the most efficient solution to this issue= war.

the collision of power will decide this bullshit of issues. If human diplomacy were to work, it would have by now.

I could say it in a single sentence:
BECAUSE Israel is utterly intransigent about settlements (page 3) and irrationally paranoid about security (page 4) THEN the only "likely solution" is for
(a) America to agree that Israel can be a medieval warlord, and
(b) the Palestinians to accept that they are Israel's serfs (page 6)

I understand that you don't want to put it that way but, so sorry, this statement:

"Then there is the most likely option: the maintenance of the status quo and a Zionist, Jewish state in which Israeli soldiers continue a military occupation of millions of Arabs with no political rights, but perhaps certain economic and social rights"
amounts to nothing less that advocating21st century feudal warlordism.

The best thing the Palestinians could do is to unilaterally declare themselves part of Israel and demand their civil rights and liberties. In one step the entire conflict would move into the legal system.

It isn't necessarily the end of the 'Zionist' state either, Israeli law simply allows voluntary participation in religious courts.

I think this article is remarkably clear-headed, in contrast with so many articles on the subject in most of the mainstream media.

He's right. The two-state solution seems to have no legs.

Which means that Israel's existence as a Jewish state is clouded; the peace process is just a pause between wars.

I view Israel today as a kind of modern Masada, defiant and strong on their mountaintop, surrounded by enemies. The conflict, of course, is larger and will be much slower to reach its resolution. But I am very much afraid that it is coming.

These are facts:

? No Palestinian state, anywhere, in accordance with Likud's charter!
? No lifting of restrictions of access to/from Gaza by air, sea and land!
? No negotiations for peace!
? No repatriation of 500,000 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank!
? No cessation of inducing further Israelis to become illegal settlers!
? No withdrawal of the illegal blockade of 1.6 million in Gaza.
? No cessation of trying to change a democratically elected regime!
? No cessation of demanding US$3 billion from America each year!
? No cessation of multi billion dollar arms shipments from the US including further F16/F15 strike aircraft to supplement the 320 Israel has already, together with helicopter gunships, missiles, rockets and cluster bombs etc etc !
? No cessation of acquiring more German nuclear armed submarines
? No lifting of threats to annex the occupied territories!
? No signing of the nuclear non proliferation treaty!
? No inspection of its secret nuclear arsenal by the IAEA!
? No cessation of Israeli arms shipments to regimes worldwide!
? No apologies for killing 6 unarmed passengers on the high seas!
? No friends now anywhere, save for AIPAC and its associates

@PHAEDRUS
> In the end only 10% of the population care what you have to say, and none of them count in the halls of power. Like mosquitoes you annoy, but carry no real sting.<

Yes! Mubarak thought that. Ghaddafi, and his sons, thought that. So did Saddam and his family and many, many others who believed that the law does not apply to them. In the end, of course, it does. Thank God.

I posted a comment on FP editor Daniel Levy on another channel, not an overly harsh one, I thought, and suddenly my account was blocked and my comments deleted as Phaedrus2! Amazing that you can write all manner of nasty anti-Semitic tripe and get it published, but if you say something negative about an FP editor, bango! out you go!

I guess they have learned well from their coverage of Middle Eastern dictators and are now little dictators themselves! Bashar would be proud of you, Daniel!

Military whistleblower tells of 'indiscriminate' Israeli attacks
Troops fired tear gas during a curfew in a West Bank village to stop peaceful demonstrations

By Donald Macintyre
Friday, 16 September 2011

Israeli troops fired tear gas indiscriminately and sometimes dangerously to enforce a daytime curfew inside a West Bank village to stop Palestinians holding a peaceful demonstration on their own land, a military whistleblower has told The Independent.

The soldier's insight into the methods of troops comes as the Israeli military prepares for demonstrations predicted when the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submits an application for the recognition of statehood to the UN next week.

The testimony also reinforces a report by the human rights agency B'Tselem which argues that the way Israel deals with protests in the small village of Nabi Saleh is denying the "basic right" to demonstrate in the West Bank. The right to demonstrate is enshrined in international conventions ratified by Israel.

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The soldier, a reservist NCO with extensive combat experience, was among more than 20 soldiers sent into the village more than two hours before a planned Friday demonstration in July, to try to quash protests before they began. The protests started in December 2009 after Jewish settlers appropriated a spring on privately-owned Nabi Saleh land.

The reservist, who originally testified to the veterans' organisation Breaking the Silence, told The Independent that they went into a house in the village and took a position on the roof. "The sun was very hot, but we had to keep our helmets on," he said. "Then some soldiers start getting bored and start shooting tear gas on people. Every guy who is not in his house or in the mosque is a target."

He said that 150 rounds of tear gas or stun grenades were fired during the day and one soldier boasted that he had fired a tear gas canister which passed within one centimetre of a resident's head.

Army rules prohibit firing canisters directly at people because they have caused serious injuries in the past. Another soldier travelling with the whistleblower in a military vehicle out of the village was left with an unfired tear gas canister.

"He should have fired it into an open field but we passed a grocery story with some people outside it with children. After we passed it he just turned round and fired it at them."

The reservist was given a week's preparation on the use of stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. He had been impressed by a four to five -hour visit to the trainees by the Binyamin Brigade Commander Sa'ar Tzur who addressed "issues of ethics and human life, not just on our side but on the other side".

Some soldiers complained about the strictness of prohibitions – not always honoured, according to the leaders of the weekly Nabi Saleh protests – on the use of live ammunition. But Colonel Tzur "was very strict on the fact that these are the rules and that anyone who breaks them will pay for it".

But the battalion officer, a religious West Bank settler, was "exactly the opposite," he added. "At the base there was a mission statement signed by the Brigade Commander which said 'we need to maintain the fabric of life for the civilian population, Israelis and Palestinians.' The battalion officer crossed out the word 'Palestinians' and all the soldiers around started laughing."

The reservist's testimony supports B'Tselem's s main conclusions, including that the military makes "excessive use of crowd control weapons, primarily the firing of tear-gas canisters."

He said: "It was very difficult for me. I want to be in the army to defend my country. On the other hand I saw that the job I was doing did not have any connection with defending Israel."

He said that his unit was called to the village square when the battalion officer showed around 40 Palestinians and foreign activists a written order declaring the village a "closed military zone." The soldiers had earlier heard shouting elsewhere by demonstrators before they were almost immediately dispersed by border police firing tear gas. The reservist said the people in the square "were just standing there. The officer said to the soldiers: 'Everybody should get out of here. The Palestinians into their homes and the foreigners should get out. Anyone left should be arrested.' One Palestinian was arrested when a soldier decided that he had 'looked at him in a way he didn't like'."

As well as 35 Palestinian injuries in Nabi Saleh this year, there have been 80 detentions since the protests began, including of 18 minors, and protest leader Bassem Tamimi, currently awaiting military trial based largely on the interrogation of a 14-year-old boy arrested at home at gunpoint at 2am.

The military said it has "clear, detailed, and professional guidelines" for the use of tear gas to disperse "riots", and that after two years of "dangerous and violent riots" it declared the village a "closed military area" on Fridays to "prevent these riots before they turn into violent ones".

The military's tactics have varied. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was seriously injured by a rubber-coated bullet fired at close range during protracted clashes between armed troops and stone-throwing youths observed last year by The Independent. Those clashes started when troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets on the hitherto peaceful march towards the spring.

The reservist said he had seen no stones thrown on the day he was there. adding: "If they want to stop people throwing stones at the spring, why don't [the troops] wait at the spring? Why are they coming into the village?" He added: "The headline of the whole Friday, as I see

It isn't necessarily the end of the 'Zionist' state either, Israeli law simply allows voluntary participation in religious courts.
In one step the entire conflict would move into the legal system....
Massagista
Acompanhantes
Ar Condicionado

There is an alternative to the two-state and one-state solutions that ought to be revived: Gaza annexed to Egypt while Israel and Jordan negotiate a border between them.

The demographic realities favor this: Gaza and the West Bank will be noncontiguous under any conceivable outcome establishing a Palestinian state, and the track record of noncontiguous states (like Pakistan and Bangladesh) isn't too good. If there is a need for two "Palestines" then there is no Palestinian people for whom a state could be established.

This solution acknowledges that the concept of a "Palestinian" people was invented to enable the Arabs to wage war against the Jews, in perpetuity if need be; there are basically no differences between them and the other Arab peoples of the Levant. There are literally dozens of quotations from high-ranking Arab leaders to this effect and its reality is the principal reason no "Palestinian" state was established in the wake of the 1947-9 war. Maybe they understood something advocates of the Palestinian position today don't: a state of "Palestine" is necessary for the Arab peoples of the former Palestine Mandate only if the objective is to continue the war against the Jews.

Those who claim that the Palestinians now see themselves as a separate people entitled to a state often don't accord the same rights to the Jews. The current Palestinians -- until 1948 "Palestinian" referred to the Jews -- are no more than 63 years old; the Jews about 3000, so if the younger people is entitled, on what basis does one reject the Jewish claim to the same right?

On second thought, posters to this blog who favor the "Palestinian" cause are probably advocates of conducting a war against the Jews in perpetuity. They make it clear that for them, Jews have no rights, so killing them doesn't matter.

A lot of people seem to have developed a professional and political stake in Israel/Palestine going nowhere. Where are the high stakes risk-taker when you need them?

So now it’s a one-state solution all of a sudden? The only time anyone ever discusses one-state is when the two-state solution has a chance of taking off. If one-state was being taken seriously, this whole crew would be stampeding to the two-state side. Anything to keep the boat from righting itself.

All the objections come up with here have been festering unattended for decades, and can be resolved by motivated negotiators during the next few. We’re not looking for Paradise, but for two states subject to international law and UN arbitration. They would solve their problems by negotiation and keeping their hotheads under control. Nothing in the current status-quo supports or motivates any forward motion, whereas a two-state solution would. Thereafter, both sides would be on notice to show good faith and remain on their best behavior, the better to succeed at subsequent negotiations.

To achieve anything not an ongoing disgrace, you’ve got to start instead of coming up with many, many reasons good and otherwise to do nothing. And you’ve got to start somewhere, somehow. Why not here and now?

As long as Israel continues to build settlements across Palestine it is hard to ever see this happening. Getting Israel to stop doing this is going to be hard enough, let alone have them demolish the settlements, which Palestenians see as blatant colonization.

Alex @ Leadership Book

The crisis need to be stop and Palestine must be rebuilt. It's hard to see their children struggle to live their life.

Not sure why Pakistan is on the list. Their military has a firm control on the kinds of militants that may or may not operate in the state eg. those that destabilize Afghanistan and India will get military support. those opposing the Pakistani state will get airstrikes. They like being painted as failed because this means they get foreign money which helps their nuke program and jihadi recruitment

It's nice to see a balanced article for once about this ongoing conflict. However, I think that the "two state solution" as you call it is a natural state to end these maters. It would be premature to give up on at this stage.

Millions of people from many different countries live permanently outside the country that provides them with a passport.
Millions of people migrate from many different countries to live and work in places other than water-poor lands.
They often vote by mail to elect governments in nations where they are citizens but no longer live.
Nobody freely leaves a home in order that it may be lived in by a perceived enemy.
People will, however, sometimes accept compensation to leave their homes if the land where those homes are located is to be used for a public purpose such as an airport, a park, a highway, a government building, an Olympic Village, etc.

Perhaps the comparatively small number of Palestinians and Israelis living in nearly all of the West Bank would both leave in simultaneous phased withdrawals if compensated and if most of the West Bank were to become a demilitarized and virtually uninhabited (and internationally-guaranteed) Palestinian state that would provide passports and diplomatic services for its newly-enlarged diaspora.

If so, the issue then is whether enough money (including, but not limited to, rentals of parts of the West Bank for a permanent Olympic Village, and/or other non-national, neutral purposes) could be found to pay for all this.

The Israeli government lacks the political courage to quash the settler movement and work with the PA to build an independent Palestinian state. It is, in fact, heading toward an apartheid state that will deny Arabs self-determination outside of Israel or full political rights within Israel at the very time that its' Arab neighbors are moving to democracy.

At some point, even the liars and demagogues within and supporting AIPAC will be unable to confuse Congress and the American people as to this reality. At that point, hopefully the US government will develop the political will to tell Israel that it must change its ways or be truly alone in the world. As long as AIPAC controls US policy in the Middle East, there is truly no hope for peace there.

Consistency demands a one state solution with full return of refugees.

Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism. Zionism is by definition anti-democratic because separation of Church and State is a core value of democracy. You can support the religion, even be a member, and deny its relevancy to statehood. I have Jewish blood relatives, throughout my life my best friends have been Jews and yet I support a Rabbinical anti-Zionist organization.

If you demand historical claims on land how do you deny the Palestinians their due? Further, you should by consistency restore North America to its rightful owners and then see if they continue Foreign and military aid and block Security Council Resolutions.

Before you beat on your hair shirt about the Holocaust, consider how the tribes of North America where destroyed with tens of millions killed, 98% population reduction, slaughtering of women and children, chemical and biological warfare and nearly complete loss of culture from over 90% elimination of languages and religions.

The calculated division and marginalization of the Palestinians who have lived in the Levant for hundreds of years is then revealed by consistency to be a more sophisticated version of "The Final Solution" - and the Nazis got the idea from the US Government's successful Genocide in the 19th Century.

The one consistency here is that the Nazis of the 19th Century support the Nazis of the 21st Century. All else is exceptionalism, which is the over-arching anti-democratic principle.

"On the other side of the spectrum, Israel could simply annex large swaths of the West Bank and leave the Palestinian Authority in a stateless limbo -- but at risk of significant international opprobrium."

This is actually what will likely happen. It will be called 'unilateral separation' and the maps already exist.

If the Israelis are smart they will annex only those parts that they would keep under any peace agreement. If they are really smart they will start a program of removing the most contentious settlements. If they are brilliant they will work with the Palestinians to create contiguous blocks of Palestinian territory. The last bit is somewhat unlikely given that the Palestinians will realize that this is basically the end game.

Here is the end game for the Palestinians: A statelet in the West Bank covering about 60% of the land, another one in Gaza, a capital in Ramallah and if they are lucky borders with Jordan and Egypt. The Palestinian state will be completely cut off from Israel.

They are obviously going to reject this, but it is still the likely scenario as it remains the only option the Israelis can carry out unilaterally. Israel doesn't really have a lot of other options if negotiations are a dud.

The Palestinians can even 'close up' the PA to protest. It isn't really going to matter much. Whether the Palestinians in Jenin are ruled by the PA or local warlords is not really important for the purposes of this outcome. Certainly there are major security risks for Israel in this plan, but this is actually a viable approach to managing this conflict in the absence of the possibility of a comprehensive peace deal.

Everyone is saying settlements are the problem...but is that right? The Arabs were attacking Israel long before there were any settlements. Hamas states clearly that shat they want is ALL of the land including Israel...so isn't Israel's existence really the main problem?

Very sad that in this albor the 21st century the world should continue at stake with very old fight which has not led anywhere for both Israelis and Palestinians.
I truly believe that if both parties searches for a real Solution and create the insurance that is what they both want to achieve they will do it.
I am quite aware of the problematic of the situation, but i am also quite sure if both called on True Tolerance and Ancestral ties of one Nation, one people and one ideal things will smoothe up and resolve itself in one name "Peace"
Live and let live. I pray for that day to come.For Life is more powerful than death.

Any solution to the ending of war between Palestinians and Israelis should be supported. The idea behind the two-state solution is an attempt to provide win-win solution to Israelis and Palestinians conflict. However, I see that two-state solution has a lot of serious issues that need to be resolved first. Things like the borders of the Israelis and Palestinian state, the refugees’ status of Palestinian outside the final borders, the citizenship of the new Palestinian state, the future of East Jerusalem, antiinflammatoryfoods issues and the status of Arab citizens of present-day Israel are just only a few facts and realities that can be very difficult to discuss. Although I doubt two-state solution will bring long-term peace to Israelis and Palestinians, I will think positively about it.

I liked that sneaking in of anti-infammatory foods! You are talking about felafel, of course. Or maybe chicken soup. Or felafel dissolved in chicken soup, the only real hope for Israel and Palestine.

The Palestinians just want a proper home. It is frustrating to live in your house and keep being attacked with superior weapons by your neighbors who call you names when all you do is fight for your right to live and have a home. Just imagine if someone destroys your blood and sweat woodshop projects or any other precious sentimental items of yours, how would you feel? Now multiply that many folds and you know why the Palestinians behave that way. I say give them a home. It is their basic rights as human beings after all.

When will it become clear to the world that the Palestinians simply do not want a state badly enough to the get one that is so readily available to them? That Palestinians place the struggle against Israel much higher on their list of priorities than any vague seslichat notions they may have of self determination and statehood? And that they are willing and DETERMINED to suffer, and to make Israel suffer, for as long as it takes to achieve their real heroic dream of good old-fashioned victory.

She says,for example that Islam "has long served -- with varying degrees of success -- as a unifying force to supersede ethnic, sectarian, and communal fissures that have long cut through Pakistan's polity snowthrowersreview." I am unable to appreciate her reasoning. Had she said that kafir India had 'served as a unifying force', she would have been correct. PA has always been a Muslim army. The first Sikh was inducted only a few years back and there does not appear to be any follow-up in recruiting non-Muslims. Even the police force did not have a Hindu officer until a few years ago. He too had to resign immediately thereafter due to harassment on religious grounds

This is a nightmare that is not going to end anytime soon. I understand why the arabs are so angry, because they were kicked out of their land....but Israel is there and not sure what all can be done to have them coexist together....too bad religions exist in this world because they cause so much suffering and trouble. This is not to say that there is no good from religions, but they are challenging for me to accept them for what they are without getting all stressed out and dark circles because this seems like a Groundhog Day year in and year out...when will the madness end? Soon I hope...

view Israel today as a kind of modern Masada, defiant and strong on their mountaintop top exercise bike, surrounded by enemies. The conflict, of course, is larger and will be much slower to reach its resolution. But I am very much afraid that it is coming.