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In 1965, by the time Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug finally received the wheat seeds he was waiting for in India, war had broken out between India and Pakistan.

Borlaug -- the man who revolutionized wheat growing and "fed the world" -- was about to apply his talents to the starving subcontinent when he awoke to the news that the country had become a war zone. He had two options: A.) Leave the country; or B.) Stay indoors until fighting stopped.

Borlaug chose option C.) Go out to the fields amid the hail of bullets and plant the seeds anyway. Even during wartime, those crop yields rose 70 percent. Borlaug survived, and so did perhaps as many as 1 billion -- that's billion, with a 'b' -- people who would have otherwise starved.

Borlaug died Sept. 12 in his Dallas home at age 95. That's one reason I bring this up. The other reason is that the annals of Middle East history, and especially those of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are littered with Westerners' favorite "If only": If only the Palestinians had their own Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

What they need -- and in fact what the region on a whole needs -- is a Norman Borlaug.

Luckily for everyone, Israel may have produced one; he currently dwells in an office marked "prime minister".

In May, Binyamin Netanyahu began unveiling parts of his plan for the conflict. It referred to an "economic peace," and consisted of ways to develop the Palestinian economy now, instead of clownishly waiting for American bureaucrats and diplomats to solve the conflict. (Sooner will Godot arrive.)

Bibi was ridiculed for the idea by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Palestinian leadership, among others. As the Arabs and Americans stalled, and as the media's professional harrumphers rolled their eyes at him, Netanyahu formed a committee -- including the finance minister and defense minister -- to work on a plan to improve the economic condition of the West Bank.

The danger and disorder of the Palestinian territories didn't faze him; neither did the West's obsession with red tape. Netanyahu waited for his seeds and then planted.

And what did the harvest reap? The answer is in the Economist magazine's Sept. 10 report on the West Bank's economic condition. The headline reads: "Not as horrible as it was".

You could just hear the editors gritting their teeth as they wrote it.

The subject of the article was a report by the World Bank noting that the West Bank economy was on pace to grow by 5 percent this year.

In August, I wrote that the Palestinian municipalities should forge partnerships with Israel and develop independent of each other, because some were strong enough to contribute already. Here is part of what I wrote:

"The average daily wage in new Israeli shekels (NIS) for the West Bank municipalities of Salfeet, Bethlehem, and Ramallah/al-Bireh (92.2, 96.5, and 99.5 respectively) are much higher than places like Tubas (76.7) and Jericho and al-Aghwar (71.4). ... Additionally, Bethlehem, Ramallah/al-Bireh, and Hebron have the highest percentage of workers who live and work in that municipality -- 84.2, 92.4, and 85.5 percent, respectively, making them good candidates for self-sufficiency.

"Bethlehem and Ramallah/al-Bireh are also among the municipalities with the lowest percentage of self-employed workers. So most of the residents of those municipalities not only work within those districts, but they work for other people in those locations, meaning there is some semblance of a functioning economy there. ... In fact, a look at the industry breakdown shows that... the municipality of Ramallah/al-Bireh is a commercial, transportation, communication, construction, and service center in the West Bank."

Here is what the Economist announced in the Sept. 10 article: "In the Ramallah area, buildings are going up fast; new malls and shopping centres have opened. Since May the Israeli government has let Israeli Arabs visit West Bank cities, where they can buy things more cheaply, and this can help boost the economy."

So the Economist grudgingly admits that our recommendations, and Netanyahu's plans, were on-target -- and that the Economist was wrong. And so were the Palestinian and American administrations. And so were the media. And so were Western European leaders. And so were... well, you get the idea.

Will Bibi get the credit he deserves? I'm sure you laughed as much reading that sentence as I did writing it. But after his Sept. 22 meeting with Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, President Barack Obama announced he was backing away from his demand of a full Israeli settlement freeze as a precondition for negotiations.

The reason the demand for an Israeli "precondition" was counterproductive soon became obvious to everyone: Netanyahu was already moving on a peace plan that was working. It was simply the Americans and Palestinians who were doing nothing.

The Americans, of course, should continue to do nothing, and stop getting in everyone's way. The Palestinians should join Bibi, because surely they'll want at least some of the credit for Bibi's successes.

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.