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Having considered all the relative arguments I am firmly in the "What the Hell is Wrong with these two sets of Jerks" Camp !

Its like two children fighting in the playground.

Its MY bit of land Coz its says so in MY version of the Bible. FFS Grow up !

What they say is different from what they'll accept. Language is deceptive in these sorts of deals, and you can't take the guys in the inferior bargaining position at their word.

If Israel puts forth an offer and does something to make sure that the offer has a degree of guarantee behind it, then the position will moderate still further, but as it is negotiations, and moreso what the Palestinian leadership claims are conditions for negotiations, are predicated around the idea that Israel is fundamentally untrustworthy and/or cannot be bartered with, the latter point being the root of Hamas' popular support, because the only thing you can do with someone from whom you want something yet who cannot be bartered with is to try to kill them, even if you know that isn't a realistic goal.

Oh, I don't. I reckon that the "moderates" and the extremists both want to simply exterminate the Jews.

Umm yah you see Jews always resided in Israel it was their land originally and always has been. The Islamic armies and such took over for periods of time but the land has always been rightfully the Jews. However your argument doesn't hold up for other reasons as well. Firstly Palestinians and Muslims have been able to immigrate to Israel and Muslims make up such a huge part of the population you can't possibly argue that Israel isn't their state as well. Another reason against your argument since when in wars have the natives deserved their land in full or it is considered a humanitarian crime? I can't recall any empire ever saying to the people "You know we conquered your land for reasons and now we feel bad so we are returning it to you and pulling all our people out". That has never happened to my knowledge. Look at Canada, USA and Australia we all occupy land originally occupied by natives. Our countries have realized we did them wrong and given them land but we aren't about to give the whole country back pack up and leave.

Fact is Israel didn't take all of Palestine they didn't even take the whole country as defined by the Romans which deemed it Jewish land. The Israeli Government has been fairly understanding, they have the military capabilities to take all of Palestine. Sure there would be public out cry and another huge war but Israel is more then capable of taking it all if they wanted.

As for terrorists. Yes some Israeli soldiers commit acts of terror but a lot of the casualties are results of shelling and such not directly targeting civilians they most often get caught in the cross fire. Also you mention the Israeli response always being ten times that of Palestine well no shit Israel isn't going to send a strong message by only responding with the exact same amount of violence. Say 30 rockets are fired into Israel and only kill one civilian does that mean that Israel should only kill a single Palestinian? No they need to take out those rocket launchers. Which by the way are often in residential areas or highly populated facilities. I've heard of rocket launchers at schools. Now what is the Israeli Government supposed to do? Just sit back and let the rockets fly because the cowardly Palestinians are firing from populated areas? Or respond taking out targets with as few casualties as possible. Fact is its the fault of the Palestinian authority and Hamas that so many people die. Also the fact that these terrorists have no allegiance they don't listen to one another they have no problem attacking their own people and rule with fear. That makes them terrorists.

As for the flotilla. Israel probably shouldn't have boarded the ship at all. They should have physically escorted it to an Israeli port and then searched the vessel with enough military and police support to avoid casualties. However the flotilla was not a peace flotilla as you describe the members had criminal intent and the intent to murder Israeli troops. Prior to Israel boarding they had stocked up weapons to fight. Once Israel boarded them they took those weapons and attacked the Israeli troops. Some would argue that its self defense but if for example "I know there is a group of KKK members meeting and I grab a couple guns and go into their meeting place yelling black power and provoke them. When they respond I pull a gun and blow their brains all over the floor was it their fault? Sadly absolutely not I knew I was going to get attacked and went into the situation hoping to kill some. That is murder" Each and every person on that flotilla attempted murder that day and if the Israeli troops who boarded hadn't fired their weapons they would have been murdered. The Israeli navy on the other hand sent those troops in armed with paint ball guns they never intended to kill or harm anyone on board. Those men are just lucky they had their side arms or they would all be dead. Also Israel planned to let all of the vital aid into Gaza anyways and had no intentions of arresting and sending flotilla members to prison. So I can't possibly see the flotilla in any other way then full support of Israel.

Umm yah Obama didn't contradict himself at all. If you read my initial response you will clearly see his position. Obama like almost every other western country wants to see Palestine recognized. They all want the two state solution, but the way Palestine went about getting recognized is border line illegal. It is low and circumvents diplomacy its a move meant to blackmail Israel and manipulate the global community into giving Palestine everything they want without any compromises to Israel or negotiations.

Then Israel running the American economy lol thats a joke. Canada is the largest contributing nation to the US economy and guess what Obama violated our trade agreements and actually betrayed our Government. He has no problem in damaging relations with the countries that hold America up. Yah he wants to be re-elected but his position on Israel isn't likely effected by that very much.

And in their ideal world with enough power they might do that if that is indeed what they want, but that defies reality. Kim Jong-Il wants nothing more than to conquer South Korea, but he or his son will never try, barring some miraculous intercession of the cosmos in North Korea's favor, he is instead trapped in the current cycle of begging for food aid and backing that begging with the carrot of nuclear arms talks and occasionally taking pot-shots at South Korea to show the alternative, because this is the best he can hope for until conditions change, and if even Kim Jong-Il can behave rationally, who can't?

You moderate your desires based on reality, and in the end take what reality will give you, and that's how politics and international relations work. Extremists only gain functional power in an environment where rational attainment of any sort of progress seems impossible. "Death to Israel" is boilerplate. A rallying cry that, while it has its share of true believers who do want nothing more or less than the destruction of Israel, is more taken up by people with a grievance against the current Middle Eastern power structure that they feel is intolerable and that they feel they are powerless to resolve.

Make the situation tolerable, or at least present to the people the notion that the situation is resolvable through means other than force, and you get peace and see the extremists marginalized.

You're talking as if these people are rational about this issue when they quite obviously are not. It's a sickness, and what happened to David Gerbi yesterday (do these look like Islamic radicals?) only serves to highlight the pathological paranoia against non-Muslims - but especially the Jews - that afflicts so much of the Muslim world.

Given that fact, any land for peace concessions Israel might make will pacify their enemies as much as the Munich Agreement pacified Hitler. The land Israel gives up today will be used to attack them tomorrow.

Vastly different. Hitler's Germany was strong enough to conquer Czechoslovakia, so he did. Really, he was strong enough to beat everyone but Britain and the Soviet Union, and he wanted to beat them, so he did it. The critical difference is that no matter how many land concessions they make, Israel could still turn all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into a smudge on the pavement in a week.

What you have cited as well is an instance of short-term racism and xenophobia in a country currently running on mob mentality and lacking a rational state actor visage, as well as acting against an individual, which afflicts many countries that, as states, are still rational actors.

The only danger to rational acting is when people get it into their head that they have powers that they do not, or when the state has made promises to the people in such a way that it has to try to fulfill them, no matter how irrational they are on an international level (thinking here of Georgia's idiotic provocation of Russia in 2008, which i theorize was based upon Saakashvili basing his career on making Georgia strong against Russia and spending quite a lot of their GDP on military buildup, which he had to justify no matter how stupid it was as a rational action)

Except there's nothing short term about it, and it fits perfectly into a larger pattern: that of an Islamic world which was never very tolerant to begin with (unless compared to medieval Christendom) but which over the past century has managed to backslide even further, turning into a seething basket case.

Where do you get your history from? This is absurd in its entirety.

1) Jews, in the 1930's and before, were less than 10% of the entire population. Hell, there were more Christians Arabs than Jews.

2) Jews increased by millions in a manner of a few years ALL from immigration from Europe. AFTER 1948 it had another big increase of Jews from Arab lands.

3) Arabs only increased by normal population growth. How else would the population base go from 90% Arab and 10% Jewish to 55% Arab and 45% Jewish in less than 5 years?

4) The Stern Gang and Irgun were the reason for most of the bloodshed pre-1948. They are the reason the British pulled out as the British were under constant attack from them, not Arabs. They were the original terrorists in the region. The Arabs learned these tactics from them, as it worked in removing the British and establishing Israel. They bombed hotels, homes, kidnappings, and the slaughter of an entire village Old Testament style including all animals; look up Deir Yassin. Additionally, most of the Prime Ministers and controlling government officials were once leaders or part of these gangs.

However what matters is not what happened then but what's now. Now you have an advanced and very large military and government supporting a terrorist enclave of settlers in the continued illegal expansion of Jewish homes on Arab lands for the sole purpose of pushing out the Palestinians and preventing any form of peace. The Arabs have no reason to vocally support a Jewish state while their homes are still under direct attack.