Saturday, July 19, 2025

Artificially intelligent quantum-entangled robots in outer space

Two robot astronauts on Mars the red planet

Our need to communicate, eat and drink, clothe ourselves, and move about, and our desire for comfort and convenience, has transformed the world with manufacturing, tools, and invention. Consequently, the natural world has shrunk. Supply chains cover the earth transporting food and raw materials, land is cleared and leveled, used goods are sent to poorer countries to be dumped, and more energy and materials must be extracted from the earth and refined. Forests are cut down, oceans and rivers are polluted with toxic waste, the planet warms, and wild animals go extinct.

New ways to automate and conserve human energy has created a metaphysical hierarchy of tools, goods, and services, where tools are goods and services, and vice versa. This is our modern civilization, because civilization is technology. Technology evolves and life is changed radically from a year, decade, and century ago. Primitive sharpened stones were made by hand by an ancestor of home sapiens. A few million years later, thousands of copies of cars, computers, ball bearings, cell phones, and many other things are made every day.

Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, Robot, and Spaceflight technologies have advanced to a stage where extracting minerals from relatively nearby objects in our solar system, asteroids, moons, and Mars, is feasible within a few decades. Extraterrestrial mining in theory could move at least one harmful, but crucial for twenty-first century civilization, activity off-world, reducing the rampant world-wide extraction and distribution of minerals. The Apple iPhone, for example, is composed of about seventy elements on the periodic table. Obtaining these raw materials today requires a supply chain that spans forty-three countries on six continents. Reducing the size and scope of this chain could help save the environment from its predictable collapse.

Global E-waste Flows (2019), The Global E-waste Monitor

Rare earth elements (REEs) in the iPhone and electric car batteries have useful magnetic and conductive properties. They are mined mostly in China, but opening new mines is in progress in North America and elsewhere. While the market waits years for these mines to become productive prices rise. Certain critical REEs, like Neodymium, are currently prohibitively expensive to mine. Others, like Indium, are dependent on mining other metals. But there is evidence that critical and endangered metals are plentiful in outer space.

Ranking Impact per kg
primary metals		 Impact global production
primary metals
1 Palladium Iron
2 Rhodium Chromium
3 Platinum Aluminium
4 Gold Nickel
5 Mercury Copper
6 Uranium Palladium
7 Silver Gold
8 Indium Zinc
9 Gallium Uranium
10 Nickel Silicon
"Ranking of metals according to their impact per kg (left) and to their contribution to total environmental impact (right). Source: adapted from UNEP (2010). Diverse types of environmental impact are considered. For fair assessment when comparing the environmental performance of different raw materials, it should be taken into account that very different quantities of alternative materials may meet the same function."
Source: Table 5.1: Priority list of metals based on environmental impacts

There are obvious hurdles to overcome before reaching the minerals in outer space, and extracting and returning them to Earth becomes a reality. It is a daunting project, a huge and highly risky investment that promises trillions of dollars in return. A mining infrastructure must be built in space at a scale that can deliver minerals to Earth in large quantities and at a reasonable cost. The infrastructure must itself be built primarily from materials found in outer space. The first step is a survey of the size, composition, and location of candidate asteroids and moons, beginning with near-Earth asteroids and our Moon.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) can pass inside Mar's orbit and are at a maximum distance of 1.3 astronomical units (AU) from Earth, or 1.3 X 93 = ~121 million miles. There are three types of NEOs. The Amors are the farthest away and don't cross Earth's path. The Apollo and Aten asteroids both cross Earth's path, with the Aten asteroids the closest on average. The composition of these AAAOs varies widely and identifying the best candidates has been unreliable, but has been getting better.

Over 33,000 near-Earth asteroids have been detected since 1990

Spectroscopic analyses of NEOs will narrow down the list of candidates. The next step is to visit a candidate with a small spacecraft. Lockheed Martin has its Curio spacecraft and NASA a Small Spacecraft Technology Plan. The craft should be resusable, not too expensive to launch, and capable of traveling to asteroids and returning to a station near Earth for repairs. And there must be enough energy and computing power onboard for conducting complex tasks.

Price of launching one kilogram of payload mass to LEO as part of a dedicated launch (FY21$/kg denotes estimates using dollar values in fiscal year 2021). LEO is the region between 100 and 2,000 km above mean sea level. Source: authors’ calculations (12).

Asteroid mining has many moving and stationary parts. How everything will work together is speculation and nost of the parts are either under development or in the lab. For now, let's imagine a spacecraft powered by a nuclear reactor landing in a small crater in the shadow of the sun, after stopping the asteroid's rotation. The craft has crew of three or four robots, a hybrid quantum-classical digital computer, and quantum sensors. The onboard computer is encased in titanium to shield it from cosmic and solar radiation, protected from vibration, and cooled about 4° C degrees colder than outer space, -273.14 to -273.15° C.

Ideally, the onboard computer wouldn't be necessary. Each robot would have its own quantum computer brain enclosed within a titanium skull. Their computing power would combine to make decisions collectively and run their own simulations when an unexpected problem is encountered. But I don't know if the quantum computer will be small enough or how much energy it will require. Miniaturization of its components is inevitable. The story of the vacuum cleaner is one example of a technology that became smaller to be more convenient. But quantum computing has major issues that must first be resolved.

The robots have minimal human guidance in outer space. It takes minutes for a radio signal to reach a near-earth asteroid from earth, how many minutes depending on the relative orbital positions of the earth and asteroid. If something unexpected occurs in the middle of a operation, like a solar flare, there won't be enough time for humans to intervene. The robots and onboard computer decide what to do on their own.

A collective Large Behavior Model (LBM) tailored for industrial mining guides decision making. Both the onboard computer and the robots have radios for classical communication and laser optical terminals capable of receiving and transmitting single photons. Each emitted photon is one of a quantum entangled pair created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Transmission and reception of entangled photons between the quantum computer and each robot exchanges a quantum key. This is quantum key distribution (QKD) entangling the computer and robots in a secure quantum communication network. The robots wear space suits to protect moving parts from abrasive dust. Their optical terminals align with the onboard computer's optical terminal.

The onboard computer issues a command to deploy quantum LIDAR sensors to map the uneven terrain. The purpose of the mapping is to prepare the robots for their collaborative work and refine the steps they will perform, and to locate ice. NVIDIA has what it calls a digital twin that creates a virtual simulation of the entire environment. The computer builds a its own simulation dynamically from the quantum LIDAR data. The robots already had reinforcement and supervised training to help them learn to adapt to various terrains, including training in a crater on the Moon.

Quantum magnetometer and gravimeter sensors are deployed and operated by the robots to measure minute variations in magnetism and gravity on the surface of the asteroid. The computer analyzes the data from the sensors to determine whether within the interior there are enough critical metals that will return a orofit back on Earth. If there is enough water but not critical metals, the water is gathered to make rocket fuel and the craft takes off for the next asteroid.

Optical Mining concept and demonstration. Source: Demonstration of "Optical Mining" For Excavation of Asteroids and Production of Mission Consumables

If enough critical metals are found within the asteroid, preparations are made to begin mining. A responsible, cost-effective way to extract the metals without gravity to assist is a hard problem. Smaller asteroids are mostly rubble on the outside which is relatively easy to remove by optical mining.

The stabilized small asteroid is enclosed in a gigantic inflatable bag. A lens and mirror system directs concentrated sunlight to vaporize the ice and outer silicate material. What remains is the inner metallic core and water vapor. The collected water vapor and inner metallic core are returned to Earth. Optical mining of asteroids about the size of a football field or smaller doesn't need robots or a super-sophisticated computer. It must be sophisticated enough to carry out its mining operation without human intervention.

Let's continue hand waving for larger asteroids. Surface ice is heated and the vapor is collected within an enclosed area. The asteroid is then broken up into manageable pieces. Optical mining is employed to focus concentrated light on fault lines. The extracted metal ore is put into a gigantic inflatable bag. A small rocket attached to the bag contains the fuel made from collected water vapor. The bag is launched towards a refinement station circling the moon.

The non-metallic pieces and glassy surface dust could be disposed by putting into a second bag. This bag could be launched to fall into the sun or towards the Earth or Mars to merge with other bags of debris and become another moon. Or the bag could be left where it is, its last position marked on a map to share with prospectors. Or the dust grains and debris is left alone, where the asteroid used to be. Someday we might find intelligent life on a planet orbiting a remote star by the unusual amount of dust and debris enveloping the star.

Satellites orbiting the earth was described in fiction back in 1869. In 1945, science fiction author Arthur C. Clark proposed geostationary satellites for communication. In 1957, twelve years later, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was launched into orbit. In 2011, after launching satellites into orbit for over fifty years, over 20,000 objects orbiting the Earth were being tracked. The number of small bits of debris, ranging in size from a few millimeters to a few meters, orbiting at an altitude from about 435 miles/700 km to 800 miles/1,300 km, is probably in the millions. Something to think about before we begin to seriously attempt to extract minerals in outer space.

Dust Devil photographed by the Mars Curiosity Rover

Humans should not mine asteroids or banish themselves to an inhospitable lonely dead planet. Humans are too fragile and won't survive. The health of our brains, eys, heart, bones and muscles depend on Earth's gravity. We depend on Earth's magnetic field to shield us from solar and cosmic ray radiation, and on Earth's atmosphere to breath and its temperatures that don't instantly freeze us to death. Thinking robots are the projection of human consciousness into outer space that may someday keep humanity alive.

The Planetary Resources Company, formed originally in 2009 as Akryd Astronautics, planned to mine asteroids with the help of robots. They began by building a series of low-cost satellite telescopes which would conduct a survey of NEOs. After some failures and a little sucess, they ran of funding, were bought by another company, and their work was abandoned.

Deep Space Industries (DSI), at one time a Planetary Resources competitor, was deveoping low-cost spacecraft to sell to private companies and NASA. These craft would be primarily used for asteroid prospecting. DSI was bought by Bradford Space but as of 2021 at least one of its projects, Comet electrothermal propulsion, has continued in Luxembourg. Planetary Resources and DSI failed because of how difficult it is to build a low-cost extraterrestrial mining business. The industry needs long-term support that is able to look past initial failures. This may mean some form of government sponsorship.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever gone."    -- President John F. Kennedy

Last updated July 27, 2025

References

Creative Commons

MidJourney

  • MidJourney
    Two robots on Mars picture created with MidJourney and edited with Photoshop.

History of Technology

The Case for Extraterrestrial Mining

What are Asteroids?

  • Suzy Stewart, Asteroid Belt Facts
    The Planets
  • James Schombert, Near-Earth Asteroids
    University of Oregon, Department of Physics
  • Juan A. Sanchez, Vishnu Reddy, William F. Bottke, Adam Battle, Benjamin Sharkey, Theodore Kareta, Neil Pearson and David C. Cantillo, Physical Characterization of Metal-rich Near-Earth Asteroids 6178 (1986 DA) and 2016 ED85
    The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 2, Number 5.
    Published 2021 October 1 • © 2021. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
  • John Walker, Solar System Live
    Fourmilab, February and March, 1995
    "Welcome to Solar System Live, the interactive Orrery of the Web. You can view the entire Solar System, or just the inner planets (through the orbit of Mars)."

Is Asteroid Mining Possible?

The Cost of Launching Payloads into Space

How cold is space?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robots in Outer Space

  • Mackenzie Ferguson, AI Tools Researcher & Implementation Consultant, Humans vs. Robots: The Ultimate Showdown in Space Exploration
    Opentools.ai, Last updated: January 1, 2025
    "Despite the rising capabilities of robotics, challenges in deploying AI in space remain, primarily due to technical and logistical constraints like processing power and energy requirements. Nonetheless, the continuous improvement in AI technology holds promise for expanding its applications, enabling more sophisticated autonomous decision-making and even supporting human teams in space missions."
  • Anjali Roy, edited by Alena Radziukevich, AI-powered robots supporting sustainable space exploration
    AI for Good
  • John Sanford, New center harnesses AI to advance autonomous exploration of outer space
    Stanford Engineering, Stanford University, June 18, 2024
    "Researchers at the Center for AEroSpace Autonomy Research, or CAESAR, say that AI could, among other things, optimize spacecraft navigation, enhance the performance of planetary rovers, and keep tabs on the space junk orbiting Earth."
  • The European Space Agency (ESA), Artificial intelligence in space
    Last updated August 3, 2023

Quantum Computing and Robotics

  • IBM Quantum Learning, Quantum computing in practice
    IBM Quantum Platform
    "This course focuses on today's quantum computers and how to use them to their full potential. It covers realistic potential use cases for quantum computing as well as best practices for running and experimenting with quantum processors having 100 or more qubits."
  • Katherine Wright, edited by Mark Fischetti, What’s a Qubit? 3 Ways Scientists Build Quantum Computers
    Scientific American, "originally published with the title “What's a Qubit?” in SA Special Editions Vol. 34 No. 2s (June 2025), p. 102"
    "A complete quantum computing system could be as large as a two-car garage when one factors in all the paraphernalia required for smooth operation. But the entire processing unit, made of qubits, would barely cover the tip of your finger."
  • Charlie Wood, Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
    Quanta Magazine, February 22, 2023
    "The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works."
  • Yan, F., Iliyasu, A.M., Li, N. et al., Quantum robotics: a review of emerging trends
    Quantum Machine Intelligence, Volume 6, article number 86, (2024), Published November 28, 2024
  • Media ATN, Quantum Key Distribution
    Alter Technology, November 7. 2022
  • Javier Alejandro de la Osa Fernandez, Entangled Photon Sources For Quantum Communications
    Alter Technology, December 14, 2022
    "Alter Technology is the prime contractor of a consortium for developing a compact, robust, and reliable Quantum Photonic Transceiver (QPT) capable of generating and detecting secure encrypted keys for its use in space communications under the frame of the ARTES program."
  • Sandra Bloom, What is Quantum Sensing, and How Does it Work?
    Scientific Origin, October 24, 2024
  • Marin Ivezic, Quantum LiDAR vs. Quantum Radar
    POSTQUANTUM, October 18, 2023
    "And in the realm of communications, while not exactly LiDAR, the same quantum LiDAR hardware might double as a quantum communications device (since entangled photons can be used for ultra-secure communication when not used for sensing). This points toward hybrid systems in the future that do both sensing and communication with quantum states of light."
  • Liu, H., Qin, C., Papangelakis, G. et al., Compact all-fiber quantum-inspired LiDAR with over 100 dB noise rejection and single photon sensitivity
    Nature Communications, published September 2 2023, Nat Commun 14, 5344 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40914-6
  • Aayushi Jain, Quantum Computing and Its Applications in Robotics
    Analytics Insight, August 19, 2024
    "Many problems in robotics are reduced to the solving of formidable optimization problems, such as pathfinding, scheduling, and resource allocation. Examples include determining the most effective path for an autonomous robot to move in a changing environment and scheduling specific actions with other robots. Generally, quantum computing solves these types of problems much better than classical computing because quantum algorithms explore numerous solutions simultaneously."
  • Farbod Khoshnoud, Ibrahim I. Esat, Clarence W. de Silva, and Marco B. Quadrelli, Quantum Network of Cooperative Unmanned Autonomous Systems
    Unmanned Systems, Vol. 07, No. 02, pp. 137-145 (2019),
    "This paper investigates collaborative robotic tasks of unmanned systems in a network where the agents are entangled. For instance, a leader robot sends two identical photons (e.g. with vertical polarization) to two follower robots/autonomous vehicles to communicate information about various tasks such as swarm, formation, trajectory tracking, path following and collaborative tasks. The potential advantages of quantum cooperation of robotic agents is the speed of the process, the ability to achieve security with immunity against cyberattacks, and fault tolerance, through entanglement. If a Quantum Network is implemented in a robotic application, it would present an effective solution; for example, for a group of unmanned systems working securely together."
  • Brooke Becher, What is Swarm Intelligence?
    builtin, July 03, 2025
  • Matt O'Dowd, host, Quantum Energy Teleportation is REAL!
    PBS Space Time, May 1, 2025
    "The vacuum of space is a chaotic sea of quantum fluctuations. Some have said that this vacuum energy can be harvested to build our future starship engines, or manipulated to build warp drives. It can't. But it is technically possible to move real energy through the quantum vacuum without it passing through intervening space. Quantum energy teleportation may be as close as we get to transporter beams. But how close is that?"
  • Matt Swayne, What is Quantum Robotics? Researchers Report The Convergence of Quantum Computing And AI Could Lead to Qubots
    Quantum Insider, May 9, 2025
    "Quantum robotics uses quantum computing principles — such as superposition, entanglement, and quantum algorithms — to tackle challenges that traditional robots face. These include processing vast sensory data, meeting real-time response needs and enabling cognitive and emotional functions that mimic human intelligence. Unlike classical systems, quantum robots — or “qubots” — leverage the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics to expand the scope and capability of robotics."
  • Beer, K., Bondarenko, D., Farrelly, T. et al., Training deep quantum neural networks
    nature communications 11, Article number: 808 (2020), Published February 10, 2020
  • Farbod Khoshnoud. Lucas Lamata, Clarence W. de Silva, Marco B. Quadrelli, Quantum Teleportation for Control of Dynamical Systems and Autonomy
    Instructions for Preparing LREC 2006 Proceedings
    "A review of Quantum Multibody Dynamics, Controls,Robotics and Autonomy ([14]-[17]) is given. In this review, quantum entanglement (Section 2.1) and quantum cryptography (Section 2.2) are used for hybrid classical-quantum control of classical multi-agent autonomous systems. In Section 2.3, the concept of Quantum Teleportation in conjunction with application to dynamical systems for autonomy is introduced."

Humanoid Robots

  • Mike Kalil, Humanoid Robots in Space: Past, Present and Future of AI Robotics in Space Missions
    Kalil 4.0, September 27, 2024
    "Humanoid robots are revolutionizing space exploration by performing tasks too dangerous or repetitive for astronauts. Join us as we explore the history and advancements of humanoid robots in space. From NASA's Robonaut to ISRO's Vyomitra, learn how these robots are shaping the future of space missions on the Moon, Mars, and beyond."
  • Mike Kalil, AI-Powered Humanoid Robots Are Flying Now!
    Kalil 4.0, June 20, 2025
  • Boston Dynamics Just Dropped a NEW ATLAS That Actually Thinks
    AI Revolution, May 30, 2025
    "Boston Dynamics just upgraded its Atlas robot with a powerful new perception system that allows it to think, adapt, and work in real time. Hugging Face revealed two new open-source humanoid robots, while China’s RobotEra stunned the world with STAR1, a robot that can cook dumplings with chopsticks. From Apple’s secret AI robot project to Saudi Arabia’s multilingual religious guide Manara and Elon Musk’s plan to send robots to Mars, this week marked a major leap forward in AI robotics."
  • Jay Ramey, Auto Workers Could Look like This in the Future
    Autoweek, May 06, 2025
    "Hyundai Motor Group boosts collaboration with its Boston Dynamics unit, with plans to deploy the Atlas robot in its factories."
  • Jonathan O’Callaghan, Future of space travel: Could robots really replace human astronauts?
    BBC News, December 30, 2024
    "Andrew Coates, a physicist from University College London, agrees. "For serious space exploration, I much prefer robotics," he says. "[They] go much further and do more things.""
  • Nishta Varma Why can’t we send AI to space instead of humans?
    UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences, April 12, 2024
    "Unlike our robotic counterparts, humans possess the ability to improvise and innovate in response to unforeseen challenges. We are equipped with the intuitive skills to troubleshoot issues on the fly and learn from our mistakes. Whether it's tinkering with equipment or brainstorming solutions, our ability to think creatively in the face of adversity is unparalleled.
    Robots on the other hand lack intuitive and adaptive qualities. They can only perform tasks they are trained to do, and we cannot possibly train them for every probable circumstance. Hence, the value of having humans in space."
  • $30,000 Tesla Robot isn't scary at all
    TikTok
    "Kim kardashian shows off her $30,000 Tesla Robot"

The Manufacture of Quantum Computers

Powering ExtraTerrestrial Mining

  • Sandra Erwin,
    SPACENEWS, April 8, 2025
    "Space nuclear power and propulsion technologies are poised for a breakthrough after decades of development, but will need consistent government investment to transition to operational systems, according to L3Harris executives."

Extraterrestrial Mininng Companies and NASA

  • Theia
    TransAstra
    "Our patented Theia algorithm enhances a telescope's ability to detect faint moving objects, outperforming conventional track-before-detect methods by 100 times or more."
  • Capture Bag
    TransAstra
    "Honey Bee™ Asteroid Mining Vehicle
    Capture Bag is a key component to our future asteroid mining plans. It will capture asteroids the size of houses, which can contain as much water as a swimming pool."
  • Joel Sercel TransAstra Corp., Optical Mining of Asteroids, Moons, and Planets to Enable Sustainable Human Exploration and Space Industrialization
    NASA, April 6, 2017
    "PROBLEM, DEEP SPACE HUMAN EXPLORATION IS UNAFFORDABLE:
    In 2014 the NASA Advisory Council issued a finding that “The mismatch between NASA’s aspirations for human spaceflight and its budget for human spaceflight is the most serious problem facing the Agency.” Since the time of that advisory, NASA has conducted many mission and systems analyses, but has yet to publish a sustained mission plan and cost analysis that fits within any budget that Congress will approve. NASA’s vision of human exploration remains unaffordable largely due to the high cost of launching large quantities of drinking water, oxygen, radiation shielding and especially rocket propellant from Earth.
    SOLUTION: OPTICAL MINING OF ASTEROIDS PROVIDES AFFORDABLE MISSION CONSUMABLES AND RADIATION SHIELDING:"
  • TransAstra Awarded First Defense Department Contract for FlyTrap, Following Success With NASA
    , January 24, 2024
  • Joel Sercel, TransAstra Corp Optical Mining of Asteroids, Moons, and Planets to Enable Sustainable Human Exploration and Space Industrialization
    Nasa.gov, April 06, 2017
  • The Extraterrestrial Mining Company
    "We’re XMC. We finance, create and connect the infrastructure that will form a lasting link between the extraterrestrial and Earth. Our Helium-3 mining will find, gather and import this vital isotope needed for global fusion power and quantum computing. And our lunar power utilities will develop a reliable source of nuclear power for the space industry of the future. Through these and our other large-scale projects, we’ll establish a space-for-space economy. Crucially, we’ll connect our planet to our cosmos, securing our place within it for millennia to come."

NVIDIA

  • developer.nvidia.com, NVIDIA Isaac Lab
    NVIDIA
    ""NVIDIA Isaac™ Lab is an open-source, unified framework for robot learning designed to help train robot policies

    Isaac Lab is developed on NVIDIA Isaac Sim™, providing high-fidelity physics simulation using NVIDIA PhysX® and physically based NVIDIA RTX™ rendering. It bridges the gap between high-fidelity simulation and perception-based robot training, helping developers and researchers build more robots, more efficiently."
  • NEW: NVIDIA CEO's Huge Humanoid Robot Predictions (Jensen Huang)
    Farzad, May 19, 2025

President John F. Kennedy

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Thursday, December 12, 2024

Postmortems

You must expand in breadth,
If the world is to take shape for you;
You must descend into the depths,
If the essence is to be revealed to you.
Only perseverance leads to the goal,
Only abundance leads to clarity,
And in the abyss dwells the truth.    -- Friedrich Schiller

Here is a small survey of reactions to the recent US Election and the deaths of Jordan Neely and Brian Thompson, found on the authors' blogs and in the New York Times Opinion section. Selected paragraphs were copied verbatim.

The 2024 US General Election

James Howard Kunstler

"At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over.

Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake — which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you."

Bret Stephens

"Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
...
But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R."

Donald Jeffries

"There have been a few reluctant admissions from some on the Left that perhaps pushing the “Woke” envelope so hard wasn’t such a brilliant political strategy. No matter how many vapid celebrities endorse it, you’re never going to get millions of Americans to accept the LGBTQ+ agenda. They know men can’t have babies, and that biological women should have babies. Propaganda otherwise is contrary to human nature. So the millions of unhappy “Woke” fanatics, stricken with severe TDS, are bound to become even unhappier. More committed to “reproductive rights,” which essentially means the right to abortion as birth control. This is the most important issue to unknown numbers of women who are too old to have another chance at abortion. This issue may finish off sexual relations between young male and female cisgenders, if the response from Tik Tok is any indication. At least for Whites."

Kareem Abdul-Jabber

"I don’t want this to turn into a bitter diatribe about my disappointment in the American people who selected a rapist, racist, and cognitively challenged buffoon as their leader. Who put all marginalized people’s lives and rights at risk. Who put the security of the country at risk. Who put our children’s futures at risk.

The next four years will be challenging as we are led by a man in serious mental decline who has surrounded himself with political dimwits and moralless thugs. Most of the prominent people he hired last time turned against him during this election to warn us of his ineptitude, pettiness, and greed. His closest advisors said he was incompetent. But his supporters thought they knew him better. So, here we are."

Scott Galloway

"My disbelief and despair are shapeshifting to anger. A narcissist (President Biden) crowned an untested candidate and asked her, in 107 days, to overcome the crises of immigration and inflation and the burden of an unpopular incumbency. When two-thirds of the country says we’re on the wrong track, there’s no way someone from the current administration can credibly claim to be a change agent, much less the disruptor people are looking for in an age of rage."

James Howard Kunstler

"I doubt he will be present at Mr. Trump’s inauguration, so the US marshals will have to root him out of Delaware (or wherever) and haul him into the federal lockup in DC at exactly the moment Mr. Trump pardons the J-6 prisoners. Will they get to see “Joe Biden” coming into the joint on their way out? There would be a certain poetic symmetry in that, and hard to not admire the workings of Providence after all its foot-dragging. You might well ask: how many days, or months, will “Joe Biden” have to endure in solitary detention before the paperwork is in order for a proper arraignment?."

Heather Cox Richardson

"These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020."

Techno from The Reactionary

"What do you get when you combine an unpopular Democratic candidate and a poor economy? A bloodbath. A clean sweep of all swing states. A win of the popular vote.

We were optimistic on Monday - if you looked at the crosstabs closely, Trump was making gains with independents, Black men, and Hispanics. He was making gains with 2020 Biden voters. There was widespread disapproval of Biden’s economic policies and Trump was trusted on the most two important issues this election: the economy and immigration. Momentum favored the Republicans. Nobody was enthusiastic for Kamala."

mccobb

I'm relieved the election is over. Weeks before I sensed that Trump was going to win. While I didn't want Trump to win particularly, I'm glad he won with a majority of the vote. A majority voted for and therefore deserves whatever happens, good or bad, the next four years.

Here is all Trump should do to keep the people who aren't his core supporters happy. According to the polls and pundits, the main issues for most people were grocery, gas, and house prices and illegal immigration. Keeping the inflation rate low and the southern border effectively closed should be good enough for most people, as long as they are employed and wages rise. Trump can continue to blame Biden if prices don't fall, and he doesn't need a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. It was the spectacle of a torrent of people crossing the border, and the murders, that sparked anger.

He must avoid humiliating spectacles at home and on the international stage. A brokered deal that ends the war in Ukraine, and lets what's left of Ukraine remain intact and free, would, of course, be a big win. Putin can wait, regroup, and eat the rest of Ukraine after the Democrats regain the white house.

His administration doesn't need to go on a vendetta against the previous administration, the members of the congress committee who investigated him, the FBI, or the media. Making the majority of people who voted for him in 2024 happy should be Trump's main goal. He shouldn't worry about his base, who love him, or his many cheerleaders, who both love him and hate the Democratic party unconditionally.

The US has produced more oil in recent years than any other time in history, Oil prices should be lower and we should be energy independent but we're not. The reason is US refineries can't refine the grade of oil produced by frakking. Oil produced by frakking must be shipped overseas to be refined. This would explain why the oil business wants more drilling on public land. This oil could refined in the US.

Jordan Neely

James Howard Kunstler

"Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.

Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins. Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us."

John McWhorter

"Penny was the man who stepped up when Neely caused a commotion on the F train, shouting at passengers, “I’m fed up. I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” Penny put him in a chokehold and held him for about six minutes. Neely died from compression to his neck, according to the medical examiner.

It should have been a story about the horror of a mentally ill person abandoned by the city and left to fend for himself in subway tunnels or on street corners, or about how scary it can be for those around him to navigate the wreckage, or about how one 24-year-old Marine veteran tried to protect a group of strangers, taking action that ended in unintended tragedy.

But Penny is white and Neely, 30, was Black. So instead it became a story of race — and all the more so after the jury’s verdict — a variation of Daniel Pantaleo going free after choking Eric Garner in 2014. But that’s not what happened here, and I wish those describing Penny or his acquittal as racist might consider things from another vantage point."

mccobb

When the boyfriend choked to death Jordan Neely's mom and put her body in a suitcase, he also murdered Jordan. He developed schizophrenia, a disease that prevents becoming a person. The city knew he was ill and couldn't take care of himself, but they let him wander homeless on the streets and in subway trains. The city failed him, like other cities around the country that can't help the homeless and mentally ill.

Neely shouted, "I'm ready to die" and Daniel Penny stepped up, afraid Neely was about to attack another passenger. He put Neely in a choke hold for five or six minutes, and later in the hospital Neely was declared dead. Penny had him pinned but was afraid he'd be attacked if he let go. A photo of Penny holding Neely on the floor of the train plainly showed Neely was unconscious, so Penny's fear of being attacked may have been his imagination.

Either Penny wasn't trained how to properly apply a choke hold or his Army training was crummy or intended only for combat. A correctly applied choke hold is a technique, known in Judo as Shimewaza, that can subdue a larger and stronger person for an extended time, and the subdued person doesn't die. There are people who can control their adrenaline and be calm, but Penny wasn't calm, assuming he didn't notice that Neely was motionless.

I haven't described a negligent homicide. Penny didn't have a black belt in Judo, as far as I know, and Neely didn't immediately get the first aid he needed when he was finally let go. Penny was a human being, brave until he wasn't. The acquittal by his peers was fair. But the trial was necessary if only because it gave national attention to homelessness and mental illness. But I don't see Penny as a hero, because his actions should not set a precedent for a cheap, quick, and permanent way to get rid of the sick and homeless. The US would be a crueler place if it decides to eliminate potentially dangerous insane people by choking them to death.

Brian Thompson

Donald Jeffries

"Luigi Nicholas Mangione has struck a blow for the frustrated, the beaten down, and those driven into financial ruin by the cost of healthcare. Now, I am certainly not approving his actions. I don’t want to see anyone killed. Remember, I’m against capital punishment. I try not to step on insects. But there are a whole lot of people who do approve of Mangione’s act. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro may declare “he’s no hero,” but many disagree. #FreeLuigi is trending online. Social media has been flooded with supportive messages for Mangione. The obscure alleged killer has seen his Instagram account swell to over 21,000 followers. One bright young female tweeted, “he’s only guilty of being hot.” Another castigated the “class traitor” who snitched on him."

Robert A. Pape

"What I have seen is lining up quite squarely with what we have found about the growing normalization of political violence in America. Year after year, political violence is becoming more common, and we’re seeing that support for political violence is growing across a range of issues.

Think about the political violence we’ve experienced just in the last few years. In 2022 we saw the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that missed her but almost killed her husband. In 2023 there was an assailant who had weapons in his vehicle, and he was surveilling President Barack Obama’s home in Washington, D.C. This year we saw two assassination attempts against Donald Trump."

mccobb

Luigi Mangioni reminded me of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If he's lucky. Mangioni is a Raskolnikov.

Politicians pushing for privatizing the VA should perhaps think about it. When prisons are privatized the business model is the more prisoners the better. With health care, it's the fewest paid claims and the least money paid out to claims.

Capitalism in the US should not have to be cruel. Here is what I've been thinking. Flatten the company hierarchy, so that employees are equally responsible for outcomes. End centralization: distribute employees to work in communities so they can listen to and serve customers directly. Put company money including profits into local banks, investing in the communities they serve.

I plan to try to find a few economists willing to discuss what is possible. I'd like to think localization could at least ameliorate bad outcomes due to our current capitalist corporate system.

Notes

  • Friedrich Schiller, Sprüche des Konfuzius
    https://www.deutschelyrik.de/, translated into English by Google Translate


    Mußt ins Breite dich entfalten,
    Soll sich dir die Welt gestalten;
    In die Tiefe mußt du steigen,
    Soll sich dir das Wesen zeigen.
    Nur Beharrung führt zum Ziel,
    Nur die Fülle führt zur Klarheit,
    Und im Abgrund wohnt die Wahrheit.

    In a book I read about Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg's quote of Schiller was translated as, "The mind is alone the clear. The truth dwells in the deep."

  • Trump voters second term focus group These 14 Voters Think Trump Has One Mandate Above All, and It’s Not About the Economy
    The New York Times December 10, 2024
    "This discussion was moderated by a focus group veteran, Margie Omero, and the New York Times deputy Opinion editor, Patrick Healy."
  • Natalie Duddridge, Ali Bauman Jordan Neely's death prompts calls for justice, change; "How can we start saving those that are literally crying for help?"
    CBS News New York, Updated on: May 4, 2023
    "Neely was a subway busker and Michael Jackson impersonator. In a GoFundMe page, his family says his mother, Christie Neely, was murdered in 2007. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx after she was allegedly choked to death.

    Police say Jordan Neely had more than 40 prior arrests, including felony assault for punching someone in the head on the subway. He also had more than a dozen mental health encounters with police, where he reported he suffered from schizophrenia and complained of "hearing voices.""
  • Choking - unconscious adult or child over 1 year
    Mount Sinai, Health Library
    "Without oxygen, brain damage can occur in as little as 4 minutes. Rapid first aid for choking can save a person's life."
  • Daniel Bergner America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates
    New York Times, updated Dec. 4, 2024
    "Black Americans experience schizophrenia and related disorders at twice the rate of white Americans. It’s a disparity that has parallels in other cultures."
  • Elie A. Morrell, Shichidan The Challenges of Shimewaza: Judo Chokes
    Judo Info, Online Dojo
    "Shimewaza is probably the most difficult branch of judo to master. Few judo practitioners will ever attain total mastery of shimewaza.

    One shimewaza stands out from all the rest because of its unique method of application It is sankaku jime and is worthy of mention here. This technique relies on the power of the legs surrounding the neck area to attain the desired effect. When properly applied, escape is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible. Because of the power of this technique, submission by the uke is often the outcome. The writer has never witnessed a case where this technique was applied wherein the uke was rendered unconscious. The result was always submission!"
  • E. K. Koiwai, M.D. How Safe is Choking in Judo?
    Judo Info, Online Dojo.
    "Shime-waza or the “choke hold,” when properly applied, should not cause death; therefore, its primary purpose should be to subdue violent suspects. When properly applied, the choke hold causes unconsciousness in 10-20 seconds. No fatalities as a result of shime-waza have been reported in the sport of judo since its inception in 1882. Among the methods of “control holds” taught to law enforcement officers is the choke hold similar or identical to shime-waza used in judo. Using the choke hold, officers may afford themselves maximum safety while subjecting the suspect to a minimum possibility of injury. "
  • Eric Levenson Daniel Penny explains in his own words why he restrained Jordan Neely on the subway for so long
    CNN, updated December 11, 2024
    "During the trial, several witnesses testified they heard Neely say he was willing to go to jail for life but did not testify they heard him say he would kill."
  • Errol Morris, Director The Fog of War
    Documentary film transcript, 2003
    "Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy."
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Thursday, October 31, 2024

Political Freefall

"This world is the will to power –– and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power –– and nothing besides!" -- Nietzsche

When I was in my late twenties I imagined government as two opposing forces, liberal Democrat and conservative Republican, working together to forge compromises that became new laws. A balance would be struck, like yin and yang, between opposing principles, e.g., between personal liberty and the tragedy of the commons. The result would not be ideological. It would be something that would work as much as possible for everyone. How else should the state govern from the top down?

This idealistic philosophy put me politically somewhere in the middle, and for most issues this is where I stayed. I never registered as a Democrat or Republican, and voted for both Republicans and Democrats. And I didn't vote to put one party or the other in control of the House of Representatives or the Senate. This strategy worked well, or at least I thought it did, but over time it became obviously unrealistic.

I had forgotten about the will to power. As Nietzsche conceived it, the will to power is a basic animating force in all of us, that each of us will direct in a different direction. "The philosopher and the scientist direct their will to power into a will to truth. Artists channel it into a will to create. Businessmen satisfy it by becoming rich." The politician satisfies it by achieving political power.

Nor did I understand that, as the left has drifted further left, and the right further right, their competing visions no longer allowed for compromise. The rise of an uncompromising politcal power may have been inevitable.

Both businessman and politician, Trump is animated by his followers as much as his base of followers are animated by him. That is to say, there is a movement with Trump as its nominal head. As a comment found on a right wing web site explained, if we didn't have Trump, we would find someone else.

During the Republican primary I wanted either Chris Christie or Nikki Haley to win the 2024 nomination. Either one I believed was capable of uniting the country, where unity in this country is over 50% approval. Leading up to the general election, I would listen to Republicans talk on TV and agree with them. If the Republicans took control of both houses and the White House, the country would be nudged in a more conservative direction, but the Democrats could regain some control as early as the mid-term elections. Good ideas from either party would hopefully remain in place.

But Trump is the nominee, and he and his surrogates are saying that Harris is far left. She was far left and will always be far left. It's too bad that Trump is far right. Trump may not be a fascist authoritarian, but he is a divisive politician who desires power.

Trump has proposed a broad tariff of 10% to 20% tariff on all goods imported into the US, a 30% tariff on all goods imported from China, and end to Obama's Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, rounding up and deporting up to 20 million illegal immigrants, ending liability if the police shoot an unarmed civilian, reinstating stop and frisk, and possibly imprisoning anyone who stood up to him after the 2020 election.

These are some of the proposals linked from Trump's web site known as Agenda 47. He has publically disavowed the Heritage Foundation's infamous Project 2025 plan, but he may not ignore all of its proposals. Less well-known is the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) which, according to the New York Times, is advising the Trump campaign. AFPI's proposals are as draconian as Project 25's plan. They have prepared almost 300 executive orders waiting for Trump to sign.

Regarding the issue of gender identity, wouldn't it be more consistent to let it be handled by the states, similar to the issue of abortion? One of Trump's promises is to either sign a law or an executive order that would ban access to certain medical interventions. I'm not for medicating kids who should first get help understanding who and what they are. But if Trump plans to leave abortion bans to the states, so should a law regarding transgender people. In some states parents, doctors and their patients may work together to hopefully make the right decision. I don't know.

Because Trump's proposals will be predominantly enacted by fiat, he will be a leader from the top down. He will be, therefore, no better than the left he hates. Of course, no matter who wins the election on November 5, 2024, the next four years promises more division, law suits, and hyperbolic rhetoric. But of course I could be wrong.

These days I can't listen to either Republican or Democrat surrogates talk on TV. Apparently their minds are wired differently, and I'm not sure what this says about me. This may be crux of the problem. With the way people are wired, on TV, blogs, substack, and social media, there is anger about being walled out and a desire to be walled in. They can't handle discouraging words, e.g., for Democrats, regarding vaccines, for Republicans, climate change.

Notes

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Friday, August 16, 2024

July 2024

My reaction to Biden's fumbling performance, early on in the debate between him and Trump the end of June, was "wow, he really is old." I remember also Trump's hyperbole, talking about infanticide and Maduro releasing patients and criminals from mental asylums in Venezuela and shipping them to the southern US border.

Less than two weeks later I got sick, after my wife returned from a cruise with friends to Norway and Iceland. I was coughing non-stop. At the walk-in clinic, I was diagnosed having an "unknown viral infection of the lower lungs." I was given pills for my cough and an antibiotic. I took the pills expecting to get better but I got worse. Whatever the virus was, it was winning.

Around this time, some stupid, foolish, stupid kid decided to insert himself into the political discourse by attempting to assassinate the former President. I was already vomiting after forcing myself to eat, and contemplating the abyss, always coughing, weak, unable to sleep or eat.

The shooter should have been apprehended when he launched his drone. An officer or agent should have noticed. There is no way anyone should be allowed to fly a drone before or during a political rally without prior permission. If he had been stopped near his car with his drone they would have found his gun and be would have been arrested. No one who was at that rally would today be dead.

Finally, my wife brought me to see my doctor. After measuring the oxygen levels in my lungs, she ordered an ambulance to take me to a hospital. We canceled the ambulance and my wife drove me to the emergency center of a hospital closer to where we live. At the emergency center, I was brought downstairs to a small room with an uncomfortable bed that had a broken controller. Nothing happened when I pressed the button requesting a nurse or tried to raise or lower the bed. This was a problem when I needed to go to the bathroom.

Occasionally a nurse would come in to check vital signs, give me a bottle of water, or set up an IV drip, and the doctor came in after looking at my bloodwork results. Outside I could hear a male nurse talking with the other nurses. I heard him say something like, "first they tried to put him in jail, then they tried to kill him." Later, he explained that he would be a "Trumper" if Trump would release the list of pedophiles, whom I assume would be celebrities, Democrat politicians, and deep state workers. I don't know if he was serious or not, but the female nurses he was talking with are undoubtably concerned about children.

That evening, after many agonizingly boring hours, I was admitted to the hospital. A nurse took me up in a wheelchair several floors above to my new room. The controller worked and the nurses and doctor were great. I stayed there two more days. When I was discharged, the diagnosis listed was "pneumonia with sepsis." The nurse said I had a urinary tract infection.

On July 21st, Biden dropped out of the race for President.

Today I'm recovering at home. The codeine cough medication is working. But I still can't sleep. I worry too much about the future, where I can go from here. And I worry about things that may not be as relevant to one's well-being, like how I can help build a better world.

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Monday, April 15, 2024

The Puzzle of History

The Moving Finger writes and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.[1]

On the Sunday before the 6-day war in 1967, I walked with my middle school Political Science class in the Salute to Israel Parade along Riverside Drive in New York City. It was a sunny day and there were a lot of people walking beside us. About 250,000 people participated that day in sympathy and solidarity with Israel. It looked like Israel was about to lose a war.

The next time we were in class, we split up into small groups to work on solutions to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The consensus was around a two-state solution, but I don’t remember the details. We had a right to be naive. We were, after all, kids in Middle School.

After the events since last October, it may be naive to believe that a difficult political problem is not intractable and may be solved by non-violent means, especially when in many countries, civil disobedience and non-violent protesting is throwing one’s life away. But no one should be raped, tortured, murdered, or indiscriminately bombed, starved out of existence, targeted by missiles, or ambushed while attempting to do one’s job. We are witnessing the latest chapter of a violent struggle that may never end, between two peoples with their own religious beliefs, language, and culture.

There should be a cease fire in Gaza so that the hostages may be returned to their families and food and supplies are delivered to innocent civilians. Then, ignoring the cease fire, focus on slowly and methodically rooting Hamas out of their network of tunnels. It would be an expensive, difficult, time consuming, and dangerous task, but blowing up tunnels would create less collateral damaage. I'm imagining remote-controlled robots wearing grenades excavating the tunnels.

I listened to "Israel is carpet-bombing children," and read about mass graves found near the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza. If the bodies were buried by Palestinians months ago, or buried, dug up and reburied by the IDF, they were human beings who died in this war.

Images from Gaza of the Palestinian Civil Defense recovering bodies in Khan Yunis may serve as a bookend to the video footage on October seventh of a young German-Israeli woman who, after taken hostage by Hamas and brought to Gaza, was lying face-down in the back of a pickup truck. She was probably already dead. The crowd spat on her as the truck drove through the streets. The rage in Israel must have been overwhelming.

At the end of the first World War, after the fall of the Ottoman empire, both the Zionists and the Arab Palestinians desired a nation governing what is today Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. The same vision exists today on both sides. Netanyahu's 1977 Likud party platform, which stated “between the Sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty," was the Zionist vision in 1917. The Hamas slogan, "from the river to the sea," was basically why the Arab leaders rejected the Peel partition plan in 1937 and the UN partition plan ten years later. Over the years extremists on both sides have continued to believe in one state for themselves and violently opposed every peace plan.

It is also true that, at least at one time, the Arab vision of a Palestine state would allow Jews to live peacefully within its borders, while reserving the right to restrict Jewish immigration.[2] And Israel allowed Arabs who remained within its 1948 borders to stay, and gave them Israeli citizenship. Today, the number of Arab-Israelis is over 21% of Israel's total population.

Disclaimer

I should not be writing about a foreign war as I'm on the outside looking in. But the protests are here, many here in the US are deeply affected amd troubled by the war, and the US is supplying Israel with the bombs. I could have put more time and energy into research, but I did more than watch YouTube videos and read Wikipedia articles. If I had the time and money, I'd travel to where the UN and British archives are kept and read the original documents. At least I read the online summaries.

Two States

The plan that has been proposed, debated, rejected, and proposed and rejected again, is the partition of land into two separate countries, Palestine and Israel. Our Middle School plan may have worked, but boundaries and demographics changed dramatically after 1967. When the 2024 war in Gaza ends, it's been proposed that a coalition of Arab countries come in to help the Palestinians rebuild Gaza. I'd like to see this happen, but it's a two state solution only if Gaza and Israel are the two states. The West Bank today is a patchwork of Israeli settlements and Palestinian villages. The apartheid state run by Israel in the West Bank must end. How can it end?

A Palestinian state in the West Bank would have to be created out of the land that's been left to them. The Israeli settlers won't leave. Even if they allow the state to be born, it probably won't succeed, not having a single contiguous border, as history (e.g., Pakistan) has shown.

After the 1936 Arab uprising in what was the British Mandate, the Peel commission was created to find a solution to the crisis. In 1937, the commission proposed a plan to partitian the land into separate states. During a debate about the plan, Chaim Weizmann said, “The Jews would be fools not to accept it, even if the Jewish state were the size of a tablecloth.” Mr. Weizmann regarded agreeing to the idea of a Jewish state as an important first step. But the Zionists did not agree to the plan’s borders. The Arabs would have greatly benefited from a similar, more flexible, perspective.

The Arab leaders rejected the 1937 plan. They didn’t want their land merged with Trans-Jordan, the plan required the transfer of about 120,000 Palestinians from their homes, they hated the idea of a Jewish state, and they wanted above all an independent state over all of Palestine. Ten years later, after they rejected of the 1947 United Nations partition plan, the state of Israel was created, followed by Israel’s war for independence and the Nakba, which was the catastrophic eviction of about 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. The word Nakba should also be translated as debacle, or fiasco.

Clearly, after the rejection of each peace plan, if a Palestinian state was an investment, the Arabs suffered from diminishing returns. But the extremists have held on to "from the river to the sea," and are forever martyrs devoted to their cause. Hamas may be destroyed, but the cause may well live on. To get to a solution, what's needed on both sides is patience, restraint, and education. It's a pipe dream.

One State

Across college campuses there have been protests with chants of "from the river to the sea." I learned that they mean a single nation governing all the land with equal justice and freedom for everyone. Sounds great, but I'm not sure exactly what they mean. Some may simply want Israel to change its policies. I'm not sure what the chanting protesters waving Palestinian flags mean.

The idea that Israel would extend citizenship to Palestinians is not ridiculously unrealistic. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition would likely have to be replaced by a government with a leader who is willing to take a risk for peace. The Palestinians would have to give in to pressure to accept Israeli citizenship. The pressure would have to come from trusted Arab sources within Israel, voices for change, that would point out what Palestinians would gain and what they wouldn't lose by accepting citizenship.

Once citizenship is accepted, areas under military control in the West Bank would be placed under civilian rule of law. Organizations in Israel would raise money to help Palestinians, now Palestinian-Israelis, keep their homes. Zoning rules would be changed so that their homes and businesses would not be demolished. The Israeli settlers wouldn't leave but the system that supports their expansion into the West Bank would be abolished.

No longer fed a constant diet of Hamas ideology, Palestinian-Israelis would not be proud to be martyrs. They wouldn't want their children to die as warriors and human shields. Their children deserve an enlightened education, one that Arab-Israelis will approve.

Security and strict access to the Temple Mount compound, also known as Haram al Sharif, must be ensured. Either the agreement between Israel and Jordan is strengthened, and everyone abides by its rules, or the complex is put under international control. The latter idea may be unrealistic, but international control over Jerusalem was in the 1947 UN partition plan. Israel should never approve tearing down the compound and rebuilding the temple, the beginning of the end times.

Notes

  1. Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát
    Stanza LXXI, Quatrain 36, translated into English by Edward FitzGerald, 1859 4th ed.

    زین پیش نشان بودنیها بوده است
    پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد ناسوده است
    در روز ازل هرآنچه بایست بداد
    غم خوردن و کوشیدنِ ما بیهوده است

  2. The Zionist movement was encouraging Jewish immigration, but in the 1930's Jews were fleeing from the Nazi holocaust and few countries were letting them in. After the massacre in Hebron and the Arab uprising of 1936, Jews would be justifiably wary of Arab leaders saying they would be allowed to stay and live peacefully under their rule. It wasn't clear how much political freedom they would have. If Arab rule was to be like living in the Ottoman empire, the Jews would have to pay a poll-tax and acknowledge the superiority of Islam. Allah would again be sovereign over all Palestine.

  3. Seraj Assi, Mass Graves in Khan Yunis Reveal Unspeakable Horror of US-Backed Gaza Invasion
    Truthout, April 26, 2024
  4. The Avalon Project, Balfour Declaration 1917
    Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library
  5. The U.S. and the Holocaust
    A film by Ken Burns
  6. Eli Barnavi, The Sephardic Exodus to the Ottoman Empire
    "How Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal transformed the region."
    My Jewish Learning
  7. Avi Shlaim Ph.D., The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
    Norton Paperback January 17, 2001

    "The Zionist movement, which emerged in Europe in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, aimed at the national revival of the Jewish people in its ancestral home after nearly two thousand years of exile. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1885 by the Viennese Jewish writer Nathan Birnbaum, Zion being one of the biblical names for Jerusalem. Zionism was in essence an answer to the Jewish problem that derived from two basic facts: the Jews were dispersed in various countries around the world, and in each country they constituted a minority. The Zionist solution was to end this anomalous existence and dependence on others, to return to Zion, and to attain majority status there and, ultimately, political independence and statehood.

    Ever since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C. and the exile to Babylon, the Jews yearned to return to Zion. This yearning was reflected in Jewish prayers, and it manifested itself in a number of messianic movements. Modern Zionism, by contrast, was a secular movement, with a political orientation toward Palestine. Modern Zionism was a phenomenon of the late nineteenth-century Europe. It had its roots in the failure of Jewish efforts to become assimilated in Western society, in the intensification of antisemitism in Europe, and in the parallel and not unrelated upsurge of nationalism. If nationalism posed a problem to the Jews by identifying them as an alien and unwanted minority, it also suggested a solution: self-determination for the Jews in a state of their own in which they would constitute a majority. Zionism, however, embodied the urge to create not merely a new Jewish state in Palestine but also a new society, based on the universal values of freedom, democracy, and social justice."

  8. Avi Shlaim, The Two-State Solution – Illusion and Reality
    Palesting-Israel Journal, Vol. 26 No. 3&4 2021
  9. United Nations
    Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1947 (Part I)
    Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977)
    The Question of Palestine
  10. Report of the Palestine Royal Commission,
    League pf Nations Mandates Palestine, July 1937

    "Considering the attitude which both the Arab and the Jewish representatives adopted in giving evidence, the Commission think it improbable that either party will be satisfied at first sight with the proposals submitted for the adjustment of their rival claims. For Partition means that neither will get all it wants. It means that the Arabs must acquiesce in the exclusion from their sovereignty of a piece of territory, long occupied and once ruled by them. It means that the Jews must be content with less than the Land of Israel they once ruled and have hoped to rule again. But it seems possible that on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of Partition are outweighed by its advantages. For, if it offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security."

  11. Holocaust Encyclopedia, Hajj Amin al-Husayni: The Mufti of Jerusalem
    The United States Holocaust Museum

    "In exile between 1937 and 1945, al-Husayni, claiming to speak for the Arab nation and the Muslim world, sought an alliance with the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy)..."

  12. List of Killings and Massacres in Mandatory Palestine
    Wikipedia

    "The neutrality of this article is disputed."

  13. Robin Wright, The Jihadi Threat 5: Drivers of Extremism
    Wilson Center, December 8, 2016

    The word jihad is somewhat misunderstood, in that it primarily means struggle, strive, or exert oneself to be a better muslim and, by extension, a better person. It also means, secondarily, to struggle against the oppression of other religions or political groups.

  14. Ilyas Ahmad, Sovereignty in Islam (Continued)
    JSTOR, Journal article:
    Pakistan Horizon Vol. 11, No. 4 (December, 1958), pp. 244-257 (14 pages)
    Published By: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs
  15. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Spiritual Significance of Jihad
    Al-Islam.org

    "On the more external level, the lesser jihad also includes the socio-economic domain."

  16. Nicholas Casey, ‘Where Is the Palestinian Gandhi?’
    The New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2024

    "Issa Amro, who has been arrested and beaten for simple acts of defiance, is trying to pursue nonviolent resistance in the West Bank at a time when violence has become inescapable."

  17. Joel Greenberg, Sharon Touches a Nerve, and Jerusalem Explodes
    NY Times, Sept. 29, 2000
  18. Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on fifth day of Sukkot
    Al Jazeera and News Agencies Oct. 4, 2023

    "Israeli settlers have stormed the complex in groups and attempted to perform ‘Talmudic rituals’, according to a Waqf official."

  19. Megan K. Stack The View Within Israel Turns Bleak
    The New York Times, May 16, 2024
  20. Nicholas Kristof Invading Rafah Doesn’t Help Israel
    The New York Times, May 18, 2024
  21. Max Can't Help It! Israel is More F*ckd Than You Know
    Medium, October 22, 2023

    "The problem of secular Jews losing control of Israel is easily visible in Israel’s inability to form a stable government in the past few years."

  22. Shabbat 31a, The William Davidson Talmud (Koren - Steinsaltz)
    Sefaria

    "There was another incident involving one gentile who came before Shammai and said to Shammai: Convert me on condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder’s cubit in his hand. This was a common measuring stick and Shammai was a builder by trade. The same gentile came before Hillel. He converted him and said to him: That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study."

A selection of YouTube videos

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