Peace in Palestine

80 years of diplomacy hasn't worked. Time for a different approach.

Taking a short break from his draconian post-riot crack downs, our Prime Minister telephoned Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian the other day and told him not to attack Israel. The Iranian President, who is Number Two to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khameni, said that retaliation was a right so Starmer’s intervention in the Middle East has been about as successful as Tony Blair’s time as peace envoy (2007-15). David Lammy has now been deployed to Israel in support of the “last chance” peace discussions in Doha. As Hamas isn’t attending the outcome is unlikely to be significant.

Which means yet another round of violence in the Middle East is probably on the way. Israel has successfully defended itself against all attacks since it was created in 1948. It seems unlikely that any future attacks will change this. In other words its business as usual; strike and counter strike. More bodies, more widows, more destruction. Top down diplomacy has failed for 80 years. We need a radical plan to alter the status quo (defined by Ronald Regan as the “Latin for the mess we’re in”).  

I have one.

The 2028 Olympics should be based in the Gaza strip.

Staging the rowing in the Dead Sea and the kayaking on the River Jordan would include the West Bank Palestinians and, crucially, the Israelis. Cycling road races could run from Gaza to the Golan. The marathon could run round the walls of Jericho (no trumpets allowed).  What’s not to like?

Rather than foreign diplomats yabbering about the relative merits of the one and two state solutions, neither of which have worked in almost a century, my Palestinian Peace Plan simply offers a more attractive future to the people that matter, the Palestinians and the Israelis. If the people lead the politicians will surely have to follow.

Better yet, building the Olympic infrastructure in Gaza would give the Israeli and Palestinian populations the opportunity to work together and side by side to deliver something of genuine mutual benefit. Time would be tight, so the focus would be on getting it done. Work together or fail together. Shared endeavours often build mutual respect. Nelson Mandela’s South African Rainbow Nation did.

Gaza could and should have developed into a pleasant coastal province on the Mediterranean seaboard –nearby Tel Aviv has some of the best beaches on the Mediterranean. Instead Gaza was a miserable place to live even before the current series of battles with the IDF. Half the 2.3 million population existed below the poverty line and unemployment was 80%. The West Bank is little better, Palestinian unemployment is over 30%. The Palestinian Authority has failed, not least because Hamas usurped it in Gaza. Jointly delivering the 2028 Olympics with Israel would give it the chance to do provide employment, income, wealth and a viable future for all sides of the divide. It would also get Gaza rebuilt, and rebuilt better, free of charge.

Sure, there are some obstacles to the Palestinian Peace Games. For a start the 2028 games are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles. Relocating them will no doubt upset some West Coast entrepreneurs and local governments. A bit of tough love should fix that, and California taxpayers may appreciate being let off the hook. True, the last LA games made a profit, but that was in the 1980s. Hosting the Olympics is expensive. Only Paris and LA stayed in the last round of host bidding, the other cities withdrew on financial grounds. In any case, it makes no sense that LA will have held the Olympics three times when there has never been a games in the Middle East.

Obviously there will be some costs, but that’s true wherever the Olympics are held (Which is why there is little competition to hold them). Fortunately there are many Arab states with more money than they know what to do with, almost all of whom have expressed support for Palestine. The Peace Games would off them the chance to prove it by doing what they do best, spending money. Other countries could chip in too. The US could repurpose some of the billions of dollars they spend arming Israel. (The 2024 figure alone is around $12.5 billion, more than the entire $10 billion cost of the Paris Olympics) Of course, the plan would involve building more than just sports facilities. But with peace and a refurbished airport (the IDF smashed the last one) Gaza could become a successful Mediterranean tourist economy. That’s the sort of concept that attracts private investment which in turn triggers economic growth.

Peace and security is the tricky one. However with Hamas more or less destroyed, Gazans (who never voted for Hamas anyway) would have the option to choose a bright, safe and secure future. The Israelis (the people, not their politicians) would have a similar choice; help the Palestinians make peace work or keep on killing and dying. Generally the people most in favour of peace are those who would have to do the fighting. In Israel that is almost all of the population.

Shielding the Palestine games from external might be harder, but that doesn’t make it impossible. Hezbollah (and its Iranian masters) are probably the primary threat. Hezbollah is pro-Palestinian even though it is Shiite, like Iran, while a large majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are Sunni. Untangling that is a job for Imams, but surely it’s not impossible to suggest that attacking a Peace Games being organised in a Muslim nation (with some Jewish and Christian support) would be a sin. Less spiritually, neither Hezbollah nor Iran need reminding that Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that it can strike its enemies almost anywhere.

Squaring the International Olympics Commission should be trivial. The plan is in line with the history and concept of the games. The original Games were part of a religious festival honouring the king of the Gods, Zeus. Impeding them was blasphemous so Greece’s (often warring) city states always agreed a truce for the duration of the events, plus travel time. If that could be done 3,500 years ago, why not now?

What would happen after the games closing ceremony? Again, the Palestinian and Israeli people would have a choice. Continue with mutual respect to shared prosperity or return to the division, destruction and deaths that have dominated their lives hitherto. Reconciliation is better delivered through the wallet than the barrel of a gun. Just keep the politics out of it. One-state or two-state? Detail schmetail.

So my simple plan is in everyone’s interest and could therefore work. Why hasn’t it happened already? We live in a time of limited political vision and a managerial approach to government and diplomacy. Original thought is discouraged (“too risky”), politicians and diplomats tend to restate existing positions, perhaps moving at the margins but never cutting the Gordian knot. That’s what they did in April in at a recent WEF meeting.

The only political leader I can think of with the clout, disdain for convention and track record to get something like this done is Donald Trump. After all, the historic Abraham Accords were signed on his watch. If he delivered then he would surely be in the running for a Nobel Prize.

I don’t have his number. Perhaps one of you readers does?

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