My Middle East Peace Plan

From my perspective, as someone who has never been to the Middle East, the major reason for prolonged mini-wars between the Palestinians and Israelis is the Arabs do not know how to lose gracefully or admit defeat.  They lost the wars against Israel and have never come to terms with it, instead choosing to manufacture a fake narrative about occupation and resistance and the right of return and so forth.

If they simply admitted defeat in either 1948 or 1967 and rebuilt their society around the areas in which they lived and pursued a legal strategy, perhaps they would have a better claim and certain a happier, healthier, and more productive people.  But instead they chose permanent war.

A leader is highly unlikely to emerge to lead them away from this self-destructive cycle.  It has become embedded deeply in their culture.  My solution, therefore, is a ground-up solution and involves something I do know about:  youth sports.

An NGO should focus on starting a highly competitive and top notch youth soccer program in the Palestinian controlled territories.  If the Palestinians are like the rest of the world, they probably love soccer.  What's not to love?  Do not try anything foolish and force the Palestinians to play with Israeli kids or anything like that.  Just make Palestinian leagues and then make all star teams and tournaments and so forth.  Let it get going.  Encourage the best players to become involved with coaching later on and training the younger players.  Give them some years to get good.  Eventually, the players will get better.  Focus only on that.  After awhile, if enough time and effort and expertise is put in, the youth national teams might get good.  They might even get competitive.  This will give them an enormous sense of pride.

All this while, however, the kids are learning the most important lesson sports can teach you:  how to win and lose gracefully.  How to admit defeat.  How to understand the impermanence of the moment.  How to move on, live to fight another day, how to respect the opponent.  Imagine a generation of Palestinian adults who fundamentally understand this natural state of being.  How to be part of a team.  What works and what doesn't.  This, I think, would work.  I suppose Hamas would probably not support it, but if there is anything more popular than Islamic Fundamentalism in the Arab world, it just might be soccer.