Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Volokh conspirator David Bernstien has an idea - let Turkey have it. Unfortunately his plan has two fatal flaws. The first is HAMAS' voluntary abdication. Those guys wouldn't let go of power under any circumstances, not even if Janet Reno were to surround them with tanks. The other is that Turkey is cast as the only alternative for Gaza's new ruler. Why just Turkey?

I say we take a cue from Hollywoodland and have a televised contest - have nations compete for ownership of Gaza. To qualify for entry, nations should meet certain standards for entry, including but not limited to: representative democracy, independent judiciary, trial by jury, a certain degree of speech, press and religious freedoms, strong property rights, government reasonably secure against insurgency, government more solvent than that of Greece, government does not harbor terrorists, government supports Israel's right to exist.

(By default, no Islamic or Communist nation would qualify, even factoring out the last criterion.)

The contest would be administered by five judges: two top-tier pundits like David Broder and George Will, two retired politicians who aren't reflexive pro-Palestinian suckups, and acting as Middle America's representative, James Lileks. (You thought I was gonna say Sharon Osborne, didn't you?)

The role of the United Nations would be to sit on the sidelines and sulk.

Contestants' objective would be to come up wiith the best plan to both eliminate HAMAS and persuade the Gaza Palestinians' general population to get on board with living peacefully with Israel. I believe that the key ingredient to the latter is to spell out all the freedoms that Gaza woudl have if HAMAS were gone.

I also predict that Japan and Honduras would be the early favorites.

Labels: Humor, Middle East, War on Terror