A Modest Proposal for Solving the Palestinian Problem

Illustrated by https://ellydee.ai

It is a gloomy existence to be a citizen of planet Earth in 2026. Simply switching on the news or scrolling our social media feed is enough to make us question the continued necessity of the entire human experience. Seeing Palestinian children walk through rubble of long-erased roads on the way to a school that no longer exists and seeing parents wailing for lost loved ones deemed superfluous to distant elites is a heavy burden to bear. I think we can all agree that whoever can solve the Palestinian problem should have a statue erected in their name. I will attempt to do just that here.

The long-doomed two-state solution no longer appears viable with the Israeli Knesset stating in 2024 that a Palestinian state would be “an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region.” Prime Minister Netanyahu went further in 2025 when he said “We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us. We will safeguard our heritage, our land and our security.”

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert laid bare what all Israelis know, that “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.” The alternative is for Israel to continue to be run as a de facto apartheid state where one set of people enjoy rights while the other is refused them. This would be an untenable position for any nation that claims to be democratic so as many Israelis are claiming, the solution lies in Palestinians moving elsewhere.

The Defence Minister Israel Katz acknowledged, “It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip.” Netanyahu thinks that “the right thing to do, even according to the laws of war as I know them, is to allow the population to leave.” It isn’t just Israelis who believe the voluntary abandonment of their historical lands is for the best. President Donald Trump says of Palestinians, in order to build his international riviera, “You’re going to see that they’re all going to want to leave.” So, it is clear that the long-suffering Palestinians are going to have to make way for the Las Vegas of the Middle East to bear fruit.

When you strip away the not so diplomatic language, the problem comes down to values and culture. Palestinians, say Israel and the US, do not share Western values, but Israel does. So, as the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said, it is difficult to imagine a Palestinian State within Palestine “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it.” He further stated that “Muslim countries have 644 times the amount of land that are controlled by Israel. So maybe, if there is such a desire for the Palestinian state, there would be someone who would say, we’d like to host it.” His assertion is clear, Palestinian culture is not compatible with Israel’s.

So, to my modest proposal. Mr. Huckabee, Donald Trump and Israeli officials are correct, Israeli culture is incompatible with Palestinian culture and in fact Israeli culture is incompatible with that of wider Middle East. We have been focusing on the wrong “problem” when the problem is not Palestine but Israel.

We are constantly told that Israel shares Western values of democracy and liberalism. So, let’s give the entire area of Israel and Palestine to the Palestinians who can continue to foment bilateral relations with their neighbours without the need for nuclear weapons to protect themselves from barbarism.

The Palestinians are unlikely to drop thousands of bombs on their brothers and sisters in neighboring lands. They are unlikely to assassinate scientists and leaders of neighboring people. They are equally unlikely to intentionally starve the children of their neighbors. No, Palestinians would get along just fine with everyone in the Middle East, as they have done for thousands of years before one colonizing nation, Britain, decided to create another colonizing nation, Israel.

Not to be outdone by its predecessor Great Britain, the United States has a slightly shorter, but no less distinguished history of colonization. Throughout the Americas, the United States has long prospered by doing to its neighbors as Israel does to its. While the Israeli secret service (Mossad) was proudly telling the world that it was on the ground in Iran fomenting regime change, Israel’s mentor, the United States, must have been looking on proudly. A common insult Israelis and Americans use to dehumanize Palestinians is to label them as animals. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called them “human animals.” Deputy Defence Minister Eli Ben Dahan said they “are like animals, they aren’t human.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Hamas “barbaric animals”. A common insult, it seems, becomes a governing philosophy. Which is probably why both the US and Israel have a penchant for using animals to torture those they accuse of being animals. In the case of Israel, they seem to have eclipsed their friends with shared values by training dogs to rape their non-human victims. I am sure there was a nod of approval from the CIA there.

These are not the actions of people who belong in the peaceful Middle East. These are the actions of people whose values align perfectly with the Western colonial tradition. Israelis belong with us in the West. So, back to my modest proposal. We give the lands in the Middle East to those who share the values of the surrounding peoples, and those with Western values get to live in the West. Home for the Israelis with shared values could be Alaska with a population density of just 1.29 people per square mile. That might be a little cold so what about Wyoming with a population density of 6.06 people per square mile? North Dakota is another (11.58 people per square mile) option but look out South Dakota, if you know what I mean.

Now, there will be critics of my modest proposal, of this I am sure. They will argue that these states are already home to people, and yes they will be correct. Thankfully, neither Israel, the United States nor the United Kingdom has ever placed too much concern on the rights of indigenous people.

This modest proposal of mine is made with not the slightest bit of personal interest, unlike some offering their own solutions which might prove shall we say lucrative in a financial way. My child will not benefit from the carrying out of this solution, unlike some. No, the true beneficiaries of this modest proposal will be the Palestinians and their neighbours in the Middle East who can finally sleep at night, and the Israelis and the people of the United States who will get to build a prosperous Las Vegas in the badlands of Dakota, together, with people of shared values and customs. Mission accomplished. Being a colonial leader is so easy. Now, where is my statue?