Abstract
As Israel ravages the Gaza Strip, the media and talking heads couch the conflict as being between Israel and Hamas. Yet the conflict’s roots go deeper in substance and further in time (than before Hamas even existed). In this talk I raise and answer two basic yet crucial questions about this conflict, using philosophical tools and concepts to answer them. (1) What is the conflict about (and how complicated is it)? (2) What is the best solution to the conflict (and what does “best” in the question mean)? The talk argues that the conflict is a territorial one at its core, with two groups claiming territorial rights in and to the land that is historic Palestine. The “best” in “best solution” means "the most moral one," both as a final goal and as the means to that goal. I argue that the best solution is a single state for both peoples and that the way to get there is not as hard as some make it out to be.
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