Israel had the chance to be be the technology and financial hub for the Mid East– a combination of Silicon Valley and Switzerland– Gaza /Palestine could have developed its off shore natural gas reserves to become the new Dubai— that future is now dead.

There are 500,00 colonist/settlers in the West Bank– they will not leave and the IDF will not eject them– it would take a civil war.

When? Just when did Israel take this wrong turn?

When they first started to settle the West Bank after 1967? I suppose an argument can be made for that, but an equally strong argument is that, the Arabs having started that war, the Israelis won that land by blood and conquest, and with the Saudis even then backing only the most radical, there was no chance at all of peace, no matter what other path Israel pursued. Arabs seethe, we know that now – and should laugh at it whenever it occurs, laugh and send up the Predators, but laugh first and last.

It’s a lovely vision, Israel supplying the brainpower that Saudi Arabia totally lacks. I believe you tip your hand when you envision the Palestinians developing the offshore gas. May I suggest it is not just Israel’s loss, that Saudi Arabia’s loss is even greater, they might actually be a going 21st century concern, if they were friends with Israel now, or twenty, or fifty years ago. But no, they love their goats and their dogma and their bloody, misanthropic dreams.

The real answer to Afghanistan might just be to declare half the country open to western colonization and settlements. Let the real estate interest pacify the frontier, they’ve been good at that throughout history.