A Sieve: A Proposal to Save Lives in the Israeli-Hamas War

Let me start this by a disclaimer. I am not an expert in the Middle East. I am not an expert in war at all. But the video below shows what happens when ordinary folks stand idly by and leave everything to the "experts".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzvt0gTAXvA

My job is to provide ideas to disrupt the way things have been done before. Indeed, when I created mobile, remote, interactive queueing, for example, people had been standing in line for thousands of years, and I had no expertise in queueing at all. And yet, daring to try something different led to hundreds of millions of people saving more time of waiting in line than all of recorded history.

And the way Israel has been handling the conflict with Palestinians for the last 75 years has arguably not worked so well.

So hear me out.

I am of course heartbroken by the loss of life that HAMAS inflicted on Israelis, many of them children. I am also heartbroken by the Palestinians killed by Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, many of them children.

Nobody can pretend that Israel do nothing in response to the HAMAS terrorist attack. But the current response of bombing a densely populated urban area is a) killing and injuring lots of innocent people, and b) counterproductive to Israeli security, for every innocent death or injury creates tens if not hundreds of new vengeful enemies for Israel.

So what can be done? My suggestion is what I will call a sieve. Just one letter of difference with a siege, but a world of difference. The idea is to provide volunteer Palestinians safe conduit through a security checkpoint at which they are each photographed and compared to known terrorists. Anybody clearing the checkpoint is to be allowed into a temporary safe zone with water, food and medicine --and no weapons.

The sieve has multiple benefits. First, it can allow safe passage to innocent Palestinians, including children, reducing the number of innocent victims of the war. Second, it will reduce the number of people left to go through in order to find hostages and terrorists, simplifying the task.

Now I am not claiming this would be easy. First, Palestinians might well be suspicious, and many of them won't take advantage of this. But that's no reason not to make it available. Many people have known to flee war zones.

Second, sifting through two million inhabitants of the Gaza strip is no trivial task. But Israel welcomes almost 5 million tourists a year, so if border control authorities can do that, the IDF can certainly sift through a fraction of two million with their $23 billion annual peacetime budget.

Third, there is the cost. But a million Palestinians could be fed for a month for 2% of the annual IDF budget.

Fourth, there is the question of where to do this. Whether it's done in Gaza or in Israel near the border, the entire population of Gaza currently lives in an area less than 2% the area of Israel, so if there is a will, temporary space can be found.

Fifth, there is the possibility that Hamas terrorists get through the security checkpoint. But would the IDF prefer to have to look for them in tunnels under Gaza, or have them present themselves to be inspected? An effective program for whistleblowers could also be effective. Besides, we are not talking about inviting Palestinians to live in Israeli communities, but in stand-alone camps.

Look --a million difficulties can be found --and overcome. But I'd rather deal with a million difficulties than a million dead bodies.

The bottom line is that innocent people who want out of a war zone should be let out.