The problem is that Israel gained its Jewish majority and nationhood through a peaceful movement of migration, and as such was rewarded with its nation status by the UN. Giving a nation such as the modern day Palestine their own sovereignty would be a horrible thing. It would be a reward for decades of violent and excusable behavior and would encourage further terrorist action due to the fact that often when you give a man an inch they'll take a mile.

Extremism and terrorism are philosophies that strike at the core of modern humanity and as such can not be given any chance to gain further foothold in the world community.

Interesting.

Seems like all the more reason for the PA to help though.

It's funny.  A 3 state solution seems more sensible then a 2 state solution at this point.

Even if the PA and Israel came to a deal... I'd wonder if everyone would accept it.

It will be interesting if the PA starts loosing more power and in a deseprate attempt to stay in power signs a less then ideal deal with Israel how the world would react to it.

This seems possibly even probable to me.

Isn't that kinda what happened in Kosovo?

Granted the levels on which side was more agressive are different... but Kosovo wasn't completly peaceful in it's struggles for independence.

Though admittidly not granted UN status yet.  Just NATO support.

@ Esmoreit - So does that mean that the Americans (both USA, Canadian, Mexican and Latinos) should be forcibly removed from their territories as well? I mean, it wasn't their lands either.

One on my biggest beefs with the current Palestenian movement is that it seems that they are totally, and only concerned with taking over Israeli land, and not the historical Palestinean land(s), which also include parts of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Why are they not bombing Jordanian targets to get land back there, too? The Palestine territories, pre-Israeli were political boundaries defined by the Ottoman Empire, and British Mandates.

It seems that, more than anything, the Palestinian conflict has more to do with someone fighting Israel than it does with actual land disputes - The Palestinians dispute there should not be any nation there, other than a Muslim nation.

Good for Israel.


I mean, it's a miracle that country still exists. So whatever they have to do to keep the peace over there (eh, stability for them) they probably need to do it.

Very good point, I was just about to type the same thing.

Israel consistently gets targeted as the oppresor of Palestinians, but their own Arab brethren have kept them in camps and as second class citizens in other Arab nations.

A friend of mine close to the situation told me that the Arab leaders don't like Palestinians, and they don't like Jews, so they pawn them off on each other... kind of like the saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

They don't like either group, so they like to see them fighting each other.

Why would they like them.  They're nothing but poor refugees mostly.

I think why people are harsh on Israel is the Palestinians aren't as effective.

It's like highschool when a smaller kid tries for weeks to pick a fight with a bigger kid... then when the fight happens the little kid gets his ass beat.

Everyone treats the bigger kid like an asshole.

Israel probably can kill more people in one week of attacks then the Palestinians could firing off rockets for a year.

Israel i believe now has a bigger population then palestine too so it's not even a direct ratio comparsion.

Not that effectiveness is really a good arguement... but that's why i think people feel that way in any case.

Israel isn't defending democracy. It's bombing another democracy.

The Israelis have been systematically starving, blockading and besieging the people of Gaza for years now, because they had the bad taste to vote in a free, fair, democratic election for Hamas in 2006. You don't have to like Hamas as a party, but they did win that election fair and square.

Israel needs to let the West Bank and Gaza go. End the occupation, let them have their nation-state. Want security guarantees? Get EU troops in there with a peacekeeping mandate.

Seriously...?

Hamas was voted in by the people, and Israel doesn't care about that.  They care that Hamas is using their political power to use Gaza a base of operations to fire rockets into Israel and murder Jews.  So it has nothing to do with the election and everything to do with attacking Israeli citizens.

As for the EU troops, Hamas doesn't want them there, and the EU will not put their troops there as a buffer against terrorist attacks.  If they did that, EU troops would come home in body bags because the Islamic terrorists would target them too.  Why would Europe turn tail and run from terror ravaged Iraq just to jump right back into a terror zone that is 10 times worse?