This transcript appears in the March 7, 2025 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
The Oasis Plan: A Peace Solution for Israel and Palestine
[Print version of this transcript]
Feb. 25—Tobias Faku, of the Schiller Institute in Germany, gave a presentation titled, “The Oasis Plan: A Peace Solution for Israel and Palestine,” to the Feb. 16 internet seminar sponsored by the BüSo on the theme, “Peace through Development in Afghanistan and the Middle East.” The following is a transcript of his remarks, translated and edited by EIR. Subheads have been added.
The situation in Gaza and Israel is extremely tense. The ceasefire is still holding, but the extremists in Israel are pushing for it to be broken and the war to continue. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened that “hell would break out” if Hamas did not hand over all the hostages by 12 noon yesterday. That would be a direct breach of the agreement that his own special envoy Steve Witkoff negotiated in January and whose compliance the U.S.A. itself guarantees. Trump had previously announced the delivery of 1,800 Mark 84 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.
The intention behind a possible breach of the agreement is very clear: it is about implementing Trump’s and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to expel the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and drive them to Jordan and Egypt.
This proposal reveals a blatant lack of empathy for the Palestinians, and it destroys any remaining reputation of the West, which is now dwindling after 15 months of war in Gaza. Since the start of the current Gaza war, the U.S. alone has spent around $23 billion on the Israeli war. It is clear that Israel could not wage this war for long without U.S. support. The war against the Palestinians has become a symbol of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the West worldwide.
What Is the Alternative and Our Role?
At the forefront of the fight against these crimes against humanity is Dr. Naledi Pandor, the former Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa. We had the honor of having her with us the day before yesterday at the 89th weekly online meeting of our International Peace Coalition (IPC). She said:
I believe we should have the spirit of [Nelson] Mandela, that freedom is possible; that the Palestinian people will enjoy sovereignty, justice, and freedom. And that the Oasis Plan offers an opportunity for us to think of the world in a different way. So, let us marshal our resources; let’s not freeze at this point. Let us be ambitious; let us be optimistic. Because Mandela has shown that things that we imagine impossible are indeed possible.
With these words, Dr. Pandor, internationally known for bringing the Israeli genocide case before the International Court of Justice, closed the 89th weekly meeting of the IPC, founded in May 2023 on the initiative of the founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Dr. Pandor was joined by Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana (2011-2015), Dennis Fritz, Director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) and Chief Master Sergeant (ret.) of the U.S. Air Force, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
Dr. Pandor pledged to support our campaign for the Oasis Plan and emphasized that African nations must also implement similar large-scale water infrastructure projects.
What Is the Oasis Plan?
The supply of drinking water to the Palestinians is catastrophically low. Israeli households use around 240 liters per capita per day, while Palestinians use an average of 73 to 90 liters. During a visit to Iraq in 1975, Lyndon LaRouche proposed the construction of large-scale seawater desalination plants and the construction of extensive infrastructure and industry throughout the Arab region as a necessary part of a long-term peace order. In 1990, LaRouche stated:
We have repeatedly said, and rightly so, that that line of argument is wrong, and even dangerously absurd. The simple reason is, that without a policy of economic development, the Arabs and Israelis have no common basis for political agreement; no common interest. It is only as the Israeli—not as a Zionist, but as an Israeli—finds his or her interest to be the economic development of Israel, as a nation (not as an arms exporter, not as a participant in drug trades, not as an exporter of illegal or black diamonds, but as a producer of vegetables, machine tools, technology, and so forth), and the Arab similarly, that both have a fundamental, common interest in the progressive development of the fertility and fecundity of the land of the entire region. On that basis, for the sake of those respective and common economic interests, a political settlement is possible. Without that element, the idea of political settlement is an old fool’s coughing into the wind.
On the economic level, LaRouche warned of the danger of the physiocratic economic doctrine in the Arab countries, which saw economic wealth only as the result of their countries’ natural resource wealth. He stressed that only sovereign technological development and the promotion of science would enable these nations to increase the fertility and productivity of the soil for agriculture and industry.
The Oasis Plan proposes the construction of large-scale nuclear seawater desalination plants, combined with the construction of a canal between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea and the construction of an aqueduct and canal from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Dead Sea.
There are two processes for seawater desalination that are used on a large scale:
1. Multi-effect distillation: using the reactor’s waste heat in an evaporation and condensation cycle, and
2. Reverse osmosis: desalination through nano-filtration of water through membranes. A plant built by China holds the world record for desalination efficiency; the plant only uses 2.77 kWh per cubic meter.
Using a single nuclear power plant for seawater desalination, it would be possible, without much difficulty, to generate the energy needed to produce the water-volume equivalent of two Jordan Rivers (3.5 million cubic meters per day each). This would double the available fresh water in Palestine and Israel. LaRouche proposed using high-temperature pebble bed reactors for the project, which are ideally suited because of their inherent safety.
We are also in contact with an American engineer who has drawn up a project for the Jordanian government that envisages pumping some of this water farther into Jordan. This project could easily have been financed with the money wasted on bombs since October 7, 2023—another example of the insanity of today’s politics.
Such desalination plants are already in operation today, especially in the Gulf States. One country that is planning massive water projects is China. One of China’s many projects is the South-North Water Transfer Project, which transports over 40 billion cubic meters of water to northern China every year. Zhang Weiwei, professor of international relations at China’s Fudan University, said at a conference held by the Schiller Institute in December that China would be able to implement the Oasis Plan.
Danger of Geopolitics
Palestine and Israel are located at one of the most important geographical hubs in the world, connecting Asia and Africa and in close proximity to the Suez Canal, which is why many conflicts over geopolitical control have been fought here throughout history. There can only be an end to this if the U.S.A. agrees with China and Russia to leave the age of geopolitics behind us and instead usher in a new age of reason. Then the geopolitical bone of contention will become a hub of international development.
The New Silk Road must be extended to the entire Arab region—not just maritime, but also overland. Colonialism is coming to its final end. Now we must ensure that the new age is a better one for everyone.
