President Barack Obama,

The White House

Washington D.C.

Dear Mr. President,

I am an Israeli lawyer and publicist.

Politically I am unidentified, and I will readily accept any solution agreed to by Israel and the Palestinians, yet, knowing the personae operandi and their respective audiences, I am very skeptical about the prospects of Mid-East peace in the foreseeable future, as I explain in this article:

https://www.quimka.net/a344223-is-israel-doomed-to-fight-forever-or-is-peace-possible.

Appreciating your anxiety to bring peace to that region, and knowing a thing or two about the Levantine bazaar and horse-trade as well, let me give you my most humble advice.

The name of the game is MONEY.

Call Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas, separately, of course, and ask each of them: how much money, for the prosperity of your nation, do you want for sitting together with the other party, and reaching a peace agreement?

One possibility is that one – or both – of them will answer that “this is not a question of money, but of …”, and in such a case you may “rest your case” and rest assured that there is no solution but letting both Mid-East parties bleed for generations, until they realize that they would rather make one “bad” peace than many “good” wars.

But there is another possibility: the Israelis ask for, say, $100 billion, and the Palestinians ask for, say, $50 billion … In such a case you can either agree or disagree, or bargain with each of them over the “price”, like in a common horse trade, being aware that asking for too much, or giving too little may put an end to the whole negotiation.

Yes, it may cost a considerable sum of money to the American taxpayer, but much less than the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.

And no human sacrifice, of course.

Think of it, Mr. President.

Sincerely yours,

Simha Nyr