Oct. 17, 2025 (EIRNS)—The 124th consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition commenced with optimistic remarks by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute Founder and International Peace Coalition initiator. “All reasonable people in the world should be happy about the recent phone call between President Trump and President Putin,” she said, announcing the upcoming meeting between the two Presidents which is scheduled to take place in Budapest. She had no reading yet on the Oct. 17 meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, but predicted that there is now a “big big question mark” over the delivery of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. She spoke of the possibility of a “Putin-Trump tunnel” connecting Alaska to Siberia, adding that the multi-national development of Siberia would represent an “incredible boost to the world economy.” This brings back the idea to the European continent that “diplomacy is the way to resolve conflicts.”
Zepp-LaRouche reported that the momentum of President Trump’s Gaza peace plan has carried over into the Ukraine situation. We published yesterday a very important interview with H.E. Ambassador Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian Authority Ambassador to Denmark, which underscores the absolute necessity of a “peace through development” approach, centered upon the Oasis Plan, originally proposed by Lyndon LaRouche in 1975.
“The Historical Roots of the”Peace Through Development” Plans
Later during the meeting, Schiller Institute activist Tim Rush reported on a think tank conference in Washington, D.C., where he noted a shift in world opinion against Israeli genocide. He intervened from the floor, referencing the Oasis Plan and the Eisenhower administration’s Water for Peace conference in 1967, to illustrate that these ideas have history. He referred the participants to a June 28, 2024, article in EIR titled “When ‘Water for Peace’ Was at the Center of U.S. Politics—1953-1968”. Co-moderator Dennis Speed noted a similar historical parallel, in a hand-drawn map recently shared by the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. and made public by U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, which envisioned a “Kennedy-Khrushchev World Peace Bridge” over the Bering Strait, a predecessor to the tunnel proposed by LaRouche in his World Land-Bridge plan.
Dialogue Between Israelis and Palestinians
Ali Rastbeen, director of the Académie Géopolitique de Paris, is a French national of Iranian origin. He said, of the peace plan for Gaza, that regional actors must maintain a balance between Israeli security and justice for the Palestinians. The regional actor he chose to emphasize was Iran. “Iran has remained silent—no official declaration … we haven’t seen that since 1979,” he said, calling this a “major strategic change…. Iran has been marginalized, no longer projecting power through proxies … a forced re-definition of its role…. Its influence has decreased, to the profit of the Arab countries.”
Rastbeen emphasized that we are entering a new era with the end of proxy wars. Regional power in the Middle East is now measured in the ability to negotiate, provide stability and cooperation.
Mossi Raz, former Knesset member and Director of Peace Now in Israel, observed that neither Hamas nor Israel can solve its problems by using force, and emphasized that pressure from the international community made this agreement possible. Pressure from the international community made this agreement possible. He warned that the success of the agreement was threatened by “misunderstandings on both sides”: the Palestinians are upset that Israel has continued to kill Palestinians, Israelis are upset because Hamas has not delivered all the dead hostages. The international community must keep pressure on both sides to comply exactly with the agreement, in order to prevent a further outbreak of war.
An excerpt was shown from Zepp-LaRouche’s video interview with Dr. Hassassian, who said that “President Trump has flexed muscles on Israel” to get a breakthrough in negotiations. He warned that the occupation has to end, and an independent Palestinian state with the 1967 borders is necessary for lasting peace and security. Zepp-LaRouche replied that “this is a very precious moment” to transform the dynamic of the region with the Oasis Plan. Hassassian agreed, saying, “This is the right time for your organization to push forward and to market the Oasis Plan… The benefits will not go just to the Gazans and the Palestinians,” but to the region as a whole.
Zepp-LaRouche said in response to Rastbeen’s description of a shift from ideology to diplomacy in Iran, that this is an interesting angle from which to look at the crisis. But the most important shift will be to an emphasis on economic development. This would “completely change the parameters.” Instead of coercion, we need a policy of mutual benefit. Raz offered his support for the Oasis Plan, but added that the economic dimension is a major factor, but not the only factor.
Discussion
A participant asked whether the “peace through development” approach is really desirable, given that economic growth threatens our “finite planet.” Zepp-LaRouche explained that there is a common misconception that growth must be linear and quantitative, as opposed to what the Schiller Institute proposes, which is qualitative growth such as the development of fusion energy, which China is making a reality.
Dennis Speed asked Raz to respond to former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg’s assertion that Israel’s acts are at odds with Jewish tradition. Raz responded by acknowledging the importance of diplomacy and dialogue. Zepp-LaRouche added we have called for a dialogue of cultures, based on the best traditions of each culture in science and art, where human creativity expressed itself. “People have lost the idea of what a renaissance really is,” she said. “Collaboration among cultures would always spark a new development.”
A participant asked: Are we talking about a kind of consciousness we have never seen before? Zepp-LaRouche responded by saying that we must both reactivate our best traditions, and also create something new. It must be as different as today’s bestialized culture, as the Renaissance was from the Middle Ages, which were dominated by superstition and barbarism.
An African participant stated that she strongly supports the Oasis Plan, but asked: Why must we forgive the perpetrators of the genocide, of the killer sanctions? In response, Zepp-LaRouche insisted that we have to take advantage of branching points in history, in which we can influence the shape of things to come. We clearly have such a conjuncture, now that 500 years of colonialism is coming to an end. We should not try to impose the Western neoliberal model, but respect the singular characteristics of various cultures. We have to end the idea that conflicts can be resolved by military means.
In concluding remarks, Raz said that we need to incorporate the Oasis Plan among other issues which must be resolved, and it will take years to resolve them all.
In response to a question about China’s tightening of its export controls on rare earth elements, Zepp-LaRouche said that this “could bring the whole military-industrial complex to a screeching halt.” China’s next five-year plan could mean a change of relations among nations, a model of governance based on sovereignty, non-interference and cooperation.
An Ecuadorian reported that her new neoliberal government is attacking the indigenous population, which is protesting unjust austerity measures. Co-moderator Dennis Small said that Ecuador is part of a larger pattern; the neocons are willing to invade Venezuela, create regime-change in Peru (which they have done through an orchestrated scandal), and bail out Argentina, in order to maintain their control.
Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that although the discussion has focused on Gaza, she had emphasized at the start that the Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest is of crucial importance because of the ever-present danger of nuclear war, as was described by Ted Postol in the previous week’s IPC meeting. He will give another presentation at the next meeting. “In the age of nuclear weapons, we cannot have war as a method of conflict resolution”; we must return to diplomacy. [eir]
