The violence in Gaza keeps me awake at nights…
When in doubt, or in need of inspiraqtion I visit a museum…
The Natural History, the Imperial War and the British Museum provide the inspiration for my version of the Peace Plan for the Middle East…
The human misery and the cost of the war in Palestinian childrens’ lives is horrendous.
In the Natural History museum there are a lot of reptilian sauropods, like T-Rex and other scary and nightmare inducing as well as Hollywood inducing sauropods and dinosaurs… These are the past nightmares.
In the Imperial war museum and it’s genocide exhibits, you see the same pictures of Gaza children’s eyes… and their terrifying nightmares.
But if you look further, you can see the present day nightmares of war against the global consciousness. A heavy burden for anyone concerned with equanimity amongst the Israeli people, the British public, the Americans and most of all the Palestinians and the innocent children of Gaza.
But the facts of historical record… give us Hope. A great hope arises from unexpected quarters…
Twenty five centuries ago, Cyrus, the great Persian (present day Iran) leader gave us a lasting Middle East peace and assured the coexistence in a just state, of both Jews and Non jews. Palestinians and others, living alike in peace. Very Cool indeed.
Before the ascent of Cyrus, it was the powerful Assurians who were the masters of Middle East. They were an enemy to the Jews and they attempted to extinguish the Jews completely. They succeeded in wiping their nation off the map of then Middle East. They then renamed the region Assyrian-Palestina. An Assyrian army destroyed Jerusalem and dismantled the famous temple, and lastly deported its people.
Many years later Cyrus defeated the Assurians and established the Pax-Persiana in all the region…. But he did this through diplomacy and not through the might of the sword.
Dear obama, let’s look again at history, to fulfill our obligation to try to understand… by contemplating and pondering the current Middle Eastern and Israel -Palestinian conflict situation with some of the distance that the long historical perspective provides.
In particular, the historical artefacts that cast light on the situation in Gaza and are found in the vaults of the British Museum.
These are the historical documents that Jews as well as the non-Jews need to remember, to try to think what the world looks like from this long term perspective. Three historical artefacts in particular, that I visited recently make the case clear for a long term peace in Israel-Palestine.
Dear Obama, please visit the three artefacts via the web and see for yourself. you be the judge of their relevance…
A virtual visit to the British Museum shall make it easy to see the Babylonian cuneiform tablet that documents the Assyrian assault on Jerusalem in 597BC and the destruction of the first temple and the final deportation and carrying away of the Jewish population.
Also the historical inscription, dating from AD139, in which the Romans wiped Judaea off the map, literally, renaming the province Syria-Palestina rests in the British Museum for You to see. Both those historical artefacts seem to be the historical markers for the events that need to be borne in mind in relation to what is happening now in Gaza and Israel. If president Obama and Hillary Clinton consult these, they can easily see the next one as the solution in theis path. For next is the ‘stele’ of the Cyrus the great Mid-East peace…
The world focuses on the plight of Palestinian children in this most brutal contemporary conflict in Gaza. High aerial bombardment indiscriminantly kills children without remorse felt by the pilot or his superiors who are somehow shielded. But the massive Palestinian children’s deaths are exposing the fate and the future karma of Israel as unstable. Any exclamations about state security and jewish nationhood aren’t shilelding the Zionists from the recriminations leveled against them from an expectantly angry world opinion.
So perhaps the Jewish leaders of Israel need to consult the same artefacts…
For those leaders who are good students of History it is worth remembering the ancient Persian Empire’s era of benevolent hegemony over the Middle East. We are well advised to remember Cyrus the Great who established the long lasting Peace. The peace that brought the restoration and coexistence of Jews and Palestinians fully and peacefully in one nation exactly 2,500 years ago.
This is a gift from Cyrus and a great lesson for the Obama administration and for Hillary Clinton to take a long view when they talk to the Persians and remember the time of the past conflict resolution. A great memory for the contemporary Persians too; to get out of their belligerent roles towards Israel and the West’s Middle Eastern policy, as personified in their largely misguided intellectual struggle against America. The great Cyrus was the best leader Persia or Iran ever had.
After Cyrus accomplished his peace plan; He commemorated the Palestinian Israeli Peace by erecting various ‘stele’ across the vast Persian Empire’s holdings in the Middle East and in all the areas where the Jews were dispersed. The most famous Cyrus cylinderis the one circa 539BC, which provides evidence of this. The Persian Peace plan success to put right the Assyrian violation of Jerusalem. This Peace plan led to the rebuilding of the temple and to a stable solution for Palestine and a very happy co-existence between Jews and non-Jews.
So there is good historical record evidence that peaceful conflict resolution and Non violence in the heady conflict strewn Israel-Palestine lands is achievable in recent and distant (?) historical memory. The mere fact that problems of this magnitude can be solved in a peaceful manner due to the great and good diplomatic use of the might of the Empire, must give comfort to new President Obama to succeed where all others have failed.
After all it takes an honestly great man to do the right thing. Assisted by an able diplomat and a compassionate woman, Hillary Clinton, the balance of the equation tilts in favour of a solution for the Palestinian Israeli problem, modeled on the Peace plan achieved twenty five hundred years ago. On the words of Cyrus the great….
Even Alexander the Great in many ways his successor kept the same policies about the Middle East Jews and non Jews unchanged.
Wise is the man who keeps just and functional policies intact…
