That Israel/Palestine Thing.

There's been conflict in the Middle East for the past 5000 years or so. Obviously, we can't just fix it it all in a handful of hastily-typed paragraphs. Or can we?

No, we can't. But we can totally solve the Israel/Palestine part. We'll get to the rest later.

Here's the deal. We've got two groups of people who both lay claim to a hunk of land. But it's not about just any land. It's holy land. So simple relocation won't work, even if you used an internationally-recognized arbitration system like rock-paper-scissors (two out of three).

So to crack this nut, we'll call on the advice of one of the original problem-solvers and personal hero of mine, King Solomon.

That's right. We're going to cut it in half. When King Solomon ruled that the baby claimed by two women be cut in half, the true mother proved herself because she would rather give up the baby than see it harmed. Ideally this would work here, too. Either the Israelis or Palestinians would say, "oh no, we'd rather see the holy land occupied by our enemies than destroyed." Easy peasy, rightful owner determined.

But we're not idealists. We're pragmatists. Chances are slim that either party will make it that simple. So we'll have to follow through. We split the land. We cut every temple in half. Then we build out a second land mass into the Mediterranean, just like they did with Chicago into Lake Michigan. Then each land mass gets half the holy stuff.

Half is better than nothing, right? Plus, they each get to create jobs for the people moving everything. Artisans can work to replicate the second halves of the artifacts for each side. Tourism goes up because people will have to make two pilgrimages.

But you're asking who gets to stay in the "old" land and who gets the "new". Even cut in half, one is clearly better because it's the original, right? Wrong. Because the new one has all the beaches (excepting the Dead Sea).

So there you go. One Israel. One Palestine. Each with their own broken heart pendant of cultural and religious identity. The primary source of conflict in the Middle East stabilized. And all we have to do is move some mountains.

Or we could just do time shares. It works in Aspen.