A post that isn't coming together (yet?): Israel, Palestine, and Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

 Maybe I'll have something more coherent to say at some point, but I don't today.  For now, I'll simply recommend the first two books of the Hyperion series, by Dan Simmons.  There are four books in the series, and they are all very highly regarded in the science fiction canon, but I only actually like the first two.  Read Hyperion, and The Fall of Hyperion.  Anyway, here are some quick comments on the set-up, and where I thought I might go.  Perhaps I'll get a post together at some point.

The novels take place in the distant future, when Earth has been "oopsed," and humanity mostly lives scattered around a set of planets in a grand empire called the "Hegemony," connected through a set of "farcaster" portals.  Step through a door on one planet, exit somewhere else!  There are AIs controlling it, and the "Ousters," who won't join, and there's time travel, and all sorts of wacky stuff.  It is intricate, and high-minded, and John Keats figures very heavily into it, and yadda-yadda-yadda.  Read it.

Anyway, Earth is gone.  Hence, so is Jerusalem.  So is any territory that would be claimed by Israel or Palestine.  Jews?  Still kind of off and hiding.  Palestinians?  Still kind of ghettoized.  The first book follows a Canterbury Tales structure, and you get the former story from Sol Weintraub, and the latter from Fedmahn Kassad.

Take away the land itself, and the specific fight goes away.  But the positions of the groups?  Maybe not so much.  That's what happens in the novel.

I was trying to write something about how you get to there from here, and the post ain't workin'.  So you get this instead.  Maybe it'll happen.  Either way, read the books.  The first two, anyway.

Here's some music.  A Live From Here performance of "Jerusalem Ridge," with Sarah Jarosz.  Chris Thile and Sarah Jarosz together... it does not get better.