Is there a future peace?

I wonder if anyone has accurately calculated  the costs of the past 10, 20, 30 years, more, of the conflicts in the Middle East? Not just Israel and the Palestinians. What about Egypt,  Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey?

This speculative appraisal focuses exclusively on Israel and the Palestinians, egged on by Hamas whose existence seems to work to no one’s advantage including their own.

Stephen Covey wrote: start with the end in mind. The end does not, must not be the destruction of Israel whose population has given more to the world in its 70 years than any other nation of almost any size has given in centuries.

But there must be a sympathetic and attractive solution for the Palestinians. One might wonder what the outcome might have been if the indigenous (at the time) Arabs had bought into the creation of Israel in the 1940s. If both Semitic groups had been able to live and work side by side. Perhaps if the other Arab nations had encouraged them to do so, the Middle East would have developed very differently.

To me the end should include the establishment of an enclave in Jerusalem roughly equivalent to Vatican City in Rome but with the exceptional difference that this enclave would embrace many, sometimes conflicting religions . The management of the enclave would require the most complex and free thinking diplomatic and unbiased skills. (Ca n’existe pas,peutetre?)

Plus the resettlement of 1 million plus Arabs on their former land in what is now Israel. Plus the creation of a North African Côte d’Azur stretching from Tunisia through Egypt through Israel through Lebanon generating an economic goldmine, initially supported by funding from the US, from Europe and, above all, from the likes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Sure, this is a dream, probably a pipe dream but: start with the end in mind.