By Jeffrey Rubin, PhD
Welcome To From Insults To Respect.
As I write this post, the United States, having provoked a destructive war with Iran, is currently engaged in seeking a lasting peace agreement. 
A primary U.S. goal in this negotiation process is to arrange for a process that will assure that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons. Many billions of dollars have been spent toward achieving this goal, along with lives lost, including school children, and widespread building and infrastructure destruction. Given these losses, it is time to ask, how important is it to spend even more effort and resources to get an agreement with Iran to give up its nuclear bomb ambitions?
Asking this question leads me to think about how effective these types of weapons are for achieving military goals.
Consider these facts. The U.S. engaged in a lengthy, deadly war with Vietnam, the military goal of which was to prevent Vietnam from becoming a communist country. Despite the U.S. having many nuclear bombs, they were never used, ended up serving no military purpose, and the U.S. lost the war.
The U.S. has since engaged in several other wars, one with Iraq, one with Afghanistan, and most recently, with Iran. Its goal for fighting them was regime changes that would be cooperative with the U.S. Throughout these wars, the U.S. has had plenty of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, they ended up serving absolutely no military purpose, and the U.S. failed to accomplish its military goal.
Russia has plenty of nuclear weapons. It engaged in a war with Afghanistan and is currently engaged in one with Ukraine. Its nuclear arsenal has been absolutely zero in helping achieve its military goals. Meanwhile, China has long desired to take over the government of Taiwan. Despite having numerous nuclear bombs, it has not achieved its goal.
Now, let’s consider what would happen if Iran did obtain nuclear bombs. It has the goal of getting people living in Israel to leave so the Palestinians can return to lands now inhabited by the Israelis. If Iran was to use a nuclear bomb on Israel, the radiation fallout would drift over to where the Palestinians are currently residing, killing and sickening tens of thousands, and the very land that the Palestinians want to return to would become poisonous.
Since nuclear bombs have become available to numerous countries, I fail to see any way they helped any to achieve a single military purpose. 
Though some may argue that since the two atomic bombs used on Japan did manage to quickly end World War II eighty years ago, they may yet serve a military purpose in the future. But let’s think about why such bombs have not been used since then?
First of all, when the U.S. used the atomic bombs they were the only country to have them. Therefore, there was no chance of an atomic bomb being used to retaliate. This is no longer the case. Moreover, because of the incredible loss of life of civilians, including numerous children when those bombs were used, the morality of again using such weapons has been viewed as unforgivable. 
And since the creation of atomic bombs, there have been new developments to these weapons, moving them from fission explosions to fusion explosions which is several hundred times more deadly. Radiation spread from such explosions would not just kill and sicken the perceived enemies, it would also kill and sicken millions of people in countries that are friends with the country using the bomb, thus making their use unthinkable.
In light of the uselessness of these types of bombs for achieving military objectives, is it not ridiculous that the U.S. has already spent several hundred billions of dollars to prevent Iran from gaining these types of weapons? Would Iran really benefit from laying out the cost to develop them? Is it not completely a waste of time for the U.S. to be continuing to offer enormous concessions to Iran as it negotiates a treaty that is hoped to reduce the chances of Iran to ever acquire such weapons, despite the likelihood Iran is very likely to secretly get around any such agreements?
From the arguments that I provided above, my guess is the U.S. is wasting an enormous amount of resources to try to prevent such weapon development. I invite readers to express their thoughts on this hot topic.
There are also regions where the land is relatively fertile, and life on farms can be rather fulfilling. Regions in which universities and other educational institutions that have sprung up tend to be laid out on fairly attractive grounds. Earning a living by supporting these facilities tends to lead to a reasonably comfortable way of life.
The rest of the area is dominated by the Negev desert and the Judean desert. More than half of the region’s total land area is desert.
The other area where most Palestinians live is the West Bank, which is mostly rugged dissected upland, with some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east. In springtime, the khamsini, a dry, warm easterly wind, often blows from the extensive deserts of Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. This continues for a period of roughly fifty days. The khamsini carries fine desert sand that lends the sultry air an ominous yellow hue during the day. The desert sand falls to the ground as a result of short rain showers. The fine sand is a health hazard for people suffering from bronchitis, and is detrimental to vegetation, motors, and machinery.
The water situation in Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) is dire and it affects the quality of life, health and economic situation of every Palestinian. In some rural areas the water supply is far below the amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Where most of the Israelis live, the water situation is somewhat better, but it is far more expensive to keep it flowing than what most Americans and Europeans have to deal with. Currently, those who are living in this Middle East region have every reason to believe they are stuck there–with armed guards stationed at their borders.
There we find a vibrant neighborhood officially known as Bay Ridge, but it has been given the nickname “Little Palestine.” Thousands of Arab-Americans live there. They have their share of rally’s advocating for the freeing of Palestine, but they are peaceful. Another neighborhood, Bensonhurst, is an easy walk from Bay Ridge. Thousands of Jews live there, and yet there are no rockets being fired from Bay Ridge into Bensonhurst. Nor do we find any of the Arab-Americans flinging rocks at anyone.
Then there are the numerous tree-lined streets and green, wooded Prospect Park with rowers enjoying its lovely lake.
Like those living on Native American reservations, Palestinians living in Brooklyn’s neighborhood can choose to continue living there, or they could freely move to any of the fifty U.S. states. If they desire, they can freely move back to their old Brooklyn neighborhood. They can obtain visas to visit other countries. In my view, this freedom takes enough of an edge off of any disagreements to eliminate violence.
Today, most people conceptualize the main issues of the conflict pretty much like the independent, nonpartisan think tank 
The biblical story of Moses describes a narrative that is helpful for understanding this theory. After struggling to survive for forty years in the desert that lies between Egypt and Israel, Moses’ weary followers come to view, off in the distance, the “land of milk and honey.” Moses then tells his Jewish people that God has declared that this land can belong to them if they kill all of the people currently living there. Even though the inhabitants of this desirable land had never done the desert wanderers any harm, they choose to engage in the brutal slayings.
The Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David McCullough, has acquired a set of relevant information.
And then George Washington, with the support from others, opened the vast Northwest Territory to pioneers who were willing to face incredible risks, hard work, and, like Moses’ followers, kill the natives of the region so they could gain ownership of a piece of property that had an ample water supply and fertile land.
We had landed sick among strangers, with no well-known friend to meet us with kindly greeting, and myself destined to be confined to bed from which, for a time, there seemed little hope that I should ever rise in health. Such was our introduction to pioneer life. 
To risk your own life along with that of your wife and children would typically be viewed as terribly wrong under most situations. Typically viewed as terribly wrong is the willing killing of fellow human beings because you want the land they are living on. To choose to do all of this while also knowing that the life you are heading toward involves backbreaking work may seem crazy to most of us, but such was the decision made by the hundreds of thousands of pioneers, all of this for a piece of rich land they could call their own. Please note that these pioneers were not Muslims, but Christians. For those who think the cause of the current Middle East is due the Muslim faith, please keep this in mind.
In the land where Israelis and Palestinians are living, there are regions where we see land beside the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. There, many people are thriving. Their jobs support seafood harvesting, international trade, and tourists arriving on ships. There are a few other regions where the inhabitants do very well, such as where the religious sites are. There, tourists flock, and by engaging in the restaurant, tour guide, and hotel industries, many in the region make out very well. 
After World War II, no nation was willing to take any but a tiny few of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Where could those now living in Israel go if they are pushed out of Israel? The answer leads them to hold on to the land they currently possess for dear life.
Add to all of this, the fact that these Palestinians are living in one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Moreover, they know the population there is rapidly growing. So, it is pretty clear to everyone living in this region that life for their children is likely to get worse.
Although different reasons are given for these violent conflicts, according to my theory, the real central reason was that the have nots who were being pushed out toward the more desert parts of this region could readily see from views up in the hills those who were living in the dramatically better lands; this aroused violently strong desires to obtain what they did not have–fertile land with ample water.
Recently, these Jews and Arabs marched shoulder to shoulder with one another and with their Black brothers in support of Black Lives Matter.
It is now over seventy years since the United Nations General Assembly declared its majority recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states, and both sides have been violently fighting over this ever since. It is not that there is something inherently evil about Palestinian or Jewish people. When Jews were seeking to establish the Israel lands as theirs, a group of them organized a terrorist organization. Palestinians have found that sections of their population are willing to carry out terrorists acts. Why can’t this be settled peacefully? If my theory is correct, it doesn’t matter if you are Palestinian, Jewish, Christian or anything else. When any people find themselves living on lands that is too hard to thrive, some of them will act violently to seek a better life. Blaming such groups, viewing them as being entirely evil serves nothing but to further hate and distractions.
