If I were in charge

Actually, the solution to the conflict in the Middle East is obvious, but it's one that neither side wants - a non-religious, democratic state which is neither Jewish nor Islamic. It's not Hamas' crazy idea of a muslim religious state in which sharia law is imposed on all who live within its borders. Nor is it Israel's offensive notion of a Jewish religious state in which those who don't share that faith or ethnicity are second-class citizens.

It's a state in which people's freedom to practise, or not practise, any particular religion, free of discrimination, is guaranteed. In which the government does not prioritise one set of mythical beliefs over any other. In which people can worship as they wish up to the point where it's imposing on others. Not an atheist state, of course - it's just as illogical and offensive for governments to declare that religious people are wrong as it is for them to declare that they're right - but an agnostic one, in which government's position is - "who are we to know?"

Obviously that's an outcome that none of the religious nutters who are running the show in Israel and Gaza want (although they'd all undoubtedly think it better than what the other side is demanding) - but then again, what they want is hardly sustainable, fair, just or anything else that the modern world should accept.

If only the outside world weren't so determined to pick sides - particularly when both of them continue to bomb civilians. Why are we putting our hopes of the bloodshed ending in the hands of unreasonable men who think that children are acceptable casualties? They're all - the leaders - a bunch of jerks who are determined to ruin the lives of the people they allegedly represent by escalating the violence, out of a misplaced set of priorities in which religious tribalism trumps everything else.

There's only one outcome in which the people in Israel and Gaza will live safe, prosperous lives again - and it isn't going to come from any of the people in charge at the moment. It's an outcome that Israel is in the best position to promote - given its functioning infrastructure and military power - but, so long as it hardens its young people's hearts by compulsorily turning them into actual soldiers and sending them out to be shot at, and so long as it is determined that there should be a state in Jerusalem run by one unique ethnic and religious group, and so long as its most powerful supporters are happy for it not to change, it's never going to do so. Because this isn't a situation where leaders are calling for their people's freedom: it's where they're calling to be able to limit that of other people.

Which is why if ever there were a situation in which a resolution - mine, to be blunt - needs to be imposed externally, it's this one.

Such a pity I'm not in charge, isn't it?

UPDATE: I thought it was clear from the above, but maybe not - this would be a state in which the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of gender, race, and religion would be enshrined in the constitution.