I'm so glad I was born a Jew. Yes, the Judaic being today fights back and fights better than his enemies because intellect is the ultimate weapon.

Its looking like most of it went down under to me.

Indeed. Here I am. goodoldrebel, get yourself under control, your doing no good by ranting.

First let me declare my allegiances. I am a religious zionist, hebrew nationalist, peace if possible type.

You are all missing a bit of history. Lets start around 1870, the secular zionist movement is in its infancy and growing fast and religious jews are trying to get to israel to study in the famous religious academies there. the turks rule syria, of which 'palestine' is part of. At this time the splits are like this Muslims - bedouin, syrian arabs and turks, Jews - palestinian jews - sephardim or mizrachim who had been in israel for a long time, and european jews - ashkenazim who had been around for less than 200 years, and Christians who I am not gonna talk about here because there were so few.

In the international sphere tensions are rising, war seems about to break out, but keeps getting put off. The turks don't care too much about who lives in israel as long as they don't disturb them.

move forward thirty years, the jewish population is growing despite pressure from the syrian arabs and bias in the turkish system. international tensions are sky high and armies are getting bigger. jews are leaving europe in a small trickle, western european jews have assimilated to an extent and feel at home in their countries.

move forward eighteen years, the ottoman empire has been divided up between the conquerors and palestine went to the british.

between war1 and war2 jew-hatred (happy senojekips?) has risen to an all-time high, hitler is whipping up crowds in germany with it, and many are trying to leave europe, many to the US of A, and quite a few to israel. However the british have instituted controls on how many jews can enter palestine per year, so many try to slip around the RN ship patrolling for smugglers or go by land.

W2 starts, jews in german controlled land are barred from just about everything, and the ghettoes are stating to open. (I'll skip all european stuff for the rest of this, I find it depressing) In palestine the UK make the same promise to both jewish and arabic groups "fight for us and you'll have our support at the end of the war." Come the end of the war and britain which has exhausted itself, says "both of you, piss off."

This starts a three year three-way undeclared war. Meanwhile the refugees from europe are being kept from entering by the british and are staying in Diplaced Persons camps, which are horrible. After three years and numerous terrorist acts by all three sides, the State of Israel declares it's independence, and one day later the arab armies attack. Just about every single jew is in the army and the civilian arabs are running north and over the jordan to stay out of the way of any armies, jewish or arab.

After the fighting, many arabs return, but many others refuse to.

The then king of jordan sets up "refugee camps" and refuses to allow the arabs from israel to work or live outside of them. this creates a split, suddenly there are 'Palestinians' and 'Arabs.'

And I can't be bothered going further, because I have to go eat.

I am not sure you are telling us anything we don't know there and we still have exactly the same problem:
Two people who can not and will not live in a single state but will not relinquish title to a land both claim as their own.

So as a "Peace if possible" type how do you solve this issue?

I see Israel's latest peace initiatives in action where they are now evicting palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem an occupied area, many of them built before the state of Israel was even proclaimed.

This is the Israeli way of ethic cleansing of an area so that "settlers" cam take over the area.

Israeli Ethnic Cleansing in Action

honestly you guys these arguments never go anywhere. different people view this issue in different ways and it's unlikely that anyone will change their mind.

Originally Posted by benaakatz

honestly you guys these arguments never go anywhere. different people view this issue in different ways and it's unlikely that anyone will change their mind.

Yes Ben, if there had been Internet in 1933 some people would have said the same to those who tried to point out what the Nazis were doing in Germany.

Ethnic cleansing is a Crime Against Humanity, as clearly defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_against_humanity

What ever happens, I know that I was one of those who never sat aside and allowed it to happen without protest. I have no particular love of Palestinians, but it's a matter of having some moral values, and being honest to yourself and those about you.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Originally Posted by MontyB

I am not sure you are telling us anything we don't know there and we still have exactly the same problem:
Two people who can not and will not live in a single state but will not relinquish title to a land both claim as their own.

So as a "Peace if possible" type how do you solve this issue?

Great point Monty, it is too easy to get lost in the passion of the argument and to forget the subject of the argument.

Opinion seems to broadly fall into one of 3 categories - pro Israel, pro Palestinian or ambivalent to both sides, I'm in the latter. I admire Israel for it's courage and defiance but dislike it for the policies that it has enacted against the Palestinians - I'll not draw any further allusions they've been done to death already!

So how do we solve the problem? Not too sure that you can, as the Palestinians have nothing to lose (literally) and the Israeli's have everything to lose. One thing that I am sure of, you'll never make friends with anyone that you keep starved and beaten on a regular basis.

I wonder what would happen if we allowed normal people to have a greater voice in policy and negotiations, the ones that suffer, rather than politicians with an eye to their next sinecure?

Originally Posted by MontyB

I am not sure you are telling us anything we don't know there and we still have exactly the same problem:
Two people who can not and will not live in a single state but will not relinquish title to a land both claim as their own.

So as a "Peace if possible" type how do you solve this issue?

I don't know enough to propose an entire solution.

However having said that, their are some necessary things, from the Israeli POV, for peace.

1. Hamas must accept that Israel exists, and will continue, and has the right to exist.

2. Hamas must disarm most of it's 'security forces'

3. Fatah (the PA) needs to stop shitting in it's own backyard, and treat it's people properly, which will decrease crime and terrorism. (Recently information came to light saying that most Fatah people weren't paid, and that Fatah is having trouble keeping services such as water and electricity running due to rampant corruption.)

4. Syria and Iran need to stop supplying the various terrorist groups.

5. People from both sides need to stop illegal construction. (Of which most actually tends to be palestinian, regardless of what people say)

Now for possibilities

1. The two-state solution, however fatah and hamas cannot be allowed a military, based on their past record.
I like this one as it means that they are no longer Israels problem and we can be free of them, close the borders, and have no more problems. It actually looks like we are heading this way, as the PA seems to be picking up more administrative and regulatory functions, however see point three on the other list.

2. keep thing more or less as they are, with the PA and hamas running the west bank and gaza.
This is not really a solution, just a put off to a later date.

3. Ask the PA if they would like to become part of Israel with full citizenship.
Probably not gonna happen due to the politics of numbers, but it is an interesting option, as it would give Israeli employers large numbers of workers, and make israel stronger on the inernational market.

Now for a little rant.

For all of you guys calling for a halt to construction, let me ask you this: who do you think most of the construction laborers are, the one ones that get laid off first when the builders have no more contracts, and need the money most?

Originally Posted by TheManFromOz

I don't know enough to propose an entire solution.

However having said that, their are some necessary things, from the Israeli POV, for peace.

1. Hamas must accept that Israel exists, and will continue, and has the right to exist.

Israel may well have the right to exist, but they have no right to exist in someone else's land.

2. Hamas must disarm most of it's 'security forces'

Hamas would never have come into being, had the Zionists not robbed, humiliated, beaten and murdered the rightful land owners.

3. Fatah (the PA) needs to stop shitting in it's own backyard, and treat it's people properly, which will decrease crime and terrorism. (Recently information came to light saying that most Fatah people weren't paid, and that Fatah is having trouble keeping services such as water and electricity running due to rampant corruption.)

Not to mention the deliberate destruction of Palestinian civil infrastructure by Israel.http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE02/018/2006

4. Syria and Iran need to stop supplying the various terrorist groups.

Define terrorist groups. then tell us if America should stop supplying Israel. Were the allies supplying terrorists when we supplied the Marquis?

5. People from both sides need to stop illegal construction. (Of which most actually tends to be palestinian, regardless of what people say)

What Palestinians do in their country is no business of Israel, you very conveniently forget whose country it is. Israel merely occupies it and is not allowed under International law to build on occupied land.
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/...2575A9004D7CB4
http://euobserver.com/9/29203

For all of you guys calling for a halt to construction, let me ask you this: who do you think most of the construction laborers are, the one ones that get laid off first when the builders have no more contracts, and need the money most?

Steal my land, beat and kill my family, then pat yourself on the back for offering under paid work to the starving survivors, building illegal settlements for Israel.

How stupid do you think people are?

When you quote an unbiased source, we'll talk.

You can be biased, it's no skin off my nose, but when a inernational NGO shows an obvious bias, I ignore them.