From: Center for Policy Research <cpr> Subject: Unconventional peace proposal   A unconventional proposal for peace in the Middle-East. ---------------------------------------------------------- by 			  Elias Davidsson  The following proposal is based on the following assumptions:  1.      Fundamental human rights, such as the right to life, to education, to establish a family and have children, to human dignity, the right to free movement, to free expression, etc. are more important to human existence that the rights of states.  2.      In the event of a conflict between basic human rights and rights of collectivities, basic human rights should prevail.  3.      Between the collectivities defining themselves as Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Arab, however labelled, an unresolved conflict exists.  4.      This conflict has caused great sufferings for millions of people. It moreover poisons relations between communities, peoples and nations.  5.      Each year, the United States expends billions of dollars in economic and military aid to the conflicting parties.  6.      Attempts to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict by traditional political means have failed.  7.      As long as the conflict is perceived as that between two distinct ethnical/religious communities/peoples which claim the land, there is no just nor peaceful solution possible.  8.      Love between human beings can be capitalized for the sake of peace and justice. When people love, they share.  Having stated my assumptions, I will now state my proposal.  1.      A Fund should be established which would disburse grants for each child born to a couple where one partner is Israeli-Jew and the other Palestinian-Arab.  2.      To be entitled for a grant, a couple will have to prove that one of the partners possesses or is entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return and the other partner, although born in areas under current Isreali control, is not entitled to such citizenship under the Law of Return.  3.      For the first child, the grant will amount to $18.000. For the second the third child, $12.000 for each child. For each subsequent child, the grant will amount to $6.000 for each child.   4.      The Fund would be financed by a variety of sources which have shown interest in promoting a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict, including the U.S. Government, Jewish and Christian organizations in the U.S.  and a great number of governments and international organizations.  5.      The emergence of a considerable number of 'mixed' marriages in Israel/Palestine, all of whom would have relatives on 'both sides' of the divide, would make the conflict lose its ethnical and unsoluble core and strengthen the emergence of a truly civil society. The existence of a strong 'mixed' stock of people would also help the integration of Israeli society into the Middle-East in a graceful manner.  Objections to this proposal will certainly be voiced. I will attempt to identify some of these:  1.      The idea of providing financial incentives to selected forms of partnership and marriage, is not conventional. However, it is based on the concept of affirmative action, which is recognized as a legitimate form of public policy to reverse the perverse effects of segregation and discrimination. International law clearly permits affirmative action when it is aimed at reducing racial discrimination and segregation.  2.      It may be objected that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not primarily a religious or ethnical conflict, but that it is a conflict between a colonialist settler society and an indigenous colonized society that can only regain its freedom by armed struggle. This objection is based on the assumption that the 'enemy' is not Zionism as ideology and practice, but Israeli-Jewish society and its members which will have to be defeated. This objection has no merit because it does not fulfill the first two assumptions concerning the primacy of fundamental human rights over collective rights (see above)  3.      Fundamentalist Jews would certainly object to the use of financial incentives to encourage 'mixed marriages'. From their point of view, the continued existence of a specific Jewish People overrides any other consideration, be it human love, peace of human rights.  The President of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman, reflected this view a few years ago in an interview he gave to Der Spiegel, a German magazine. He called the increasing assimilation of Jews in the world a <calamity>, comparable in its effects only with the Holocaust. This objection has no merit either because it does not fulfill the first two assumptions (see above)  4.      It may objected that only a few people in Israel/Palestine, would request such grants and that it would thus not serve its purpose. To this objection one might respond that although it is not possible to determine with certainty the effect of such a proposal, the existence of such a Fund would help mixed couples to resist the pressure of their respective societies and encourage young couples to reject fundamentalist and racist attitudes.  5.      It may objected that such a Fund would need great sums to bring about substantial demographic changes. This objection has merits. However, it must be remembered that huge sums, more than $3 billion, are expended each year by the United States government and by U.S. organizations to maintain an elusive peace in the Middle-East through armaments. A mere fraction of these sums would suffice to launch the above proposal and create a more favorable climate towards the existence of 'mixed' marriages in Israel/Palestine, thus encouraging the emergence of a non-segregated society in that worn-torn land.  I would be thankful for critical comments to the above proposal as well for any dissemination of this proposal for meaningful discussion and enrichment.