I lived in Israel for 11 years (I'm American-born). I got a degree in Islamic studies and Arabic. I wish I was more hopeful. All sides have plenty of problems and blame.  I don't have any full solutions but recommend that thinkers find out how the million or so Jews who lived for millenia in Morroco, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon and other Islamic influenced countries  (a few decades ago) feel about peace in the Middle East.  I married and divorced a Jew from Iran and her concerns are great (we e-mail occasionally)  as half of her family is in Israel and very few in Iran.  She is the mother of my daughter. I recommend an English site called www.jimena.org  to start.

The "Peace camp" is a misnomer, as if only they want peace.

Begin was head of Likud when he was PM, and he achieved peace with Egypt. What peace agreement did the "peace camp" reach, none?

Peace will come from strength, not from giving the Palestinians everything they want, that is a mistake, Israel has learned the hard way. When Israel proposed just about everything Arafat asked for, what happened, he just wanted more and started the Intifada, he interpreted that as Israel being weak, and thought that one more war and Israel will give him everything.

The "peace camp" have no monopoly on peace, the "peaceniks" have no monopoly on peace, in fact they have the wrong ideas on how to achieve peace.

All Israel want peace, the difference is between the realists and the dreamers.

Netanyahu is a realist, Begin is a realist, and only by being realistic and pragmatic can peace be reached, not by giving in to absurd demands from the Palestinians.

And demands from the rest of the world that have no stake in the matter, but staying on the good side of their Arab oil suppliers.

Let's not give the Palestinians 'everything' they want. Let's allow them only 22 per cent of Palestine, instead of 100. Let's allow 200,000 Palestinians to return, instead of 3 million.

But try and go below that - and you aren't supporting peace, you are supporting occupation.

Charles, I think everything is negotiable once we rid the area of terrorist, with that element out of the way we can have peace.

We have peace with Jordan, with Egypt, Israel is willing to negotiate anything and everything for a real long term peace, you know that.

Polarizing the sides does not help, we need to work together to minimize Iran's negative influence on the area.

I suggest you use the power of this blog in a more constructive way, than just pointing out the follies of Israel, which I am not saying are not there, but it is not helpful if your goal is peace.

The website Jewish Voice for Peace is calling attention for a petition
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

the petition is available at this address.

An open letter to President Obama Sign this open letter to President Obama asking him to lift the blockade of Gaza and more, and then ask your like-minded friends to do the same. Ask Obama to make good on his promise of HOPE.

Let's not give the Palestinians 'everything' they want. Let's allow them only 22 per cent of Palestine, instead of 100. Let's allow 200,000 Palestinians to return, instead of 3 million. 

But try and go below that - and you aren't supporting peace, you are supporting occupation.

yes and let us give them 14 hours in a day but no more, 75% of sunlight but block the rest with smoke screens, lets give them only 30% of farmable land and put salt in the rest....see where I'm going with this?

How about returning back to 50/50 1947 partition boundaries?  Or any boundaries the leaders of both nations agree to with social justice as the criteria, validating that both nations, both brothers deserve of equal resources, equal respect, and equal livelihood. 

How about Israel returning all the land that it had invaded/occupied by force over its 1947 partition, and by illegal settlements in West Bank?  How about making sure there are no occupied territories left, and no human rights abuses could take place?  Two nations, side by side, both run by secular democracy where minorities feel safe and welcomed? 

How about two nations signing a peace treaty?  This could be a real involved undertaking?  Agreements on participation in UN Security and Human Rights Councils.  Agreements on mutual history and how it will be taught at schools.  Agreements on International Criminal Court jurisdiction when it comes to killing of any civilians, especially minorities. 
  
How about releasing all prisoners being held without a charge on both sides? 

How about allowing displaced Palestinians and Israelis to return back to their home lands? Let their home nations decide how many they can accommodate.

Thanks Mr. Lenchner for a very good article. I definitely agree that most of the people in Israel and Palestine want peace. But the "old" way of thinking and "old" violent leaders seem to be the ones that dominate the political scene. They definitely need to vote in peace oriented leaders that really understand that it takes a lot more strength to restrain from violence that to commit one. There is a lot of anger and hatred by many people on both sides that feel that retaliating and commiting revenge is the only way to resolve the problems, or they will be considered weak.

Peace can only be attained by Peaceful Leaders.

Very good response by Meltem Narter. Oppression and human rights violation is wrong.

I just wish that they would all stop the atrocities on each other and negotiate peacefully, with kindness, fairness and compassion. Yes, there will have to be compromises. But then again, some people consider that weak too.

Keep up the great work.

Best regards.

When I followed the worldwide reaction to Israel's Gaza invasion and unproportional use of power.  I was confronted with a painful image.  Anti-Semitism in west Europe was not dead.

Anti-Semitism?  What fed such strong hatred of my Jewish brothers and sisters throughout history?  Jewish deicide was one, which is an anti-Semitic canard that placed the responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole?  Plain racism?  Religious, ethnic, cultural biases?  Well, during the WWII, the world witnessed the darkest page against humanity, worst human rights abuses.  It appears such a history of suffering gave rise to militant Zionism. 

In a way, I can understand the need for militant nationalism; in Jewish history it has turned into a matter of survival for Jewish people to have a home land.  But when I look at how fanatic Zionism embodied it, I get sad.  It appears militant Zionism as an action, created militant Palestine nationalism as a reaction.  They have been mirroring each other for centuries.  And the reflections have not been complimentary to look at.  “It takes courage to forgive”.  It takes courage to see who we have turned into.  When we see our own reflections in the mirror, we exclaim in righteous anger look at those people, they are after to destroy us. 

If we do a survey in Israel, and in occupied territories.  How many percent of Jews and Palestinians would believe the other side is after  eliminating them all together?  This fear and belief have been used to justify use of violence, abuse of human rights all in the name of self-defense.  That fear and violence have been coloring the interpretation of history and stopping us from moving towards peace.   

One hopeful page in history, towards the end of 15th century.  Spanish Inquisition horror is at its height.  One empire, where majority were Muslim, opened its doors to Jews, while they got prosecuted everywhere else: Ottoman Empire.  This example, as rare as it is, is to show Jews and Muslims could live side by side in peace, in fact they had over a few centuries.  

Then I see movement towards peace where people suffer the most. I get hopeful.  Shminists, conscientious objectors, some beautiful, brave children of Israel who are willing to be imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that occupies Palestine.  Thanks Charles, for introducing us to Hadash.  What the name stands for happens to be what we all wish for Israel and Palestine, Democracy for Peace and Equality. In the elections of 2006 Hadash received 3 Knesset seats, out of 120. I hope the new elections would bring about more support for bi-national coexistence.    

On an urgent action note, I heard that Israel Is Preventing Repair of the Electrical, Water and Sewage Systems in Gaza from Jewish Voice for Peace.

I just read a report about the Israeli army becoming increasingly controlled by radical, ultra-religious Jews.  Does this not chill your  blood?  If that continues, there is no hope for the Palestinians.

Charles, this, your blog now reads more like Al Jazeera then Al Jazeera reads like itself, are you proud?

What really stops Israel from carrying out a massive operation to get rid of the Palestinian problem once and for all. Seriously, Israel is going about it the long and hard way. In one fell swoop the Palestinians can be neutralized if Israel wants it to be so, you might speak of world opinion but who can really do anything? Sure the Europeans will write angry letters, but those can always be burned. Israel, the 4th military power in the world is under the umbrella of our nation, the number one military power in the world, so other nations thinking about waging war on Israel is just a pipe-dream. The UN is another non-factor, we will veto any resolutions against Israel and we have faithfully done for 50 + years. This brings me then, to my original question. What really stops Israel from pulling a little WWII of its on on the Palestinians? Its not like the worldwide protests actually amount to anything.
p/s totally right about Al Jazeera, I use this software called LiveStation where I can watch live tv from any country and Al Jazeera's raw unfiltered news isn't the kind i'm used to. Give me my dumbed-down, filtered, tweaked, one-sided news any day. Al Jazeera is an axis of evil!.

Faried, doesn't the fact that Israel can eliminate the Palestinians and refrains from doing so tell you something?

Maybe, just maybe Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbours, have you considered this possibility, or are you stimulated from the "raw" footage from Al Jazeera, raw alright, but filtered also, filtered to show just the damage to the Palestinians and not the damage the Palestinians cause.

"Raw" it is but not all of the picture is shown, so you are getting a distorted taste of reality, just like this blog.

Picked and chosen images and articles that paint a very distorted picture of reality is the namesake of the Al Jazeera coverage of the news.

You see a picture of a dead child, but they don't show is the Hamas terrorist just a second ago hiding behind that child firing on an Israeli soldier, so you are getting filtered images, filtered to show you their anti-Israel point of view.

The unfiltered version shows the whole story from beginning to end. As an American you should no what "The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" means. Al Jazeera may show the truth, but the other two parts are missing.

I am sorry I think you should go visit the territory  michael  and see for yourself before you put wrong information on any board online.I visited the area I am an American and my husband's family live there . I love to go visit but I would not go any where that I am privleged to go because of my American passport, but the people I am visiting can't come with me because they are limited where they can go or they need to wait in line for a day to get a permission slip to come with me and that might take days .What kind of life is that? How would you feel if you want to take your kids to disney world this week and guess what you can't because of an unfair political view. What would you do? Would you try to defend your right or not?.

@Scott:
I'm not sure I have a 'solution' as definitive as what I wrote. Mostly, I'm sure that without changed attitudes we will have more war.
Katzir, I think, was referring to blogs in Hebrew and English. The Russian ones are dominated by the right, I'm sure.

J T, yes what you have shared did scare me.  I have seen many times, in my lifetime how radical extremist religious dogma could be combined with fanatic nationalism to create killing machines.  Worst, since those are common identiy traits in suffering masses, you don't see what hit you.  What was supposed to "save" you turn against you in the blink of an eye. 


Farried paragraph scared me even more.  Declare one group as the axis of evil and anillihate whole people?  Bush administration mentality.  Hopefully, the election results was an answer to you that such blatant use/abuse of power was not okay with all of us, resulting in murder of one million civilians.  Yes, we are the strongest military power, and Israel has turned into the strongest military power in the Middle East with our help.  With our veto power in the UN it has also proven that it can kill as ruthlessly as we can and call it self defense.


No, Michael I do not see any refrain on Israel's part. It has the military power and it has the will to kill at 1:100, 1:1000 ratios, and it has committed massacres.  It has been controlling the livelihood and the whole infrastructure in the occupied territories.  It had sentenced one race to a life of poverty.  Do these strike you as the actions of a nation wanting peace with her neighbors?

Wow. Good post and an interesting thread. I just posted a comment to your post on the Israeli elections so I will try not to repeat myself.

It isn't just the "left" who disliked the war. Read John Mershimer and Stephan Walt--Walt has a website on foreign policy.  Walt used to teach at the University of Chicago, hardly a bed for leftism. I am not sure if Mershimer still teaches there or if he has retired. Both has been critical of Israel's war machine and Mershimer wrote a revealing book on the Israeli lobby in America. He got death threats. Mershimer has also advised in many think tanks in America.  He is a believer in real-politik. Hardly a leftist. I know these men as they were my husband's teachers when he was an undergraduate. So I bristle a bit when I hear "leftist" as it is too slick, but I don't deny that many of these bloggers may consider themselves as such.

Mr. Narter: I admire your last comment.