A solution to the Middle East conflict

Lots have been said and written about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and this article is no different in that respect, but I also have a concrete proposal for a solution which I think will make lasting peace in the region. In my humble opinion it's necessary to separate israelis and palestinians physically in a lasting way, and impossible to do so within Israel. In other words, the palestinians need their own country outside Israel.

It is time to stop just talking and begin acting. I refer to the map below and without further ado I will present my proposal in short form.

1. All hostile operations from both parties will stop and talks about a peace treaty will begin.

2. Egypt will give the palestinians the Northern Sinai Governorate (blue borders) as their new Palestine land.

3. The Palestinians will cease all claims on the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank area.

4. Jordan will give the West Bank area (green borders) to Israel.

5. Israel will build and operate a train line from the new Palestine to East Jerusalem, for pilgrims to visit the ancient Mosque.

6. Israel, with the help of the world, will finance the building of 100,000 new housing units each year for the palestinians in the new Palestine, for a period of ten years.

7. Israel will finance and arrange for the palestinians to move from Israel to Palestine, as the housing there are ready to move into. After a period of ten years all palestinians will have left Israel.

8. Israel will recognize the new Palestine as a sovereign state with the right to exist, with its new borders.

9. The new Palestine will recognize Israel as a sovereign state with the right to exist, with its new borders.

10. The arab world will recognize the new Palestine and Israel as soveregn states with the right to exist, with their new borders.

11. The United Nations and the world at large will recognize the new Palestine and the new borders of Israel.

12. The parties involved will sign a peace treaty.

Guns & Roses

In my post yesterday I didn't mention gun control as one of the means to stop violence, for one simple reason: I want to write a whole blog entry about that topic.

My posision on this issue is clear: we must restrict people's access to guns more.

This decision has not come easy for me.  My gut feeling tells me it's not the weapon, but the man behind the weapon that is dangerous.  Furthermore, grownup people should take responsibility for their own actions.  However, I've come to realize that "grownups" is just a technical term for someone past the age of judicial maturity.  In reality many people are irresponsible and can't make logical decisions.  So we have to protect ourselves from their possible actions towards us.  We even have to protect them from themselves.

Many years ago, my best friend shot his brains out with a revolver.  He was a member of a pistol club, but didn't attend meetings there.  The police knew about that.  Another member of the same club was a local policeman.  The police also knew that my friend wasn't entirely stable.  So they were thinking about taking the magnum revolver away from him.  While they were thinking about this, he killed himself.

Why didn't the police act before?

Why haven't we learned anything from this incident, and many more like it?

As I lay down a rose on my friend's grave, I can't stop thinking that he would've lived today if he didn't have access to a gun.  I'm sure of that.  Maybe 68 people at Utøya would've lived today too, if last week's terrorist couldn't get his hands on a gun.

Let's face it: very few people need to own a gun at home.  So let us purge the society for civil guns.  Let us make new laws that restrict the new licences for guns to those who really need it, and prove they can handle it.  That'll reduce the gun count to a fraction of what it is today.  As it should be.  The police should carry arms, not civilians.

Still pouring down

As most other people I'm still kinda dazed after the shock.  I'm talking about the terror in Norway at July 22, just a week ago.  It's time to begin thinking about what to do next.

How will this affect the norwegian society in the long run?  What is the right thing to do now?  I guess the answers to these questions depends on who you are and what you mean.  My personal opinion is that we have to do a lot to try and prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.

• Give the police more resources - the people, tools, and money they need to do a proper job.  This means more sivil surveillance, better computer systems, more helicopters, armed officers at all times, more police in the streets, and so on.
• Norway should have a prison sentence type which lasts a lifetime, that is a sentence which the prisoner will be in jail until he/she dies.
• The judicial system should be changed, so that if one has killed many people, one should get sentence time added for each and every killing, not just one of them.
• The judicial system is too much geared towards rehabilitation and a humanized prison time.  The problem with this, in combination with short sentence times, rebate on multiple crimes, liberal leave practises, and the lack of a revenge element in norwegian law, to name just a few, is that people in general lose respect for the judicial system and also criminals.  It's a joke and everybody laughs - the criminals laugh of joy and other people laugh of despair and disbeleif.
• Somehow we must be able to spot young people going off track, and try to correct them before they go amok against the society.  Do we have the means and methods to do that today?  I doubt it.  We can do better.  My personal opinion is that upbringing is a key element.  It's important that everybody is taking part in a child's upbringing.  The school must work with the parents, the sports club must work with the parents and the school, and so on.
• Yes, we must also strengthen the democracy.  Include people more in processes, be more open and available, and enlighten people better on democratic processes, to name a few.  I hope the Prime Minister's talk about a better democacy and a more open society isn't just words.

So far, the aftermath debate has not been good, in my opinion.  For instance, people have unintentionally formed "This is what we think and so should you!" circles in online fora.  The tone is very agressive towards people with original thoughts, who they disagree with or don't understand.  I'm not talking about extreme views, but ordinary opinions who should not receive such reactions.  It's sad if a we-stick-together-now feeling should result in what we see now.  It's going the opposite way of more openness.