Due to miracle or miracles -- peace in the Middle East!

Flash! Due to an incredible celestial or environmental event(s) interpreted as a Sign From God by all parties, Arabs, Palestinians and Jews put down the guns, tear down the walls, and create a Palestinian State… Good will, free trade and kick-ass falafel with tahini are had by all.

Could it happen? What would it need to be?

Inspired by this account of a solar eclipse having just that effect about 2500 years ago (as mentioned in another thread about “what is the earliest event in human history we can match to a specific date”):

Herodotus wrote that Thales of Miletus predicted an eclipse which occurred during a war between the Medians and the Lydians. Soldiers on both sides put down their weapons and declared peace as a result of the eclipse. Exactly which eclipse was involved has remained uncertain, although the issue has been studied by hundreds of ancient and modern authorities. One likely candidate took place on May 28, 585 BC, probably near the Halys river in the middle of modern Turkey. (cite: Wikipedia article on solar eclipses. And I guess neither the Medians nor Lydians had heard of “Thales of Miletus” or his prediction until well after their truce.)

Of course, people nowadays know too much about astronomy and geology to attribute divine displeasure to a single eclipse or earthquake. Well, most of us (Fred Phelps and his kind do not count as “people” for purposes of this discussion). But I’m sure something spectacular and targeted enough (and maybe requiring not one but a series of events) could get people thinking along those lines.

So given what we know today about science, and the current situation in the Middle East… What would need to happen? Keep it something environmental that “could” be natural but just isn’t believable to the modern sensibility, just as the eclipse passed the bar in 2500 BC of being interpreted as “must be divine will” by both sides. For example, a sudden image of Abraham amid a chorus of angels telling both sides they’re “very naughty children who ought to play nice with each other or get a time out” does not count.

Also keep it something that would result in cooperative peace and not the peace of the grave, like having an enormous sinkhole swallow the entire Middle East, or some kind of pestilence that wipes out one side but not the other.

Hmmm… it has to be a natural phenomenon that looks like divine intervention?

A series of small meteorite strikes might do it - not big dinosaur-killers that wipe everyone out - but a sustained bombardment of small ones, that all happened to hit (and kill) very specific targets (military leaders, troublemakers, vociferous religious agitators, etc).

Alien visitation might also do it - that would be a natural phenomenon, if it happened.

And how about something (maybe meteor impact again) that happened to spell out a message, readable by human eye, on the moon?

What would the message be, and in what language? Depending on the content, this could be easily interpreted as a sign to one side or another to seek to advance their cause with greater fervor.

Imagine if it said in Arabic, “Stop killing Jews”, then the Jews might say it’s a sign that God Is On Their Side, and they should get to settle the West Bank and Gaza Strip after all.

Or if it said in Hebrew, “Cease Oppressing Palestinians”, the Arabs might interpret this as a sign that God Is On Their Side, and the best way to enforce His will would be to drive the Jews in the sea for good.

The message would be constructed as an ambigram - one of those cunning devices that looks like it says several different things, depending on the angle of view and the language of the viewer. I don’t know what the message could actually be though.

this reminds me of the worst science fiction I’ve ever seen–2010, (the sequel to 2001 a Space Odyssey).
In the movie, God himself speaks to the human race, creates a second sun and tells the Russians and Americans to stop playing war.

Dumb, just dumb.
But it sure would be nice if the same thing would happen to the Palestinian-Israeli situation…

That wasn’t G-d. It was the aliens who built the monoliths.