# The Trump Middle East Peace Plane **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 29, 2020, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143 "2020-01-29T01:25:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/61 "2020-02-04T19:47:54Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > I dunno the dude has read 25 books on the region. Actually, he _bought_ 25 books on Amazon, but he only read one and a half. He finished _The Autobiography of Jordan Sparks_, but he got bogged down in _Basketball Teams of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference_. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/62 "2020-02-05T04:38:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > AFAICT **RioRico** is suggesting that the region in question will become uninhabitable due to a nuclear attack, thereby “solving” the problem in a _“solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant”_ sense. The Romans solved the “Carthaginian Problem” via utter destruction. I’m surprised the “Mideast Problem” still exists, that its cities aren’t yet glowing craters. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/63 "2020-02-05T06:06:59Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Every now and then some movie comes out where an ordinary schlub finds himself in charge of a country; “Dave” was a good example. In these movies, the schlub’s common sense approach to some problem proves eminently superior to the insiders. > > Here we have a perfect example of why that’s a bunch of crap. Kushner is, in the true sense of the term, an ignoramus. He is a stupid man whose understanding of the subject has been scraped together from a few books and Wikipedia in the last year or so, and his effort to solve this intractable problem is incredibly stupid (and, to a large extent, probably heavily influenced by others, though he likely is too dumb to know that.) His response is of course the response of a stupid and self-entitled man; he’s angry that people don’t seem to be going along with his idea. > > The fantasy of an outsider sweeping in and fixing huge problems with a dollop of common sense is just that, a fantasy. It’s not how the world works, in part because ignorance of the subject isn’t a good thing but also because the idea of one person fixing things with a single idea is equally stupid, no matter who it is. Kushner is a rich boy dumbass, but it wouldn’t matter if he was a genius; the very idea of “my idea is the right one and I’m right and you’re all wrong because I’m right” is inherently doomed to fail. This. An outsider with little knowledge of an issue generally has nothing to offer that the two embattled parties themselves haven’t thought a thousand times. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Crap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.crap/32/3131_2.png) [@Dr.Crap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Crap)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2020, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/64 "2020-02-05T06:11:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > … > > Now we can make fun of Kushner’s plan because it’s a silly plan worse than many proposed before it, but at the same time it’s probably realistic to just accept this problem has no “solutions” that don’t include a whole lot of time passing and dramatic shifts in Israeli and Palestinian society. I agree with everything you’ve said but I’d also add that, from the very beginning, non-Israelis and non-Palestinians have been parties to this conflict, and that’s only added to its intractability. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/65 "2020-02-06T15:45:32Z")
> [@Dr.Crap](#): > > I agree with everything you’ve said but I’d also add that, from the very beginning, non-Israelis and non-Palestinians have been parties to this conflict, and that’s only added to its intractability. In fact, I would argue that’s actually the main reason is IS intractable. Israel is to a large extent resistant to a Palestinian state because they fear Arab nations will use it as a launchpad for an attack; Arab nations aren’t really interested in Palestinian statehood because Palestine is more useful to them not being a state. Most of what people want to be Palestine could have been turned into a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967, but Jordan annexed it (with, it must be said, considerable Palestinian support.) That very likely doomed any chance Palestine ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2020, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/66 "2020-02-06T21:05:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Every now and then some movie comes out where an ordinary schlub finds himself in charge of a country; “Dave” was a good example. In these movies, the schlub’s common sense approach to some problem proves eminently superior to the insiders. I’m going to nitpick this a bit - the conceit in _Dave_ isn’t that as a regular guy, he has common sense that the elite lack, it’s that Dave hasn’t had to make a bunch of morally compromising decisions in order to achieve high office. Sigourney Weaver has a scene where she describes the original president as starting out idealistic like Dave, but that the process of politicking corrupted him until he lost that original idealism, and became beholden to men like Frank Langella. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143/67 "2020-02-10T04:56:42Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m going to nitpick this a bit - the conceit in _Dave_ isn’t that as a regular guy, he has common sense that the elite lack, it’s that Dave hasn’t had to make a bunch of morally compromising decisions in order to achieve high office. Sigourney Weaver has a scene where she describes the original president as starting out idealistic like Dave, but that the process of politicking corrupted him until he lost that original idealism, and became beholden to men like Frank Langella. If the message is that politics corrupts idealistic people over the course of the years, it makes the movie’s ending pretty dark. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-middle-east-peace-plane/847143.md?page=3)