultural and economic pluralism, with iterative reduction in casualties from wars, genocides, ethnic cleansings and other inhumane treatment than in previous centuries, however it (along with neoliberal capitalism) has also on numerous occasions brought the world to the brink of climatic collapse, nuclear war and enabled the proliferation of plastics, nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, small arms and resulted in unchecked great-power competition which has led to senseless and opportunistic wars, and failures by the international community to exercise the Responsibility to Protect. Pathways for Great Power Competition describes sets reforms to the nation-state model that will ensure maximum inclusion, and address the governance of the world with a focus on functions that many see as necessary, but currently do not exist.
Each great power has a fixed answer for these questions, and it may fall along the geopolitical axis of NATO vs BRICS (even in other questions relating to climate change):
The American Idea can be defined as aspiration for the future without feeling tied to the past. You immigrated and integrated? You're an American now! If you don't want to feel a connection with your past, your history or your country of origin - you don't have to, but can if you want to, but you have obligations to understand and see 'American-ness' and see the world through the eyes of America's founding fathers. It is also a way to romanticise 'Manifest Destiny' and maintain the many badly drawn borders (which also often serve to advance exploitative commercial interests)
The Russian Idea can be defined as the connection with the struggles of past generations and the quest to preserve historical memory for the awareness and benefit of future generations. Even if you renounce your Russian citizenship, according to the Russian constitution, you are always entitled to become a Russian citizen again. Its also a way to immortalise the victories against Russia's adversaries, regardless of their cause (the Huns, Mongols, Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany).
Despite all these considerations, the reality on the ground compels any sane person who values human life to demand de-escalation, an immediate ceasefire, temporary termination of all settlement activity until mutual agreements on the right of return and settlements are established, as well as a surge in food aid, the commencement of humanitarian, reconstruction and stabilisation efforts in this genocidal war, and all the other wars and genocides that are occurring in the world today, and a focus on the existential threat that climate change is posing to people, other sentient beings and ecosystems on Earth.
Pathway to peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict
This should be seen a basis the vibe of which the Israeli and Palestinian people can build upon with the assistance of the international community, and not as some dictum.
Short term
1) A commitment to the simultaneous release and return of all Palestinian and Israeli hostages, prisoners and bodies of those who have died, and commence a the exchange process.
2) Israel and Hamas both commit to a permanent ceasefire and Israel fully withdraws all forces outside of Gaza and the West Bank, ceases withholding humanitarian aid and all other non-military equipment and does not obstruct Palestinians from returning to what is left of their homes.
3) The international community ends the famine in Palestine by surging aid and establishes temporary de-facto control and reconstruction efforts through the UN and/or with assistance of neighbouring countries, and great powers. Security in Gaza and the West Bank should temporarily be the responsibility of an Arab-led international peacekeeping force, with participation of peacekeepers from other countries such as Indonesia by the decision of the Arab League and ultimately the Palestinian people. Egypt and Jordan should facilitate the necessary logistics to ensure this occurs safely and efficiently.
4) All individual Hamas members, and all wings of Hamas as an organisation renounce violence as a political tool, (and ideally violence on the whole outside of circumstances involving mutual free, prior and informed consent such as sport), and the Hamas military and political wings officially dissolve themselves. Any remaining parts of the governing system of Hamas should, make themselves known to the incoming security authorities and confess on their role (if any) in the lead up to the October 7th attacks and since then. The persons who had composed Hamas should seek to engage with the Palestinian Authority which with the assistance of the international community should form a transitional government as was done in Cambodia after the Cambodian genocide. This transitional government should be supported by governments which are sympathetic to the liberation of Palestine.
5) The International Community recognises a united Palestine (Gaza, West Bank) as a state, in accordance with 1967 borders and resolutions 242 and 338 of the United Nations Security Council.
6) A commitment from the current government of Israel to the Palestinian people and the International Community to a halt to any and all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories and eventually establish a travel corridor between Gaza and West Bank, and a guarantee to the just, equal and fair treatment of all people within Israel and Palestine, regardless of ethnicity or religion and in accordance with the UN Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights, irrespective of any existing laws in Israel. The implementation of this will be a process, not a moment in time. Eventually, this travel corridor should be the site of the foundation of a train system built in the same manner as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur - with two teams (one per line) chosen by the Palestinian and Israeli people, and the architecture should follow architectural principles based on Islamic geometry and the Kabbalah. One idea is to have a Russian-Chinese-Palestinian team build one line and a Ukrainian-Japanese-Israeli team build the other line.
7) The current government of Israel dissolves itself and holds elections. The new government of Israel should immediately deal with ending apartheid, dehumanisation and ultranationalism within Israel, at all levels of government and public service and promoting a culture of peace and security while respecting the freedom of speech with consideration to boundaries of reasonable disagreement within and between societies. Members of the government who expressed genocidal statements, planned and issued orders should confess their role leading up to and since the 7th of October, including any communication with Hamas directly (if any exists), or through Qatar. Simultaneously the leadership and membership of Hamas should do the same.
8) A re-affirmation of the commitment from the new government of Israel to the Palestinian people and the International Community to a temporary halt to any and all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and establishing a travel corridor between Gaza and West Bank, and a guarantee to the just, equal and fair treatment of all people within Israel, regardless of ethnicity or religion in accordance with the UN Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights.
Medium term
9) Following the reconstruction of Gaza, or if a 67% majority of the people of Gaza wish for it to happen earlier, the people of Gaza and the West Bank commence self-government under a unified Palestinian State, and design their unified governance system and constitution which (as a suggestion) requires a final 67% majority vote after 3 separate instances of fully enfranchised voting across all of Palestine. Any Palestinian with a 'migration document', and those who are the descendants of the Palestinians ethnically cleansed during the Nakba should be entitled to a Palestinian citizenship, or be automatically granted one. Until this occurs, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank should consider enabling a new generation of leaders to reform the existing governance systems, as well trialing them in different parts of the West Bank on a local scale, borrowing and adopting the best models and minds from the rest of the world. The countries that share the primary responsibility for the reconstruction of Gaza and the initial development should be those which green-lit the human suffering in the region for the last 75 years - the collective former Soviet Union, the United States of America, France and the UK as well as Israel. The international community should contribute to these efforts via means which I've detailed in "Pathways for Great Power Competition".
10) The above process should occur with the assistance of the international community, if assistance is sought by the people of Palestine, on the terms set by the people of Palestine and before the vote. The rest of Hamas (its non-military or political organisation) should also dissolve itself once the date for the vote is set by a newly formed, independent and transparent Palestinian Electoral Commission. Suggested mechanisms for early mandate determination by the Palestinian Electoral Commission could include;
Novgorod Republic style 'veches' - assemblies in public areas and squares for participants that are able and willing, with an emphasis on diversity, inclusion and consensus building. Operational assemblies best occur weekly. Policy assemblies best occur fortnightly. Strategic assemblies best occur monthly or quarterly. Senior positions best be filled at an annual meeting.
Digital surveys and votes could be authenticated with biometric verification, multi-factor authentication (in lieu of physical electoral infrastructure)
Digital surveys and votes could be authenticated through the same mechanisms as in banking and/or other secure online platforms
Utilisation of Artificial Intelligence to generate solution pathways and pre-emptively generate decision and governance sets
These last three options facilitate involvement for those who are unable to participate in a public assembly, and require utmost integrity and transparency to avoid electoral fraud
Election or nomination of representatives should require them to be forbidden from accepting or receiving any non-public moneys apart from grassroots campaign donations, but may accept gifts and benefits so long as they are publicly and responsively and transparently disclosed requiring detail such as;
Gift/benefit type
Gift/benefit source (physical person and organisation/group)
Estimated gift/benefit value
Date of gift/benefit receipt
Purpose of giving of said gift/benefit according to the giver
Any and all compensation for fulfilling their duties should be funded exclusively through the public purse.
Mandatory voting ensures social cohesion and has a countering effect on plutocracisation, but can alienate disinterested persons.
There should be no consequences or judgment for non-participation of a member of the public in public assemblies, should they take place, however political awareness and an informed citizenry are the blood in veins of every political system, and particularly in democracies.
11) The Israelis and Palestinians who wish to be peace makers (such as Combatants for Peace), specifically, the people who were horrified by the the 7th of October massacre and the genocidal response of the current Israeli government make their voices heard to lead an iterative, long-term healing and reconciliation process between the Israeli and Palestinian people with the aim of applying the learnings from this process to other conflicts, genocides and armed resistances against oppression and the peaceful disarmament of all terrorist and other armed groups around the world. This should be facilitated by specialists in relevant fields, such as Genocide Studies and people from Rwanda and Cambodia with recent lived experiences of such intense conflict, its resolution and subsequent healing.
12) Formation of joint Israeli - Palestinian peacemaking settlements, near the borders of Gaza and the West Bank, with said peacemakers. This should include some persons from different countries around the world with an interfaith, peace and multiculturally focused disposition with a particular focus on diversity found in this region. Each transit point between Israel and Palestine should include such settlements, and each settlement should have a jointly chosen monument constructed on the theme of peace and prosperity. A suggested symbol could be a Cross which incorporates designs from each Christian denomination nested within a Star of David which itself is nested within a Crescent Moon.
Long term
13) Empowerment of those Palestinians and Israelis from within the peacemaking settlements who have completed the healing and reconciliation process to be able to settle within Israel and Palestine on mutually agreed terms in mutually agreed locations, and with the free, prior and informed consent of the local communities. This should occur gradually on a person-for-person basis (at least at the start) to ensure that communities take all the time necessary to restore and develop trust in one another. Any acts of violence or terror perpetrated at a peacemaking settlement or after subsequent settlement within Israel or Palestine should be punished with exile to restoration settlements in the Negev desert, to be established in consultation with restorative justice specialists along the model of the principles of restorative justice such as those practiced in Norway and elsewhere. There is to be no violent punishment, or utilisation of labour including forced labour as a form of punishment.
14) The unification of Israel and Palestine under one secular Federated democratic state from the river to the sea, for example - Abrahamic Federal Republic, with an accession plan for neighbouring countries including but not limited to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon. The residents of all States within this Federation should eventually have the freedom to settle within any state of this Federation and feel as protected and free as they would expect to feel in any other part of this Federal Republic and all Abrahamic and other sacred sites must be treated as such and have unrestricted access for all citizens and residents of the Federal Republic, as well as foreign tourists. Upon formation, the Abrahamic Federal Republic should receive a permanent seat and a veto right on the UN Security Council (even if the only two states composing the Abrahamic Federal Republic are Israel and Palestine). To exercise the veto, the representatives of Israel and Palestine must reach consensus (a veto can't be exercised if one blocks consensus). This applies to each new state acceding to the Republic - in other words, the pool of members who are required to reach consensus grows by +1. As this is a federal model, the territory that is now called Israel and Palestine (in accordance with 1967 borders) are to become states within this entity. Federal powers must include but do not have to be limited to security/national defense, foreign affairs and implementation of the Declaration of Human Rights for all citizens, residents and visitors. All other powers may be retained by constituent states or shared between them at the federal level. Constituent states of the Abrahamic Federal Republic should have the freedom to express their disagreement with the foreign (or other) policy directions of the Federal Republic without any consequences, but representatives and common people at each level of government should also have the opportunity to be included in the decisions made. Kingdoms such as Jordan or Saudi Arabia, as well as any other potential constituent states, irrespective of their system of government upon accession are to retain all of their existing governance structures, but also adhere to the principles of maximum inclusion and enable all citizens and residents to express their voices in a democratic processes that are to be determined within each constituent state of the republic.
Accession criteria to this Federal Republic should include (but are not limited to):
Confirmation of the disbanding of any and all armed and irregular military groups which utilise violence as a political tool (such as violent and/or armed Israeli settlers (or those settling outside of the aforementioned criteria), Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ, ISIS, etc. Upon renouncing violence as a political tool, as well as xenophobia (whether it is Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Arab sentiment, or any other other sentiment against any ethnic or religious group) any group, after reforming, should have the opportunity to retain their status as a political movement within the democratic structure of the republic.
Acquisition of all weapons and ammunition held by said groups by the relevant government and security authorities of the republic or the United Nations
A Parliamentary ratification of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, and a development of a national Human Rights Charter which should be first assented to within both Israel and Palestine
Acceptance of the right to religious freedom within the territory of said acceding state and equality before the law within each jurisdiction regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, heritage or any other quality expressed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of the political system of the acceding state. This means that when Kingdoms such as Saudi Arabia, in retaining their existing governance structures and institutions upon accession to the Abrahamic Federal Republic, should fulfil this criteria, express an irrevocable commitment to fulfil these criteria and/or act in the overall vibe of this criteria and this document
Pursuit of implementing the following reforms to the international governance system
Negotiations regarding treaties, autonomy or independence with any separatist movements and indigenous groups currently in existence via frameworks expressed in the above listed institutions and/via pathways provided by international institutions after they are established
A commitment to the preservation and rejuvenation of all minority cultural, linguistic and religious groups (such as the Yazidis, Druze, Ahmadis, etc), and the promotion of tolerance and mutual respect regardless of political and theological disagreements so long as it is within the confines of the Declaration of Human Rights and the vibe it expresses
Establishment of an Interfaith Network across the Abrahamic Federation the purpose of which is to indefinitely facilitate inter-faith learning and connection across the Abrahamic Federal Republic, particularly for youth and people who have formerly experienced conflict
Economic optimisation in alignment with net-zero carbon emissions, with reasonable degrees of greater flexibility for more fossil fuel dominated economies
Ruling out of any inhumane punishment including physical and psychological torture, death penalty, physical punishment, public humiliation, stoning, rape, etc
Guarantee of basic rights and a universal basic income for all citizens
15) The Arab-led international peacekeeping force responsible for security in Gaza should at this point, subject to adequate reconstruction of and stabilisation in Palestine, be depart from the established Palestinian state, but only after agreements and frameworks on internal and mutual security between the political leaderships of Palestine and Israel are established.
16) The people of Israel and Palestine should hold 3 referenda each with questions on
a new name for both Israel and Palestine
a new flag for both Israel and Palestine
a flag for the Abrahamic Federal Republic and an alternate name
Symbols and colours of the current flags should be incorporated into any or each of the above
17) A megaproject to commemorate peace and the foundation of this state should be constructed, such as a train or even a hyperloop network from the River to the Sea along architectural principles inspired by the Kabbalah, Islamic and other kinds of sacred geometry which will hopefully eventually reach from Marrakech to Cairo to Mashhad to Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh, from Kiev to Istanbul and Grozny to Yerevan to Jerusalem to Khartoum to Addis Abbaba, from London to Mecca to Kabul, from Mt Sinai to Mecca to Sanaa to Cairo and beyond. This will interconnect the region and the world with environmentally friendly and sustainable transport, enabling revolutionary opportunities for all. Travel on this network within the Republic should be free for citizens of the Republic.
18) Governments in the Middle-East, such as Iran and Afghanistan, should consider pathways for peacefully integrating diaspora leaderships (such as the Reza Pahlavi or Zair Khan) into their governance systems to foster dialogue and greater unity within their societies and between their societies and diaspora groups, as well as reduce the risks of any future interference in their internal affair by the Western governments who harbour such people and to use their skills, knowledge and experience to facilitate human development, prosperity, cooperation, and peace building.
19) A lasting process for the nuclear disarmament of Iran, Israel and the entire region following the stabilization of the region and the states composing and surrounding the Abrahamic Federal Republic.
The Abrahamic Federal Republic should also:
Build on Libya's role before the fall of Muamar Gaddafi in sharing prosperity among the people and using common prosperity as a means of preventing mass immigration. Much of the world has a lot to atone for in how it has treated the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia over the last century. Stability and prosperity is in the national interest of all of the great powers, former colonial powers and in the global public interest
Enable greater connection for people across the region who share a common past, and a common future
Connect with the glory of the Ottoman Empire and previous Caliphates, as well as create the biggest Eretz Israel that any Israeli leader would ever be able to achieve, on the condition that Zionist Israelis must radically reform their ideology away from any kind of dehumanisation and treat their Palestinian brothers and sisters with respect, and expect equivalent respect in return. Before this is achieved, there must be extensive atonement, healing and forgiveness for the last 75 years of suffering that the Palestinian people have had to endure under a violent occupation that deprived them of their land, lives and livelihoods, and Hamas must face justice for the largest massacre in Jewish history since WWII along with the current Israeli leadership facing justice for its genocidal war effort against the Palestinian population
Secure the right for Orthodox Jews as well as faithful Muslims and Christians to study, interpret and reform their religious texts in Synagogues, Mosques and Churches across the Republic with unprecedented and unrestriced access to all holy sites for all
Take collective custodianship, with support from the international community, for the protection of critical global trade networks such as the Red Sea and Suez Canal, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea as well as the southern half of the Mediterranean Sea and the southern half of the Strait of Gibraltar, and with it a portion of all revenues generated from international trade which goes through these networks either as a reasonable tariff on transit or via investment and development assistance from the international community
Provide exceptional opportunities for mutual returns between a people and a region rich with culture and international tourism, investment and recognition
Facilitate extensive farming of solar energy, oasification of areas of the desert
Fulfil the vision of David Ben-Gurion in building another canal between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean Sea in a way that respects the free, prior and informed consent of all concerned parties and local communities, should a mandate for this project exist
Widen the Suez Canal to enable two or four shipping lanes to reduce the costs of international trade
Eventually facilitate the right of return and settlement to all Jewish and Palestinian people, and all other citizens of this proposed state to all areas they've had a historical presence in, or feel a connection with, on terms which are mutually acceptable to the people of each of the states within the Republic, as well as the right of Jewish people who are not citizens of Israel who have a right of return. Equivalent right should be applied to all Palestinian refugees who do not currently reside on the territory of Palestine. The State of Israel should have the right to limit the number people settling in Israel to enable it to maintain a Jewish majority within Israel. This limit should proportionally increase as the Jewish population increases.
Exert a restraining effect on other great powers in bilateral and multilateral relations as well as through the United Nations by striving to be a Middle Eastern and potentially also a north-African superpower. Its not in the individual interest of any great power to see an end to the fragmentation of the Middle-East and the Arab and Muslim and the Jewish worlds, but it is in their collective interests because in the long-term it would put the control over events in the region back into the hands of the people who live in it. The proposed Abrahamic Federal Republic should become another superpower on the world stage, and change the course of history for the greater good of all people in the region and the world.
The words Salam and Shalom both mean peace. Its time that the meaning of the words that you greet each other with every day actually materialised.
Taking so long to publish this after the 7th of October should not be read as a lack of care or concern for the Palestinian people or the Israeli people hostages. I have spent many days since October 7th trying to understand all angles of history and its interpretations, and understand the facts and perspectives on the ground, as well as the root causes for this conflict, relationships with other conflicts, involved power structures and models for potential solutions, and why they have all failed for so long and so consistently. I still don't feel like I understand it all, or even properly really. I have no idea what will happen after this is published, but the intention should be clear - a perpetual peace in the region that grows into a perpetual peace around the world.
What does this solution mean for the transference of principles relating to aliens and/or other non-human intelligences? In my view, this question can't be fully explored without considering the implications of the Vatican's renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery, particularly on settler-colonial states like Australia, Canada, USA, New Zealand and others as well as the maximalist position of the ideological causes of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism.
Zionist maximalism can be described as Israeli control over any and all territories under a Jewish apartheid state not only from the river to the sea but from all areas which have a construable Israelite presence in the region for the creation of a "Greater Israel".
Palestinian nationalist maximalism can be described as the termination of the State of Israel in all of its forms, and commencement of a Palestinian State from the river to the sea where there will no longer be a Jewish majority.
The realities on the ground since the Nakba, the power dynamics and asymmetries mean that with the support of the US and the EU the State of Israel has enjoyed a much greater capacity to exercise de-facto control in the region, precisely so that the Palestinian people are unable to exercise the capacity for Ejectment of Zionists from the territory where Israel and Palestine currently exist. Any considerations of subjecting any group to inhumanity of ethnic cleansing or genocide or any other mass killing, subjugation or systemic oppression would only continue the downward spiral and escalation. The Vatican's renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery indeed puts into question the legitimacy of settler-colonial states, especially in cases where there were no agreements made in relation to the transfer of sovereignty or if any agreements made were done so under circumstances of duress, coercion or without free, prior and informed consent. This however should be seen as an opportunity for reform, the pathways for which I will express in "Pathways to reform Western Liberal Democracy".
In relation to aliens and/or other non-human intelligences this means that I see the above solution as implying the following:
We should not exercise our power of total Ejectment of any alien and/or other non-human intelligence from Earth
Any exercising of this power requires the invocation of the deeply flawed concepts of 'property rights' (including physical and intellectual property) and 'title' which are flawed because:
The oldest presolar solid material to form in the area that is now our solar system is around 4.5 billion years old. This is the single most important fact when seeking to understand the concepts of 'property rights', 'title' and 'ejectment'.
We are all evolving forms of sentient and sapient space dust. Everything we experience and everything we've ever known, or will ever experience or know is based on this fact. We are all one thing, but only sapient beings can recognise that.
These facts are true regardless of your people's history on Earth - whether you are First Nations, Indigenous, a recent immigrant, a person of a settler-colonial heritage or even if you have no idea of your heritage
While the concepts of 'title' and 'property rights' are, from a functionalist perspective, useful for the purposes of public administration and management, they have historically and still are used by establishment power structures to dominate other power structures inside their 'jurisdiction' or of other 'jurisdictions'
Any enshrinement of any concepts within the concept of 'God' - whether pantheistic, a clockwork theory God, a moral intervening god, an Abrahamic God, or any other concept of god does not challenge the reality of the best available scientific and empirical evidence in relation to the formation of our universe, galaxy, solar system and planets. These concepts exist in harmony with one another, but have unfortunately been used for millennia as a means for dishonourable ends. There is also much that our representatives and governments seem to know about the nature of our world that the common people don't, so its important to keep learning about the world and allowing new evidence and perspectives to change our understanding.
It may be possible that the existence of all concepts commenced at the moment that our universe came into existence or were always here - in other words - that there are no "new ideas" - we just discover what has come into existence at the beginning of time (and one alternate view is that we create it - like the periodic table of elements), but that gives no special right to any group of people to oppress other groups of people, especially not on the basis of a book published several hundred or thousand years ago, or what someone said several hundred or thousand years ago. Everyone should have the right to feel secure, never at the expense of another's security.
What can you do to help advance this and other pathways to peace?
Divest your investments, super and pension funds from weapons manufacturing. In Australia, that would include directing your investment to funds such as Australian Ethical Super
Share this with your friends, particularly Israeli and Palestinian friends and their representatives
Share this with other politicians, and keep informed and true to your values while keeping an open mind
I may to publish on pathways to justice in relation to all the harm done in this conflict and in other conflicts at some point in the future in greater depth while observing what changes after readers have had an opportunity to consider this and other publications.