Episode 64 - The Middle East is a Mental Problem, Not a Real Estate Problem
Date: 2018-06-16 | Duration: 39:46
Topics
What and where is the Holy Land? Land = Location and stuff Homes made from Holy Land bricks? If the old ways of thinking got us where we are today… Would God be happy if we all find a way to live peacefully?
Transcript
[0:06]
Hey everybody, come on in here. Today I’m gonna talk a little bit about this book. Some of you just got excited; some of you are saying, “What the hell book is that? What are you talking about?” Well, this is my book from 2001 called God’s Debris. It’s relevant to the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, of all things. Now, if you’ve never heard of this book, what you should know about it is it’s a thought experiment that covers a number of topics. I don’t want to give away the essential plots because the fun of the book is discovering what it’s about as you read it, but there’s a part of this book that is very relevant to the Jerusalem conversation. Are you ready?
[1:07]
Ready. So you’ve got the big problem about Israel and Hamas and the Palestinians is that they both think they should be on the same land because God wanted them to be there. So Hamas and the Palestinians believe that God says they should own Israel’s land, and Israel believes that God has told them that they should be there. Let’s take this to the next level of detail. Let’s say you’re God. So for a moment imagine that you are God and you’ve decided to grant some land to one set of people—could be the Elbonians. So let’s take the Middle East out of it and you’ve decided to grant some land, some holy land, to the Elbonian people. What does that mean exactly if you’re God? Because what is real estate?
[2:09]
Real estate is sort of location. That’s part of it; it’s where is it located? And then it’s what’s there—the actual dirt and the material that makes up the land. That’s all it is. It’s a location and a set of material. But here’s the catch: can you ever give anybody a location? Because the planet is moving. When you are a primitive human thousands of years ago, you probably thought there was something called a location and that if you went and you stood there, you were in one place that stayed in one place. But now we know that’s not the case. You’re on a planet in the universe, in a galaxy, and you’re not there anymore. So wherever that location was that God said, “Here’s your location,”
[3:11]
that location is pretty far back in empty space right now. So you can’t say it’s about the location. Location would not be a way to define a Holy Land because the location is back in space. It’s changed. All the things that determine a location, which is their relationship to other things—the universe is in a completely different position. So there’s no such thing as a location. But what about this stuff? Well, thousands of years ago the only stuff that was there was some huts. What the hell did they live in 2,000 years ago? Was it a hut? But let’s say that those things have all turned to rot and that you’ve got some holy places that are built into materials, you’ve got some dirt, etc. Is the dirt of Israel holy because the location isn’t relevant?
[4:15]
As I said, locations change since God gifted it to whoever he gifted it to. But the dirt is still there. And I don’t think Hamas is saying, “We should own that modern office building that you built in Israel five years ago.” Nobody is saying that God gave them the modern office building that Israel built; they’re talking about the land. So suppose you scraped off ten feet of topsoil from the land of Israel—I’m not saying that’s practical, but just a mental experiment—and let’s say you put it in trucks and you moved it somewhere. Where would the Holy Land be then? Would the Holy Land be where you moved all the dirt that had been Israel, or would the Holy Land be the place where somebody has a deed and it says, “Here’s my land,” but now it’s just a big hole in the ground? Here’s the point: this whole idea of a location is
[5:19]
when people are thinking like humans. If God made a decision about who owns what, God was thinking like God, and we can’t really think like God. But if we don’t know if God was talking about that dirt or he was talking about the location—which of course has changed because that location is somewhere back in empty space—if you can’t really determine what God had in mind, should you die for it? So I think that there’s an interesting question about what makes that real estate the Holy Land, because that’s what they’re fighting about. And it’s largely a mental problem that is disguised as a real estate and defense problem, because both sides believe that they have land that God granted them. But God doesn’t think of real estate the way humans do. I don’t know how God would
[6:21]
think of real estate, but I’ve got a feeling that whatever God hypothetically had in mind there, it’s not something we could fathom and it certainly isn’t something you could put a fence around. So I think if people elevate to a higher level of thinking, in which they realized that whatever God thought was the Holy Land may have more to do with thinking like God. Now let’s take this to the next level. If you were thinking like God, what would you define as the Holy Land? I would certainly define it as something that everybody can visit. So at the minimum, everybody should have access to those holy locations and the holy artifacts. But I think they could work that out; that doesn’t seem like the biggest problem. To me, it seems that there is a mental problem disguised as a real estate and money problem and a
[7:24]
defense problem. Now, I’m not saying that that gives you any way to solve that problem. I’m just putting it in context that we’re not talking about a physical problem. We’re talking about a way people are thinking of things, which is causing them to imagine it’s a physical problem, and then it becomes a physical problem. So I’m interested to know why we have not seen any details about Jared Kushner’s peace proposal that he’s putting together. Until we see it, it’s hard to say too much about whether it be a good or bad idea. But it does seem to me that there’s a way out, that there is an off-ramp if people want to take it. And the off-ramp would be to think of real estate the way God would and not the way people do. If you think that God
[8:28]
is looking at Zillow—God picking up a Zillow app and saying, “All right, well dudes, do you see there’s a boundary around here? Like, this is the legal boundary around the Holy Land.” God isn’t doing that. In fact, God probably isn’t really too caught up on location. I would think God isn’t too concerned about topsoil. So whatever it is that God is thinking about real estate can’t be what humans are thinking. You’ve got to think those are different concepts. So you’ve got humans fighting over their own interpretation of holy lands. Why, for example, do you think that God would be angered if the definition of the holy lands was simply expanded? Instead of saying when God said
[9:30]
“This place over here is the Holy Land,” did he say just this much as the Holy Land? Was God that specific? Did he say Holy Land is only this much, and as soon as you get out of this little ring, you are no longer in the Holy Land? You’re in the unholy land? Soon as your foot goes over that line, you’re totally in the unholy land? Did God have boundary markers and fences? I don’t think so. I’m no religious scholar, but I believe… Oh, somebody’s saying that the Torah spells out the boundary perfectly. Well, I’d love to look into that. But my guess is that nobody would have a problem with expanding the size of the holy lands, would you? Well, why don’t we just expand the size of the holy lands? What would that take? Well, it would probably take some religious
[10:31]
scholars to say, “Look, God is not small. God is not a real estate broker. Why isn’t it all holy?” Why can’t we say the Palestinian properties that they’re currently residing on, why can’t they be holy too? Why don’t we just holy-fy that whole thing? I see that when I talk like this, people don’t like it. There’s a lot of mental resistance to this kind of conversation. By the way, that’s a very tiny part of what’s in this book I wrote back in 2001, God’s Debris. I won’t tell you how that book turns out; don’t want to ruin it for you. Earth is the only land, yep. God says don’t change his words. Well, let’s see how. And by the way, if anybody
[11:33]
could forward me an English translation of where the Torah or whatever the other—do the Palestinians have a similar kind of document that spells out what the holy lands are? Does it work both ways? Do both sides have a specific geography that they think God gave them? And are they completely the same? Is the Palestinian idea of the exact borders of the Holy Land that they are entitled to—does it overlap exactly? Because I doubt it does. There might be some places that are more controversial than others. “Look in my computer”—that’s a heck of an idea. Maybe I should look in my computer for things, but I know in advance there are some types of things that when I try to Google them, they never come up. I’ll tell you the least productive argument, and it’s one that I just saw go by. There are
[12:35]
people who are saying—here’s the worst way to think about it, and it’s the popular way. The worst way to think about it is: who was there first, and who kicked somebody out, and is there something called the Palestinian people, is there a land called Palestine? All of those questions are unproductive and bad thinking because those are the questions that get you to exactly where you are. If the old way—you’ve heard this before—if the old way of thinking got us where we are, it’s not going to get us out of where we are. It’s got us where we are. So if you’re saying the old thinking—there is no definition of Palestinians, there’s no Palestine land, or God gave this land to these people—any of those things that are part of the existing
[13:37]
thinking that’s got us to where we are. So if you’re happy with that, that’s fine. Now I’ve said before that Israel doesn’t really have an incentive for peace because they’re in a strong position, and mostly—I hate to say it—but it’s not the Israelis who are dying lately. So from their perspective, they’re in a good negotiating position because they’re in the strong position. But Iran kind of changes the equation a little bit. If Iran is trying to get aggressive and create a situation where at some point they can threaten Israel in a more direct way, then Israel does have a big mortal danger that they need to worry about. That gives you something to negotiate with. So it turns out that Iran might be the key to solving everything in the Middle East. Because Israel wouldn’t need to
[14:38]
negotiate anything if Iran were not making big moves that are both supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, but also putting assets in Syria that recently got bombed. So if you take Iran out of the deal, Israel doesn’t need to make any peace. All they have to do is keep shooting people who try to come across the border and they’re fine. But they do need to make peace because the larger issues of the region are going to force that upon them. And so I think there’s a way to go, but it won’t be with the old thinking. I’d love to see Jared’s peace proposal, but I think the key will be: remember the key to any negotiation is you need a way where everybody wins. The people who are dying by the dozens even today, unfortunately, apparently the moving the embassy to Jerusalem has caused
[15:38]
a lot of protests and there have been dozens of deaths just in the last 24 hours. I understand it’s getting very ugly there. So let’s see Jared’s plan and let’s see if there’s a thing we can suggest adding to it or tweaking to make it palatable for everyone else. But can you imagine, for example, that the literal dirt from the holy lands could be bulldozed out from, let’s say, some part of Israel that they don’t need the dirt, and just moved somewhere and actually redistributed? Imagine if every Palestinian had—this is just a mental exercise, I’m not suggesting this is serious—but imagine if you actually owned some of the Holy Land. You had a bucket of it and you had your own house, but it was on the edges
[16:38]
of the Holy Land. Does God care that much? We’ll find out. Hamas, will they accept peace? Well, the thing that we never know about Hamas and the Palestinians in general: we don’t know what is the opinion of their leaders versus what is the opinion of the people, because there could be some difference there. Hamas wants the Jews dead? That’s true because of their current situation, but it is not true that all Muslims want all Jews dead. So there’s certainly a place we could end up where nobody wants
[17:40]
anybody dead. Distribute Boring Company bricks from Israel? Oh my god, that’s a good idea. Did you hear that? I think I just saw one of the best ideas of all time just go by, so let me repeat it. Elon Musk has this side company that bores tunnels; it’s called The Boring Company—B-O-R-I-N-G because that’s funny, but it’s also a great name for a company. He has announced that that Boring Company, when it bores its tunnels, will create a lot of dirt that it doesn’t need and it will learn to turn those into bricks. Imagine if, since Israel is probably, I assume, continually building, that you can actually be producing holy bricks and you could actually use those holy bricks to build up Hamas in their own
[18:42]
territory. So you can actually take your house—you can actually be living inside Holy Land. Your walls could actually be Israel. That’s a really good idea. It’s one of those ideas that if you just sort of started from zero and said, “Hey Hamas, we got this great idea. Forget everything you’ve been doing—kill Israel and everything else—but we’ve got these great bricks for you.” The first time you hear the idea, you go, “Get the hell out of here, right? This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Bricks? No, we don’t want bricks. We want you all dead. We want to take over Israel.” So that would be the first impression. But if you aren’t eventually going to get to some kind of a result, everybody has to get flexible. There’s no way around that. And if I said to you—let me game this out a little bit. I love this idea.
[19:42]
I’m not convinced this is a solution. We’re gonna talk about this for fun, and for those of you who are new to my Periscopes, you know that we sometimes talk about ideas that are not quite practical—sort of the bad version of an idea because it might inspire you to think of a better version just through the creative process. So this is not a good idea; this is just the start of our thinking. Maybe somebody has a better one. Suppose you said not to the leadership of Hamas, but now we’re talking to just an ordinary Palestinian. An ordinary Palestinian who under ordinary situations would support their leadership and they too wish Israel didn’t exist and wish they could return and they wish a number of things. But suppose you went to that individual Palestinian and said, “Here’s the deal. You don’t have a house; we’re gonna build you a house. We’re gonna use
[20:45]
Saudi money, we’re gonna use money from somewhere, and this will be sort of our reparations kind of situation. We’re gonna use bricks that actually come from the Holy Land from this Boring Company. And those bricks we will give you for free and we’ll help you build your house. When you’re done, you’re gonna have a house and you’re gonna be living in the frickin’ Holy Land inside your own house.” Is that better? Is that better or worse than renting in Israel? Those are your choices if you’re a Palestinian. You’re not leadership; you just care about your family. You’re not so big about “destroy Israel,” but it’s part of the party you belong to, so you’re buying into it. But you’re more concerned with your family. You’re more concerned about living. If you got that deal—a free house,
[21:45]
bricks that literally came from the Holy Land so you can live inside God’s own holy house, your own house, and it’s a free house and it’s the end of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians—would you take the deal? Put yourself in that position. You’re a Palestinian and you get a free house and it is literally made of bricks from the Holy Land. Do you take it? So you’re saying that they would not take the free house? I think that the leadership would resist because they’d say, “Stop giving us bricks when we need a homeland, and God would not be happy with that.” So the leadership would certainly resist. But if you’re just a person who wants to get by, you’re just an ordinary Palestinian who just cares about your
[22:47]
family and living and worshipping your God, I think you take the free house made of the Holy Land. That’s my feeling. And I think that if you were to build entire settlements out of Holy Land bricks, I don’t know, that looks a lot like the Holy Land to me. Because the location—again, remember—the location has changed because the planet has moved since God gifted the land. If you move the stuff that was there, the bricks, over to some Palestinian property, and then that property all becomes brick homes, that becomes sort of the Holy Land extended. Somebody says that’s a terrible idea and a terrible argument. I accept those criticisms. Remember, we’re just brainstorming here, but it would be more helpful if you gave me reasons. I’ve given you a challenge to find me a Palestinian who
[23:50]
would not take that deal if they’re not terribly political. If you find me a Palestinian who’s marching the front lines and risking their life to destroy Israel, well, that person won’t take this offer. But I suspect that the number of people who are Palestinians minding their own business is far bigger than the number who are actually risking their lives to take over Israel. They want their own land? Well, in this model, they would own the land that the bricks are on top of. So they would essentially be enclosed in the Holy Land. “The Saudis won’t pay you to help the Shia.” Yeah, things are complicated over there, but it does seem to me that everybody over there has an interest in a solution because it’s a solution that will help them do
[24:50]
everything—fight the bad guys, etc. “It’s about votes, not land. Solving the wrong root cause.” Well, doesn’t that depend on whether it’s a two-state or one-state solution? For the people who say it’s a bad idea, please give your reasons. I’m not arguing that it’s a good idea, but I’d love to see your reasons. Wouldn’t God be proud of us for finding a peaceful solution? See, now that’s a productive reframing of the situation. Can God really be happy with this situation? I don’t think he can. Would God be happy if everybody found a peaceful way to live together? That sounds pretty much like
[25:52]
a God thing to me. I’m no religious expert. “The reason is that Palestinians are ideological.” Yes, Palestinians are ideological. That’s why it’s a good idea, not a bad idea. Because it’s an idea which addresses the ideological part, and the ideology is that there’s something called the Holy Land and it’s made up of location and stuff. That’s all it is. So if the location is irrelevant because the planet moved and the stuff is actually what is used to create your house, I would think you’d be closer to God, not further from God, if you’re literally wrapped in holy dirt. “Palestinians will never compromise.” Let me put this to you: Donald Trump
[26:58]
will never become the President of the United States. North Korea will never give up their nuclear weapons. Palestinians will never agree to a peace deal. We’re no longer in a time and place where impossible things don’t happen. We are literally in a time when the impossible seems to be happening on a regular basis. Do you know that there’s a Tesla automobile in space? Everything that we thought we knew about what is possible just doesn’t apply anymore. Some of this was always mental, and we’ve discovered that our big problems are mental problems. Give me a Palestinian who isn’t a political activist—an ordinary Palestinian who does believe in
[28:00]
all the things that the leadership believes, but they’re not really on the front lines. Give me that ordinary Palestinian and tell me they don’t take a free house made of holy dirt and an end to the conflict. I don’t believe that person is common, anyway. Certainly some exist, but I don’t think it’s common. “Planet move argument doesn’t hold water.” Real estate on earth is based on relative positions to other things on earth, but my point is that if you’re God, do you care about only the things a little bit…? Let me give you—I think this is a fair analogy. Analogies are not persuasive, but sometimes they can
[29:02]
introduce you to a new way of thinking. So that’s how I’m using it. This is not a persuasive analogy; I’m just introducing you to a new way of thinking. When I put on my clothes and then I walk outside, have I changed my location? Here’s your thought experiment: if I put on clothes inside my house and then I walk down the street, have I changed my location? No, I haven’t changed my location. It’s a trick question. Where I’m located hasn’t changed because my body relative to my clothes has not changed. I put on my clothes in the house and I walk down the street, but the location of my body to my shirt is exactly the same, location to my shoes exactly the same. So I’m in the same place. Oh, I’m not, you say? So it’s not about my relative location to other
[30:05]
objects? So it’s really about my relative location to my house, for example, because I got dressed at my house. So let’s say I put my house on one of those big tractor trailers, cut it in half, and move it to a new location. The house moved. It’s getting complicated now, right? Because those of you who are saying, “Well, according to the traditional rules of real estate, this fence marks my territory because it is northeast of this property, which is defined by its location to other properties”—it’s a big chain of everything is where it is because of its relationship to something else. Somebody says it’s deeper than physical. Of course! And that is my entire point: that the physical we can rise above. If we’re talking, if
[31:08]
we’re arguing about dirt and real estate, then we’re at too low a level. Let’s take it up a level. Let’s take it up to God level. From a God point of view, our little human concepts of real estate are ridiculous. I’m just saying take it up to God level. I’m not saying anybody gives up anything. I’m saying take it out of dumb idiot views of what real estate is and means, and location and dirt—these are human stuff. We can’t make any kind of decision in the weeds. Take it up a level. Think about location and holy places from more of a God view. I’m pretty sure that God would be happy with a solution more than God would be happy with looking at, “Well, it looks like the boundaries of my holy
[32:08]
lands have now changed hands again, just like I hoped.” That doesn’t feel like a God view to me. We are not God, that is correct, and therefore our interpretations of what God meant by holy lands and real estate has to be suspect. It’s something that we could maybe improve on. Wouldn’t God have intended his definition of the holy lands to be in human terms? Well, if he did, I don’t know that he meant for us to be at war over it. Do you think that God said, “Hey, a good situation would be to let these humans not understand what I meant by the holy lands just so they’ll fight over it”? Was that a God point of view? Doesn’t
[33:09]
sound like it. So if humans could solve God’s puzzle… let me put it to you another way. It is as if—I’m no religious scholar, but work with me here—it seems as if there’s a reason that God, if we assume there is a God, didn’t solve all our problems from the start. Because the atheists will say to you, “Well, why wouldn’t God just solve all our problems and take away our pain?” It seems as though our problems are here for us to work through to get closer to God. So the better you are at solving your little human problems of working with each other and loving each other, the closer you get to God. The people on the Palestinian side, the people on the Israeli side, they are currently doing what God does not want them to do, which is kill each other. No God wanted that.
[34:09]
What God wants is for us to unlock the puzzle to figure out how to solve it without violating what God wants, and just changing what people do. What people do is we have this weird concept of real estate and “this dirt is the holy land.” We can get into that if we want. You give me some of those holy bricks from the Holy Land, and I’m gonna feel like I’m closer to God if I’m surrounded by the land that you believe he blessed. We can think our way out of this and God is not going to be unhappy—assuming a God exists. Somebody said, “What if you die and find out that God just likes a good fight?” Yeah, can’t rule it out. I wonder
[35:10]
what would happen if there was a peace plan on the table in which ordinary Palestinians were polled and said, “All right, here’s the deal. This is why it’s good for you. What do you say?” I’d love to know what the actual people think as opposed to the leadership. Knowing the history of the temples and the previous civilization is helpful. Yeah, certainly whatever solution you have has to give everybody access to the holy sites. But I think everybody agrees on that. I don’t think there’s anybody on either side who doesn’t buy into the notion that people should be able to visit. Well, there’s always somebody who disagrees with everything, but generally speaking, having access to holy sites is going to be the thing that’s easiest, I think. All right, comments disappeared… there they’re back again.
[36:13]
“Then you are misinformed.” Well, I do understand that either side—the extremists—would say, “My god, you can’t have a Muslim in this room,” or “You can’t have a Jew in this room because God will be offended.” What I’m saying is that those are not the big problems; those are the ones you can work with. That stuff won’t stop us. So let’s do this—now this will be interesting to you. I’ve seen a number of comments go by that say, “This is the dumbest idea” and “Scott, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” And that is true; I do not know what I’m talking about when it comes to the Middle East. I think we’re all in this learning process and we’re getting
[37:14]
smarter as we go, I hope. But give me your opinion. Was this… I don’t know if “useful” is the right word, but did you enjoy this way of thinking or not? Give me your feedback right now because I don’t know if I want to do more of these. All right, I’m just looking at your comments now. It’s no surprise that the comments are very bifurcated. You’re getting some hard “no”s and some very hard “yes”es. That, by the way, would not be surprised, is exactly the reviews you’ll see on Amazon for this book. If you look at the reviews, you’ll see some of the worst reviews for a book you’ve ever seen in your life—humorously bad. There are people who bought this book, read it cover-to-cover, and then returned it to the store for a refund because they were so angry. But
[38:15]
you know that most of the reviews are five-star, and the five-star reviews quite often say it’s the best book they’ve ever read. All right, so that’s what this book does to you: it’s gonna make you hate it really hard or it’s gonna make your head spin in your skull. So you’ve got two choices there. “You do not know what you’re talking about. Read the Bible.” Those of you who say I don’t know what I’m talking about—read the Bible—you’re right. I would argue that there’s nobody who really understands the Middle East. So I’m putting out ideas, looking for comments, and seeing if we can sort of build our collective understanding of what’s going on over there to just a little bit higher level. I will not ever profess anything like a good understanding of
[39:15]
the Middle East, nor do I believe anybody else when they say they have one. It’s all relative, but nobody quite knows what’s going on over there in detail. All right, I think that’s enough for today and I’m going to run off and do something else and I will talk to you tomorrow. All right, bye.