Israel could have started by freezing / removing all settlements, pulling back to 1967 borders, ending the indiscriminate killing of civilians, blocking of aid etc. That would show that they are serious about a peaceful settlement and the ball would then be in the Palestinians court to respond in kind.
Not much of an answer. Israel does not actually have to do anything. It is hamas who have to show good faith. I noted you did not mention the killing of all civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian.
Don’t fool yourself into believing that hamas wants a peaceful solution. The situation is a lot more complicated than what you realize. Islamic fundamentalists are not going to just stop the violence if Israel shows any good faith. The reason for their existence is the destruction of Israel. This is their core belief. They will offer a truce, but not peace. Many hamas leaders have stated this publicly. You are also not factoring Iran’s influence into the situation. Who do you think funds them?
Don’t forget the Israelis offered them a state already. I think it contained 97% or 98% of the land they wanted. Surely this should have been accepted?
Also remember it was hamas that broke the truce.
There is more to the situation than simply changing borders and moving settlements.
1-The various palestinian political parties hate each other at best. At worse they kill each other such as in 2006.
2-The 2 palestinian areas are governed by two different parties. No unity.
3-Who is going to guarantee border security if there was a state?
4-Who in their right mind negotiates with people who have sworn to destroy you.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Israel evacuated the Gaza strip of all Israelis.
What did they get in return? Rockets. Murder. Mayhem.
So, by the same analogy, Israel will get what when they exit Judea and Samaria?
But, wait. There’s more:
You haven’t lived there. I have. And my neighborhood in Jerusalem was shot up for a year by Arafat’s Tanzim AFTER Arafat was given the most generous offer of essentially EVERYTHING he asked for.
But, watch the video. It’s educational.
There are a minority of fundamentalists on both sides that want to wipe out the other. The majority though (both Palestinians and Israelis) want peace. Israel, being an established democracy has possibly an even greater responsibility to ensure their fundamentalists don’t dictate policy. And yet the Sharon’s (formerly) and Netanyahu’s keep being elected, settlements keep being built and basic human rights denied. Israel needs to be a leader in the peace process and take the high moral ground instead of just reacting in more-or-less the same way that Palestine’s extremists act. Hold Israel’s extremists accountable in just the same way you want Palestinian extremists accountable and maybe there’ll be some progress. Otherwise the Palestinian voters are going to see Israel as not being serious and keep electing their hardliners and nothing will get solved and a lot more people will die.
Why do you think Hamas won in 2006? It wasn’t because Hamas were attacking Israel, it was because they were the only ones able to bring some measure of social services such as basic medicines, food and water, to everyday Palestinians. Israel’s blockades and restrictions on aid etc were what led to that situation occurring.
If Israel keeps “doing nothing” as you allude to, then there’ll be no progress. Lift all restrictions, allow (or even provide) aid, and show the everyday Palestinians (and the world) that Israel is not their enemy. You are then likely to see the vast majority of Palestinians rise up against their own extremists (in time, it won’t happen overnight) ala Egypt, Syria, Yemen etc. But this will not happen as long as the slightest doubt about Israel’s sincerity exists in the minds of everyday Palestinians, and with the actions of Israel over the past years, there’s a lot of doubt. Hearts and minds is the only way peace will occur.
[quote=“cfimages”]There are a minority of fundamentalists on both sides that want to wipe out the other. The majority though (both Palestinians and Israelis) want peace. Israel, being an established democracy has possibly an even greater responsibility to ensure their fundamentalists don’t dictate policy. And yet the Sharon’s (formerly) and Netanyahu’s keep being elected, settlements keep being built and basic human rights denied. Israel needs to be a leader in the peace process and take the high moral ground instead of just reacting in more-or-less the same way that Palestine’s extremists act. Hold Israel’s extremists accountable in just the same way you want Palestinian extremists accountable and maybe there’ll be some progress. Otherwise the Palestinian voters are going to see Israel as not being serious and keep electing their hardliners and nothing will get solved and a lot more people will die.
Why do you think Hamas won in 2006? It wasn’t because Hamas were attacking Israel, it was because they were the only ones able to bring some measure of social services such as basic medicines, food and water, to everyday Palestinians. Israel’s blockades and restrictions on aid etc were what led to that situation occurring.
If Israel keeps “doing nothing” as you allude to, then there’ll be no progress. Lift all restrictions, allow (or even provide) aid, and show the everyday Palestinians (and the world) that Israel is not their enemy. You are then likely to see the vast majority of Palestinians rise up against their own extremists (in time, it won’t happen overnight) ala Egypt, Syria, Yemen etc. But this will not happen as long as the slightest doubt about Israel’s sincerity exists in the minds of everyday Palestinians, and with the actions of Israel over the past years, there’s a lot of doubt. Hearts and minds is the only way peace will occur.[/quote]
I think that you gotta get your facts straight.
Hamas won in 2006 due to corruption in the Palestinian Authority, not Israeli blockades.
Here’s another educational video about all those ‘blockades’:
That was a factor sure. But if you watched the live reporting at the time, the majority of people asked on the street were saying because Hamas could provide them with basic services which were being blocked by Israel.
Well the current approach is a failure so it can’t really be any worse.
[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]
Hamas won in 2006 due to corruption in the Palestinian Authority, not Israeli blockades.
[/quote]
That was a factor sure. But if you watched the live reporting at the time, the majority of people asked on the street were saying because Hamas could provide them with basic services which were being blocked by Israel.
Well the current approach is a failure so it can’t really be any worse.[/quote]
Huh?
Israel has literally tried everything.
Why don’t we let the only democracy in the Middle East handle this, okay?
[quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]Israel has literally tried everything.[/quote]Riiiiiiiight.
[quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]Why don’t we let the only democracy in the Middle East handle this, okay?[/quote]Given their druthers, Israel’s government would remain the only democracy in the Middle East. Why is that? 
[quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]
Why don’t we let the only democracy in the Middle East handle this, okay?[/quote]
And how’s that working out for you lately?
I’ll say it again, it all comes down to hearts and minds. Win those and you’ll be well on your way to peace.
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]Israel has literally tried everything.[/quote]Riiiiiiiight.
Do you by any chance have ANY facts to back that up?
I didn’t think so.
[quote=“cfimages”]And how’s that working out for you lately?
I’ll say it again, it all comes down to hearts and minds. Win those and you’ll be well on your way to peace.[/quote]
The whole point of the Oslo accords were to win ‘hearts and minds’ and Yasser Arafat and friends sabotaged it.
A few examples
Norway tried to reform the Palestinian curriculum. Arafat reinstated the Old books. And, the Old Hate
Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat EVERYTHING. Arafat responds with Tanzim shooting at my neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.
Israel evacuates the Gaza strip. The Palestinians respond with rockets.
A Palestinian friend of mine converts to Christianity and has been jailed and tortured by Palestinian Police. He eventually has to flee to Jerusalem for fear of his life.
Need I go on?
Here’s a great little Video:
Do you really think that making peace with the Palestinians is that easy?
[quote=“Got To Be Kidding”]Do you by any chance have ANY facts to back that up?
I didn’t think so.[/quote]
Yep. You could Google it yourself. Or think through the security implications for yourself.
Cutting deals with dictators is cheap and easy, and has worked reasonably well for thirty years. Forging a real peace with democratically-accountable governments carefully watched by populations accustomed to both idiotic propaganda and god-awful tit-for-tac cyclical violence and never a bit of serious progress will be far tougher. I understand why Israeli governments have made the bargains they have – I simply don’t agree with their conclusions.
If you can’t be bothered, you could start with these links:
BBC: Egypt protests: Israel watches anxiously
Analysis too fuzzy?
[quote=“Time”]“We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations, but we have to look to the future,” says a senior official/ minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. […]But while it may be more efficient to deal with a strongman in Cairo — Mubarak has ruled for 30 years — and a King in Amman, democracies make better neighbors, “because democracies do not initiate wars,” he says.
“Having said that, I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process,” he adds.[/quote]
[quote=“Aljezeera”]Earlier, an Israeli newspaper had reported that Israel has called on the United States and Europe to curb their criticism of President Hosni Mubarak “in a bid to preserve stability in Egypt” and the wider Middle East.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the foreign ministry, in an urgent special cable, instructed its ambassadors to key countries, to “stress … the importance of Egypt’s stability”.
Increasingly, president Mubarak has been isolated by swift and at times harsh criticism from Western leaders who called for reform.
It is unclear how angry Egyptians will interpret Israel’s apparent support for their government.
The protests in Egypt have reportedly thrown the Israeli government into turmoil, with military officials holding lengthy strategy sessions, assessing possible scenarios of a post-Mubarak Egypt.
[…]
[b]Israelis, have been overtaken by fear: The fear of democracy. Not here, in neighbouring countries," Sever Plocker, an Israeli commentator, writes in the daily Yediot Ahronot.
“Its as though we never prayed for our Arab neighbours to become liberal democracies,” Plocker writes.[/b][/quote]
[quote=“Haaretz”]Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo, said it is in Israel’s interest for Mubarak’s regime to survive since the alternatives, ranging from an Islamic government to the secular opposition, would be far less friendly to the Jewish state.
“I am very much afraid that that they wouldn’t be as committed to peace with Israel, and that would be bad for Egypt, bad for Israel and bad for the U.S. and the West in general,” he said.[/quote]
Sorry. That is not evidence that Israel prefers non-democratic governments over democratic ones. I have seen Israel work hard to help NGOs develop democratic institutions.
It is a relevant concern to Israel if the Muslin Brotherhood get in power in Egypt, but that’s different than your accusations that Israel doesn’t want democracy in the Middle East.
And, you seem to keep siding with the Palestinians that have demonstrably shown that they are NOT supportive of democratic institutions. Hamas has stood for HOW many elections in the Gaza strip?
Let’s see a little rational thought here.
And while we’re thinking ‘rationally’ let’s consider this video:
This is the product of the Palestinian educational system.
You think that peace can come from this? :loco:
Very hard to imagine how peace could grow out of how many decades of both sides embracing violence and propaganda, and yet claiming victimization.
One side gets occupation and venal regimes; the other a fragmented democracy and threat of invasion.
Some Palestinians call for genocide, some Israelis call for the expulsion of all Palestinians. Both sides seem to grow more entrenched, more polarized.
If it seems that I give the Israelis a harder time, it’s because they possess far greater power, resources, and ability to improve the situation, but are satisfied to make do with a status quo that (only) they can live with.
[quote=“Jaboney”]Very hard to imagine how peace could grow out of how many decades of both sides embracing violence and propaganda, and yet claiming victimization.
One side gets occupation and venal regimes; the other a fragmented democracy and threat of invasion.
Some Palestinians call for genocide, some Israelis call for the expulsion of all Palestinians. Both sides seem to grow more entrenched, more polarized.
If it seems that I give the Israelis a harder time, it’s because they possess far greater power, resources, and ability to improve the situation, but are satisfied to make do with a status quo that (only) they can live with.[/quote]
Israelis embrace violence?
You obviously don’t know Israelis. They do NOT embrace violence. It’s not in their religion. It’s not in their society. It’s not in their individuality.
For example: There are guns everywhere, yet gun violence is incredibly low.
Or, how about this: Germany tried to wipe out the Jews, yet Israel has accepted German tourists and German help.
The olive branch is a symbol of Judaism and Israel.
The sword is the symbol of islam and arabia.
Israel has been attacked and attacked by every kind of Arab, yet Arab kids come from all over the region for medical treatment in Israel, for free.
Israelis possess far greater power, resources, and ability to improve the situation? They’re satisfied with the status quo?
Are you kidding me?
There are just six million people in a country the size of Rhode Island. They have no oil. No coal. No precious metals.
The only thing that they have is pluck and a good educational system.
The Arabs have incredible reserves of oil and almost something like 150 million in the Middle East and North Africa?
Where is your sense of perspective?
They’re people. People’s people: I don’t buy arguments that anyone’s inherently better or worse. And religion is what’s made of it; society’s always mishmash.
If violence hasn’t been embraced by a good number, there’s a good deal of explaining to be done concerning the more militant settlers today, Rabin’s assassin (and his treatment) awhile back, terrorist actions against the British mandate further back.
But this bit of the here and now pretty much nails it, far as I’m concerned.
[quote=“Wall St Journal”]GAZA BORDER – Moti Danino sat Monday in a canvas lawn chair on a sandy hilltop on Gaza’s border, peering through a pair of binoculars at distant plumes of smoke rising from the besieged territory.
An unemployed factory worker, he comes here each morning to watch Israel’s assault on Hamas from what has become the war’s peanut gallery – a string of dusty hilltops close to the border that offer panoramic views across northern Gaza.
He is one of dozens of Israelis who have arrived from all over Israel, some with sack lunches and portable radios tuned to the latest reports of the battle raging in front of them. Some, like Mr. Danino, are here to egg on friends and family members in the fight.
[…]
Over the weekend, four teenagers sat on a hill near Mr. Danino’s, oohing and aahing at the airstrikes. Nadav Zebari, who studies Torah in Jerusalem, was eating a cheese sandwich and sipping a Diet Coke.
[…]
On another hilltop overlooking Gaza, Sandra Koubi, a 43-year-old philosophy student, says seeing the violence up close "is a kind of catharsis for me, to get rid of all the anxiety we have inside us after years of rocket fire" from Hamas.
Jocelyn Znaty, a stout 60-year-old nurse for Magen David Adom, the Israeli counterpart of the Red Cross,
can hardly contain her glee at the site of exploding mortars
below in Gaza.
“Look at that,” she shouts, clapping her hands as four artillery rounds pound the territory in quick succession. "
Bravo! Bravo!
"
Ms. Znaty lives in Sderot, the immigrant community on Gaza’s border that has long been a target for rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants. Her daughter lives on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, an Israeli community even closer to the Gaza Strip.
[color=#0000FF]Last year, Gaza-launched rockets struck Ms. Znaty’s home twice in a single week. She escaped both attacks unscathed but has a simmering anger for those living on the other side of the Gaza fence.
She acknowledges an uncomfortable, self-conscious awareness that she is cheering on a deadly war.
[…]
A father of six, Mr. Al-Beyali says he thinks of the Palestinian children suffering in the cold, with little food or safety, under the barrage. “When I see my children, I feel ashamed and guilty. I feel like I should find a way to go over there and fight the Israelis.”
“Injustice, injustice,” he mumbles.[/color]
[/quote]
Both sides embrace violence and portray themselves as victims. I think my perspective is pretty fair and accurate.
Again, blame lies with the extremists on both sides.
Here’s just one example.
Jaboney’s posts overnight have basically said the same thing I would have so I’ll just refer you to them for the rest.
At the end of the day I fully support a 2 state solution. However, there are certain facts that need to be cleared up first.
1-How do you negotiate with a group such as hamas, when they do not recognize your right to exist. We all know hamas does not recognize Israel. Who do they then negotiate with? The Easter bunny. By negotiating with Israel they are then by definition recognizing and legitimizing Israel. This is against their charter. So the first step to any negotiation is that hamas change their charter and recognize Israel. This is pure logic.
2-A unified Palestinian gov is needed before any negotiations can take place. This is also a simple fact. Israel cannot negotiate separate deals with hamas and fatah. Impossible. Hamas and Fatah probably hate each other more than they hate Israel.
3-Winning hearts and minds. My god. If only life was so easy. This type of comment states that you do not have enough knowledge of the situation to comment. I am sure the USA tried this in Vietnam. Look how well it worked. You have people that have been indoctrinated since birth to hate both Israelis and Jews. They are also willing to blow themselves up along with innocent civilians for this belief of hate. While I fully agree that there are extremists on both sides and some Israeli civillians have killed Palestinian civilians (these Israelis should be punished to the full extent off the law), I dont remember the last Israeli suicide bomber.
4-Land for peace does not work. Ask Neville Chambelain about that. Six million Jews as well as millions of Gypsies, gays, commies etc died as a result of that deal. Somehow I do not think the Israelis will make the same mistake. Appeasement does not work, despite what the liberal left might think.
5-Peace for peace is the step that is required. Once this occurs they can talk states.
6-Jerusalem is not a negotiable issue. It is the capital of Israel, and has been so since 1000BC. It only became important to Islam around 600AD.
7-The requirment that the 4.7 million Palestinian refugees must be returned to Israel. What about the 900,000 Jewish refugees who fled anti-Semitic violence in the Arab world. Did they receive any type of compensation? Where they repatriated? They were absorbed by Israel with no objection by the gov’s of the Arab countries where these Jews originated. This set the precedent where the country which accepts the refugees assimilates them. Cannot have your cake and eat it I am afraid.
8-Who in their right mind would voluntarily let a population that is essentially against your existence into their country?
9-Security. Assume there is a Palestinian state tomorrow. What will happen when the rockets fall on Israel from that state? Any suggestions? It will happen. Please, please don’t tell me the UN.
Looks like as good a time as any to add this bit. Hell, its became a cottage industry in some tail-chasing groups…
The Anti-Israel Distortions Industry
Just one of many examples showing the media/“academic” bias against the state of Israel.
[quote=“bigduke6”]At the end of the day I fully support a 2 state solution. However, there are certain facts that need to be cleared up first.
1-How do you negotiate with a group such as hamas, when they do not recognize your right to exist. We all know hamas does not recognize Israel. Who do they then negotiate with? The Easter bunny. By negotiating with Israel they are then by definition recognizing and legitimizing Israel. This is against their charter. So the first step to any negotiation is that hamas change their charter and recognize Israel. This is pure logic.[/quote]
Party charter details are not as important as the need to negotiate. Charters can be changed after negotiations or after agreements are reached.
They recently reached an agreement on forming an interim govt.
No one said it would be easy. And equally, it won’t come from military solutions as the US found out in Vietnam. You may not remember the last Israeli suicide bomber but does anyone else remember the last time Palestinian Apache helicopters launched missiles into civilian populations? Different tools maybe but the end result is the same. [/quote]
Strawman.
Sure, but it works both ways. Building new settlements (or not removing old ones) is also a threat to peace. Peace must work for both sides not just Israel.
Personally I think it should be placed under UN or some other international body for administration until such time as both parties can agree to allow the other equal rights over it. It’s been under Islamic control for most of the last millenia so the Palestinians have just as much a right to it as Israel.
If they wish to return to their homeland, then they should be allowed to. Like it or not, this is an issue that will have to be solved and outright denial of their desire is not the answer. There are just as many situations internationally where the precedent is that refugees only stay as long as necessary and steps are taken to return them. Assimilation is not precedent.
Then give them a reason to not be against you.
If negotiations have been carried out correctly and enough time and aid is permitted to allow a functioning Palestinian state to flourish, it’s unlikely to be a problem. But it will take time - over half a century of abuses won’t be overturned easily or quickly.