The Dilbert Mideast Peace Plan

Cartoonist Scott Adams has always held a special - albiet quirky - place on my bookshelf for writing things that go way beyond scrawled comic strips about corporate office culture, a befuddled engineer with a permanently bent tie, ascerbic Dogbert, and the Pointy-Haired boss.

Two of his books were New York Times best sellers, and his deeply off-the-wall/off-the-deep-end view of reality always attracted the unhinged part of me. Anyway, I came across the following reading James Taranto's Best of the Web in the Wall Street Journal, which led to more first-morning-coffee time wasting, reading his peace plan for our beloved region. So, I figure why not waste a few minutes together while you read it over, too. It's ok, I'll wait:

On paper, Israel deeds all of its lands to Jordan – a relatively friendly Muslim country – and leases the land back for eternity. That way, Muslims satisfy their religious requirement that land once belonging (in their opinion) to Muslims, always belongs to Muslims. In this plan, Israel would pay some manageable “rent” for all of the land it occupies, including the settlements. Think of it like a shop owner paying protection money to the local Mafia. It’s repugnant, but it works. And it’s cheaper than permanent war.

(Cross-posted at Israelity)