The world media is in a bizarre race these days. Everyone wants to get as many details as possible on President Obama's new plan to end the conflict in the Middle East. But let's face it - we all know the drill by heart. We shall experience an optimistic vibe all around, then a summit conference full of nice photo ops of smiling leaders. A week later, they will come out of the summit with a short statement of goodwill, and a long list of excuses to explain why, once again, the conflict cannot be solved.

Maybe it's time to think outside the box. Maybe it's about time to stop counting on our leaders, and end this fiasco in a different way. Here are six easy ways to end the conflict in the Middle East:  

The Judgment of Solomon - Obama sits with the Israelis, the Palestinians and a map. Suddenly he gets up and shouts to Rahm Emanuel, "Bring me my biggest sword, and I shall hew this country in half. Each of you shall receive a half." The first side to cry out and give up will win the land, as they have proven they love it more. The problem with this idea is that the Jews will have an unfair advantage -- after all, they already know the story, and besides, I'm not sure Obama owns a sword.

Heads or Tails - Of course, the matter is much too serious to solve with a simple coin toss. We will have to use real heads and tails. All we need is a suicide bomber on a horse . The problem with this method is that Jordan will object. They know that if the Palestinians lose, they might suggest "Double or Nothing".

Reality Show - Harness the ancient wisdom of American TV. Produce the biggest reality show ever. Even if it sucks, it will be better than NBC's  fall schedule.  We can make it "Big Brother" style, but with 10 million participants. Each week, viewers from around the world will eliminate one resident. Granted, the show will end in 2099, but at least that way we know for sure it actually will end.

The Basketball System - Just like in basketball the land will go to whoever catches it first. All we need is one Iranian A-bomb to lift it up.

I Never - Trust our leaders to negotiate, but make them do it in a bar. Everyone sits around the table. One leader goes first, making a true statement that starts with "I never..." For example, "I never agreed to joint sovereignty  in Jerusalem". Then, any leader who agrees with what has just been said -- drinks. After nine or ten rounds, everyone will at least have a much better attitude. An additional a twist could be to not allow anybody to go to the rest room before there is a signed agreement. This is going to be the first peace treaty sponsored by Budweiser. The heading will read: I love you, dude!

"Doctor, when my arm heals will I be able to play the violin?"
"Sure - I don't see why not."
"Great! I could never play it before!"
-- A bad joke with an important point.

Israel is afflicted with diplomatic "doctors" like the one in that joke. They identify one reason why Israel has not achieved peace - sometimes a true and important reason - and then jump to the groundless conclusion that solving that issue will therefore bring peace. But like the patient who won't be able to play the violin even after his arm heals, Israel will not have peace even after the alleged cure, because the state of war is due to fundamental conditions it fails to address. If you never learn to play the violin, it doesn't matter how healthy your arm is.

So we read, time and again, self-proclaimed analysts explaining that "the settlements make a peace deal impossible." That may be true, I admit. But it does not imply that removing them would make a deal possible. Just as evacuating Gaza (or Lebanon) did not bring peace any closer there. The state of war was not a result of Israel's presence in Gaza, but if anything a cause of it. Eliminating the effect cannot remove the cause.

"Israel will not have peace without dividing Jerusalem." Again, that may be. But neither will we have peace if we do divide Jerusalem, God forbid.

"There is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict." Perhaps. But that doesn't mean there is a potential diplomatic solution.

"Syria won't agree to peace without the entire Golan." Probably not. But all indications are that even forfeiting the entire Golan would not bring peace with Syria.

"The Palestinians can't strike a deal as long as they're divided between Fatah and Hamas, West Bank and Gaza." True again. But there's no evidence that they could strike a deal were they undivided either.

The worst culprits tend to be those Western liberal academics who tell us that "the terms of a final-status peace agreement are known; what's missing is the political will on both sides to implement it." As if there's a well-defined set of legalistic, logistical and structural arrangements which could yield peace were they only implemented.

If both sides were comprised of Western liberal academics, that may be the case. But we're not, on either side. Israelis and Arabs have fundamental differences in our attitudes to this land and our rights to it. That's what the so-called experts dismiss as "political will." But all the tunnels, bridges and international forces in the world can't bridge those gaps in attitudes and goals. Peace is not being blocked by the lack of logistics, but by essential and apparently unbridgeable differences of outlook.

Ultimately, Israel will not have peace until its Arab neighbors come to accept that we have the right to sovereignty here as a Jewish state - or at least that we're not going anywhere in the foreseeable future, and so they have more important things to do than continue fighting us in vain. Without one of those changes in Arab mindset, all the arm-healing in the world won't teach them to play the violin. None of the other alleged obstacles to peace is relevant so long as the core grievance remains.    

Cross-posted at Biur Chametz. 

Growing up in Argentina, my girlfriend Gabriela and her sister Paola cherished ice-cream day. On that day they got to eat as much ice-cream as they could. Only there was a catch. Gabriela’s mother employed the ice cream rule: during ice-cream time, the rule was that one sibling would decide how much ice-cream would go into each bowl, while the other had the right to first pick. That way, if one of the sibling had distributed the ice-cream unevenly, the other benefited. It was an ingenious system designed for fairness.

Now, what if we could employ the ice-cream rule to the Arab-Israeli conflict? Imagine the following: President Obama meets with Abbas and Livni/Netanyahu. He gives the latter a map and says, “Go ahead, two states for two people. You draw the boundaries, you choose a capital, and you decide where people have a right to reside. There will be no opposition or interference from Abbas. However, once you finish, it is up to Abbas alone to choose which side to take.”

Is there any question as to how the conflict would be resolved? Half a bowl of ice-cream for Abbas and half for Livni. Of course, such an approach would seemingly not be in Israel’s immediate interest since she possesses more than half of historic Palestine (the much more developed side as well). However, as has become clear to many across the Israeli political spectrum, if in the immediate future there is no viable solution to the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, Israel's territorial advantage (along with its demographic baggage) will be her undoing.

Thinking over a divided land, I am reminded of the story of King Solomon and the baby. As is told, when two prostitutes came to the king with conflicting claims over ownership of a baby, he adjudicated with a stratagem: "Cut the live child in two", he said, "and give half to one and half to the other." Realizing what is at stake, the real mother came forth and pleaded with the king to give the child to the other woman, "only don't kill the baby." The other woman said, “Cut it in two.” Hearing this, the king immediately returned the child to its rightful mother.

Now it is not out-of-bounds to use this story to champion the vision of a one-state solution, or Greater Israel or Greater Palestine. If the baby is a symbol for the land, then the true owner of the land will not compromise by dividing it into parts. On some kind of mystical level, the land needs to be indivisible and whole. One people, one land / two people, one land. Either way, one land it must remain.

But there is another reading of the story that could be helpful. It seems to me that the moral of the story is that real and unconditional love sometimes means letting go of something that is of ultimate concern. For the child to survive, the mother had to let go of her claims to him. Likewise, if the people of Israel and Palestine love their land as much as they say they do, then they need to let go of their vision of what Palestine and Israel ought to be - not let go of a vision of Palestine or Israel per say, just the one that is keeping them from realizing peace. Israelis and Palestinians are attached to myths (e.g. undivided Jerusalem, right of return) that given the reality on the ground serve no good. A new schema is in order, one that is based on genuine compromise and fairness, not on the unreasonable and exclusive claims of religion and history.

Ehud Olmert's announcement that he would step down from office caught no one by surprise. The drama surrounding the announcement was typical of Olmert, a Prime Minister who has always been much more style than substance.

Israel treats its politicians harshly, even by the cynical standards of the twenty-first century. Almost all leave office under a cloud of disgrace. Where American presidents, even those who left office in disgrace, are generally respected figures in their later lives, even towering figures like Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and David Ben-Gurion, all held in almost idolatrous esteem in the United States, were treated much less ceremoniously in Israel.

On the flipside, disgraced leaders in Israel often have an easier time rehabilitating their image than do leaders in the United States, often even climbing the rungs of party politics to regain positions at the top of government. Such was the case with Ariel Sharon, who rebounded from the debacle of the first Lebanon War in 1982 to regain his position in the Likud Party, eventually becoming its leader and winning the premiership before forming his own party. Ehud Barak suffered the worst defeat of any incumbent Prime Minister ever, yet came back to lead the Labor Party and hold the Defense portfolio. Benjamin Netanyahu left office amid scandal and anger, after being soundly defeated by Barak, yet is currently the leading candidate for Prime Minister in most polls. Both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres regained the office after earlier tenures that were widely regarded as failures.

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The historian J. Rufus Fears noted that great leaders – from Pericles to Lincoln to Churchill – share four characteristics. They are anchored in principles, guided by a moral compass, posses a vision, and have the ability to build consensus to achieve their vision. These are the qualities that differentiate them as statesmen rather than mere politicians.

Unfortunately, the current leadership in Israel is the epitome of mere politicians. Prime-Minister Olmert, for example, is a drunken captain at the helm of a ship headed for an iceberg. An uninspiring power-hungry man mired in corruption and lacking vision, he is leading his country into disaster.

The truth is that people matter. For good or ill, individuals can change the course of history. Recently, the United States has seen what remarkable change the right person can achieve. A tall African-American man did what most thought impossible. No, I am not talking about Barack Obama, but Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett.

The NBA star turned around a team that had been in the basement of the league forStatesmen:: Pericles, Lincoln, Livni, and KG years, whose uniformly awful under-performances of its talent led some fans to believe the team was cursed. But in just one season, Garnett led the Celtics to a championship via the biggest turnaround in league history. How did he do it? With skills, passion, tenacity, determination, and teamwork. In short, he was a true leader, the sort of individual whose rarity underscores their potential to overcome obstacles that had been thought insuperable.

As strange as it may sound, Kevin Garnett gives me hope that the Arab-Israeli conflict can be solved. But the question is, who is going to be our Kevin Garnett? As things stands today, my money is on Tzipi Livni.

While Livni and I are far from ideological soul mates, her tremendous potential is obvious. A woman who embodies the characteristics of the type of leadership that Israel needs, she is honest, sharp as whip, empathic towards her enemies, has a clear vision for Israel’s future, and has shown the ability to build a consensus to achieve her vision. (For example, in 2005 it was Livni who managed to persuade the divided Israeli parliament to ratify Ariel Sharon's controversial plan to withdraw Israel's settlements from Gaza.)

But Livni's most impressive quality is that she is willing to learn and evolve. Not in the selfish service of staying in power, but in the selfless service of her vision of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. And to that end, she has the courage to do what she thinks is right even if it means alienating those who are close to her.

Remember, this is a woman who came from a hardcore right-wing family – her father, former member of Irgun and leader in the Likkud Party, has the map of greater Israel engraved on his tombstone – and who now after realizing the futility and danger of annexing historic Israel has dedicated her political career to creating Jewish and Palestinian states.

The former "Herut princess" undoubtedly has set her father spinning in his grave. But that is exactly what we need. Leaders who have the courage to spin the dead for the sake of the living. Even if it means going against the ones they love most. Like Abraham of old, Livni has smashed the idols of her father's home.

Some people have second-guessed Livni’s political prowess -- especially after, in light of the Winograd report, she called on Olmert to resign but refused to leave her post in protest. Others have cast doubt on Livni as Prime Minister material due to her lack of known security credentials (it is hard to turn classified service in the Mossad into political advantage).

Much of the criticism leveled at her has a clear sexist overtone, effectively boiling down to: "Livni lacks the testicular fortitude to lead a country like Israel. With threats from Hamas, Hizballah, and Iran we simply cannot leave it all to a woman. Tough times call for manly men (i.e. Netanyahu/Mofaz/Barak). Yes there was Golda but she didn't really count. After all, as Ben-Gurion once remarked, Golda was the only man in his cabinet."

In a similar vein, talking about Livni, a friend of mine once said that Israel can never elect or accept a leader that blinks. I hope he is wrong, because again, that is exactly what we need. Not the My Pet Goat type of blinking, but the type that breaks the reflexive and destructive pattern of unthinking stimulus-response that has characterized Israeli leadership. We need a leader that blinks twice, ten times, a hundred times, before sending off children to kill and die in a war. A leader that in between those blinks thinks about the long-term consequence of their actions – for us and for our enemies.

As I said, Kevin Garnett's leadership of the Celtics gives me hope that the Arab-Israeli conflict can be solved. I didn't mean it glibly. He didn't, and couldn't have brought about his team's epic turnaround single-handedly; rather, he did it by making those around him better. He did it by taking to heart the African concept of Ubuntu, which illustrates how our individual success is bound up with the success of those around us. (Literally: 'Ubuntu' was the 2008 Celtics motto.) Perhaps in the end the ability to inspire excellence from others is the true mark of a great leader.

The challenges of the state Livni is likely to soon assume control of, unlike the challenges of Garnett's league, are anything but a game. The lives of millions of people, present and future, depend on Israel's next premier being a statesperson rather than a mere politician. Given the opportunity to lead, Livni would have to inspire excellence not only from her fellow Knesset members, but also from her Palestinian interlocutors. Which is not a low bar to clear, to say the least.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." To what degree Livni can rise to the challenge remains to be seen, but she is a talent more prodigious than any her country has been blessed with in a long time, and she turned up at just the time her country needed such a talent.

Title: The Truth About Camp David Author: Clayton Swisher Description: Before Swisher wrote this book in 2004, conventional wisdom dictated that the collapse of the 2000 Camp David negotiations was all Arafat's fault and that Barak was a victim. Swisher, who was at Camp David, interviewed all the players and demonstrates that Barak was as much responsible for the failure as Arafat. Additionally, he shows that the Clinton "peace team" helped doom the Camp David talks by acting, in negotiator Aaron Miller's words, as "Israel's lawyer" not as an honest broker. This book helps Jews get beyond the blame-the-Palestinians game to the realization that peace was almost achieved, and that the reason it wasn't is due to mistakes, blunders and, in Barak's case, the sheer arrogance of the various parties. The book also helps one understand just how Barak evolved from peace negotiator to the hawk he is today. The answer: he hasn't evolved. He is no more skeptical about negotiating with Palestinians today than he was then. Recommended By: M.J. Rosenberg is the Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum (IPF), a position he has held since the spring of 1998. In this position, MJ heads IPF's Washington, D.C. office and writes IPF Friday, a weekly opinion column on the Arab-Israeli conflict which is widely circulated throughout the United States and the Middle East. In addition, MJ has published numerous op-eds, in the national and Jewish press.

The New Jew Canon is a long-term project that seeks to canonize essential Jewish (and some Non-Jewish) reads as recommended by extraordinary rabbis, experts, and cultural leaders. Suggestions are welcome via comments or tips.

Previously: Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Recommended by Vanessa Ochs