The following is an amalgam of two email messages from Dr. Don Beck.

Thanks, Russ. Looking forward to Elza’s article. This is one talented, bright, and courageous woman. Amazing that What is Enlightenment? keeps looking for “Integral Women” when there are many right in front of their noses, especially those like Elza. It is one thing to write nice articles and work in safe environments, but another thing to go into harm’s way with a difficult concept within a quite dangerous environment. On this last trip to Palestine we offered just what you suggested…a “strategy for integrating” the various peace and other initiatives. These efforts are a dime a dozen and many well-meaning folks land daily at the Tel Aviv airport with hopes and dreams. I’m not critical at all unless they falsely raise expectations in a complex context where the deep cultural memetic codes and experiences are so diverse.

We showed a group of NGOs the well-known “Humpty Dumpty Effect” that illustrates how to integrate, align, and synergize all of the stakeholders – political, economic, religious, educational, law enforcement, health care etc. – to create critical mass and deal with the major developmental gaps and resources that create the surface level conflicts. This graphic seemed to get the attention of the NGO leaders who acknowledged that we hit right on the problem. Elza will be taking the lead in a new Build Palestine Initiative (BPI) that points out that under any boundary scenario, the problems with “gaps and resources” remain in Palestine so that any expression of an independent “state” will be built on sand. Billions of dollars and euros have poured into PLO and Fatah coffers but there is little to show for the investment. So, it is really not about money.

We’ve announced on our first two trips to our local hosts, and through our conversations with leaders and media interviews, that we are not in the “peace” business nor do we offer new approaches to classic “negotiation.” We do not believe that yet another session of uninformed dialogue will make much improvement. We are demonstrating how an “integral engineering design” informed construction of the habitat is what is desperately needed. We have been inspired by the work of the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, especially with the design of its imaginative transportation system called “The Arc” that would connect, the population centers in Palestine.

In my piece on “Hard Truths, Fresh Start” I point out that the memetic contours and platforms of Israel and Palestine are simply at different levels of both complexity and density so that it is impossible to build a bridge across the two. The key issue may well be the creation of superordinate goals along with “thrive and help thrive” efforts to build the economic, political, and social infrastructures in Palestine.

We have now been funded for three more trips so, hopefully, these ideas will continue to spread throughout the power centers in both sectors. In terms of the conditions for large scale change, maybe the timing is right.

Rafi Nasser is doing an excellent job of documentation…I don’t know if you followed the impact of the separation of the conjoined Egyptian twins in Dallas (Dr. Ken Salyer was the head surgeon involved in the separation and just returned from Cairo where he visited with the boys) and how it has become something of a metaphor for ways of understanding the “‘conjoined” Israeli Palestinian connections.

Raffi has a couple more position papers in preparation, and I sense they will be hosted at www.integralisrael.org for the moment. After we have more progress we will most likely write a book similar to The Crucible: Forging South African’s Future. By the way, the l991 book is being republished with updates and an application on the global template and you can find out about it from Cherie Beck, cheriebeck@gmail.com.

The key determinant as to whether Palestinian land and population would form the basis for a viable state has to do with the levels of memetic development as opposed to number of hectares or acres. We are working on position papers for several leading Israeli negotiators as to the judgmental framework “the world” should be using, and both Israeli and Palestine leaders should be considering in forging some type of Palestinian state. While I generally favor the democratic one person, one vote methodology, I do not think it is a universal process. We have seen too many times when it has resulted in anarchy, mass murder, and deeply seated ethnic conflict and divides. We have hinted at this in our Stratified Democracy concept.

Thanks for your interest and assistance, Russ. Clearly we need help.