I, of course, agree that peace is the goal.  However, I don't think that calling Palestinians terrorists and unreasonable, assuming Israeli's want to occupy, or questioning the right for either group to exist is useful.

It seems to me that while hitting the bullseye, you went around the target.  Peace.  Again.  Of course.  But it's just not that simple.  I can neither credit Israel for responding to fears of their own annihilation or Palestinians to theirs (though historically since the 40's it is the Palestinians who have been persecuted, displaced and there has been attempted annihilation).  Personally, I favor the Palestinians, I'm concerned that they are underrepresented and easily exploited, that the violence coming out of a segment of the population is ascribed to the entire population.  But I am not opposed to Israel, I am opposed to human rights violations, collective punishment and paranoia.  I am opposed to rockets, mines, bombs, phosphorus, all of it.

It's just not that simple.

I love the explanation but does that really exculpate the crimes that are being committed in its name, namely "security" and "self-defense". I could go on forever but many countries feel a sense of unjustified persecution and criticism and attempt to point the blame somewhere else AND highlight crimes committed by the accuser and their allies or neighbours as well as their enemies. Even Americans get on the defensive when people question the policies that aggravate the world but is meant to make America or the world "safer". The Sudanese matter is patently false since al-Bashir is the only one being indictment for "crimes against humanity" and the ICC would not lift a finger against anyone else but African officials. Criticism is somewhat different when in academia as opposed to the UN and human rights groups: China gets their fair share, Iran gets a good portion, Russia gets their's, as well as Latin America. It seems that the focus is more or less on developing nations with a few exceptions. Having Israel lumped in with rogue nations should NOT be diverted, especially that no Israeli official is ever called to trial (or even American). What's so insulting is that many of Israel's supporters suggest that their's is a country like no other and yet cite the reasons you wrote about Charles: that to me does not sound like France. Make no mistake about it: this is a country that occupies land and prevents another people from having basic rights, sometimes even within their own country. That doesn't sound like Luxembourg either.

There are reasons for the criticisms and reasons why they get repeated; it's because the offenses continue to happen and with impugnity.

Last point: I would imagine that an Afrikaaner from South Africa still has resentment at the world community for "singling" out their country which was an industrial giant at its time. But those dastardly moralists had the nerve to point out South Africa's human rights violations and call for a boycott of them when so many atrocities were happening at the time in the whole world. Why South Africa? Why stop them?

Sigh.

Charles, thank you very much for your post.  Very few pro-Palestinian writers seem willing to acknowledge the things you mention.

I agree with you that some defenders of Israel use "every rhetorical bullet in their arsenal" as you say, e.g. Alan Dershowitz.  But I think the majority simply want people to make an honest evaluation of Israeli behavior in the same way that they judge the behavior of other countries.  It's very frustrating to hear people continually screaming "war crimes!!!!!!!!!!! IDF intentionally targets civilians!" while completely ignoring the enormous amount of effort the IDF goes to in order specifically to *not* target civilians, and not even bothering to make minimally fair comparisons between what the IDF does and what countries like the U.S. and Britain have done in similar circumstances.  AFAIK the vast majority of anti-Israel left-wingers read *ONLY* other left-wing sources that share the same bias as they do, while firmly believing that it's only the non-left-wing sources that are biased.  Many left-wing sources I've read seem unable to acknowledge even the most obvious instances of cases of bias on "their" side, e.g. the pervasive anti-Israel bias at the U.N. and the enormous amounts of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. (For info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel,_Palestine_and_the_United_Nations
)

Sigh indeed.

Ben, everyone's biased.  And please, do not lump pro-Palestinians in with anti-semites.  I may not approve the Israels blatant human rights abuses (ie. the barrier around Gaza restricting all Palestinians international right to free movement and collectively punishing over a million people for the actions of a couple hundred...sounds like targeting civilians to me...) but just because I don't approve a country's policies does not mean I don't approve of the country's people or way of life.  For instance, I don't agree with Shariah law in Sudan, it kills innocent people and does not allow for any free expression, but I don't hate all Muslims because some believe in Shariah law. 

Some people would, but it's a logical fallacy.

Sorry to take over the discussion here but...

Michael, do you expect a densely populated subjugated population to be completely peaceful?  If you were an African American living under Jim Crowe, would you have just smiled and loved your neighbor, if you were in apartheid Africa, would you have said, ok, you guys take care of everything.

Obviously the story you're refering to had little to no political reason, but sociopaths come in all shapes and sizes and the Palestinians cannot be held to a higher standard then everyone else just because they've been ghetto-ized. 

And Israeli's don't have it easy.  You lose part of yourself by oppressing another, part of your humanity.

And what of Israeli terrorists?  Teaching children that "Palestinians do not value life," dehumanizing their neighbor, encouraging violence through intense militarization, building a wall to differentiate a clear us from them. 

So a better way?  Really?  I would say, separate but equal is never equal, it can never stand up to justice and history, and the barriers must be torn down.  All of them.  Peace and security will never exist with a two state solution.  There will never be equality and there will always be violence in response.  There must be a one-state solution, with quotas for government officials but not a perpetuation of complete Israeli dominance.  I firmly believe that Israeli's and Palestinians can exist side by side in peace.  It's going to take some work though...

The theocratic state must be rejected as an archaic model that in a multi-ethnic, heterogenous world, simply cannot exist.  This doesn't mean that Israel shouldn't have close ties to Judaism.  Of course it should.  But look at the other theocratic states, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, are things really that great there?  Is there justice for minorities?  Are people free to live?  Are these states Israel should be siding with?

That's just a start. 

I'll first state that this post makes me nauseous. It's easy for everyone to say they're pro-peace. I'm sure even Bush et. al. would say that. Peace is nothing, meaningless. Justice is what matters.

It's also easy to say you're pro-Israel without defining what that means. What Israel are you in favor of? And really, when it comes down to it, whichever version of Israel you support, unless it's a one state, secular, equal rights for all Israel, then that means you don't support justice.

Settler-colonialism based on an exclusivist ideology can never be reconciled with justice. Peace in such a case can only prevail through coercion and submission - aka force.  Since you are pro-Israel I can only assume that's the peace you advocate. I propose changing the name of this blog to "Peace (through strength) in the Middle East" or "Peace (not justice) in the Middle East."

I am not pro-Israel. It seems utterly ridiculous to me that a country that is founded on a racist ideology, is loaded with WMDs, backed by the most powerful military in the history of the world, and constantly and illegally expanding its territory at the expense of the Palestinian people, should cry about whether a poor, infinitely weaker and totally disenfranchised people acknowledge its existence (something that is not repriprocated). The only explanation for this is to try and justify its selfish and brutal actions by portraying itself as the victim and that is patently the biggest joke of all time.

Imagine a child psychologist claiming that understanding bullies is not relevant to the goal of stopping bullying.

Of course, no professional would say such a thing. Understanding bullies is essential to stopping that behavior. It turns out that many bullies come from homes in which violence is present, and that many of them were victims of bullying at a younger age.

Not understanding how these dynamics plays out is one thing. But claiming that the dynamics are irrelevant seems willfully ignorant.

Charles, if you are suggesting that the bully (Israel) has a history of violence perpetrated against it (the Holocaust) which is now manifested in its vicious behavior towards another weaker victim (the Palestinians), then I agree with you. However, while the world should be helping the victim, and encourging the bully to address his own issues, the reality is that the victim has been further victimized by the US, while the bully has been actively encouraged and armed.

I don't think you can transform the lives of the victims without transforming the lives of the perpetrators. An attitude of moral superiority and utter condemnation is unlikely to do either.

Both sides need to change. Maybe in different ways.... but if only one side changes, it won't be enough.

Charles, your discourse is quite disconcerting. Your vapid appeals to liberal notions of transformation and victimization would be much more tolerable if you also dealt with the tangible issues that myself and others are putting forward. Why won't you engage the fact that your version of peace is apartheid in a fuzzy, feel-good liberal lining?

Change.org. If this site can't take a principled stand on Palestine then it shames all the other good work it does and  should be renamed institutionalizedracism.org.

What I'm refusing to do is be specific in a way that alienates people who think differently. I have opinions, but try to be humble about them. Being extremely humble about my own opinions makes it easier to take the sacred cows of any and all other factions less seriously.
At the end of the day, I'm not here to persuade people to agree with the Charles Lenchner plan for peace. I'm happy enough of I've helped engage more people in the conversation and steer them away from the extremists on either side.

What's funny is I spent most of my political life as a member of a political party called Hadash, which has a leadership and membership that is 98 per cent Palestinian-Israeli, and I'm being accused of belonging to the political 'center.'

Only in America.....

The ghosts of Tawfiq Ziyyad and Emile Habibi are surely spinning in their graves!

My opinion is that pro-peace voices are to be found among those who support one state as well as two, and anti-peace voices are to be found there as well. It depends on whether or not they embrace the mechanics of peace making, not which policy position they embrace.

Peace making is an activity that requires opening yourself up to the perspectives of people who think differently from yourself. Of course, there are limits to this approach, and no one suggests that it comes at the expense of lobbying, protests or advocacy activities. But without a strong support for peace - the transformation of conflict into reconciliation - then you won't ever achieve it.

I support the solution that both sides can agree upon, as reflected by those they vote for. For peace to happen, someday Hamas and Likud will have to find common ground. Hamas will never defeat the Likud, and the Likud will never defeat Hamas.

Since both of those organizations appear (at least some of the time) to support one state, perhaps a one state solution will arrive someday!

"The ghosts of Tawfiq Ziyyad and Emile Habibi are surely spinning in their graves!"

Tawfiq zayyad and Emile Habibi were leaders and were not afraid to state where they stood and what they truly believed in. They were clear in the direction and the path they chose. Indeed, yes their ghosts would spinning in their graves reading what you write here.
Peace making does not mean compromising what you believe in or shying away from stating it. The role of the leader is not to swim with flow even dead fish can do that.
So tell us what does peace mean to you. Can peace be achieved without justice? Does peace mean cessation of violence? What constitutes justice? How can negotiations lead to a mutually agreeable solution? Can fair negotiations take place between a heavily militarized entity holding its boot on the neck of the party it is supposed to negotiate with? I am not asking those questions rhetorically. It is all nice and well to utter nice sounding words and voicing lofty ideas and ideals about mutual recognition, coexistence and transformation of conflict, etc...However not recognizing the context or actually ignoring it is very naive.
"Peace making is an activity that requires opening yourself up to the perspectives of people who think differently from yourself." Yet at every opportunity you have those who voice ideas you consider being "far left" you never hesitate belittling them and being negative about what they have to say such as putting them in the same bag as "far right". That is not opening yourself up to perspectives different than yours. On the contrary that is saying if you don't agree with my approach then you are an extremist--does not matter if you are on the right or on the left you are the same.
"I support the solution that both sides can agree upon, as reflected by those they vote for." Does this mean that you supported Bush and his crimes because he won the elections? I am sure you did not. The question is why not? Is it perhaps you had your own beliefs which did not coincide with the policies pursued by him and his administration? If that is the case why is it that those of us who happen to question the premise and the validity of negotiations as they have been going on for the last decade and a half--I emphasize that I am not opposed to fair and honest negotiations--are considered by you as "dogmatic", "far left" obstructionists? Don't you find it hypocritical that you allow yourself to be in opposition when it suits you and disparage those who might have opposing ideas to yours?
Discussion and dialog first means respect for the other's ideas. You don't have to agree with what I or others say. Yes please show me and tell me why you think my ideas don't work or are impractical and unrealizable but don't hide behind "legitimacy" of the elected officials. By that same argument I can reach the conclusion that Israelis are not serious about peace because the majority of them voted for the two parties that oppose peace.

Here's are a few verses of Tawiq Zayyad's poetry of defiance:

In Here We Will Stay, he writes:

In Lydda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,
we shall remain
like a wall upon your chest,
and in your throat
like a shard of glass,
a cactus thorn,
and in your eyes
a sandstorm.
We shall remain
a wall upon your chest,
clean dishes in your restaurants,
serve drinks in your bars,
sweep the floors of your kitchens
to snatch a bite for our children
from your blue fangs.
Here we shall stay,
sing our songs,
take to the angry streets,
fill prisons with dignity.
In Lydda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,
we shall remain,
guard the shade of the fig
and olive trees,
ferment rebellion in our children
as yeast in the dough.

And in All I Have

I never carried a rifle
On my shoulder
Or pulled a trigger.
All I have
Is a flute's melody
A brush to paint my dreams,
A bottle of ink.
All I have
Is unshakeable faith
And an infinite love
For my people in pain.

The fundamental reason for the failure to achieve peace, in the opinion of historians, scholars and foreign policy experts is the continued expansion of settlements in Palestinian territory. These expansions that result in the dispossession of Palestinians, and the destruction of their homes and farms. During the Camp David talks, following the Oslo/Taba talks and agreements, the settlements continued to grow, as they do today. The Israeli government with U.S. backing did not demonstrate honesty in attempting to reach a peaceful settlement. Peace between Israel and Palestine requires that the Israelis state they will accept an independent Palestinian state, and freeze settlements.

As of now Israel accepts neither a true two state solution (a sovereign Palestine) and non acceptance of one state with Palestinian inclusion. The leadership of Palestine since the negotiations under President Clinton reluctantly declared acceptance of an Israeli state. HAMAS has also stated very reluctantly its acceptance of two states. How can there be any negotiations with such a refusal by Israel?

The excuse by Israel: "we will not negotiate with terrorists", i.e. HAMAS, is not an option, and as foolish as Bush refusing to talk with Iran.

There's an obvious reason why Cambodia does not face and will never face the questioning of its existence as a country, and a demand for its disolution: Cambodian genocide was commited by Cambodian people against Cambodians in Cambodian soil.
It is indeed a tricky business to take part in the Palestine-Israeli conflict, be it blogging, and expect to be friends to all. I for one, just don't get what it is that should force anyone who loves peace to pressure Israel to change its behavior, "at this particular moment in time".
When the State of Israel was created in 1948, there was indeed a neighborhood "calling loudly" against its existence. Sadly enough, there still is, but I just can't find one single reason that may blow away that idea, while Israel keeps on bullying a people.
Israel was created in Palestinian soil, after over 50 years of buying off land to absent landowners, in a place where there was no tradition of landowning rights, and after forcibly displacing people on the grounds of such property rights. As stated in Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs web page, in 1914 there were 95 thousand Jews in Palestine. In just over 30 years, they became close to 1 millon.
Thanks to the colonial influence of States co-responsable of a far away genocide, they declared a new nation in other people's land. At least half a year before that, and since then, ethnic cleansing - if not downright genocide - has been inflicted on the indigenous people by the newcomers. This is the rationale which explains and justifies many people's argument against the existence of Israel - a State which by the way, has been consistently violating the resolution which imposed its creation, overiding Palestinian people's rights to their historical land.
At this point, it is obvious that the cacophony in the first phrase of this short answer to your post does not apply in the case of Israel. Because Israel commits ethnic cleansing, forced displacemente and aggresion (if not downright genocide) not against themselves, but against Palestinian people, in Palestinian land. I often ask myself, why people who argue other people's questioning of the existence of Israel as a State, usually forget to draw on Israel's permanent denial of a Palestinian State?

"But the Israeli case is different. It was born in 1948 in a neighborhood calling loudly for the infant nation to be strangled immediately."

Here you are, giving us the standard "Israel is (uniquely) being picked on" line.  Similar to the "Jews are (uniquely) being picked on.  Can't you get beyond it?  Jews are not the only people to suffer from genocide.

As for the above statement, it is your perpective, but may I respectfully say that:
a) as an account of history, it's decidedly mushy and rather distorts the facts of the case
b) from the point of view of the people in whose land Israel was established, why would you ever expect them to approve of mass murder and expulsion of themselves from what was up to then their land?  You keep repeating the Israeli wording, which (as I said) is a distortion and furthermore imputes evil motives to the Palestinians who defended their land in 1948 as well as the neighboring Arab states who failed in their attempted humanitarian intervention.  Why is ethnic cleansing OK in your book?
c) from my perspective, Israel is unique in that it was the only nation founded in the modern era (since WWII and the foundation of the UN) on the basis of ethnic cleansing, mass murder and terrorism.   Deliberate mass murder, terror and ethnic cleansing for that matter.  While there have certainly been greater atrocities and ethnic cleansings committed by other nations, all other nations that came into being since WWII (probably even WWI) that I'm aware of are pretty much composed of mostly pre-existing people as their body of citizenship.  Some kicking out of colonists in some cases, and there's a whole slew of governments that are horrible, but Israel is really the only state founded on deliberate, premeditated ethnic cleansing.  This establishes a precedent, that ethnic cleansing and murder based on race is OK.

I admit I don't accept Israel's validity for the very reason that it was founded on ethnic cleansing, and I will accept it's validity when Israel agrees to rectify that ethnic cleansing in a way accepted without coercion by the victims, that is, the direct victims or their descendants.  The atrocities recently committed in Gaza are just one of a series.

Other countries founded - at least in part - on ethnic cleansing, after WWII, include India and Pakistan. The total number of ethnically cleansed people there far outstrips the # of Palestinians.

This is not a defence of Israeli actions in the past. I'm just looking for possible holes in your statement.

It does sound reasonable that Israel's acceptance by the world community be held contingent on its willingness to 'do right' by the Palestinians, in a way that meets their minimum demands. The question for me is - is that strategy likely to work? If no, then it's an obstacle to peace as well as making amends. I think the jury is still out. The trend so far seems to be - first accept Israel, then promote justice for the Palestinians. Is it working?

Right now, not so much.

"Right now, not so much."
That is an understatement !!! Not at all would be more like it. Accepting Israel in what respect. The PLO accepted Israel what did they get? More settlements, more Jewish only roads, more checkpoints, more bantustanization. What does that tell you?

Aref, it's interesting that even when you agree with me it comes off like a hostile comment. Maybe that's just the nature of blog comment threads.

The legitimacy of Israel is not at question, what is, is the legitimacy of a  Palestinian state.

A recent Finnish third party survey showed that the majority of Palestinians want to eliminate Israel, (they only differ on the method) and have all of Israel for themselves.

So what is the point of discussing a state that one side (the Palestinians) do not want.

Israel's policy in this situation should be to protect itself from this threat, isolate the threat and wait for a new generation of peace loving Palestinians to emerge, like we had in the 80's as Aref nostalgically recalls in poetry.

I would love to see poet writing, goat herding, peace loving neighbors, any time over Jew hating, gun slugging Palestinians, lead by murdering Hamas.

IDF do not murder, this is all false allegations:

Ashkenazi: Allegations of IDF war crimes in Gaza 'unfounded'

Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi on Sunday reiterated his utter rejection of statements made by IDF soldiers to the effect that the army carried out war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

"We were all, myself included, disturbed by the 'testimonies' attributed to soldiers regarding inappropriate actions and the ostensible intentional harm visited upon the civilian population," Ashkenazi wrote in a special Pessah greeting to reservists. "These testimonies were exhaustively examined and investigated by Military Police and the Military Advocacy and, to my satisfaction, have been proven to be unfounded and lacking in any factual base."

IDF chief was alluding to claims made by graduates of the Rabin Pre-military Academy during a conference held in February, which were later written up and printed in an academy pamphlet. Some Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz, then seized on the claims, and the allegations went on to make headlines around the world.

Ashkenazi added that if, however, "when the inquiries are concluded, isolated deviations from this norm are discovered, they will be investigated and thoroughly dealt with. The IDF is determined to safeguard its values and ethical and normative image. That is the source of our strength. We will never adapt the norms and values of our enemies and will always remain loyal to the values and heritage of our nation."

The army's ethic, he emphasized, "is based on the pairing of strength and justice, the need to brandish a sword in order to deter those who would destroy us and our incessant striving for peace with our neighbors… This ethos has withstood the test of all of the wars we have known and, recently, also Operation Cast Lead.

"We went to war with Hamas and other terror organizations after an extensive period of restraint, determined to defend our homes and our citizens and to remove the terror threat to the residents of the South."

Ashkenazi's missive did not spare Hamas, who, he said, "have turned their own people into human shields and chose to rain down fire and death from their homes, from inside schools, hospitals and mosques and forced us into an arena steeped with civilian populace. We insisted on focusing our war efforts military efforts on terror organizations and their infrastructure, while remaining determined to… take every possible measure in order safeguard the lives of our soldiers and refrain from harming the noncombatant civilian population."

Ally, FYI the IDF officers do not hold a position for longer then 2 years, to avoid corruption. It is one of the best run organization on the planet, and I have seen them all from IBM to GE to Intel.

Your experience is second hand and amounts to reading blogs, so how close to the truth do you think you are? Your anti-Israel bias is so strong that you are not open to the truth any more.

Michael,

I've checked out this group virtualjerusalem and not surprisingly they are an American Jewish pro Israel website. I also contacted a Norwegian friend of mine who works in developing countries, who says the facts have been grossly distorted and are fundamentally inaccurate. She says, the majority of Norwegians are sympathetic to the Palestinians and consider the treatment of them by the Israelis to be serious human rights violations.

Picture this: ..on the one side you have Israeli soldiers, kitted out with all the latest technology and machine guns. In the background you see a picture of the Pentagon, bags of dollars, hundreds of tanks and several F16 bombers. Then on the other side, there's a picture of a starving woman dressed in rags holding a baby against her breast and she has her hand through the barbed wire fence where she's imprisoned, begging for food and water. The Israeli army all have their guns pointed at her saying "We demand that you acknowledge our right to exist, that you hand over all your ancestral lands, and that you accept that you are the evil terrorists and we are good, virtuous, decent, peace loving people. Otherwise, we will shoot."

Michael, the source for your ALLEGED Norwegian study (strangely based in Alabama, USA!!) is biased towards Israel, portrays the Palestinians as the guilty party and Israel as the victim. The truth is that Hamas are insignificant to Israel (more Israelis die from road accidents than from Hamas rockets), they are merely a useful tool to ‘sell' their policy to gullible Americans and Israelis.

Ok, you don't like paintings, so how about some reading from distinguished, respected and unbiased sources:  

1. Israel expelled 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, and another 180,000 in 1967, in clear violation of international law. They have never been allowed to return to their homes or been compensated for lost property. Many live as second-class citizens in squalid refugee camps around the Middle East. Many of the camps are so crowded and due to the siege take on similarities to concentration camps during war periods. However, the Palestinian prison zones are the longest-kept concentration camps in the history of the world. Israel refuses to admit responsibility for the refugee problem.

Global Exchange, "The Palestinian Diaspora: A History of Dispossession"
"There are now at least 6 million Palestinian refugees, some of whom have been waiting more than 50 years to return home. The forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 is a core injury at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute."

Amnesty International, "Right to Return: The Case of the Palestinians"
"The right to return to one's own country is a key human rights principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International advocates the right to return regardless of the circumstances in which people have been exiled."

2. The leadership of the Zionist movement understood fully that expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population was necessary for the movement to realize its goal of a Jewish state in historical Palestine. The following articles describe this facet of Zionist thought, helping to shed light on the 1948 war and subsequent Israeli policies.

Ann Lesch, "Zionism and Its Impact," in Philip Mattar, ed., Encyclopedia Of The Palestinians, New York: Facts on File, 2000
"Adherents of Zionism believed that the Jewish people had an inherent and inalienable right to Palestine. Zionist leaders argued that if the Palestinians could not reconcile themselves to Zionism, then force majeure, not a compromise of goals, was the only possible response."

Israel Shahak, "A History of the Concept of 'Transfer' in Zionism," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3. (Spring, 1989), pp. 22-37
"Yosef Weitz, director of the Jewish National Fund in Palestine, wrote: 'Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this small country. The only solution is the Land of Israel without Arabs. We must leave not a single village, not a single tribe.'"

Nur Masalha, "A Miraculous Clearing of the Land?: The Zionist Concept of 'Transfer' and the 1948 Exodus," Shaml Newsletter, No. 11, May 1998
"The 1948 exodus was not just the result of military orders issued by Jewish local commanders; it was also the result of painstaking preparations and an unswerving vision stated and restated in the inner sanctums of the Zionist movement with tedious repetitiveness between 1937 and 1948."

3. Since 1967, the Israeli government has continuously funded Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, although such settlements clearly contravene international law and have been condemned by successive U.S. administrations as an obstacle to peace.

B'Tselem, "Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank," May 2002
"Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa."

Foundation for Middle East Peace, "Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories: A Guide," March 2002
"The Oslo agreements did not expressly prohibit expansion of settlements, but they did preserve the 'integrity and status' of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the interim period. Nevertheless, settlement construction continued and the settler population doubled."

Geoffrey Aronson, "Eating Away at Palestine," Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1998
"Israel's policy of 'creating facts on the ground' -- establishing new Israeli settlements and expanding existing ones throughout the occupied territories -- is well on its way to reaching the objective of preventing the creation of a independent, sovereign Palestinian political entity."

4. Over 1 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel, accounting for nearly 20% of the population. As non-Jews in a self-proclaimed Jewish state, they suffer widespread discrimination in all areas of life, despite being the indigenous population of the country. The following reports detail the second-class status of this marginalized community.

Adalah, "History of the Palestinians in Israel"
"Israel never sought to assimilate or integrate the Palestinian population. The Jewish majority viewed Palestinians inside Israel suspiciously and frequently with hostility -- as part of the Arab world, as a potential fifth column, and oftentimes simply as enemies of the state."

Human Rights Watch, "Second Class: Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's Schools," September 2001
"The Israeli government operates two separate school systems, one for Jewish children and one for Palestinian Arab children. Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children colors every aspect of the two systems. The gap in quality is enormous -- on every criterion measured by Israeli authorities."

5. In its treatment of Palestinian civilians and handling of the occupied territories, Israel has repeatedly violated international law, including United Nations Security Council resolutions, the Geneva Conventions on war crimes, and human rights instruments.

John Quigley, "The Role of Law in a Palestinian-Israeli Accommodation," Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol. 31, No. 2-3, Spring/Summer 1999
"The PLO's position on all outstanding negotiations issues is consistent with international legal norms, whereas Israel's is not. The international community agrees with the PLO position. Any Israel-PLO agreement that fails to vindicate the legally protected interests of Palestinians will cause difficulties for decades to come."

Richard Falk, "International Law and the Al-Aqsa Intifada," Middle East Report, No. 217 (Winter 2000), pp. 16-18
"Throughout the occupation and very visibly during the two uprisings, Israel has reacted to Palestinian resistance with the excessive use of lethal force, including the targeting of civilians and children. Israel's refusal to abide by its international legal obligations has been pronounced, blatant and undisguised."

Amnesty International, "Broken Lives: A Year of Intifada," November 2001
"All Palestinians in the occupied territories have been collectively punished. Almost every Palestinian town and village has been cut off by the Israeli army. Curfews on Palestinian areas have trapped residents in their homes for days, weeks or even months. Hundreds of Palestinian homes have been demolished."

Oxfam, "Forgotten Villages: Struggling to Survive Under Closure in the West Bank," Oxfam Briefing Paper No. 28, September 2002
"Closure is a policy restricting the movement of Palestinian people, vehicles and goods in the occupied territories. Since Israel first implemented closure in 1991, both the geographic scope of closure and the level of enforcement have increased steadily and systematically, restricting Palestinians to smaller and more limited areas."

Human Rights Watch, "Jenin: IDF Military Operations," May 2002
"During their incursion into Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes. Israeli forces committed unlawful or willful killings, used Palestinian civilians as 'human shields,' and employed indiscriminate and excessive force."

6. Receiving $3.5 billion per year, Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, accounting for over one-quarter of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget. Aid to Israel is immune to budget cuts and has never been used to pressure Israel to accept a peaceful settlement or to cease its illegal practices. The articles below illustrate the aid flow and the politics behind it.

Clyde Mark, "Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance," Congressional Research Service Issue Brief for Congress, June 6, 2002
"Israel is not economically self-sufficient, and relies on foreign assistance and borrowing to maintain its economy. Since 1976, Israel has been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, and is the largest cumulative recipient since World War II. Israel receives favorable treatment and special benefits not available to other countries."

Stephen Zunes, "The Strategic Functions of U.S. Aid to Israel," Middle East Policy, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October, 1996)
"The primary reason for the direction of U.S. policy is the role Israel plays for the United States in challenging the perceived threats to American hegemony in the region. As one Israeli analyst described it, 'It's like Israel has become just another federal agency, one that's convenient to use when you want something done quietly.'"

7. While by no means the sole reason for unwavering U.S. support for Israel, aggressive lobbying, campaign financing, and media pressure by pro-Israeli groups are undoubtedly a significant factor. The following articles deal with the influence of this special interest group on U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. public debate.

Center for Responsive Politics, "Pro-Israel and Pro-Arab Interests: The Money," April 24, 2002
"Pro-Israel interests are a fixture in American politics. Fortune magazine ranks the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the 4th most powerful lobby group in the country. Pro-Israel interests have contributed $41.3 million to federal candidates and parties since 1990 -- over 2/3 of it to Democrats."

Michael Lind, "Distorting U.S. Foreign Policy: The Israel Lobby and American Power," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2002, pp. 26-31
"A debate over the goals and methods of American policy in the Middle East is long overdue. Unfortunately, an uninhibited debate is not taking place, because of the disproportionate influence of the Israel lobby. The lobby is not all-powerful, but it is still far too powerful for the good of the United States."

Robert Friedman, "Selling Israel to America," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Summer, 1987), pp. 169-179
"Many mainstream journalists who have tried to defy the pro-Israel orthodoxy have come under unrelenting attack from the Israel lobby -- a coalition of editors and publishers, PACs, and wealthy businessmen -- which tries to silence dissidents with accusations of anti-Israel bias or anti-Semitism."

http://brasschecktv.com/page/315.html

More Zionist revisionism. It cannot be claimed that the Arab war against Israel was unprovoked when there were numerous recorded events of armed Jewish military attacks on  Palestinians before British withdrawal on May 15, 1948.

The Jews invaded and occupied most of the Arab cities in Palestine, for example, Tiberias was occupied on April 19, 1948, Haifa on April 22, Jaffa on April 28, the Arab quarters in the New City of Jerusalem on April 30, Beisan on May 8, Safad on May 10 and Acre on May 14, 1948.

The Irgun and LEHI soldiers often carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion. They lined men (commandos of the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang), women and children up against the walls and shot them. The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country.

Detailed account here:

http://www.deiryassin.org/mas.html
 

James, you are pulling pieces out of context to support your biased anti-Israel view, here is the full story from Wikipedia:

The Deir Yassin massacre occurred between the passing of the United Nations UN Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947 and the day the British Mandate ended (14 May 1948), when a new State of Israel was officially declared and the fighting escalated into the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Deir Yassin was within the boundaries of the proposed United Nations-administered Corpus Separatum.

In the months leading up to the end of the Mandate, in a phase of the war known as "The Battle of [the] Roads",[10] the Arab League-sponsored Arab Liberation Army (ALA) (composed of Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Arabs) attacked Jewish communities in Palestine and Jewish traffic on major roads in an effort to isolate Jewish communities from each other. The ALA managed to seize several strategic vantage points along the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – Jerusalem's sole supply route and link to its western side where 16% of all Jews in Palestine lived – and began firing on convoys travelling to the city. By March 1948, the road was cut off and Jerusalem was under siege.

In response, the Haganah decided to launch a major counteroffensive, Operation Nachshon, to break the siege. It would become the first large-scale military operation in the ensuing Arab-Israeli conflict. On 6 April, in an effort to secure strategic positions, the Haganah and its strike force, the Palmach, attacked al-Qastal, a village two kilometers north of Deir Yassin overlooking the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. Days of intense fighting followed as control of the village remained contested and convoys continued to try to reach Jerusalem. On 9 April, on their own initiative[citation needed], Irgun-Lehi forces attacked the nearby Deir Yassin. The rationale and authority justifying their action remain controversial.

The main Jewish forces participating in the Deir Yassin massacre belonged to two underground paramilitary groups, the Irgun (Etzel) (National Military Organization) and the Lehi (Freedom Fighters of Israel).

During the Great Uprising (1936-1939) of the Arabs in Palestine, in which more than 320 Jews[citation needed] were killed in Arab attacks, the Irgun in turn carried out attacks against Arabs, which are believed to have killed at least 250[citation needed]. Irgun's tactics, which included bus and marketplace bombings, were condemned by both the British mandate authorities and the mainstream Jewish leadership, the Jewish Agency.

Lehi, an Irgun splinter group, was formed in 1940 following Irgun's decision to declare a truce with the British during World War Two. Lehi subsequently carried out a series of assassinations designed to force the British out of Palestine. Both Irgun and Lehi were aligned with the right-wing Revisionist movement.

Uri Milstein wrote: "The story of the Deir-Yassin massacre is now part of the heritage of both Arabs and Jews."[38]. Eight years after the event, in 1956, the Arab historian Arif al-'Arif, in his account of the nakba arrived at the estimate, now generally accepted, of 117 victims, 7 in combat, and 110 killed inside their homes[39]

Al-Arif's study was confirmed by Sharif Kananah, of Bir Zeit University, who in a detailed study estimated 110-120 villagers had been killed,[40] an estimate generally accepted by other authors.[41][42]

Of the many eyewitness accounts, only the core IZL narrative differs from the Arab and the remaining Israeli narratives.[43] Morris attributes this in part to "unstated semantic differences over what constitutes a 'massacre'".[43] He summarizes, drawing on the work of Milstein and Khalidi, but also on the Bir Zeit University study and Israeli documentation, that: 'Combatants and noncombatants were gunned down in the course of the house-to-house fighting, and, subsequently, after the battle, groups of prisoners and noncombatants were killed in separate, sporadic acts of frenzy and revenge in different parts of the village and outside of Deir Yassin. The remaining villagers were then expelled. But this was no Srebrenica.'[5]

Their was no massacre as you have described, James.

So what's your point, James, no one was lined up against a wall and executed, do you really think that after going through the holocaust an Israeli soldier would line people up against a wall and shoo t them, this was a war, and a strategic dedcision was made to capture Yassin?

And even if their were some misconducts, which I do not concur with, what is your point?

How are you the pacifist or Israeli hater bringing peace any closer by bringing up distorted stories from the past?

I copied Francine on the Oslo study by fafo, fascinating, 3,232 Palestinians were asked about their hopes for a political solution of the conflict with Israel. 53% see the resolution in the form of one state, out of that number 33% want an Islamic state. What does that tell you?

It tells me we have a long way to go, before we reach the point were the Palestinians do not want all of Israel for themselves, maybe a generation or two, providing the Palestinians educate the next generation in a different way, and that is not happening either.

Michael

Where on earth do you get the distorted idea that "Palestinians want all of Israel for themselves". This is a completely warped perception of the whole conflict. Are you denying that Israel is throwing Palestinians off their land to build settlements? Are you in denial about Israel's seige on the Palestinians, checkpoints, walls, and collective punishment? You are living in a completely blinkered world. People like you, need to get a real dose of reality - Go and see for yourself. Go to Gaza. Talk to the Palestinians. See what Israel is doing. And then try to deny it.

Francine, you need to go to Israel, I have lived their most of my life, your view is totally distorted from reading all the Palestinian blogs, your are so full of hatred that you cannot see the truth any more.

Go to Israel and you will see that it is not possible for Israelis to do what you say they are doing, you need to get a dose of reality.

Read the survey by Norway, they do not want to live side by side with Israel, the Palestinians, 53% of them want to eliminate Israel, that's what 3,232 told the Norwegians, you are the one denying reality that does not fit your hate fed perception of Israel.

All Israel is doing is protecting itself from terror attacks, you would do the same in a similar situation. The Palestinians have murdered in cold blood over 3,000 innocent Israeli women and children, that is the equivalent of 90,000 Americans, would America stand still and do nothing? Would any country stand still and do nothing?

I have never seen a more distorted view of Israel then the one you are displaying, it would be pathetic if it was not so sad, do yourself a favor, go visit Israel, go see the people, please, you should not live in such hatred.

That is if you are who you say you are, maybe you are just another Palestinain pushing his propaganda, who knows?

I am not Israeli, Palestinian or even American. I have friends that are black, white, Asian, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Atheist. I was born and raised in Africa, Asia, East and West Europe, the South Pacific and America. I speak several languages and am truly a citizen of the world. I have no strong affiliation with any nationality or creed. I do not wave a flag for any nation. I have no vested interests in the Middle East and no ideological standpoint.

But, I do believe in justice. I believe and have seen that injustice happens across the world when people who have power, exploit that power for their own gain. I know from extensive reading and listening to unbiased news reports that Israel is a rich, powerful, nuclear armed country. Its Jewish citizens are free and live a decent standard of life. Its Arab population live like second class citizens, and have fewer freedoms. The Palestinian people have no freedom at all. They are imprisoned, have no self-determination, and are denied basic human rights. Basic supplies, food, water, building materials and fuel  are denied entry into their prison camp. They are poor and yet have no means of employment. They have no army to defend themselves. They are absolutely at the mercy of the almighty Israeli army.

I feel that their cause is just. They have a right to their own land which was stolen from them, and they should have equal rights as any human being under international law.

I say the same about any disenfranchised people around the world, whether they were the blacks of South Africa, or the Tibetans under Chinese domination. The fact that the Palestinian people are Arabs doesn't make them any less human than an Israeli Jew and therefore, they should have absolutely the same rights as any Israeli.

If Hamas had backing from a world super power, had an army, fighter jets, tanks and were able to imprison the Israeli people in a confined space, and put them under siege, don't you think that Israelis would form an underground resistance to fight such occupation and injustice, just as the French resistance did against the Nazis? Yes, the French resistance did kill some innocent Germans, and yes, they were called terrorists, but their cause was just, because they were fighting injustice.  The Palestinians are fighting injustice.

Firstly, I have studied the history of Israel (after all, it's only been in existence for just over 60 years). The whole version, not the Israeli propaganda version. I posted some reading material on this blog already which clearly demonstrates the basic concept of the creation of Israel. E.g."Yosef Weitz, director of the Jewish National Fund in Palestine, wrote: 'Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this small country. The only solution is the Land of Israel without Arabs. We must leave not a single village, not a single tribe.'"Israel Shahak, "A History of the Concept of 'Transfer' in Zionism," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3. (Spring, 1989), pp. 22-37. That is proof of Israel's genocidal intentions. Since 1967, the Israeli government has continuously funded Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, although such settlements clearly contravene international law and have been condemned by the international community and several successive U.S. administrations as an obstacle to peace. Thanks only to the power of the US, Israel has been able to stick its two fingers up at international law and the rest of the world.

I have also seen a lot of footage of homes being bulldozed. One particularly depressing case shows a BBC reporter talking to an old man who was weeping as he watched a 200 year old olive vine that had been planted by his great grandfather, bulldozed to make room for Israeli settlements on his land.

You don't want to see or believe the truth. Psychologists call this ‘cognitive dissonance'. A refusal to acknowledge what is obvious. Many Israelis don't want to admit that they are culpable. And Britain and the US don't want to admit that they had a hand in it by ‘creating' Israel after WWII, something that I believe was a mistake, although no-one can openly say that and in any case, it's too late now (Israel should have been created in Texas I think). There are several Americans who have been to Palestine to see what Israel is doing, and have been shot. One such case happened very recently as a young man was trying to help a 6 year boy, and he got shot in the head. He wasn't armed, he wasn't dangerous. He was a white Jewish American. His crime was to help a young victim of Israel's merciless bombardment of Gaza.

But in the end, history will prove all the allegations against Israel to be true. Just as apartheid in South Africa eventually had to crumble, just as the Berlin wall eventually had to fall, so too will Israel have to learn that walls, bombs and bullets aren't the solution to permanent peace. Justice will prevail in the end. If I were an Israeli parent, I would look to the future. America is not going to remain the world's superpower for much longer. Oil isn't going to remain such a valuable commodity forever (Israel holds a strategic position for the US, in the Middle East). China, Brazil, Russia, India and Europe are growing stronger and they do not support Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians. America will not be able to supply an endless shipment of weapons to Israel with which to kill Palestinians with impunity. It is in Israel's long-term interest to invest in justice and peace with the indigenous people of the land.

If you were really interested in the truth, then you would look beyond the narrow Israeli clichés about the Palestinians. But sadly, it looks as though you have taken an intransigent position. Try to imagine how you would feel if you were a Palestinian if you can.

Finally, I wish to add that I don't believe that Hamas should launch rockets onto the Israeli people; not only for the innocent lives that are at risk (although many Israelis vote for the collective punishment of the Palestinians), but also because it only gives Israel an excuse to commit mass executions. I would advocate a more Gandhian approach, although it is difficult to conduct peaceful resistance from the inside of a cage.  Sadly for the time-being, the Palestinians have little choice: either to resist, or to allow themselves to become beggars and POWs in their own land. Not much of a choice is it?

That's an immature reaction! I was obviously talking about the modern state of Israel, not the Israelites (Hebrews/Canaanites) of Biblical times. As you know, modern Israel has only been in existence since 1948.

Sure, the Jewish diaspora have been coming back to the ‘Holy Land' for over a century (ironic that they should feel that they are justified in returning to a ‘home' land that was conquered thousands of years before, but have no sympathy for the Palestinians right of return to their lands).  The Palestinian people have been on those lands since Biblical times too. It's interesting to note that the history of the Palestinian people shows that they are not only descended from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also from the ancient Hebrews and the Canaanites before them, and the indigenous people who had lived on the land since time immemorial.

The latest statements by President Obama are apparently intended to pressure Israel's new government not to adopt a policy that excludes an independent Palestinian state. This is not well publicized in the controlled media of America:

'On Monday in Turkey, Obama said his administration would seek the creation of Palestinian state, underlining that Israel and the Palestinians agreed on that goal under the U.S.-backed road map peace plan and during a 2007 conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that were supposed to revive the plan.

"Let me be clear: The United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," said Obama.

"That is a goal shared by Palestinians, Israelis, and people of good will around the world. That is a goal that the parties agreed to in the road map and at Annapolis," he added. "And that is a goal that I will actively pursue as president."

U.S. special envoy Mitchell is due to arrive in the region April 13 to advance the goal of the two-state solution and comprehensive peace. Mitchell is scheduled to meet with key officials in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Egypt, the Gulf, and North Africa."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1076835.html

Francine, your posts make for good fiction, you should have been a fiction writer.

Point to Palestinian literature, customs, language, archaeological finds, genetical finds, anything scientific linking them to Israel this is all fantasy of the Arab imagination.

On the other hand archaeological finds have shown for example the "Dead Sea Scrolls" written in Aramaic (ancient Hebrew) in Israel, linking the Jewish people to the land for thousands of years. Nothing of this sort has ever been find linking Arabs to Israel.

Please define a Palestinian. Then tell me what their culture is, what is the literature that links them to the land.

The Jews have the bible with thousands of mentions to places in Israel, the bible was written by  several Jewish scholars over two thousand years ago and it links the Jewish people to Israel. Do the Palestinians have anything close to the bible mentioning them and Israel in one document?

Show me such a document for the Palestinians, anything!
What you are writing is pure fiction, then you form an opinion on fiction you have created, very creative but 100% false and misleading, again, you could be good competition for Dan Brown.

Michael, it is sad that your evident contempt for Arabs has colored your perspective of history. Maybe it upsets your sense of Israel's purity to acknowledge that many Palestinians may be descended from people who have been in what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza from time immemorial.  

This land is the cradle of all three of the Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Judaism and Christianity). It is simply inaccurate to state that the land belonged to the Jews from the outset. Archaeology, maps and historical collections show that the land has been many things to many people of many different beliefs.

Harry Truman said "no two historians ever agree on what happened, and the damn thing is they both think they're telling the truth".

As one historian put it: "Many studies of ancient documents, archaeology and maps are done to determine "who is right," and "histories" have been written by partisans of either side, with precisely that purpose in mind. Those who are interested in collecting "points" for their side, cannot find the truth except by accident. If they find it, and it is inconvenient, they bury it. That is why trying to understand what is happening has to be objective (i.e. that may discount Palestinians, Israelis and racist anti-Islamic Americans and Christians who believe in the Rapture).

There simply isn't room here to go into any depth about the origins of the Palestinian people. Going back to the Phoenicians, the Aramaeic Samaritans, the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, Romans, Philistines and Arabic peoples would take months.

One of the most honest histories I've read is titled ‘The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict' published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East, (http://www.cactus48.com/OriginMSW.pdf) and it's simple, easy to read facts about the early history of the region, gives interesting insights.

I have now exhausted my arguments for peace and justice on this blog. I guess people like Michael will always remain stuck in the kind of dogma that religion often espouses whether it is Jewish, Islamic or Christian. It is one of the tragedies of some human beings to ‘create' reasons to divide, rather than unite us. Often religion obscures the truth, which may have more to do with the accumulation of land and resources by force, than any genuine concern for values or human rights.

To quote some interesting observers of religion: Seneca the Younger, 4BC-65AD said: ‘Religion is regarded as true by the common people, as false by the wise and useful by the rulers.' It is the ‘useful' bit that so often justifies the brutal suppression of people who are ‘different' from us. And Benjamin Franklin once said: The way to see by faith, is to shut the eye of reason.

Francine, you are wrong again, why would you assume that I am religious, I am an atheist Jew as are 85% of Israelis, Judaism is a culture, you don't have to be religious to be Jewish.

The "Jews for Justice" document is another piece of useless fiction that supports you twisted view of history.

I base my discussions on archaeological facts, that you choose to ignore, you are building your arguments on fiction written by doubtful authors.

Their is no evidence what so ever to your claim and the claim of others to any connection of today's Arabs living in the West Bank to ancient Canaanites, none.

That does not preclude their right to live in peace which no one opposes, just not at the expense of Israel.

The majority of Arabs that call themselves Palestinians live in Jordan, that is their country, and if Jordan was a democracy and not a Monarchy, that would de facto be their country.

So now the world is dancing around trying to find a solution when their is one waiting for a rational world to accept, and its called Jordan.

Israel and Jordan can agree to a federation, whereas parts of the WB would be dedicated to the Arabs living their. A similar solution can be derived with Egypt for Gaza. That is the way it was prior to the 1967 war of agression against Iasrael.

Michael, I wasn't referring to your personal religious views. But now that you mention it, on what basis do you believe that Jews had a right to a homeland in the Middle East if not on religious grounds? The whole pretext that Israelis used for their right to exist on that land was based in Biblical terms (i.e. religious doctrines).  Judaism is a religion. That is a fact. To say that Judaism is just a culture is like saying Christianity and Islam are just cultures.

My comment was to demonstrate the historical roots of the conflict. On what grounds do you state that the Jews for Justice document "is another piece of useless fiction"? You have shown no scholarly evidence to counter it and so far only offered unconvincing websites and Alan Dershowitz's iniquitous dogma.

There is plenty of evidence to support the claims that some Palestinians have roots as far back as the Canaanites. But, it doesn't suit your racist beliefs.

As I've said a thousand times before, Israel's right to exist is based on modern day law that any country that exists today should have its sovereignty respected (America and Israel both have double standards when it comes to attacking other countries). Modern day America has a right to exist, but that wouldn't give it a right to persecute, imprison or kill the Native Americans that were here before them, despite the fact that many Native Americans to this day, still bitterly believe that the land is theirs which the white man illegally stole from them. The fact remains that Israel is far more powerful than the Palestinians, and has the means to do far more harm to them (which it does) than vice versa, yet continues to portray itself as the victim for propaganda purposes while it underhandedly continues to steal more and more and more land from the Palestinians. A bit like an elephant proclaiming that mice are dangerous while it cages them and deceitfully steals their cheese.

Incidentally, you are confusing the words ‘their' and ‘there'. THEIR is a possessive pronoun as in: their home, their rights, their books..... THERE is an adverb and denotes a place (opposed to HERE), or a pronoun used to introduce a sentence where the verb comes before the subject: There is no hope, without justice.

Since Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute information, frequently without providing sources, it cannot be utlilized as factual.

There are many current historians, including Israeli citizens, who provide documented resources (frequently original documents) to support the fact that some of the founders of modern Israel envisioned a Palestine that was for Jews only with an underclass of Arab workers who would not have equal standing in the new state. The current administration of Israel has already expressed its intent to prevent two states and limit the number of non Jews living within Israel which would engulf surrounding Arab land beyond the current boundaries.

Ok Michael, I shall respond to your many different points.

Firstly, it is fascinating that you don't classify Judaism as a religion. However, I cannot see how the Old Testament can be considered a ‘historical' document, as it contains reference to a God, who is not a historical figure, but a supernatural being.  You either do or do not believe in the existence of this God.  

The Jewish faith is based on the belief in a covenant between a God (who allegedly created the universe) and Abraham (who is considered the founder of the Jewish faith), in which he revealed commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. According to Jewish BELIEF (not fact), Jews (Israelites) were God's chosen people.

Isn't this the whole pretext for the existence of Israel? And isn't that a religious pretext? Also, if Judaism were not a religion, people would not be able to ‘convert' to that faith, which they do, as with other religions.

Secondly, Palestine has been settled continuously for tens of thousands of years. Fossil remains have been found of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal and transitional types between Neanderthal and modern man. Archaeologists have found hybrid Emmer wheat at Jericho dating from before 8,000 B.C., making it one of the oldest sites of agricultural activity in the world. Amorites, Canaanites, and other Semitic peoples related to the Phoenicians of Tyre entered the area about 2000 B.C. The area became known as the Land of Canaan. Judiasm is not that old. So the people that were there before were not Jews. But they were no doubt the descendants of the Jewish people.

Also, both the Christian and Muslim faiths were born out of the Jewish faith. The Christian Bible contains the Old Testament - i.e. the Jewish book (Tanakh? Torah?) - and the New Testament with the birth, life, teachings and death of Jesus. The Islamic Koran also contains the Old Testament as well as the teachings of the prophet Mohammad. All three books contain the story of Abraham - that is why they are called the Abrahamic religions (as oppose to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism etc). Consequently, it can be argued that Christians and Muslims were Jewish in origin, but converted to new faiths around 1000-1500 years ago. That would mean that essentially they have the same roots and therefore would have been there at the same time.  That means that many of the Palestinian people have their roots in that land as well.

I like your joke about the three Israelis in a room. As a result, I can see why you are so stubborn.

Finally, you say "The indisputable facts are that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, to make peace with Israel." These are most definitely DISPUTABLE facts. This is Israeli propaganda, pure and simple. The facts remain that Israel has presented the Palestinians with a ‘take it or leave it' proposal that is abominably unfair; requires the Palestinians to make ALL the concessions, and the Israelis none, (why does Israel continue the theft of Palestinian land, and the refusal to give back the land they have stolen since 1967?)

Quite frankly, the Palestinians can also make the exact same comment. After all, all the proposals the Palestinians have made have been rejected by the Israelis, so the Israelis also never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The difference is of course, that Israel has the Palestinians by the b***s and can demand what they please. Therein, lies the injustice.

Sorry, at the end of the fifth paragraph, I states that "...they were no doubt the descendants of the Jewish people". Evidently I meant to say the ancestors of the Jewish people... 

Canaanism is a losing ideology. A sign of desperation. If real estate history from  thousands of years ago is valid today, then all nations with a historic record in some other area can demand to return, no?

Michael,

 "First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

The BBC showed the world pictures of Israelis dancing, cheering and celebrating in January as bombs and white phosphorus poured down on the heads of Palestinians (babies, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, dogs, cats, goats, chickens......)

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072466.html, http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1072299.html (Hebrew version contains more pictures)

Despite strong evidence of the misuse of U.S. weapons against civilians in Gaza, Amnesty International recently revealed that the United States sent a massive new shipment of arms to Israel. The Wehr Elbe, a ship controlled by the U.S. Military Sealift Command, docked and unloaded several thousand tons of arms on March 22 at the Israeli port of Ashdod. Ask State Department officials why the United States would deliver these arms to Israel. http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11787&ICID=E0904A01&tr=y&auid=4706190; http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20090402002&lang=e

While international law tolerates military occupation, it does not approve it, specifically one that has continued for over 40 years as in the case of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. Furthermore, during that time, Israel has introduced two other elements-colonialism and apartheid. Although there are many similarities between apartheid as it was applied in South Africa and Israel's policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the systems are not identical. There are features of the Israeli regime in the occupied territory that were unknown to South Africans. This year's Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture was delivered by Professor John Dugard. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/john-dugard-on-israel-south-africa-and-apartheid/

Gideon Levy / Everyone agrees: War in Gaza was a failure..... "Why did it fail? Because we didn't kill enough people, they explain. If we would have given it a little push and killed 200 more children or massacred 500 more women, then we would have achieved victory." http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/why-did-it-fail-because-we-didnt-kill-enough-people-they-explain-if-we-would-have-given-it-a-little-push-and-killed-200-more-children-or-massacred-500-more-women-then-we-would-have-achieved-vict/

A Palestinian doctor who lost three daughters to an Israeli bombing of his home during the attack on Gaza has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish's voice was heard around the world after he recounted the killing of his daughters on live Israeli television moments after the attack. A well-known Gazan gynecologist, Aish has been a longtime advocate for peace between Israel and Palestinians.

Footage showing Irish Noble Peace Prize recipient, Mairead Maguire getting shot by Israeli army who opened fire at peaceful demonstrators in the West Bank village of Bilin on April 20, 2007, follow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnu5qPXEmkc

1. The BBC is extremely anti-Israel, the people shown dancing were actually celebrating the new year, these pictures were taken out of context.

2. T shirts show the strength of Israel's democracy, such T shirts as an expression of opinion would not be allowed in Gaza. This is private enterprise, not government issued T shirts.

3. Israel is a partner of the US in the fight against radical Islam terrorists, these weapons are needed for that end.

4. Israel does not occupy territory neither does it behave in any manner that could be concluded as apartheid or colonialism. Israel has zero interest in ruling another people.

There is only one reason for the presence of IDF in the WB, and that is for defense against Palestinian terrorists. As this threat is being diminished, the presence of the IDF Will and is being reduced.

Currently 50,000 Palestinian police have been trained by the US in Jordan, and they are slowly replacing the IDF, and roadblocks are being dismantled as security for Israelis increases.

The rest of the stuff you have written above, Francine is 100% pure propaganda with little if anything to do with the truth.

Its time you and like minded people start to think rationally about this conflict, once the Palestinians stop terror and start educating their children that Israel is not the enemy, only then can we make progress towards peace. Inventing all these stories that demonize Israel is not helpful in the least.

This is not my opinion alone, but the majority opinion in Israel.

Francine, you don't give an inch do you, such stubbornness, are you sure you are not an Arab national? Reveal yourself! I am an Israeli who are you? What is your name? Is it Mohamed?

BS, no Israeli  has ever danced to bombs falling in Gaza or anywhere, total fabrication, if you visit Israel and know its people you will see this behavior is not possible, only Palestinians have been observed to dance at the news of terror activities against Israel. This tells me you are an Arab, no one else could believe such nonsense or promote it, Arab propaganda, period.

Since when do terrorists come from free countries, what kind of an argument is that, and what difference does it make, if you kill intentionally civilians you are a terrorist, period.

Again you got the story all backwards, Francine, whoever you are. One more time.

A. Israel left Gaza with a large agricultural base in place for the Palestinians to Flourish with.

B. The Palestinians of Gaza then demolished these greenhouses and literally built plows into swords and started without any provocation to send thousand of rockets into Israel.

C. In addition to the rockets they kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers and infiltrated suicide bombers into Israel.

D. As a result of those actions Israel started blocking the exits from Gaza to Israel. Not the opposite as you try and promote.

ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE REVERSING CAUSE AND EFFECT

The cause Gaza terror, the effect Israel defense actions.

Read the Hamas charter and find out for yourself, (unless you are Hamas) that the charter clearly states the mission of annihilating the Jews.

So please enough of these lies and propaganda, at least be honest enough to state who you are, and don't hide behind the name Francine.

Michael, I am who I say I am. I am mixed nationalities (French, Dutch and British) and was born and raised in Africa and Asia and am currently living in the US.  I do not have any Arab blood in me. My name could never be Mohamed because I am female! I am against colonial domination (because I have seen what it has done), I am against injustice...

Just to demonstrate to you that you don't have to be an Arab to be against what Israel is doing.....

http://links.org.au/node/833: Scroll down these to see photographs and articles from around the world in support of the Palestinian people.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/30-10: Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have decried Israel's continued aerial bombing campaign as unlawful.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHD4UlcxwnM: Footage of a massive Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip. Multiple Israeli air strikes continued to hit many different areas and continued for three weeks with little respite for the people...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11645:  Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that "Operation Cast Lead," as the bombing of Gaza was dubbed "will continue until all its goals are met". What are Israel's goals? To wipe the Palestinians off the face of the earth? This is a far greater possibility with Israel's weapons capability...

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/: Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother - I am a Palestinian from Gaza. I am a journalist. I am a mother. I am a Muslim. This blog is about the trials of raising my children between spaces and identities; displacement and occupation; and everything that entails from potty training to border crossings. My husband is a Palestinian refugee denied his right of return to Palestine, and thus OUR right to family life. Together, we endure a lot, and the personal becomes political. This is our story....

This may open your eyes (or not).

Incidentally, what is your precise definition of a 'terrorist'? If you say they are people that kill civilians indiscriminately, that would make America's military the world's biggest terrorist, as it is responsible for the largest number of civilian deaths over the last half century than any other group, country or organisation. In your opinion, does wearing a uniform make it ok to murder civilians? Is state sponsored killing acceptable on any grounds?

I didn't want to interrupt as you two were having such a good discussion.

However.

Michael,

Seriously, do you want to see the pictures of the white phosphorus injuries?  Do you want to see what your harmless flares can do?  Lets take a look.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jan/19/gaza-phosphorus-victim 

Wake up, it's war, there is nothing precise or humane about it.  And there is no protecting civilians in a war on a ghetto.

If Israel wanted to protect its citizens it would tear down the walls, provide decent education and outreach to Palestinian youth, allow Palestinians in Gaza to work and move freely, educate Israelis and Palestinians alike on the dangers of prejudice and racism against one's neighbors, and negotiate with Hamas so as to stop the hate fueled injustice of both sides. 

The state of Israel, by your definition, is a terrorist entity.  Israel targeted civilians because Hamas is a non-traditional enemy located among civilians and supported by civilians.  It is collective punishment.  The fact that there is a physical barrier to any economic development for all Palestinians in Gaza regardless of their political stance proves that there is collective punishment, illegal under international law, targeting civilians. 

So, Israeli military destroys all semblance of order or peace in Gaza, and then we should reward them for taking a few, a very small percent, of wounded children to Israeli hospitals.  If you start the fire, you don't get rewarded for helping pour a couple buckets on it.

Michael, I'm afraid your information is totally biased.  You're missing the forest for the trees and you've obviously internalized Israeli propaganda.  The fact that you argue that America is misled by Arab propaganda proves how very paranoid and delusional you are.  What America is misled by Arab propaganda?  Is it the one funneling weapons to Israel?  Is it the one who refuses to negotiate with Hamas, the elected representatives of Gaza?  Is it the one who condemns Shariah law but looks the other way at Israel's Zionist discrimination? 

Israel is an authoritarian democratic country ruled by the iron fist of law.  It engages, just as the US does, in state sponsored terrorism.  Hamas is obviously a right wing organization.  Maybe you should read the whole charter though, rather then just the highlights: http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html
There's some talk of non-discrimination and human rights you might find interesting. 

The point is, Israel is not all right and Hamas is not all wrong.  To simplify the conflict the way you do is to completely disregard the value of life, and to discriminate against a group for the actions and beliefs of a few.  That's just racism.

1. The Gaurdian is as left a newspaper as you can find, so the bias is there. You see wounds, you do not know what caused them.

2. There were no walls prior to the first intifada, the walls are a result of suicide bombers coming into Israel, killing citizens blowing up buses and restaurants. Do you want to see horror pictures, I have seen body parts hanging from trees in Jerusalem, so give me a break!

Israel's action are in self defense, you are ignoring my argument, about Israel having no gain from harming civilians it only hurts Israel's image, as your rhetoric proves that, so why should Israel harm civilians, you have not answered that question, because there is no answer, your logic is flawed, if it even exists this is all an emotional response.

3. I do not argue that America has internalized anything, read carefully what I wrote. I write that a few individuals like yourself and Francine are victims of Arab propaganda, and that is a shame, because the truth begs to differ.

4. If Israel sponsors terror as you claim, then please enlighten me what is the political gain of this terror, because it is not terror without the gain. The opposite, every time a civilian is harmed unintentionally by the IDF, Israel hurts, the world turns against Israel, so why would Israel do that?

5. Race had nothing to do with this discussion, I am a scientist and genetically their is only on race, the human race.

Israel targets terrorists like Hamas and Hizballah in self defense, everything else you read are lies and Arab propaganda. This has nothing to do about race, but about criminal activity of killing innocent civilians as a strategy of war by the Palestinian people against Israel.

Michael, it is you that is refusing to listen to what anyone tells you (e.g. I told you that I wasn't American) and your refusal to accept that any newspaper that reports that Israel's actions are illegal, criminal and disproportionate are automatically labelled. This in itself is standard Israeli tactics. Just as Alan Dershowitz labels anyone who argues against him anti-Semitic, even if they are Jewish, you label newspapers either as Arab propaganda or left-wing simply because you cannot bear to hear what they say.

Do you not think for one second that you could be wrong? Did you not read any of the articles and reports written by the United Nations, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Medicins sans Frontiers, Human Rights Watch and the hundreds of personal reports written by foreign witnesses?

You simply cannot accept that what Israel has been doing over the last 60 years has caused the problems and hatred, that with every bombed out village, every bulled-dozed house, every murdered Palestinian child (and there are thousands and thousands of them), the seeds of hatred become more and more and more entrenched.

Do you really believe that Israel will ever win the hearts and minds of the Arab world by using military action against a defenceless people? Do you really believe that children that have watched their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters torn to shreds, their homes and land decimated, will grow up having any sympathy for Israel, when Israel has all the guns pointed at them? Can you not see the injustice? The unequal and overwhelming firepower Israel has over the Palestinians? How can you go on pretending to be the victims? Do you really believe that the rest of the world can be convinced that we should pity the Israelis when they have all the advantages? Have you not seen Israeli soldiers shooting children for throwing stones, for Gods sake! Are you blind???? If this were any other country in the world, treating the underdog this way, would you still support the injustice?

The Guardian is too far to the left for you as a media outlet that actually fact checks but you trust military leaders who's personal gain is self-evident?  Interesting double standard.  Besides that arguing that the images presented of WP injuries could have been caused by something else is living in a fantasy world where no one tells the truth and everyone is out to get you (re: paranoia and delusion).

Suicide bombings are wrong and obviously target civilians.  But there is a body of international law that prevents against disproportionate use of force as well as against targeting civilians.  Not all Palestinians in Gaza are suicide bombers but everyone suffers when they cannot work, go to school, or travel to neighboring towns. 

The question then is, self-defense against whom?  Every Palestinian?

Israel doesn't really have much to worry about their image.  When has the state ever been reprimanded for any actions that did harm civilians?  When has there been real international action from other states or the UN about Israel's treatment of Palestinians?  There have never been sanctions, cutting off funding or weapons shipments.  As far as Israel's image is concerned, the state is impervious.  There is no answer because your question makes no sense.

To be honest, any Arab propaganda I have internalized has come from dogged research to find the truth in the situation, never from US sources, and especially from friends, coworkers, and colleagues who have been on the ground and have reported back.  I don't know any better source then those who have been there as observers to both sides.

The political gain to state sponsored terror is simple, keep the enemy struggling to unify.  It's strategic and it's neglectful.  I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm just saying there is a strategic advantage to terrorizing a population to keep them subjugated.

Ethnicity has a lot to do with this discussion.  Race is a loose term for culturally constructed ethnic lines.  As a scientist, you should also be aware that while race as a biological construct is false, as a cultural construct it is far too widespread.  Barriers between Israelis and Palestinians perpetuates racist ideologies.  Your terms "Arab propaganda," calling the IDF's action as Israel's, and that Gaza elected Hamas all show that you have internalized the racialized discourse of the Israeli government's propaganda.  "the Palestinian people against Israel"...really?  Michael, not all Palestinians engage in terrorism but congratulations on proving the point that you've racialized the conflict. 

Is this about religion then?  That Hamas wants to "kill all Jews."  That sounds pretty emotional to me.  The fact that it's true, Hamas' charter does say that, and that you point to it show that there is a particularly strong emotional component to this conflict that should engage an emotional discussion of the consequences.  That does not preclude rationality. 

I do not argue that there isn't room for self-defense.  I argue that tactics and strategic decisions that engage a population while there is no negotiation with those who claim responsibility for terrorist actions, engage themselves in terrorism.

I would argue that this is apartheid and more:

Arabs whose homes have been demolished for Jewish settlement often "come from the lowest economic strata of their community and must live in makeshift hovels, doubled and tripled up with other families, or even in tents and caves. Those who are willing to build their own homes on their own lands are barred by law and subject to demolition if they proceed. The threat is executed, unlike Jewish West Jerusalem, where the problem of illegal construction is as serious, if not more so, than that in East Jerusalem. Demographic balance is advanced further by discriminatory regulations on building heights, far more limited in Arab than Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. An array of zoning provisions and other legal instruments has been designed to intensify the discrimination between Jews and Arabs, as throughout Israel itself, always using funds provided by the U.S. taxpayer directly or through tax-free donations, always with the approval of admiring U.S. commentators.

A further example of apartheid and more:

As reported by the London Financial Times last summer, "Nothing symbolises the inequality of water consumption more than the fresh green lawns, irrigated flower beds, blooming gardens and swimming pools of Jewish settlements in the West Bank" while nearby Palestinian villages are denied the right to drill wells and have running water one day every few weeks, polluted by sewage, so that men have to drive to towns to fill up containers with water or to hire contracters to deliver it at 15 times the cost. In summer 1995 the Israeli national water company Mekorot cut supplies to the southern and central parts of Gaza for 20 days because people had no money to pay their bills. While a handful of Israeli settlers run luxury hotels with swimming pools for guests and profit from water-intensive agriculture, Palestinians lack water to drink -- or, increasingly, even food to eat, as the economy collapses, apart from wealthy Palestinians, who are doing fine, on the standard Third World model.

Individual cases clarify the general picture. For example, the village of Ubaydiya, where 8000 Palestinians were deprived of running water for 18 months while the nearby Jewish settlements are "flourishing in the desert" (though Mekorot did promise to restore service to deter a hearing at the High Court of Justice, with outcome unknown at the time of writing). Or Hebron, where thousands of people had no water from their pipes in August 1995. Journalist Amiram Cohen reports that in "the hot days of summer," 1995, each Arab of Hebron received less than 1/4 of the water allotment of a resident of the nearby all-Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.

This site needs to be closed for a while.  Yes, I believe in freedom of speech but some folks seem to be on this site constantly and are not quite correct in there ideas or attitudes.  I have attempted to stop getting any further notifications from this site as some of them make my angry or ill but no luck.  So I just delete the majority of them.

Michael, you are right. Sixty years is inaccurate. The Israelis have been oppressing the Palestinian people since the 1967 war, so more like 40 years. However, I doubt many Palestinians will be grateful for that.

You continue to believe that the only reason the Palestinians/Arabs have any resentment towards the Israelis is purely because they are anti-Semitic and consequently will continue to feel that Israel is the victim and that they are justified in ‘defending' themselves.

This is patently absurd as

1. Semite refers to a member of any of various ancient and modern people originating in southwestern Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopian Semites.

2. When Israel was created as a Jewish state in 1948, there were Arabs already living there, many of whom had been there for hundreds of years or more (since the 7th century). Without being consulted, they were the victims of colonial style land-grabs, thrown off their land and gradually herded into refugee camps which today, remain the longest existing refugee camps (a.k.a. ghettos) in history. Moreover, the land grabs continue unabated to make homes for Israelis, despite international calls for it to halt. The Zionist movement, from the beginning, wanted a complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish state. Land bought by the Jewish National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present). The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists' intentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence of Arab society in Palestine.

I believe (as does most of the international community) that it is this factor more than any so-called anti-Semitism that creates the bitter resentment towards the Israelis. Israeli will never acknowledge this because, a) it would have to admit that it had taken the land illegally and it does not want to return the land to the Palestinians, and b) it doesn't want to allow the right of return to Palestinians because it wants to maintain an apartheid Jewish only state just as South Africa wanted a whites only country on an African continent which was evidently destined to fail. It is ironic that the Jewish people, who have for so long, longed for their ‘own' land, are so completely incapable of understanding that this is precisely the same desire of the Palestinians - the right to return home.

According to Edward Said in, "The Question of Palestine: Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics - including its name in Arabic, Filastin - became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314. The Muslim community treated the existing Jewish population as equals.

The aim of the [Jewish National] Fund was `to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people.'...As early as 1891, Zionist leader Ahad Ha'am wrote that the Arabs "understood very well what we were doing and what we were aiming at'...[Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, stated] `We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly'...At various locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to move from land the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the Turkish authorities, at the Fund's request, evicted them...The indigenous Jews of Palestine also reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a Jewish state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the Arabs. "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice." By John Quigley.

Finally, I think there is little point in continuing the debate as it is evident that you will continue to believe the problems all lie with the Palestinians. The tragedy is that this attitude will only prolong the injustice and the hatred and will not bring about peace. So thanks and goodbye.

With reference to the Israel Occupied Territories after the 1967 War:

The West Bank  and the Gaza Strip are governed by three  international instruments:

1) Partition Revolution 1947 these are reserved for the Arab State

2) The General Armistice Agreements of 1949 between Israel and Jordan and Egypt

3) Under UN resolutions 242 and 338

Israel and its supporters, primarily the U.S. have ignored these.

Israel is in violation of the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land 1907 and the 4th Geneva Convention . Both forbid an occupier to appropriate, confiscate or expropriate private or public property. These occupied territories, with the establishment of Jewish settlements is a serious impediment  to a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The actions of Israel in the occupied territories is morally and legally wrong. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, they have alienated themselves by relying on brute force  to expel and disposses the indigenous inhabitants  of the country and by oppressing and persecuting the Palestinian population. In 1967 the Jewish population of the West Bank and Gaza was essentially zero.

Israel's Bad-Faith Negotiating Positionhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090507_israels_bad-faith_negotiating_position/

Posted on May 7, 2009

By William Pfaff

Israel has always believed in "creating facts on the ground," whose existence may later come as an unpleasant surprise to others. Iran now seems to have learned from this Israeli precedent, to Israel's disadvantage.

In diplomatic circles, in Europe as well as the Arab states, there has been discussion of the possibility of Iran's being designated a "civil nuclear power," exercising its right, under the Nonproliferation Treaty (which it has signed), to develop power for civilian uses.

This is what Iran has persistently claimed to be all it wants. The proposal goes on to say that whatever military work Iran has done is already faits accomplis-"created facts," that are useless to contest.

The proposal is that if the U.S. were to join Europe and the Sunni Arabs in a drive to push Israel-which has plenty of concealed nuclear "facts"-to join the nonproliferation pact, which it has always refused to do, and open up to inspectors, just as Iran has done, the Iran-Israel discussion could at least be switched onto a new track.

The foreign policy position of Israel under the Benjamin Netanyahu government remains officially unknown. It undoubtedly will not be clarified until the new Israeli prime minister visits the United States to meet President Barack Obama.

The atmosphere is chilly, the unction of Shimon Peres during his American visit notwithstanding, because of the less-than-enthusiastic welcome the Obama administration gave the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee convention last week. Vice President Joe Biden attended, and Rahm Emanuel was the star of a fund-raising reception. But both stuck to the U.S. position that there must be a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not there, and has been rumored to be fighting on Israel's side in a conflict with National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones, whose insistence on the two-state agreement is seen by the Israelis as a threat. They want to throw out all previous agreements with the Palestinians, the Quartet and the United States and start negotiations all over.

Israel has set two conditions for new talks, both conflicting with U.S. policy. The first is Iran's effective nuclear disarmament, which is impossible because of those Iranian facts on the ground, and because the U.S. has set itself against military action.

The second demand is also made for propaganda purposes, and is of transparent bad faith. It is that Israel be "recognized as a Jewish state" by all its interlocutors. This is impossible because Israel refuses to describe which "Israel" is to be recognized. The 1948 state recognized by the U.N.? Israel within the 1967 armistice borders (long ago violated by colonies and annexation of Palestinian lands)? Or an Israel with frontiers yet to be defined-since annexation and colonization continue today?

This comes at a moment when Israel's Jewish population actually is falling through emigration. Israel already is internationally recognized within its legal borders. Everyone knows that it is a Jewish state.

But the demand to recognize it as such is meant to exclude the Arab citizens of Israel, who were there long before there was an Israel. Netanyahu's new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has already demanded that they be forced to take a loyalty oath (or be expelled).

The demand is also meant to foreclose Palestinian claims on illegally seized property in 1948 or after, and most important, to close off any Palestinian "right to return" (or recompense).

This position is not meant to be taken seriously. It is propaganda to impress foreign public opinion and Jews living in Europe and America: "You see, the Arabs won't even recognize us as a Jewish state!"

The demand that the threat of Iran be eliminated before Israel negotiates on Palestine replays a well-worn record. The issue could still be considered live a year ago, when Israel sought American permission (and assistance) in an attack on Iran. That was rejected by President George W. Bush, probably to greater surprise in Jerusalem than in Washington, where the political class has no desire for still another war sure to involve the United States.

President Netanyahu will probably tell President Obama that he will be happy to negotiate but only on conditions that cannot be met, including total suppression of Hamas, denial of a sovereign Palestine state in full control of its territory, and without removing established Israeli colonies or Israeli air and water rights.

Since none of this can be taken seriously, the great question is what response Barack Obama will give. That will reveal to the world whether there will or will not be more war in the Middle East.

 "AIPAC's 2009 Policy Conference"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Fs73XZqm8&eurl=http://pulsemedia.org/&feature=player_embedded

This gives an ominous sense of the ‘clan at work' with a powerful agenda. It looks like some sort of sacred propaganda ceremony.

"

JERUSALEM - The Israeli military used reckless force during the fighting in Gaza earlier this year, resulting in needless deaths and damage, a group of former Israeli soldiers charged in a report Wednesday.

In testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army reservists, 26 soldiers who participated in the three weeks of Gaza fighting describe demolishing homes and using firepower beyond what was necessary given the relatively light resistance they encountered.

None of the soldiers was identified, and no dates or locations were provided for the events they recount. The report did not look at the actions of Palestinian militants during the fighting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/breaking-the-silence-form_n_232991.html