Mat Hardy is right. The so-called two state proposal was only ever thought of as a way of placating the Global Palestinian rights movement while Israel proceeded with its plans to totally dominate, segregate and eventually disperse the Palestinian population. One State with equality and democracy is the only viable way to peace.
The one State solution means that all Israeli citizens have equal rights of voting, movement, residency and return. The extreme right, dominated as it is by Zionists and fundamentalists, will never agree to equal voting rights with the Palestinians so nothing will happen unless the rest of the world forces the issue.
It is imperative that peace is 'imposed' in the Middle East as belligerence leads to war and the World can not afford to continue to solve international disputes with warfare.

So what you are saying is that Bosnia should have stayed linked to Yugoslavia, South Sudan to Sudan, Pakistan to India. Ukraine to USSR

In an ideal world people living harmoniously together is a nice thought. But the reality is that sometimes the differences are too large at this time to heal. Can you really see Israelis and Palestinians living harmoniously together.

An independent Israel and an independent Palestine is the only realistic solution short of war. And if the Israelis dont give way to this, then enforced partitioning by the UN should be made.

And in my opinion Jerusalem should become an International city, open to all faiths that revere it

So what you are saying is that Bosnia should have stayed linked to Yugoslavia
- yes, what a complete waste of time that war was. There are many candidates for the stupidest war in all of history but Yugoslavian succession wars must surely rank very high.
,South Sudan to Sudan
- no idea, they both seem like basket cases to me. I can't see them doing much better as two basket cases than as one.
Pakistan to India
- immensely preferable I would have thought.
Ukraine to USSR
- difficult to say, since the Ukraine only became independent because Boris Yeltsin fired off a fax to Kiev telling them they were now independent like it or not. The trouble with the Ukraine is large parts of it aren't Ukrainian.

As for Israel if the two state solution collapses that will leave them with the options of
1. Giving full citizenship rights to Palestinians - no chance
2. Trying to get Egypt and Jordan to take the parts of the occupied territories they don't want plus all inhabitants of the occupied territories off their hands.
3. Provoking a major conflict that would allow them to implement a population transfer solution - ie keep the territories but drive as many as of the inhabitants as possible over the borders in a repeat of 1948.
4. Muddle along like today using their power of blackmail to keep the media and politicians of the Rest of the World in line.

I hope there is a chance that a greater Israel-Palestine would give full rights to all its residents. It didn't seem likely in South Africa for decades.

Yes, undoubtedly Peter you are right: Gaza should be allowed to shoot off thousands of rockets into Israel, in response to Israeli peaceable withdrawal from there in 2005, without Israel having the right to defend itself. And what difference does it make that in fact the Gazans have a higher annual income, life expectancy, health and standard of living in their "concentration camp" than any of their near Arab neighbouring states? That is an unfair comparison given that Gaza is a concentration camp with gas chambers and smoking chimneys, right? And let's ignore that Egypt has been controlling the southern border with Gaza for many years now, it is still a concentration camp blockaded unjustly and solely by those supremacist Israelis who have nastily refused to retake control of Gaza at all.

Oh indeed a shameful business, Peter, including your own comments, and I like your final judicious and even-handed note: "pretty much on both sides." Of course there is no indication in your comment about how Gaza itself could be responsible for being blockaded, or what it might possibly be doing wrong to bring that about. As is usual with such "even-handed" comments, its real drift is to equate Israel with its enemies' behaviours (actually for you even to the Nazis), and thereby to entirely excuse those enemies' behaviours as justified responses -- to which Israel has no justification to respond. Shameful indeed.

Peter, there's a great youtube worthy of having a look at, and anyone else with any serious interest.
Why is there no peace in the Middle East.

Is that the piece on the way Israeli and Gaza TV portray each other? Ugly sad stuff.

But this is what war does - embeds hatred across generations. The clip also points to the vast cultural differences between a western influenced culture like Israel - with its masterchef and big borther clones, and hamas which has troubles with the whole idea of television, women on screens and images being broadcast at all...maybe even electricity... a mob of 9th century peasants most ambivalent about the 21st.

But it would not be true to say the such images of Palestinians and Arabs as shown in the youtube vid present a balanced summary of the way Arabs are portrayed and perceived by the most rabid zionists. It is still a propaganda piece rather than a balanced view.

You'll get a slightly different perspective based on polling and survey data from within Israel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Arabism#Israel.

Even worse: Golda Meir denied that Palestinians existed - because they did not have their own country (1969) But at least they remained human - not for long: Since Meir, Israeli leaders have referred to the Palestinians as “beasts walking on two legs” (Menachem Begin); “grasshoppers” (Yitzhaq Shamir); “crocodiles” (Ehud Barak); and “cockroaches” (Rafael Eitan).

No shortage of hatred anywhere one looks.

Bob Ellis has a good snippet in Independent Australia - http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/the-biblical-end-of-bibi-netanyahu/ that discusses how Netanyahu has damaged Israel in the US - not least by appearing in a Mitt Romney TV ad during the campaign. He seems to regard the US as some sort of Israeli client state rather than the other way round. A very bad career move that demonstrates his unerringly wrong political judgment and arrogance.

Here's the same view from the US - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/netanyahu-fire-congratulates-obama-article-1.1199163

Must admit though - Hamas makes channels 7, 9 and 10 look just terrific. You just wouldn't be watching any of it if you had half decent wallpaper.

Peter and others,

Here's how I see the situation. While I'm not Jewish, I do empathise with the people of Israel and indeed with ordinary Palestinians attempting to peacefully live their lives. I have no essential anti Arab or Muslim sentiments.

First, we need to leave aside who did what to whom over the last 100 years, and who hates who the most now. I think most would agree that the Jewish people arose in the region and have valid claims to a homeland there, especially considering the UN decisions of 1947.

Second, it seems that some commenters here like to condemn Israel but also claim 'not to support Hamas' and their goals. (Perhaps inspired by Everett's posting of excerpts from the Hamas Charter!)

But it's not just about Hamas; quite a few other salafi/jihadi radical Sunni groups are active in Gaza and West Bank, albeit not with the institutional power of Hamas it seems. See the Washington Institute's study here: http://tinyurl.com/a3bf86m Such groups are willing to use the standard methods against Israel -- suicide attacks and bombers, car and truck bombs, and probably IEDs.

Two examples are Islamic Jihad and Army of Islam (with the former possibly getting support from Iran). Hamas has tried to curtail the activity of some of these groups and individuals, but their reasons for doing so may be more about regional power and fear of retaliation by the Israel military than any concern for Israel. And Fatah are not necessarily the moderates they now paint themselves to be. The radicals in Fatah would see Israel destroyed as much as Hamas or any other salafi.

Third, I can't see there is a solid commitment to a two-state solution by the Palestinians because they are divided -- Hamas, Fatah, PLO, other groups -- and among individuals there is still strong preference for ongoing conflict and one-state, meaning a Palestinian state without Israel. The west will not let that happen, despite posturing by Obama and others. I favour freezing of settlements in West Bank and Jerusalem because at least this is a conciliatory move and it would be useful to see how the Palestinians might respond in peace talks. But I'm not a citizen living in Israel and I have no idea if this is sensible or not from a security standpoint.

Bearing in mind that Tel Aviv is only about 50 kms from Ramallah and Nablus (approximate distance of the outer suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne from the CBD), and border populations much closer to attack or infiltration, what is Israel to do to protect its citizens? A few dozen committed suicide or car bomb attackers can cause thousands of deaths, witness 9/11, London and Madrid bombings.

Rather than posturing, please outline a sensible, workable plan that Israel could adopt for the security of its citizens, bearing in mind that there is no negotiation with the salafi because that denies their raison d'etre; and that there is no unequivocal commitment by any Palestinian organisation for recognition of the country of Israel.

You state that 'we need to leave aside who did what to whom over the last 100 years' and then proceed to catalogue bad or wrong actions by people opposing Israel without mentioning anything wrong that Israel may be doing, let alone has done.

It is absurd to suggest that Obama is 'posturing', as you call it, in favour of a Palestinian state without Israel.

Israel could start by complying with repeated UN resolutions for it to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Yuri, I don't think it is up to us to forgive and forget.

It's also a step too far to be requiring some sort of up-front in-principle acceptance of Israel's right to exist by the neighbours, or the the West Bank and the occupation of Jerusalem are legit... that is the end point of negotiations - not the first hurdle.

There was an interesting show on ABC2 last night - Louis Therroux visits the West Bank. Worth a look actually - particularly the contribution by the hard-line zionist from Australia who is on a mission to reconquer Israel's biblical boundaries. The other side of the coin.

There is no simple strategy Yuri - but it must begin with being decent neighbours. I cannot see this happening myself - not unless the US basically imposes it on pain of drastic reductions in Israel's military aid.

It's not posturing Yuri - just a grudging recognition that the situation cannot and will not be resolved or even eased if it is left to the protagonists alone. They are frozen and immobile. And Israel seems to believe it has a blank cheque from the world to be as belligerent and intransigent as the religious rump wants.

Peter said: "It's also a step too far to be requiring some sort of up-front in-principle acceptance of Israel's right to exist by the neighbours . . ."

I think you would be well outside international opinion on that one, Peter. As to hardline religious extremists, they exist in most countries (Australia has a good example), so my reasoning is that you really don't want to give them any leverage by displaying equally extreme behaviour.

We seem to view this from two different sides of the same coin. Palestinians need to down arms, recognise Israel and court the Israeli moderates -- and there are plenty of them. In the end, you're probably correct in assuming that "the situation cannot and will not be resolved or even eased if it is left to the protagonists alone."

BTW, I like Louis, so I'll take a look at the program.

The trouble is Yuri that the recognition being demanded now runs to acceptance of the occupied territories, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem which of course will never happen.

After you've watched Louis nerding his way through the West Bank have a look at these... a series of maps produced by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs ... this is all about turf and who controls it - so maps capture the giblets of the issue quite well. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/

The first map starts not with the 1948 state - but with the estimated borders of King David & Solomon of 1,077 - 997 BCE... it includes Damascus, Amman and shows an Israel some 3X its present size. It looks like - it reads like - an ambit claim.

Sanctioning the expansion of Israel by virtue of its military conquests will not be happening while that first map suggests a strategy to conquer all those lands deemed to have been part of David's kingdom.

A horrible collection of maps - if mere drawings can indeed cause such hatred and death.

The difference is, Gavin, that I am not talking history, only purpose and intent into the future based on the established policies of various groups opposed to Israel and its Jewish citizens. That's what is important at this time.

You didn't answer my question either. What should Israel do to protect their citizens and create a solution? You want them to disperse back to Europe? Swim to Italy as refugees?

If you are considering the future you might consider how Israel's current behaviour reflects on its bona fides in seeking a solution.

I did indeed state what Israel should do to protect its citizens and create a solution: it should start by start by complying with repeated UN resolutions for it to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Peter, the MFA maps quite reasonably document aspects of territorial history of the Jews in the region. They do not constitute a claim for current borders, although I am sure there are some who would like it to be so for security reasons!

No, this only strengthens the Israeli case for a homeland in the region -- and a very small fraction of those maps at that.

The key to this conflict is cessation of Palestinian hostilities and recognition of Israel. Until then, all bets are off. Giving up the Golan Heights is off the agenda until this is resolved, especially with Syria in chaos.

What would you like Israel to do to progress this situation?

You're not making sense, Gav. I explained to you the danger Israeli citizens face and the intractability of its salafi attackers. You don't give up territory when you face imminent danger.

How would you like to be sitting in a cafe in Lygon Street with a nice Duck a L'Orange knowing a car bomber is planning at attack within an hour of you?

Fear of attack does not justify a country occupying another.

Israel should also stop expanding its settlements and murdering people it considers to be enemies.

"Fear of attack does not justify a country occupying another."

Only unless they've attacked you several times previously and shown intent to attack you again ;-).

Your analysis is a bit flawed, Ron Chinchen, since Israel has done all the things you have said they should, from the very beginning of its existence, but it is the Palestinians and the Arab world generally which have refused any accommodations (but it is good to recall that both Egypt and Jordan did sign peace treaties with Israel and there have been no further military conflicts with them). E.g., Israel invited the PLO into the West Bank and Gaza back in 1993-4, explicitly in order to prepare for set up an independent Palestinian state, with lots of financial support and every other possible aid, but Yasser Arafat turned it down through constant terrorism, especially when things got too hopeful for his liking. This became blatantly clear when he orchestrated the Intifada following the break-down of the Camp David peace talks in 2000 with Ehud Barak, a break-down which Bill Clinton, Daniel Ross, and others involved with the talks stated clearly and firmly was due to Arafat's rejectionism.

Even at present, Israel supplies financial aid to the PA, and all utilities both to the West Bank and Gaza which neither the PA nor Hamas pay for. These utilities were maintained even during the recent Pillar of Defense military conflict with Gaza. What other enemy has been so supportive? So there is no truth in your characterization of Israeli "fault" for the present impasse.

Good that you condemn terrorism, Jeremy, but your target is the wrong one. What is remarkable about the State of Israel and the leaders in the Yishuv that preceded it is its principled abstinence from terror in the face of Arab terrorism from 1920 onwards. It had an explicit policy of non-retaliation, and even the Irgun, which rejected that policy and therefore was marginalized and excluded from Yishuv leadership only acted against Arab terrorist groups and the British military administration that armed the Arabs but confiscated the weapons of defense groups in the remoter farming kibbutzim. The Irgun always sought to minimize civilian casualties, which is the opposite of the Arab terrorist groups rightly so called, then, and now. So the Irgun was not a terrorist group at all but a resistance group similar to that of, say, the French Resistance. There was a very small Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang as it was often called, but the Yishuv sought to find and imprison their members, and the Irgun would have nothing to do with it after its attitude to civilians became clear.

Compare that with the Arabs. The leader of the local Arab rebellion against the British, who attained that position in the course of assassinations of top Arab leaders who sought peace with the Jews such as King Abdullah of Jordan, was Haj Amin el-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He had already organized numerous massive terrorist atrocities against the Jews, innocent men, women and children, from the 1920s onward. He also led an Arab uprising against the British as well as the Jews in the late 1930s, producing outright civil war in Mandate Palestine. He was funded by Nazi Germany, and his goals were the same. When the British repressed this, he fled to ultimate sanctuary in Nazi Germany, where he stayed right through World War II, issuing fatwas obliging all Muslims to join the Nazi army and wipe out the Jews and the democracies, creating two Muslim SS groups himself, and arranging with his friend Hitler to take over a Judenrein Iraq-Syria-Lebanon-Palestine after the war as leader of a satellite country within the Nazi empire. After the war, he fled to Egypt, where he tutored his nephew, Yasser Arafat, in his values and methods in the 50s. Arafat's PLO was the leading terrorist group in the world for decades, with constant atrocities against civilians. The torch is now passed to Mahmud Abbas, who as leader of the Palestinian people denies that the Holocaust ever took place and officially promises a Judenrein Palestine state himself, rejecting all peace talks with Israel. These are the people you support, Jeremy. What sort of person does that reveal you to be?

Everett has decided to rewrite history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

"The Deir Yassin massacre was carried out in a village west of Jerusalem that had signed a non-belligerency pact with its Jewish neighbors and the Haganah, and repeatedly had barred entry to foreign irregulars.[45][46] On 9 April approximately 120 Irgun and Lehi members began an operation to capture the village. During the operation Irgun members shot at fleeing individuals and families.

A Haganah report writes:
The conquest of the village was carried out with great cruelty. Whole families – women, old people, children – were killed. ... Some of the prisoners moved to places of detention, including women and children, were murdered viciously by their captors.[47]
The operation resulted in five Irgun members dead and 40 injured and 100 to 120 dead villagers.[48]
Some say that this incident was an event that accelerated the Arab exodus from Palestine.[49]"

First of all, I note that neither Mike nor Peter even try to deny the main thrust of my comment, which covered the mainstream Yishuv abhorence of all retaliation for Arab terrorist attacks, and the official policy of the State of Israel since its founding to condemn all terrorism and to seek even in the midst of war to avoid as much as possible civilian casualties, making efforts which I might add go far beyond any other modern army or any army in pre-modern times. Instead, they focus on contentious issues relating to the Irgun, which was itself marginal and did not influence Yishuv policy, indeed, relations were bitter between Yishuv leaders and Irgun.

But the accusations against the Irgun made here are one-sided and misleading, too. I am afraid, Mike, and also Peter, that Wikipedia articles you rely on are not the best, most neutral source for anything relating to Israel, or for that matter, any contentious subject. This is especially so if the vast majority of would-be editors are hostile to the subject, and block those who are sympathetic to it from posting information, using bogus objections. The "Discussion Page" of any article on Israel will provide sufficient evidence of that. And as we know, Muslims number over a billion people, fascists and antisemites who support them are many more, as well as otherwise naive leftists who out of a sneaking love of third-world and anti-Western statism and authoritarianism are hostile to Zionism and Israel, all far outnumber Jews who are merely 0.002% of the world's population.

So what did the quotes from your Wikipedia article leave out, Mike? How about the following: Deir Yassin was the only such action that had significant Arab civilian casualties that the Irgun was involved with. It related to a village on hills overlooking the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, that sheltered terrorists that had made travel between Tel Aviv so dangerous that only armed convoys could make it through, and not always them either. This was aimed at blockading Jerusalem, cutting off support for Jews in Jerusalem during an enveloping war of the Arabs against the just-about-to-be established Jewish state. The village may or may not have signed a non-belligerency pact, but it certainly did not keep it, so it was null and void in any case. In fact, when the Irgun forces surrounded the village and asked for it to give up the terrorists, it refused, with rifle fire. The Irgun announced then that it was going to invade, but offered safe passage for all those who wished to leave the area. It is not true at all that any of those who left then were shot at. I do not recall the figure but I believe it was several hundred who left. Then the Irgun attacked. They were surprised at how many civilians remained behind and sought even in the heat of battle to reduce possible civilian casualties. However, the Stern Gang also participated in this action, and they did not restrain themselves at all. Begin, the leader of the Irgun, was so angry at the Stern Gang at their behaviour during this action that all relations between the two groups were ended, and they were not thereafter even on speaking terms.

Thereafter, there were no comparable actions involving the Irgun. In fact, there were so few actions that Palestinians could seize on for propaganda purposes that they made much of this one, so frightening Arab villagers that this accelerated their flight from the whole region. The counter-productive nature of so much Palestinian culture and hate-incitement was again borne out. Deir Yassin has been ever since then the favorite example of "Israeli" terrorism and ethnic cleansing, and is used to characterize the entire Israeli leadership and outlook. Of course it does not. Even Mike's citation from Wikipedia, in its eagerness to make its hostile case, includes a condemnation of the Deir Yassin attack from the Haganah, that is, the Yishuv volunteer army and predecessor to the IDF. The quote is used to condemn the massacre, but actually proves the strong dissociation of the Yishuv defense forces from it and its atypicality as an instance of Jewish self-defense.

Ye ... knew that'd it be it... anti-Israel sources like Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Brittanica ... more lies... refusing to understand that Israel is always - always innocent. Is always always the victim. Is always the chosen people and can and have done no wrong - ever. That about the size of it Everett?

It's those damn Arabs and Palestinians - refusing to negotiate, refusing to go away, demaning the IDF shot them and demolish their houses and seize their farms. They're so intransigent and unreasonable. How can you ever be expected to deal with them?

Again I ask you Everett - run the show forward 20 years - what'll this peace you're talking about be looking like? What will happen in Gaza? How much more razor wire? I reckon you'd be hoping it all looks just the same.

I notice, Peter, that you have dodged the points I made and just indulged yourself in invective. I actually specified just what was missing from the Wikipedia article, and those points were as it turned out crucial for understanding its subject. Insults are not an argument, Peter, grown-ups know that. Time for you to do so too.

Try and grasp this Everett.

(1) Regular readers of the Conversation will notice how damnably pleasant I have been here... most uncharacteristic lack of invective from my end of the paddock. But if you feel invected, I apologise.

(2) You still seem to think I am interested in debating you ... in quibbling over how Menachim Begin became PM for example - former operations commander of the Irgun. The terrporist who came in from the cold.

But no - you want to be right... as always. But I'm not interested in debating you or even in being right. Being right - being chosen - being always wronged ... all meaningless and worth dust.

What counts is your approach to reducing tension and entering into meaningful negotiations with your enemies. Let's hear your suggestions.

Or is it just all their fault again.

Peter, again you are not paying attention. We were not "quibbling over how Menachim Begin became PM ... " The subject did not come up. But I think it is demonstrated from what I wrote that the term "terrorist" does not apply. As for my wanting to "be right ... as always," why thank you for the compliment and acceptance that I was right, even if you have to phrase it in a back-handed way. It is also an agreeable development that you have come to the conclusion that you are not interested in debating me, unlike before, because you know you and your values will be shown up again, and again, and again, the actual facts will be rehearsed for all to see, shaming you, and since so many clangers come from your own mouth. For example, your gratuitous reference even in this last post to "being chosen." An antisemitic slip, Peter. Don't do it again. It is antisemites who go on and on, with a real obsession, about the "Chosen People" theme that they suppose animates Jews and their religion. Their only idea of it comes from reading Christianity and its exclusive claims into Judaism as a negative mirror image of Christianity. The actual Jewish views of the subject are far less exclusivistic (e.g., Judaism teaches that salvation is available in all religions and cultures, due to the "Noahite" or "Noachide" Covenant applying to all humanity, and that almost all people will actually enjoy salvation because of God's great mercy).

As for what I suggest going forward, you again were not paying attention: I addressed that issue in an earlier response to you, as it happens, in the post lower down this page beginning "As for how it can all be dealt with ..."

It is very likely that Israel will continue in fruitless efforts to meet the Palestinians half-way or rather more than half-way (precisely because Israel really does want peace and like most liberal democracies finds it hard to believe that with some ideologically-driven and evil groups negotiations are doomed -- each generation thinks Chamberlain's little history lesson does not apply to them), but they will be fruitless efforts, guaranteed, since the Palestinians are not willing to make any accommodations or concessions at all; they do not want 50%, or 70% of their demands, or even 100%, because as history shows too many times, if their demands are met they up them to 150% and counting. The Palestinians want the annihilation of Israel; Fatah and Hamas join in that and only differ on tactics and who gets the juicy bits afterwards. Abbas just made a speech saying that very thing this week. No doubt you missed reference to it in the "Zionist-controlled media."

So this is your answer Everett ... more of the same ... Israel bending over backwards to make compromises and accommodations with the Palestinians and all their neighbours and these generous offers being thrown back at them ungratefully.

So there is nothing that Israel can do - everyone else must change. Israel is right. Israel wins the argument. Excellent. Now what have you won? Friends? Support? Allies? Good relationships with the neighbours. No - just the cold comfort of being right - again - as always.

Incidentally, I didn't realise it was now antisemitic to describe the sons of David as being the Chosen People. How long has that been on the books?

But as an aside you bet I reckon any ethnic group or religion that claims they've got a special relationship with Yahweh is both arrogant and deluded. But that's just me.

Actually Everett the real problem is that you regard anyone who disagrees with the policies of Likud (a party founded on the remants of the Irgun) or successive Israeli governments is by definition anti-Israel and antisemitic. Any and all criticism is anti-semitic. Oh and wrong, of course. Always wrong.

Find a new tune mate ... this one's become dull and monotonous. And no one is listening or singing along any more.

Anyway keep arguing Everett - keep being right.... look where it's got you so far. Left with no idea what to do. I hope you can shoot straight.

Peter, you really are a find. Your obdurate ignorance is an excellent foil by which to reveal to non-Jewish readers of decency the sheer unreality and malice that lies behind it and more sophisticated versions of the same, such as the article by Matt Hardy, "Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at Deakin University" who also knows next to nothing about his subject. And so I can only thank you.

Like Matt, Mark, etc., you obviously think that all fault lies on Israel's side; your solutions all end up being "final solutions" when it comes to Israel, and you fault Israel for not agreeing willingly to this. E.g., "federation," which you mentioned in another post, simply means that Israel relinquishes its right to defend itself, allows its Jewish population to be submerged in an antisemitic and violent tide of Palestinians who have been taught from infancy that Jews are evil and that the Jewish homes, even those built since 1948, are all "stolen" from the Palestinians who have a "right" to take them back, through murder by preference. So Peter, the federation solution, and the "Right of Return" claim within it, is just another version of the "final solution." Oops, as a response from its left-liberal (antisemitic) advocates after the genocide is completed hardly amounts to a reassurance or recompense. So, Peter, federation is simply not going to happen, nor will the "Right of Return" be granted by Israel. From Israel's point of view, the status quo into the indefinite future is far more preferable and manageable, and indeed Israel has flourished with it (and neither is it so isolated or threatened by isolated as claimed), so the heavier burden by far is that borne by the haters of Israel.

On the subject of isolation, it is not only the United States, Canada, Australia (even now), Czechoslovakia, and Palau Island, etc., that have warmly supportive relations with Israel. So do many of the nations that pass resolutions against Israel in the UN for political domestic and foreign policy reasons relating to the OIC. For those supposedly critical nations still have rising economic ties with Israel that belie their accommodations to Muslims. Israel is essential to the world for its technological innovations (your own computer runs on Israeli products), and its discovery under its land of oil and gas resources that rival Saudi Arabia's is already transforming its international position. China and Russia have made overtures, India and the Europeans likewise, Israel is now a full member of the European Common Market, etc. Israel is not in danger of being isolated, regardless of the Muslim world.

As for peace with the Palestinians, you obviously don't want to pressure the Palestinians instead of Israel, to join those decent-minded people and nations that urge the Palestinians to give up their hate-incitement, their glorification of terrorists, and their cruel oppressions of their own people, and to accept fully the Road Map of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, renouncing violence against it, and establishing a genuinely democratic state. All the compromises have to be on the Israeli side, as far as you and your ilk are concerned. And to what must Israel compromise itself? To its own annihilation, of course, what else? Naturally I would not expect you to object, but I think some of our non-Jewish readers might. So it is to them that I really write this.

Here are some clauses from the Hamas Charter (the full text is available at www.mideastweb.org), illustrating the sort of people and mindset to which you wish Israel to entrust its fate and future:

Opening paragraphs: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

Article 7: "...(T)he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, killing them, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

[, i.e., Allah promised that "the Jews" will be murdered, and the Hamas "aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take."]

Article 32: "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

Article 22 (also see Articles 17 and 28), citing the Protocols: "They [the Jews] were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we ... hear about. ... With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others ... for the purpose of sabotaging societies. ... They created and controlled World War I ... [and] World War II ... the League of Nations ...[and] the United Nations, to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without their having a finger in it.

Article 28: "They aim at undermining socieies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam." Therefore, Article 29: all Muslims must again "perform their role in the decisive battle of liberation, just as they did when they vanguished the Crusaders and the Tatars and saved human civilization. ... Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people."

Patrick, if I understand you correctly, your recommendation to Israel is that it relinquish any claim to being a Jewish state, that is, to being what it was founded to be, and which it was internationally recognized as being in the UN partition resolution establishing its right to exist and in subsequent international acceptance. It should, in short, voluntarily renounce its own reason for existence, as a matter of moral-philosophical principle. Zionism, which is evidently in this view by definition (regardless of its actions or ideals) neither moral nor philosophical, should be buried. National liberation movements as such are bad, and Zionism is therefore unjustified.

Could you explain to me, then, how this differs in any significant way in the real world from what the Palestinians ultimately aim for, namely the disappearance of Israel as such and its replacement even if retaining the same name by a third Palestinian state (after "the State of Palestine" recently declared for the West Bank and Gaza, and Jordan), or overthrow of its eventual even nominal existence in a Greater Palestine (of course after the pogrom is finished)? Naturally, this Greater Palestine will be explicitly an Arab and Muslim state in its charter and principles, as is already in the official self-definition of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, etc., and I am sure you would deplore that on principle. But what would that matter to the disappeared Jews and disappeared Jewish state that you recommend for dissolution? And how do you deal with that reality in a satisfactory philosophical framework?

Communities exist to further the common goals of their members. This is the basis of community existence as such. Jewish communities exist to further Jewish culture and values. These have been cruelly suppressed down through the ages by a persecution that is now well documented. Other communities have not provided safe refuge. Jews therefore have a right to seek autonomy and to be able to provide refuge for their members, and to defend their common existence, by establishing a nation-state dedicated to Jewish survival and self-defense. Beyond that, and more deeply, Jews as a minority in other cultures inevitably water down their heritage and can even lose it entirely under the pressures of their environments. It has often occurred. Therefore they need a state in which they are a majority, so that they can have a sympathetic environment in which to revitalize their culture and religion and develop it further in its own terms. The moral and logical justification for a Jewish state is philosophically coherent.

Furthermore, the claim that the modern liberal democratic state has no right to define itself along religious or cultural lines is itself incoherent, first of all as a matter of fact, and secondly as a matter of principle. Every modern liberal democracy so defines itself today along religious and/or cultural lines, and even justifies its existence by doing so. The Australian flag has a cross in it, not by accident. So do such other countries as England, Sweden, the Dominican Republic, Greece, etc. Many other countries have the Muslim Star and Crescent in their flag, or as in Africa symbols of their own peoples. Nations are communities of specific cultures, and this is not by chance but design. Cultural communities need to be able to preserve and defend themselves in a predatory world, and nation-states are the way they do it. You may deplore this, but that is the way it is.

Your paradoxical view that Israel, of all nations, should lead the way and be the very first in the world to voluntarily renounce its own culture and survival as such, in order to show its own moral excellence and the beauty of your philosophical principles, is not really all that moral nor philosophically persuasive.

But there is a deeper problem with this argument of yours, even beyond its peculiar Jewish exceptionalism demand. In fact, liberal democracy itself arose out of religious and cultural traditions that still sustain it. Without those traditions liberal democracy itself is threatened, and is unlikely to survive. With no particular cultural foundation, it will destroy itself from within, through the devastatingly self-refuting logic of cultural and moral relativism, as Leo Strauss famously argued. What those liberal democratic foundations and traditions are, and were, can be examined by you in such studies as, for example, Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought (2002), Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science (1998), Gordon Schochet, Fania Oz-Salzberger, and Meirav Jones, eds., Political Hebraism: Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought (2008), Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (2010), and for an enlightening specific instance, Jason Rosenblatt, Renaissance England's Chief Rabbi John Selden (2006). Among other books. I list these because I assume that you are willing to read them. Modern liberal democracies are definitely products of Biblical culture, whether interpreted through Christian or Jewish eyes. On this, I might also add a reference to the excellent work by Joshua Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (2008).

So it turns out that modern liberal democracies only arose from, and can only survive by maintaining connection with, specific cultural roots. There is certainly nothing philosophically, politically or morally illegitimate in their doing so.

"The way many Americans embrace exceptionalism, for instance, buying into a sort of chauvinistic magical thinking about the American nation, strikes me as deeply troubling."

Wow; that's rich, Patrick. Do you live in Oz or what? How about France, or Britain, or Iran, or Russia, or a hundred other countries with strong historical and cultural perspectives and a deep sense of their history and struggles?

Why pick on the US?

""This here's the wattle, the emblem of our land;
You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand."

Jingoism wasn't invented by Aussies, only perfected.

But I do take your point about insufferable American patriotic kitsch!

And I have thought deeply about a solution to tribalism and it's obvious consequences for human cooperation. Alas, no insights! It is a deeply-rooted product of evolutionary psychology and one which, were it to subside, might see the Nietzschean fascists overwhelm us peace-loving democrats ;-).

Thank you, Patrick, for your extensive response. I appreciate it. It makes some interesting responses to some of my concerns. But the glaring and obvious omission in your comments is any consideration of what your call for Israel to be the first nation-state in the world to renounce its cultural identity actually means in real-world terms or how this differs from the Palestinian call for Israel's annihilation. Is it all a matter of words, Patrick, with no real responsibility for the consequence? And how is that morally and philosophically justifiable? Is that how moral philosophy works?

What is your concern for securing and even saving Jewish lives -- I mean in reality, not in theory, for you say you do not ask Israel to renounce its existence even as you recommend that it erase its own identity and purpose -- although this would lead to a rather quick demise. The assertion that you are not asking any more from Israel than you would from Iceland, Canada or Ireland really rings very hollow indeed, is simply not true, and I am you are aware of it. Those countries were not founded as Israel was nor do they face Israel's existential situation in any respect. The countries, their founding, their purposes and their geo-political situations are utterly incomparable.

Nor can I accept your conclusion that just because as you admit the Jews have an obvious rationale and need for a nation-state to defend their existence in an all too precarious and often harsh world this is no justification for such a state, or that their admittedly (by you) legitimate desire to sustain their culture and religion on its own terms does not justify their own state for this purpose -- the only Jewish state in the world. Neither of these negative conclusions follow from what you grant as premises, rather they openly contradict them.

So for example you say that surely Jews can develop their religion and culture in the liberal democracies, such as Australia, and that is partly true, but it fails to recognize several crucial things. First, such developments of autonomous creativity are much more difficult, tentative and fragile even in their autonomy, if only because of the small numbers of Jews in the liberal democracies and the absence of a majority anywhere. Second, the form these developments take, even if significant and important, are by no means the same as would develop in a Jewish majority culture such as all other major religious communities have had and still enjoy -- it has made a fundamental difference to the development and even the nature of Christianity that it flourished in a majority Christian Roman Empire, and in numerous states down through the ages and still today, and the same is true for the history of Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, etc. You would deny this only to Jews, on principle. And thirdly, you are very complacent about Australia and its attitudes to Jews far into the future, and similarly the attitudes in European states, etc. On what basis do you derive that complacency? Australia is still very hospitable, it is true. If there develops a considerable Muslim constituency in this country, that could very well change. The recent turnabout regarding the Labor Party and the vote for unilateral Palestinian statehood, overthrowing the Oslo Accords, indicates as a foretaste of things to come that this is no very remote future possibility. In European democracies, the process is very well advanced, and Jews are under such constant attack that they are fleeing to Israel from places like Malmo, Sweden; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Paris and Lyons, in France, and even Manchester and London. Antisemitism has become mainstream in many European countries again. Jews are not welcome, as Jews. It comes first as "anti-Zionism," but it stays as antisemitism. In regard to Britain, there are two very good analyses of the increasingly threatening environment Jews face there that come to mind, Bernard Harrison, The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion (2006), and Robin Shepherd, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel (2009). Both indicate that this rise in antisemitism/anti-Zionism ties in deeply to fundamental issues in European culture and its future, and it is not a good sign for either.

Harrison is a linguistic and moral philosopher, and deconstructs the standard left-liberal rhetoric and justifications regarding their anti-Zionism in close detail, so his book may be of particular interest to you. According to the review by Thomas Mautner, whom you may even know since he was visiting fellow at the ANU School of Humanities, and editor of the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, Harrison's book makes an important contribution not only to its specific topic, but to moral philosophy more broadly. "Harrison presents a subtle pluralist view of morality, arguing that some moral problems -- like some of those arising from the israeli-Palestinian conflict -- have no solution that can be fully satisfactory from a moral point of view. He lucidly analyzes a certain zealously moralistic ethos, which used to be religious but which can now be found secularized on the political left." That moralistic ethos, if I may paraphrase it, is a pseudo-universalism which typifies itself in hostility above all to Jewish persistence and difference. Harrison also shows how a left-liberal "climate of opinion" can develop in which raw antisemitism is no longer recognized as such and can be re-legitimated, now as part of an attack on Zionism, while not intending this precise result. Israel is still needed as a refuge for Jews under persecution elsewhere.

So I do not consider that your suggestion that Jews have it OK in any particular state cancels out the justification for the existence of one Jewish state in the world that can be a solid and true refuge. Just as I do not think that Jewish vibrancy in Australia, remarkable given the small numbers of Jews, cancels out the necessity even in terms of ultimate Jewish cultural vigour and survival of having one state in which Jews are the majority culture. One does not eliminate the other. It is in fact very likely that without the existence of the State of Israel, Jews around the world would be disheartened and languishing in whatever places they have found some refuge, and Judaism and Jewish identification as such would be doomed in many communities where it presently flourishes.

I can't agree Yuri ... that wattle poem sums it up perfectly really. Aside from appalling lapses when dealing with our immediate neighbours, I reckon we have a pretty down to earth realistic assessment of our merits and abilities - if not our failures. We are team players and don't "have tickets on ourselves" as being superior, more advanced or civilised than anyone else (not to say anywhere else - we're obviously superior to every other where...'cept maybe Venice.)

If anything I reckon we as a nation tend to be a bit awkward - surprised and self-conscious - when say the US or Europe starts looking admiringly at our gun laws, or our fag packaging laws or the PBS. Bit shy really. Aw shucks tweren't nuffink.

And sometimes we can actually be a bit inventive and clever.But that's just bragging.

It would be illegal to sing that poem in the US were it about some sorry emblem of theirs. We view our cows somewhat less scaredly.

Yuri, I think the desire to abolish the multiplicity of cultures and their differences, in favour of some utopian uniformity, will always be bound to fail, and not only to do so, but to do so with the maximum of human tragedy and even outright violence. Let us take the Soviet example. It was predicated on the thesis that in the Marxist utopia all real cultural differences, along of course with all class differences, would be erased. All cultures, such as the Ukrainian, the Uzbeki, the Jewish, etc., etc., would celebrate the same quasi-religious festivities in the workers' paradise, and all that would be left of their differences would be picturesque folk dances and funny head gear. Religion, of course, would be obsolete -- forbidden. Le voila! What actually resulted from the enforced leveling of all, the denial of personal difference and societal, cultural and religious difference? Disaster. The Soviet Union ceased to work. It collapsed under the burden of its contradictions. For every human being is different, even different at different times. People in the same family are very different, though they share almost everything in common. Groups are different as a result of different circumstances and histories which evolve their own appropriate customs, ideas and responses. Difference simply cannot be erased. Even if we were all clones, we would develop differences, even tribal differences. The hostility to Zionism and Jewish persistence is a hostility to the very foundations of human society, and not just to the Jews.

Everett, I suspect you are correct. Marxism, for example, was the greatest experiment in socio-political nonsense imaginable, but unfortunately one that we had to work through. I never fell for it, even though I don't classify myself as right of spectrum.

I suspect it was inevitable, but it has now been transformed into, as you quite accurately suggest: "zealously moralistic ethos, which used to be religious but which can now be found secularized on the political left."

Yuri, for your own pleasurable reading if you are interested in history, I would recommend an excellent book on the deep roots of modern antisemitism in secular Enlightenment thinking (we all know the Christian component, lively from its founding; this relates however to its Western secularization). It is Arthur Hertzberg's The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism (1968). It shows that the ideological worship of "Reason," understood as a reason that abolished all differences and equalized everyone, and that was embodied in a state that demanded absolute equality without distinctions, ended up inevitably in a repudiation of all Jewish difference too; this repudiation of Jewish difference was all the more stressed because Jews were actually the only symbolically important non-Christian community generally allowed to dwell in Christian Europe at all. This led with its own inevitability to totalitarian-egalitarian societies which focussed their major polemical demonization on ... the Jews. Still today left liberals tend to the same messianic uniformity, in which cultural differences are merely faddish or sentimental personal symbolisms without real force. Another very powerful analysis of this cited by Hertzberg, and still a classic of political theory and analysis, is Jacob Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952). Talmon focusses especially on the malign influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and analyses the history of what his sort of thinking has produced in later societies.

Everett,

Begin did come up. I brought him up. Me. True you didn't bring huim up. No. You were busil;y saying how Israel had turned its back on rightist terror back in 1947. Not quite true was it Everett, not with a former commander of the Irgun who oversaw the worst of the massacring and murdering ending up as Prime Minister.

I just wish folks would stop pretending there is NOTHING wrong in Israel ... that living in fear and using the old established techniques of State fear and power is in some way rational or constructive. Your lot have been on the receiving end of this yourselves. Lots of times. And here you are doing it to someone else. Is that as good as it gets? That we do unto others what has been done to us? But first.

Yet, it is everyone else's fault and that only they enemy can move. That is a recipe for losing everything ... for being right all the way to the bitter end.

Some reasons why Patrick picks on the US, along with his attempts to delegitimize Israel's very existence, may be read in Barry Rubin, "Why so much of the Western elite hates (or doesn't like) Israel (and their own societies, too)," on the Rubinreports website for June 29, 2010. The article could have been written as a critique of the views put forward by Patrick on this blog. It hits most of Patrick's nails right on the head, but also applies to the other anti-Israel posters on this site. In fact, I really recommend Barry Rubin's analyses in general to you, Yuri. He is a brilliant man, a world-recognized academic authority, and the author of many books (published by leading university and other presses) about the region; he is also the editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, which has its own website, GLORIA, the Global Research in International Affairs Center. His comments on current events can be read on http://rubinreports.blogspot.com.au/, and learned academic articles on Middle Eastern affairs by him and other academic specialists from around the world at the GLORIA website.

I have already mentioned the outstanding study by Bernard Harrison, The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism (2006). It is relevant also for left-liberal hatred and contempt for the US. On the US link, too, see the book review by Ernest Steinberg of Bernard-Henri Lévy, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism (2008). Steinberg faults the book for Levy's usual self-indulgent polemical language, "hopscotch narration" and other flaws, but finds its arguments compelling, including that regarding "the other socialism of the imbeciles," namely anti-Americanism as such (you will possibly know that antisemitism was called "the socialism of fools" by its French socialist opponents back in the late 19th century). See the review at http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=288

A good book in general about left-liberal fantasies ending in sometime very like advocacy of Nazism today is by the left-liberal Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (2004). It has to do with the common left-liberal alliance with Islamofascism and sympathies for terrorism against Western countries.

Of course, not all left-liberals are anti-Zionist/antisemitic/anti-American. There are still those who stand up for liberal values as traditionally understood, including human decency and the avoidance of double standards, demonization and delegitimization (Natan Sharansky's "3-Ds" definition of antisemitism) when it comes to Jews. For example, in England a group of prominent left-wing figures joined in the "Euston Manifesto," proposing a revival of genuinely liberal leftist thinking, a "new left alliance" that "makes common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not," supports freedom, equality, internationalism and historical truth, while condemning racism, anti-Americanism, antisemitism including forms that take cover in anti-Zionism, and apologias for totalitarianism, terrorism and other forms of fascism. Google "Euston Manifesto": illiberal left-liberals, Socialist Workers advocates and outright fascists absolutely hate the Euston Manifesto and consider it the work of the devil. So you know it must be good.

If it wasn't clear, I should make it so: Berman is not one of the left liberals he criticises as supporters of anti-democratic movements and terrorism, but a genuinely decent left liberal, along the lines of the Euston Manifesto although he did not sign it; it is a British group and he is American. His book is one of the better analyses of how terrorism challenges the West to re-examine its current tendencies.

Sorry Yuri but any nation predicated on a "right of return" and a corresponding "right of displacement" for others is going to run into trouble theocratically speaking.

And it's not like it's all one big happy family either - ask the sprinkling of Arab jews how life is in Hebrew friendly Israel, or the Ethopians who are finding their right of return somewhat less welcoming.

I've only seen things like walls and sandbagged corners and police checkpoints in a few places Yuri. They were never nice places - for someone - maybe for everyone.

Such a waste.

Peter, there is no "right of displacement" claimed by Israel, but there is certainly one that accompanies the Palestinian version of their "right of return," so you are on to something in regard to the Palestinians at least. Since according to you any state with a special policy admitting its own diaspora members to a quick citizenship if they immigrate to it, must be a "theocracy," no matter what it actually is including being a secular liberal democracy like Israel, I guess that must also apply not only to the authoritarian and Islamist Palestinians, but also to the British government, the Swedish government, the Greek government, the Irish government, the Finnish government, etc., etc. -- very many countries have such policies. How generous you are with the negative slurs only when it comes to Israel, although it is clear that Jews have a very special need for a state to protect them from the kindness of strangers, in the last century and earlier ones too.

Actually, despite your description of Israelis as unhappy, I am pleased to be able to reassure you that international and local polls all uniformly report that Israelis are very happy to live in Israel, and Jews who come there from elsewhere share in that happiness and often say that they never had it so good. This has been the case for many years. I would not expect you to know this since you have spent 18 years amongst the Palestinians, who like almost all Arab countries are ranked very low in happiness and can only think of Israel through a blur of envious passionate antisemitism. Interestingly, a January 2011 poll showed that a majority of east Jerusalem Arabs prefer living in Israel over being in any proposed State of Palestine, with more desiring Israeli citizenship than Palestinian citizenship; 35% even say that if the Palestinians create a state that includes their neighbourhood, they would move elsewhere in Israel to escape it; only 30% indicated a desire for Palestinian citizenship. I would not expect you to have hear of that in your 18 years amongst the Palestinians.

In a "World Happiness Report" commissioned by the UN, an institution not known for a pro-Israel bias, and published last year, Israel was ranked 14th globally, a very high standing, making Israelis amongst the happiest people in the world. Factors leading to this result, according to the report, included outstanding health, family and job security, political freedom, supportive social networks and lack of government corruption. Nor was this result a fluke. Year after year similar international polls place Israel very high amongst the happiest countries in the world. The polls show them to be a very optimistic and confident people, too. As one would expect, it has one of the lowest suicide rates in the industrialized world. And the contentment is shown also in a strongly patriotic attitude. According to a 2008 Survey of Patriotism among Israeli Jews (including those "Arab Jews ...(and) Ethiopians" that you single out for critical mention), 92% said they were proud to be Jewish and living in Israel. 87% said they preferred being Israelis than being citizens of any other country, and 86% said they would prefer living in Israel even if Iran acquired nuclear weapons. They know that Israel will protect them, and they are glad to contribute to this. Not only Israeli Jews find it easy to be happy there. In State Magazine, the weekly periodical for U.S. State Department employees, Israel is considered one of the best posting in the world because of its amenities. "Tel Aviv is the single best combination of high-profile policy issues and high quality of life," it said. The journalists from European anti-Zionist media chose Israel to live in if they are reporting on the whole of the Middle East: it is despite their ingrained bias the best place to live. A recent tourist survey found Tel Aviv to be amongst the top 10 cities in the world to visit due to these amenities and high cultural and entertainment features. A Nov. 2012 survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit of Quality of Life issues, aiming to find out the best places to be born in 2013, placed Israel 20th amongst all nations surveyed, up from 30th in 1988.

Peter posits from his in-depth exposure to Palestinian society that immigrants to Israel have a tough time. Actually, as these polls show, his views are incorrect and/or outdated, just as one would expect. The overwhelming majority of Russian immigrants and Arab Jews express great satisfaction in polls with life in Israel: they are now at the highest levels of society and in all areas of national life. The adjustment problems of Arab Jews are long past. Ethiopian Jews have experienced difficulties largely because they come from a mostly rural and third-world country without educational facilities, but their young people in Israel now are achieving high levels of educational attainment and many work in diverse professional careers unimaginable back in Ethiopia and comparing unusually well with adjustment statistics for other immigrant groups in Western countries. Maariv published a report on this about a month ago, "Ethiopian Jews a Success Story in Israel," by Ben Dror Yemini, which discussed the heartening current findings. Israel has very warmly welcomed them, and they have not taken long to make their contributions significant ones. The present Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia is an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli, proud indeed to represent her country.

Apologies to Peter for confusing him with the Primary Health Care John Macdonald, who apparently has made a point of lecturing at Palestinian universities for 18 years. But both have the same anti-Israel stance, so it makes no difference to the points I made above.

Interesting isn't it - how folks like Everett here think this issue can be resolved by arguments - by one side being ALL right - one side being ALL wrong. That compromise and negotiation is unacceptable. It's all them - not us. We're just trying to fit in.

It will be interesting to watch as this attitude finds the proponents increasingly isolated and alone as a world seeking a solution becomes tired of these excuses for brutality - from all sides.

I wonder how Everett sees this problem being solved? What is his solution - other than the continued militarisation and eventual extermination of those who don't have the luck of being quite so "chosen". That's where it's heading.

Please don't say I am anti-Israel as you put it. I'm just pro-peace (like all of my Israeli mates). Or is that the same thing? A seige mentality wrapped in wire and weaponry and fear. Something wrong isn't there? Or no - nothing wrong at all - it's all THEM isn't it?

Of course you are anti-Israel, Peter, if not worse, a supporter of Palestinian terrorism against Jews as such. Your even-handedness means you condemn only Israel. No one is fooled by your equivocations and especially not those who share your views. We all know exactly what you mean.

As for how it can be dealt with, you probably are not aware that Israel has been trying ever since its founding to make peace with its neighbours, and actually has done so with Egypt and Jordan. It has also eagerly and fruitlessly offered peace talks with the Palestinians after setting up Arafat in the West Bank in 1993-4, creating and supporting the Palestinian Authority. It offered 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza to Arafat's PA in 2000. Arafat turned it down, and rewarded Israel for its efforts with the Intifada, only stopped by the erection of the security fence.

Terrorism has been the chief response of the Palestinians to all Israeli offers of peace. Sharon withdrew Israeli control from Gaza; the reward was only Hamastan and rockets.

What solution is there? The effort to find one must require changes on the Palestinian side: an end to hate-incitement and promulgation of attitudes that make real peace impossible for the whole next generation; willingness to accommodate Jewish presence at Jewish holy sites, and to live with Israel as an explicitly admitted Jewish state, and of course giving up the so-called "Right of Return." The world would aid this by pressuring the Palestinians on these matters: it has never tried this. So the rest of the world should step up to the plate and really support a 2-state solution by pressuring the Palestinians, not Israel.

Since these things are unlikely to happen, the world will just have to reconcile itself to Israel's continued existence, and Palestinian continued terrorism and hate agitation. Israel will manage very well in any case, as it has done since its creation. The Palestinians will welter in the hell they have created for themselves and refuse to improve. Status quo is better in any case than the future the Arab/Muslim/fascist world desires, so that is what you too will have to accept, Peter.

Made peace? Everett, there are subtle differences between defeating one's neighbours and making peace with them. Israeli fundamentalists don't seem to understand the difference. Just because your neighbours are not invading you doesn't mean you have made peace with them. You have not even made peace inside Israel - hence the fencing.

If you fellas think you have "negotiated" an "acceptable" peace with Egypt think again. Might be most acceptable to Israel. Not so to Egypt or anyone else actually. Keep your eye on who's doing what in the Sinai over coming months... Morsi has some troubles there.

Israel really hasn't made many friends in the neighbourhood in the last 50 years. And the neighbours have bloody long memories too Everett. Savages as they are, of course.

Anyway - as suggested earlier and confirmed by your most chosen self Everett - anyone sitting about waiting for some light to emerge from the Black Hole of Israel about what to do - how to compromise and negotiate - will be waiting forever.

They have God on their side. Not necessarily time though.

Peter, watch it, your mouth is drooling, as you look eagerly forward to renewal of war between Egypt and Israel, and the unreliability of any peace treaties at all between Israel and its neighbours. The point of my comment that you object to was of course that Israel has always been very eager to make peace with its neighbours, including the Palestinians, and when this is responded to and welcomed by any Arab country, peace is concluded and Israel keeps its side firmly. You mock any possibility of compromise and negotiation by "the Black Hole of Israel": your own malicious mockery of the permanency of the actual compromise and negotiations Israel made with Egypt and Jordan is thereby illuminated.

Everett I think you confuse a lot of things actually ... but on doing so seem to redouble your efforts...and hurl about more accusations and denunciations.

Reminds me a bit of the Iron Dome missile defence system that is making the world safer for Israel ... shoot at anything that moves.

Incidentally, you didn't answer my question earlier... who do you work for Everett running the PR snowstorm - or are you just an enthusiastic amateur?

Enthusiastic amateur can sum it up, Peter. But let me ask you this -- why is it that so many fanatical anti-Zionists like yourself think that the only articulate and knowledgeable Jews and others who defend Israel are paid to do so? And that the truth which refutes your falsehoods and distortions is just PR? What does all that really say about you? Obviously you know no shame in your "anti-Zionist" bias, so I do not expect you to get the point: no surprises there.

I recommend to all readers of this webpage a humorous dissection of the sort of attitudes that prevail here, at http://www.freeman.org/m_online/oct03/plaut1.htm

Take heart, Baz, that you at least support Fatah and Hamas terrorism, hate incitement, and rejectionism, and no atrocity from them against Jews can be too great for you to find a way of excusing it and blaming the victims in Israel. Have a read of the Hamas Charter; it will buoy you up in your dark hours. Or the Palestine National Covenant, which comes to much the same thing. Did you know, by the way, that those nefarious Israelis invented the idea that there was anciently a Temple on the Temple Mount, and they actually dare to claim that it was and remains the chief Jewish holy site in the world, and was not the Mosque that has been there since the time of ... well, Adam, actually, according to Palestinian official declarations? And that there are really no Jewish holy sites anywhere in the Holy Land, and that the passages in the Jewish and Christian scriptures that say otherwise are just Zionist forgeries? Amazing isn't it? But just what you might expect from such sources, and a good indication of their general moral level, since we have it on the authority of the Palestinian Authority itself (sorry, the "state of Palestine" now) that the Jews intend to take over the entire Middle East and are committing daily genocide against the Palestinians, intending to ethnically cleanse them from the "Palestine government" that officially requires the ethnic cleansing of all Jews? Yes, justice in the Middle East is hard to find, since truth is obscured by those Zionist-controlled newspapers here in Australia and elsewhere that you mention, so that you may not have heard these officially and daily proclaimed truths from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas imams. Terrible, isn't it?

Right sure thing. Typical Israeli argument. Squeeze people out of their homes, commit atrocities, place people in a state of modern apartheid and than sit back and quote some radical things that some Muslims or Arabs said to justify being a fascist state.

Focus on the debate in place. Ok let's say Hamas is radical etc, and Fatah? You know the entity that accepts Israels right to exist, but got slapped in the face by your beloved peace loving Netanyahu. Israels facism loves the extreme ness of Hamas and alike. It gives them further ammunition to justify via their global mass media, and in political circles via organisations like AIPAC.

You sit there and go on about Israeli happiness. I don't doubt their happiness just I like I don't doubt white South Africans happiness of feeling like a superior race during the apartheid. So yes I'm sure their very happy in Israel and I couldn't agree more about Palestinians feeling miserable. I dunno I guess living in a large cage does that to a people. Oh no wait, Israel even wants the cage now aswel.

Furthermore lets say its the Arabs/Muslims etc whom hate Israel only, than do tell why did the world show itself as a unified body recently at the UN vote? Minus a few embarrassment states like the US, and Czechs. What sort of twisted, manipulated self righteousness excuse for that? Oh and before you be cliche and shout anti Semite, keep in mind Israel had 67% support of Europe during Arab Israeli war. And now that amount is 73% in favour of Palestinians. What's the cause for that? And this is considering that almost all mass media in the West is pro Israel.

With that. Goodnight.

My two bobs worth Claire - Oslo was flawed on many levels. Israel maintained strangulation sanctions on Gaza after blowing up the airport etc and leaving. And when has Israel ever seriously recognised Palestinians as equals?
Reading the msm won't give you the answers or even a full pucture.

Everett Benson struggles with the facts.

This report from the Israel B'tselem Human Rights Organization is from 2010.

"Some half a million Israelis are now living over the Green Line: more than 300,000 in 121 settlements and about one hundred outposts, which control 42 percent of the land area of the West Bank, and the rest in twelve neighborhoods that Israel established on land it annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality"

http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/rights-group-israeli-settlements-control-42-percent-of-west-bank-1.300303

Mike Hansen knows the facts, which is why his response is a complete evasion of the issue. That was the area of the West Bank taken up by those "expanding settlements." Instead, he offers, no doubt after fevered googling the internet, just red herrings. The actual percentage of land under settlement remains the same as in 2000, just as he obviously found in his googling, so he does not mention it any further. The 42% of the West Bank referred to in the Btselem website report is not about settlements but is "Area C," completely unoccupied territory assigned to Israeli control under the Oslo Accords. That has also been the same since 1994. It has not increased. But in any case it is irrelevant to this issue of settlements. However, the PA has officially withdrawn from the Oslo Accords at the time of its UN bid for recognition (expressly forbidden in those Accords), so I think it entirely appropriate for Israel to annex Area C and build in it if it wishes. Unfortunately, Israel probably won't do that, due to its extremely liberal policies. But it has every right to.

The Jerusalem municipality is part of Israel; building in it was never under Oslo Accords prohibition. So the Btselem report errs in including it under the "settlements" rubric. In any case, the increase in population remains within the area covered by previous settlement construction: the area remains the same. Q.E.D. I have proven my case.

What's this Yuri ... you squibbing on the destiny of the chosen people? All the way to Sumeria mate ... no backing off... ours, ours, ours - Yahweh said. Clause 7 of ther covenant - or something like that. Not just defence - we're talking expansion. There are some serious fundamentalist ratbags running around over there Yuri. And Netanyahu is in hock to them up to his armpits.

This is what they'd say: This notion yours - of freezing West Bank settlements and demolitions is typical of the sort of appeasement policies advocated by those self-hating Jews who would put limits on Israel's historical mission, who would show weakness when strength is demanded.

That's how this debate is characterised in Israel Yuri... you are either with us or again us... yep even down to having "anti-semitic" jews. All my friends have been characterised as anti-semitic jews.

Defence is one thing Yuri - but at the end of the exercise there has to be something worth defending. And the sort of society we are watching in operation in Gaza really doesn't look to be defensible at all.

Needs more than defence and a perpetual seige mentality to become a stable democracy. Apartheid South Africa too had a right to self-defence. So too does Iran and North Korea - no? What regimes cannot - do not - rely on ever-present external threats and enemies to justify themselves and excused their brutality? Even Syria.

Democracy and security needs negotiation, compromise and tolerance, It needs friends, allies and good relations with the neighbours. All in short supply, Yuri. After 50 years. How long will this fear, hatred and anger run the show? Is this as good as it gets?

I hope you're right and that Likud will be forced to some compromise with more sane voices in the Knesset. But on recent rhetoric and behaviour this seems most unlikely.

"Democracy and security needs negotiation, compromise and tolerance."

Peter, you are not making any sense. Sure, these principles of international cooperation are paramount, but it can't be a one-way dialogue. It's not possible to negotiate with someone on territory who wants to see you dead or disappeared. (See Everett's post on Hamas Charter for example.)

I don't agree with continuing to expand settlements, and there are many Israelis who agree with me, but in the context, this is a lesser concession. Laying down arms and recognising Israel's right to exist (really and truly), is crucial to any dissuasion of two-state agreements and permanent peace.

And incidentally, settlement negotiation is likely to be in the mix as Likud attempts to form a coalition government.

Spell-check typo: "is crucial to any 'discussion' of two-state agreements and permanent peace."

Understand your points Yuri and recognise that Israel probably feels an increasing siege mentality to protect itself and build a wall around it. Trouble is in the long run it is unlikely to benefit Israel. Ten years ago the World was still recognising Israel's plight facing belligerent forces. Today as evidenced by recent UN discussions, Israel is being seen increasingly in a poor light. It is losing the propaganda war and thereby losing the support of many who sympathised with its situation.

Hamas, through its community supports and welfare based actions in the Palestinian world, is winning the Palestinians over from the more moderate Fatah group. And we know Hamas wants Israel destroyed. But Hamas knows how to push Israels buttons. A rocket strike here, a rocket strike there followed by Israeli retaliation then lots of film showing the extent of collateral damage...schools and hospitals hit, mothers and children killed. Hamas is playing this very well and Israel's hawks are falling for it every time. And the World is watching and increasingly sympathising with the Palestinian cause.

Israel then re-enforces more, bigger walls, take more land as buffer. More Palestinians are seen to be disenfranchised.

Israel is playing a very arrogant and dangerous game that in the end they cant win. I fully support their right to exist. I also fully support Palestine's right to exist. Israel should be seen to totally support this two state position. Its a festering sore, a wound in the side if you will, that threatens to see Israel totally isolated. And remember Israel is a very small country. Doesnt take much serious firepower to bring it down.

Israel must start effective conciliation with the Palestinians. Neuter Hamas' PR success. Start realistic negotiations not just with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, but with the Palestinian peoples. Start offering and making realistic deals. Start giving back rather than be seen as constantly taking. To coin a phrase 'Let their people go' and find their promised land.

Ron, I'm not sure Israel is losing much support from the wider international community. It is convenient for Europeans et al to be able to criticise settlement expansion because that provides some way of appearing to support the Palestinians and wider Arab and Muslim sentiment, which is clearly an important strategic position.

Yet in conflict resolution, individuals or states, it is important to negotiate in proportion to the position of the other side, obviously. Win-win is not always possible and, to elicit some hoary old cliches, you sometimes need to draw a line the the sand or set a bottom line to protect fundamental interests.

As Chamberlain discovered, there is no point making concessions when the position of the other side is millenarian and intractable. Freezing settlement expansion may be a chess move held in store for the right time, but it really is up to the Palestinians to fundamentally change course, and I doubt that will come any time soon.