Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 25, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
Why is the spectacular failure of U.S. representative government and leadership, seen in Saturday’s “bipartisan,” “democratic” $100 billion vote to continue to finance the no-win depopulation wars in Gaza and Ukraine, a de facto active provocation for World War Three? And what can be done to reverse that failure?
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 25, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
April 13—Following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, and the Netanyahu government’s decision to collectively punish Palestinian civilians in retaliation, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, called for an intensified mobilization to build support for an “Oasis Plan” for Southwest Asia as a whole. Such an economic development perspective is the only means, in her estimation, of bringing about a long-term peace to the region. The April 13 conference by the Schiller Institute, “The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia,” put this subject squarely on the table for the first time since this conflict broke out over six months ago.
The international, on-line event brought together speakers from five continents, and an audience from around the world. Organized in two panels, the day-long proceedings included important discussion periods, with translation in four languages. The Schiller Institute is preparing a rush-release of an hour-long video of conference highlights, to further the mobilization to stop the genocide in Gaza, de-escalate the war danger, and initiate international deliberation on a new world economic and security architecture.
Dennis Speed, of the Schiller Institute in New York, who moderated the first panel, began by introducing a short video excerpt from Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019) speaking at the Zayed Center in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., in 2002. (Transcript below). LaRouche encouraged people to consider this region which we call the Middle East as if looking at it from space, seeing it as the natural crossroads connecting Eurasia and Africa, and with its accompanying defining condition: the lack of fresh water.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche continued this theme in her keynote address to the first panel, which was titled, “Creating the Conditions for Dialogue, Security, Peace, and Development in Southwest Asia.” She insisted that if the world is to avoid the near-term threat of expanding regional and potentially global warfare, a “cognitive jump” to a completely different approach is required, and issues of economics and security between nations must be considered as a whole. After discussing details of the dangers facing the region (made all the more visceral by the news arriving during the second panel of Iran’s retaliatory strike on Israel), Zepp-LaRouche pointed to the elephant in the room: Not only is there a shortage of water in this region, but the requirements for a modern living standard cannot be satisfied from the existing “natural” water resources. In fact, many of the military conflicts here have been due to this lack of water. Therefore, solutions to this must be found—the ingenuity of mankind must be employed to increase the existing resources to provide what is required for a future-oriented and flourishing human society.
She cited multiple examples of where this has been employed to the benefit of the population, such as recently in China, where millions of acres have been reclaimed from the desert. In contrast to this, most of Southwest Asia has been explicitly barred from this opportunity due to geopolitical interests, which have seen the region primarily as a strategic chessboard rather than an area where human societies should be allowed to exist. That must now end, Zepp-LaRouche insisted.
Quoting from Friedrich Schiller’s Wallenstein trilogy in her conclusion, she said: “‘For if war does not end in war, where then shall peace come from?’ To inspire confidence in the enemy, that is the only way to peace! At the abyss of what could become the end of all life on the planet, are we, mankind, the creative species; and can we define a solution out of this danger? So let us put the Oasis Plan on the table of all governments of the world!”
A Robust Debate on Resolving the Conflict
The conference saw participation from many government representatives and high-level experts from around the world. There were three speakers from Palestine: the Palestinian Ambassador to Denmark, H.E. Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO H.E. Mounir Anastas, and Palestinian physician, author, and peace activist Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Other governmental representation included Ambassador of South Africa to Mexico, H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu; Chargé d’Affaires of Belarus to the U.S. H.E. Pavel Shidlovsky; and First Secretary in Humanitarian Affairs of the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations in New York, Ilya Andreev.
Ambassador Hassassian went through a brief history of Palestine, noting how the Balfour Mandate had unleashed a century of aggression and ethnic cleansing on its people. In effect, this has meant that the Palestinians are paying the price for the Holocaust in Europe, a reality that Western leaders are conveniently choosing to ignore, despite their claims of concern for “humanitarian rights.” Ambassador Anastas began by agreeing with Amb. Hassassian’s statements on the history of the current conflict and the genocidal nature of Israel’s actions. He added that UNESCO also sees the value in water development, and has had an intergovernmental program for water development since 1975.
While both of the Palestinian ambassadors expressed their differences with the Oasis Plan as a strategy for peace, saying that there can be no peace without a political solution first, they still expressed their support for the concept as an important element in establishing a sustainable peace over the long-term. Amb. Anastas said that the spirit and intention on which the plan is based—which is to have true economic and social development—will ultimately be the foundation for peace throughout the region, and Amb. Hassassian called it a “window of opportunity” for the two peoples to secure a common future.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche came back to this later in the discussion, responding that an economic development policy for all sides is in fact a “precondition” for any viable peace plan. She noted Lyndon LaRouche’s response to the Oslo Accords in the 1990’s, during which he insisted that the shovels must go into the ground immediately so that a vision for the future development of the region could supersede the political turmoil of the moment. There was such an agreement in Oslo, but it was sabotaged by the World Bank, which prevented the needed funding. We must use this conference and the Oasis Plan concept to build support among governments and other institutions for an emergency comprehensive Mideast conference. Such an international conference, which puts something like the Oasis Plan on the table and its accompanying example of the Peace of Westphalia, can be the antidote to finally break the cycle of violence and despair for this region.
Dr. Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, a strategic analyst and lecturer from Indonesia, added to this discussion with a sweeping history, noting the 500 years of Muslim rule under the Ottoman Empire, then the Balfour Declaration, up through the present time, and ethnic cleansing since the 1948 boundaries were constructed in the Trans-Jordan region. She focussed on the British responsibility for this. She stressed that Indonesia, as a leading Islamic nation, has a serious role to play toward overcoming this crisis.
H.E. Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana, expressed support for the Oasis Plan, not only as it applies to the crisis in Southwest Asia, but because such thinking is required to solve the global crisis as well. He emphasized that, ‘the world has never been so close to nuclear war,” but still, the possibilities exist for escaping global poverty and war. Peace and development are both necessary, he said; you cannot have one without the other.
Professor Georgy Toloraya, Director, Russian National Committee for BRICS Research, presented a bold concept for resolving the disaster in Gaza. The BRICS, he said, could follow—but in a positive manner—the old protectorate idea from Hong Kong, and the BRICS could “rent” the relevant area for 50-100 years, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt—BRICS members—to be the managers, and the BRICS’ New Development Bank to organize the infrastructure. Israel, he suggested, would no longer have any role.
Graham Fuller, the former Vice-Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, with many years in the CIA in the Islamic world, sent a pre-recorded message to the conference. Describing the Oasis Plan as, “the most exciting element to arise in a long time” in the Mideast, he likened it to the general character of the Belt and Road Initiative. Fuller referenced the negative impact of “decades of ugly geopolitics” in the region, with colonialist operations going back to the Crusades, “which never really ceased.”
Support for the Oasis Plan
The representatives of South Africa, Belarus, and Russia expressed support for the Oasis Plan approach. H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to Mexico, said that South Africa’s experience, “underscores the intrinsic link between development and peace, recognizing that sustainable peace can only flourish in societies where development is nurtured and inclusive growth is fostered.” She added later that “the Oasis Plan will ignite a lot of interest,” and can be “a tool to start peace negotiations between Palestine and Israel.” Amb. Sisulu also discussed how South Africa’s history of apartheid and its experience resolving racial and ethnic divisions give it in an important role not only in helping Palestine today, but the rest of the world.
Chargé d’Affaires of Belarus to the U.S., H.E. Pavel Shidlovsky, called the Oasis Plan “ambitious, a benefit for all,” which “grows on you the more you study it,” and said he hoped others would join. He said, “I fully agree with the statement of the Conference organizers that it falls to us to ensure that every life in the world is sacred, that international law must prevail to prevent genocide, and that economic development must be the engine for peace. We in Belarus adhere to the same approach.” Shidlovsky went on to note the emergence of a multi-polar world today, and praised the growing role of the BRICS, the Non-Aligned Movement, SCO, ASEAN, and Global South as a whole. He also pointed out that Belarus itself is an important crossroads between Europe and Asia, a fact which contributes heavily to the country’s economy.
The First Secretary in Humanitarian Affairs of Russia’s UN Mission, Ilya Andreev, said, “We support the main message, which involves the implementation of the large-scale Oasis Plan to supply the region with water, including for irrigation needs. It is precisely such a large international infrastructure project that could serve as an incentive for the economies of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Its launch would definitely have a positive impact on providing young people with jobs, including qualified ones; on creating conditions for the return of refugees; on the economic stability of the entire region. This is certainly a very attractive idea…. We are glad that such work is underway…under the auspices of the Schiller Institute.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Andreev emphasized that reaching a ceasefire in this conflict and halting the humanitarian catastrophe remain the highest priority today.
The Scientific and Technical Basis for a Solution
The second panel of the conference, “The Physical Foundation for the Economic Development of Southwest Asia,” clearly portrayed how a durable peace could be achieved through use of the most advanced technology and engineering methods to green the deserts of Southwest Asia. Stephan Ossenkopp, Schiller Institute-Germany, moderated.
The keynote speaker was Schiller Institute Science Advisor Jason Ross, who began with a quote from Albert Einstein: “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility….” He developed three fundamental concepts which helped set the stage for what became a captivating panel dialogue:
1) Man, endowed with the power of creativity, is fundamentally good. And through human creativity, has the power to improve nature through scientific discovery and development of new technologies. He cited Lyndon LaRouche’s 1995 paper “What Is God, that Man Is in His Image”, where LaRouche says: “Each person is given the intellectual potential which no animal has, the power not only to imagine states of nature which have never before existed in the universe, but, under certain restrictions, to impose those ideas efficiently upon the universe generally.”
2) The “green,” environmentalist ideology is fundamentally evil, by its assertion that anything man does to transform nature is inherently bad.
3) The Oasis Plan, as the basis for peace through economic development, is rooted conceptually in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which brought the bloody Thirty Years’ War in Europe to an end. That treaty was crafted to create a lasting peace by promoting the “benefit of the other,” and foregoing all revenge. Ross, who used many illustrations throughout his address, showed a map of how border disputes in 17th-Century Europe were far more complicated than that of Palestine and Israel today.
The other experts on the panel included Dr. Pierre Berthelot, Associate Researcher at IPSE, director of the journal Orients Stratégiques, and member of the Académie de l’Eau in France; William DeOreo, hydrologist, President of AquaCraft, and proponent of nuclear desalination, based in Colorado, in the U.S.; and Dr. Kelvin Kemm, nuclear physicist and former Chairman of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation. Their ensuing presentations all reflected an optimism that the problems of this region could be solved with the universal language and power of science. As Dr. Kemm said: “Over many centuries, if there’s one subject that has transcended political conflict, it’s been science.”
Of particular interest was a discussion of the advanced nuclear reactor designs now coming online—small modular reactors (SMRs), and thorium-based molten salt reactors—with the necessary power-generating capacity, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility to efficiently desalinate sea water.
William DeOreo discussed the exciting potentials in large-scale water desalination for solving the extreme water scarcity in the region, on condition that plentiful amounts of energy are made available—a distinct possibility with nuclear power. He spoke of his own work in the Kingdom of Jordan, which involved designs for desalinating seawater from the Gulf of Aqaba, and conveying it northward. He said he was frustrated by those who wanted him to craft designs for water supply solutions that would only conform to water austerity for the population. He responded: “No, no, no! What we really need to do, is we need to increase the supply, to provide Jordan with the water that they need in order to have an advanced society.”
All the participants agreed that all these problems must not be allowed to be the seeds of ongoing and future conflicts. The event drew to a close with an honest discussion of “Where do we go from here? How do we get these ideas implemented?”
Ross took this up, noting how many people there are around the world demanding a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and work for fundamental solutions. A crucial measure of success will be getting more of these people beginning to demand: “We need the Oasis Plan! What are we doing fighting? This should be the future of the region!” By bringing this discussion more and more into the public debate, injecting this kind of future orientation, the political terrain can be drastically changed, making otherwise impossible resolutions possible.
Kevin Gribbroek and Michael Billington contributed to this article.
Lyndon LaRouche on June 2, 2002 at Zayed Center in Abu Dhabi, UAE
The world has come to a crossroads in modern history. If the world were to continue along the pathway currently chosen by my government and some others, civilization will be plunged, for as long as a generation or more, into a global dark age comparable to that which struck Europe about seven-hundred-fifty years ago. We must not pretend that danger does not exist; but, also, we must commit ourselves to the hopeful alternative which wise governments will prefer. Therefore, I shall speak frankly, but also optimistically, of a second crossroads, the Middle East…. For as far back as known history of civilization reaches, long, long before the discovery of oil, the Middle East has been the strategic crossroads of Eurasia and Africa combined, as it is today. With or without petroleum, the historic strategic significance of the Middle East would remain…. Given the desperate situation of the world today, we can not be so naïve as to presume that powers which may be great, or even simply powerful, will, therefore, react sanely to the relevant strategic facts of the situation….
Zoom in, as if from an orbiting space-station, upon the past and present ecology of this region of the world’s biosphere. In our imagination, let us watch the long-range historical process, of melting of the great Eurasian glacier, over the interval from about 19,000 years ago, when ocean levels were approximately 400 feet below those today. Watch the evolution of the Mediterranean region over the following millennia. Watch the later phase of great desiccation of the once rich, desert regions of the Sahara, Gulf, and Central Asia. From the standpoint of that lapsed-time panorama, we are reminded in the most useful way of a fact we already know: that the most critical of the strategic economic factors inside the Middle East region as a whole today, is not petroleum, but fresh water….
Ahead of the April 18 UN Security Council’s debate on the Middle East and Palestinian question, explore “The Oasis Plan.”
This initiative proposes peace through economic development, including infrastructure projects to transform the region from one of conflict and war, to a hub of connectivity, with economic viability for future generations.
Hello. Greetings to all of you from many different countries, from wherever you may be listening now. We are organizing this Oasis Conference to inject a perspective of hope and show a way out of an otherwise desperate, extremely dangerous, and indeed, catastrophic situation in Southwest Asia.
If we don’t replace this present escalation, which could rapidly turn into a full-fledged regional war, turning into a global nuclear war, it could mean the end of the human species on this planet. In order to avoid that short-term danger, what is needed is a cognitive jump, to conceptualize an entirely different approach, namely to define the economic and security self-interest of the Palestinians, the Arabs in general, as well as the Israelis, and then the neighboring countries in the larger region.
Why am I saying this?
What has happened in the last six months is unprecedented in all of history. A genocide, which is happening in real time, is transmitted live from the battlefield in Gaza to the TV sets in the living rooms of the world audience. So while in the first instance after the Hamas attack October 7th on Israeli villages causing 1200 deaths, the sympathy of much of the world was with Israel. That changed day by day, week by week, month by month, as billions of people could watch with their own eyes, unfiltered by commentators and narrative-authors. And what they saw was not a measured counter reaction by a country under attack, but a relentless ethnic cleansing in a sealed tiny territory by one of the most highly technologically equipped military forces in the world, using artificial intelligence for targeting of Hamas fighters and at the same time denying water, food, medical care, electricity, housing, clothing, sanitation, etc., to an entirely unarmed population. So far, the casualties on the Palestinian side are around 33,400, of which 17,000 are children. That is, 44% of all killed are children! And more than 1 million are starving to death acutely. That is why there have been hundreds of thousands in the streets in Islamic countries, in American and European cities, and in the universities!
In the aftermath of the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, U.S. CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, is presently visiting Israel where he met with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and Defense Minister Gallant, and visited the Air Force Command Centers, as well as the air bases. Western media are buzzing about a possible Iranian strike on a variety of targets in Israel, as early as today or two days from now. This morning, the Netherlands closed its embassy in Tehran, Lufthansa cancelled flights to Iran until next Thursday [April 18] and the Foreign Office of Germany has called for all German citizens to leave the country. It’s clearly a hair-trigger situation, which in the worst case could turn into regional and even global war.
Despite this escalation, and all the more because of it, it is therefore of the utmost urgency that a completely different approach is being introduced, namely the so-called Oasis Plan, which was proposed in 1975 by my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche. It is based on the idea to create an incentive for both the Palestinians and the Israelis, to replace the present feelings of deep injury, pain and despair for some and hatred for others, with a perspective of a common economic development for the creation of a better future for all generations to come. For the Palestinians it is of vital importance for their very existence, and for the Israelis they should listen to those who are warning them about the change in the perception of the world, such as Ami Ayalon, the former director of the Shin Bet during the time of the Oslo Accords. In an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, he warns Israel, that following the IDF attack on food trucks on Feb. 29, killing 112 people, and wounding 760—who were desperately trying to obtain the food that could save them from starvation—and the attack on the 7 World Central Kitchen workers, eradicated the legitimacy of the war in the eyes of the world; that it is seen no longer as a war in self-defense, but as an act of expansionist aggression. Furthermore, Ayalon writes that Israel can not win by eliminating the Hamas leadership, since that would not make the Hamas ideology disappear.
That is an understatement of the year. Even if this present crisis would not lead to a global annihilation of the entire human species, in which obviously also Israel would vanish, if the cycle of violence is not interrupted once and for all, the future for all will be a hell, in which one war will follow the next, as we have seen during the last 75 years, always naturally feeding the various arms producers of the growing military industrial complexes.
What we propose therefore is the updated version of the Oasis Plan first introduced by Lyndon LaRouche in 1975, which he proposed after attending a celebration of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, attended by many leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement. For anyone visiting Southwest Asia, the most striking experience is the overwhelming presence of the desert and the obvious shortage of water, especially fresh water. It is also clear that the requirements for the water consumption for any population, Israeli or Arab, for a modern living standard, cannot be satisfied from the existing “natural” water resources. Furthermore, in all the military conflicts so far, the lack of water and the efforts to control the access to water have played a decisive role.
The existing aquifers in the region do not provide even approximately sufficient water, therefore even a fair sharing agreement would not solve the problem. In order to create large amounts of new fresh water a variety of methods must be deployed. The most obvious to begin with are several canals connecting the Mediterranean with the Dead Sea, and the Dead Sea with the Red Sea. Because of the difference in altitude, the Dead Sea is about 400 meters below the Mediterranean, so this allows for hydropower generation. But if one creates an additional canal from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Dead Sea, and then links the two canals by a cross canal, something else is possible. The basic idea is to increase the size of the canals sufficiently to allow for large-scale desalination projects along the banks of the canals with the aid of a number of nuclear power plants. Because of the breakthroughs in technology in the recent decades, the availability of the fourth generation pebble-bed reactor, the high-temperature reactor, that was originally developed by Professor Schulten in Jülich, Germany, and which is produced now by China, the safety concerns have been solved. There is also the option of using thorium-cycle reactors, which are uniquely usable for civilian consumption of nuclear energy. One could build a significant number of 300-megawatt electricity plants, what used to be called “nuplexes” or “duplexes” along the canals, providing fresh water for large-scale irrigation for reforestation, agriculture, the building of transport infrastructure and new cities.
Even if the cost of producing fresh water from desalination of saltwater with nuclear energy is relatively high, the economic benefit from the enormous economic activity generated this way in areas, where there was absolutely none before, is orders of magnitude larger than the amount originally spent. It is the unique power of human labor, that with the help of science and technology, it adds value to the process, so that the outcome of work is always higher in terms of value than all the elements which went into it. The energy-flux density used in this, determines the ratio of added value. So it really pays for itself.
One should therefore not only look at the projects mentioned here so far, but have the vision of how this region can look in one, two, three, four generations from now. Take as an example China, which has in the last 30 years greened several desert areas successfully. The Chinese economist Dr. Ding Yifan describes in his new book, The New Dynamics of Development: The Crisis of Globalization and China’s Solutions, how nearly one-third of the Hobq Desert in Inner Mongolia has been effectively treated, and has become an economic cluster of desert tourism, food, and photovoltaics, and how in the Sekhangba not far from Beijing, thousands of hectares of forest have been restored, and how on the border between Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia in the Mawusu Desert, 30% of the desert is now covered with vegetation, soil erosion has ceased, and the newly reclaimed farmland has reached 1.6 million acres, generating tremendous economic benefit for local farmers. Dr. Ding Yifan reports that Eric Solheim, UN Undersecretary and UNEP Executive Director, praised the Hobq Desert model which provides excellent experience for other countries and regions that face desertification problems, and that China’s experience in sand control can also spread to Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
In order to conceptualize a vision of development for the entire region: from India to the Mediterranean, from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and how that area can develop as a future hub between Asia, Africa, and Europe, one should imagine the infrastructure density, for example, of Germany; where you have an integrated system of highways, railways, water systems, which represent the precondition for advanced industrial development and agriculture. There is no objective reason why Southwest Asia cannot achieve a comparable level in the future.
If the looming war can be avoided, the tectonic change which is taking place in the world today where the countries of the Global South are already working to create a new economic system, can create the conditions for the full development of Southwest Asia. Russia, China, India, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt are already members of the BRICS; Saudi Arabia is a candidate, and others like Türkiye have indicated an intent to join. If all these countries would agree to the development perspective of the Oasis Plan and convene a comprehensive Southwest Asia conference on an emergency basis in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, the present looming catastrophe can be avoided, and the crisis turned into the beginning of a new era of peace and development.
Henry Kissinger, who pretended to be an expert on the Westphalian Order, actually grossly misunderstood it by insisting, that it required a “balancing power”—namely an unipolar policeman. He claimed that “the Westphalian system never applied fully to the Middle East,” since only Türkiye, Egypt, and Iran had an historical basis, while the borders of the other states would reflect the arbitrariness of the victors of World War I. He obviously was referring to the intent for future manipulation of the Sykes-Picot Treaty.
That is why the world must return to the actual Peace of Westphalia and establish a new international security and development architecture, which takes into account the interest of every single country on the planet. That new architecture must emphatically include Russia, China, the U.S., as well as a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
According to the Cost of War Project of the Watson Institute at Brown University in Rhode Island, in the 20 years from 9/11 in 2001 until 2021, the U.S. military expenditures including collateral costs were $8 trillion, which was spent for military and counter-terrorism measures in 85 countries, not including U.S. special operations forces, CIA operations, “military information support operations,” “psychological operations,” etc. In this same period, more than 940,000 people have been killed by direct war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan; and the number of civilians who have died as a result of indirect causes, is significantly higher. If that amount of money—$8 trillion—would have been invested in programs to overcome poverty and underdevelopment, the world would be today a prosperous garden, and the United States would be celebrated as a friend of humanity.
I can already hear the critics who say that this perspective of an Oasis plan as the starting point for a new international security and development architecture in the spirit of the encyclical Populorum Progessio of Pope Paul VI is not realistic, or even worse, completely utopian.
When Friedrich Schiller wrote his trilogy Wallenstein about the powerful warlord of the 30 Years’ War, he portrayed Wallenstein, not in the way the handed down historic interpretation characterized him, but as a man who really wanted to end the war and reach peace. In the play, Schiller puts the vision of the Peace of Westphalia, which was reached 16 years later, in the mouth of Max Piccolomini, the fiancé of Wallenstein’s daughter Thekla. In a conversation with his father and a representative of the Vienna Court, Questenberg, Max says:
“You make him [Wallenstein] an indignant man and, God knows!
To what even more, because he spares the Saxons,
Seeks to inspire confidence in the enemy
Which is the only way to peace;
For if war does not end in war,
Where then shall peace come from?”
That is the whole idea: “For if war does not end in war, where then shall peace come from?” To inspire confidence in the enemy, that is the only way to peace! At the abyss of what could become the end of all life on the planet, are we, mankind, the creative species; and can we define a solution out of this danger? So let us put the Oasis Plan on the table of all governments of the world!
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 17, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
April 15, 2024 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in two discussions with colleagues on Monday, stressed that, in this potentially catastrophic world situation, it is essential that the proceedings of the Saturday Schiller Institute conference, “The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia,” be made available in a condensed format within 48 hours. The United Nations will see discussions in the next days which could prove to be momentous. The Schiller Institute comprehensively presented the Lyndon LaRouche insight, still controversial to many, that a comprehensive physical-economic solution must either accompany, or precede, any efficient proposal for the resolution of the population wars in Ukraine and in the Gaza/West Bank.
This new approach, based on the idea that peace is only possible if all sides recognize their economic interest in common development, must be brought into the upcoming debate on war or peace that is currently taking place both in the United Nations and on the streets and in the homes of the transatlantic world. We must bring about a rapid change of heart in the United States and Europe, to which the global majority can respond positively. The joint international reconstruction of Gaza as part of a newly recognized Palestinian state is the only chance to overcome this terrible tragedy.
This is the method which the Independent campaigns of Diane Sare and Jose Vega have espoused. It is the method which the Schiller institute Oasis conference advocates. And it is the method that can restore self-government, based on the principle of the General Welfare, to the failed states of the trans-Atlantic world.
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 17, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
April 15, 2024 (EIRNS)—Giving an overall positive perspective on German-Chinese economic cooperation upon Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s arrival in Chongqing, Global Timeshowever, also addressed the worrisome loyalty of Germany to Western geopolitics, which undermines cooperation potentials:
“In July [2023], the German government released a toughly-worded China strategy that shifted the focus to de-risking, diversification, and a reduction of dependencies on China. Despite internal pressure, the current German government remains pragmatic and is putting its own economic interests at the top of its priorities.
“Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Germany-based political and economic think tank the Schiller Institute, told the Global Times over the weekend that for an export economy like Germany, it would be ‘suicidal’ to follow these calls for ‘de-risking.’
“‘Germany is presently experiencing a dramatic economic downfall. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been luring German enterprises to invest in the U.S. instead of Germany with incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. In this adverse environment, the expansion of economic cooperation with China represents an anchor of stability for Germany,’ she said.” If Germany does not effectively resist geopolitics, its relations with China will suffer.
“The whole world is witness to the horrors being inflicted upon the Palestinian people, shared with us every day in video form,” opens the video. “But the destruction continues, actively supported by the United States and a diminishing number of other countries. Humanity’s moral fitness to survive is being tested. The horror show must end, starting with an immediate, unconditional ceasefire.” This must be accompanied by a massive flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and work towards a political solution to the crisis, including the existence and full international recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state.”But without economic development,” the video states, “without a viable and meaningful path of progress into the future, political agreements in themselves are unsustainable. The people of the region must know that their children will enjoy a better future, a better life. Peace through economic development is the only successful basis for a lasting, just peace in the region. This is what Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came to realize — there is no purely military basis for peace or security; development is essential.”
How can the Israelis and Palestinians ever make peace after what has happened? Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and international leader of the Schiller Institute, emphasizes that we cannot solve this conflict, or any conflict, by remaining on the level of the conflict. Using a concept from Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) called the coincidence of opposites, she urges us to rise above the level of despair, hatred and vengeance, to find a common interest in increasing the welfare of all the people through economic development of the region as a whole.
We urgently need an inspiring vision of a future in which the Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side. “Peace through development” is the name of the concept Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019) and his co-thinkers have proposed since 1975, and not only here, in the form of the Oasis Plan, but for the whole world in the form of the World Land-Bridge.
The Oasis Plan focused primarily on addressing the greatest barrier to development in the region — the shortage of fresh water — through the construction of a network of desalination plants, ideally nuclear powered, that could turn the plentiful seawater into freshwater. And these plants would not only be on the Mediterranean coast; they would be built along two new canals: one connecting the Red Sea with the Dead Sea, and another connecting the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean.By cooperating to fight the desert, rather than each other, the people of the region will better be able to recognize the humanity in each other, the common capability of human beings to discover principles of nature and to transform our relationship to the environment around us.There are no human animals. The Oasis Plan is not only for Israel and Palestine, and the neighboring countries, but the whole Southwest Asia region, including war-torn Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. And it will only come about by rejecting geopolitics, and starting to build a new paradigm of international relations – a new security and development architecture.
Many speak about the day after. But the only way to get there is to give people hope right now. Now, it is urgent that the future vision of the Oasis Plan be known, developed, and supported, in order to chart a course out of death and destruction, towards mutually beneficial cooperation among sovereign nations.
As Helga Zepp-LaRouche said in a webcast on March 6, 2024, “You have to have hope! You have to give young people some perspective of having a decent future, where they can raise families, where they can have a normal life of studying, of doing useful things with their lives. Because if you don’t put this on the agenda, what will happen is that even if you get some kind of a partial solution or a ceasefire, but you don’t have a perspective of hope, you will have new waves of conflict, of terrorism, of all kinds of even war. So, are we the intelligent species, or not? And that is the real question….” “But I think if we all mobilize,” she continued, “if we would get some countries, some heads of state, some former heads of state, some Nobel Prize winners, or any combination of really top religious leaders, to come out and say: the only way is peace through development, the new name for peace is development, and here is the Oasis Plan which can do it, that would inspire everybody. It would inspire the people in the region, it would inspire the neighboring countries, it would really—and I have thought about it a lot and the proposal made by my late husband Lyndon LaRouche, already in 1975, it’s still the only way to get peace in the Middle East!”
The memory of those who have perished, and to give hope to the living, demands that we summon the courage to make peace through development.
If I stopped to think about what is going on in each part of the world, I would only have time to cry. Therefore, I have to do something to act.
Lyndon H. LaROuche Jr.
April 12—One day before the Schiller Institute’s historic Oasis Plan conference, the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened its 45th consecutive meeting, a remarkable but also crucial accomplishment, given the precarious state of world affairs. A major theme of the meeting was why a new paradigm of peace through development is the only means of resolving major geopolitical flash points, which could very quickly ignite World War III—with a particular focus on the Ukraine war, Southwest Asia, and growing tensions in the South China Sea.
This week’s featured speakers included:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder Schiller Institute
Dr. George Koo, Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade, and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation
Rubén Guzzetti, Argentine Institute for Geopolitical Studies (IADEG)
Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower
Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-founder of the IPC, began the proceedings with a strategic briefing on the very dangerous developments concerning the escalating showdown between the U.S./UK and their various satellites on one side, and Russia/China/Iran on the other. The most “acute and urgent” threat is that of war between Israel and Iran, driven by Israel’s April 1 missile attack against the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. This could rapidly escalate to global war.
Zepp-LaRouche called on IPC participants to go all out mobilizing for the Oasis Plan conference, which could not have come at a timelier moment. She said,
Unless we get to what we have been discussing from the very beginning, the new paradigm—where we overcome geopolitics with an architecture for security and development which includes all countries of the planet—the theaters of the potential wars will just shift from one crisis spot to the next…. So that should fuel our efforts to really fight for a peace solution which must be just, for all sides. Because the lesson from the Peace of Westphalia is that unless it is just, and takes into account the interests of all, it cannot work.
Helga Zepp-larouche
The next speaker, Dr. George Koo, focused on developments in the “Pacific arena.” He reported on the very positive development of former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who recently visited mainland China with a youth delegation. After an excellent meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Xi said, “After all, the future of Taiwan and the mainland will be up to the young generation…. Ma Ying-jeou will be welcome to bring another group anytime.” He contrasted this visit with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trip to Beijing, where she criticized China for its “overcapacity.” According to Koo, this is an admission by the U.S. that it can no longer compete with China. He warned against the United States using its “loyal lap dogs”—Japan, South Korea and the Philippines—as proxies against China. Like President Putin, President Xi does not bluff and will take active measures to protect China’s national sovereignty.
Rubén Guzzetti began his remarks by expressing the IADEG’s full solidarity with the Schiller Institute, and support for its initiatives against the “onslaught of Western powers, which is leading us into a dead end.” He then proceeded to report on the history of Western efforts to subjugate the peoples of South America, starting with the 1806–07 British invasion and occupation of Buenos Aires. This intensified after World War II with the consolidation of the United States as the “new Western empire.” Today, the estimate is that the U.S. and UK have 77 military bases in South America. The election of Javier Milei as President of Argentina has further opened the door for U.S./NATO subversion of the continent. But the IADEG has a plan to fight this government, and will be holding a national mobilization on May 9.
Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent, legal expert and whistle blower, reported that she will be participating in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in which volunteers will be sailing relief ships laden with 5,500 tons of food and medicine to the shores of Gaza to provide aid for the Palestinians. She asked all IPC participants to do everything possible to spread news of the Freedom Flotilla. Even though relief workers have been killed, in the aftermath of the ICJ’s ruling against Israel, maximum publicity surrounding the Flotilla’s mission may succeed in causing Israel to back off. However, in the past, besides outright murder, Israel had taken people engaged in this type of relief effort prisoner, a risk Rowley and her fellow volunteers are willing to take: “If we can end the siege of Gaza, that could be a first step towards peaceful development in the rest of the world.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche pledged that she would make sure that news of the Flotilla will be circulated every day internationally to focus the eyes of the world on this courageous initiative.
Ray McGovern, following Rowley, asked : Why does President Joe Biden “insist on challenging the rest of the world, including two major nuclear powers?” Biden himself answered that question during a recent 60 Minutes interview: When asked if he thought it would be unwise to get involved in a two-front war, he said, “We’re the United States of America—the most powerful country in the history of the world!”—madness, according to McGovern. He asked that everyone hope and pray that his good friend Coleen Rowley and the Flotilla expedition succeed in getting the food and medicine into Gaza.
Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute opened the discussion with the news flash that the Embassy of South Africa in Mexico had just posted an invitation for the Oasis Plan conference to both their Facebook and X social media accounts. The Ambassador of South Africa to Mexico, H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, will be speaking at the conference.
Bolivar Télles, a leader of the Central American and Caribbean Critical Thought organization in Nicaragua, reported on his nation’s case against Germany before the ICJ, accusing Berlin of violating the Genocide Convention by providing Israel with military support. Germany has emphatically denied these charges.
Zepp-LaRouche referring to the report by Télles, characterizing the German government’s harsh rejection of the charges as “tragic.” Germany, she said does not bare sole responsibility for the Holocaust detailing international support for Hitler. “Collective guilt” is being used as a means of manipulating the German people into supporting Israel no matter what. With the growing recognition by the Global South of the genocide against the Palestinians, if Germany, along with the U.S. and EU, continue their support for Israel’s mass murder of civilians, they will be isolated from the rest of the world. This is a tragedy, because a new economic system will not function without the U.S. and Europe: “It creates the seed of a geopolitical catastrophe.”
This can be changed, she concluded, “because we have the overwhelming majority of the people of the world at our side.” In reference to the Oasis Plan conference, she said it is the “starting point of a real revolution” to usher in the new era of “peace through development, because nothing else will solve the problem.”
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 10, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
April 8, 2024 (EIRNS)—The British-American gambit to use NATO’s advance through Ukraine to demolish Russia and overthrow the Putin government, has been a monumental failure, as even the blind can see. A half-million Ukrainian lives later, what does the London-Washington axis propose to do? Double down on strategic stupidity, and now send NATO troops directly to Ukraine, and dance right up to the brink of thermonuclear war with Russia.
The Netanyahu government—with Washington and London’s full complicity—has engaged in genocide in Gaza with such chutzpah that it has earned them all a well-deserved place in the docket of a new Nuremberg Tribunal. Are they at last looking for a way to settle matters through negotiations? Don’t hold your breath.
Rather, the NATO war machine is aggressively expanding into the Pacific theater, a policy which will be pushed hard at this week’s summit meeting of President Biden with Japan’s Kishida and the Philippines’ Marcos—with some think-tankers even proposing that the U.S. go to war with China over the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea! And NATO is also rapidly spreading its reach into the South Atlantic as well, with last week’s visit to Argentina by the head of the U.S. Southern Command, General Laura Richardson.
Why is this happening? Can we not learn from our mistakes?
“I think that the larger problem, larger than the specifics of Ukraine, NATO against Russia, danger of widening of the Middle East war, the larger issue is geopolitics,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche argued in a discussion with associates today. “Because even if one would find a solution to the Ukraine war and the Middle East war, as long as the West—meaning NATO, the U.S., EU, U.K.—as long as they are determined to keep the neoliberal unipolar dominance of the world, and regard emerging countries as enemies, and all the more so when they are allied with China, Russia and the BRICS in building a new system; as long as they regard that as the enemy, they will keep finding war scenarios.”
Zepp-LaRouche continued: “That is why only our approach (will work): first to demonstrate the concept of peace through development with the Oasis Plan, but then in a larger way to establish a new security and development architecture, where the principle of peace through development is applied to the whole world. Unless we accomplish that, I don’t think this present escalation to World War III will cease, simply because the scenarios and theaters may shift and change, but the overall oligarchical imperial control as a motivation will remain.”
Zepp-LaRouche then pointed to the importance of this week’s filing by Nicaragua before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, charging Germany with violating the Genocide Convention by sending large amounts of weapons to Israel—which itself has been ordered by the ICJ to cease its actions in Gaza which constitute a plausible case of genocide. “The fact that this took place is absolutely important,” Zepp-LaRouche stated. “No matter what the ruling elites may think, that they can just ignore it and reject it, you can be sure that the eyes of the Global South and the whole world will be on that situation.”
“It is the case of humanity which is on trial, and not just the plight of the Palestinians,” she concluded. “So let’s organize up a storm for the Oasis Plan conference on April 13, and let’s keep in mind that we need to get to a new paradigm altogether.”
Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Weekly Live dialogue April 10, 11am Eastern/4pm CET and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitue.com or ask them in the live stream.
