Reply #36: My solution is a little different [View All]

(I)f they cant make anything out of gaza..and its a haven for attacks against us, it would be absurd to give them even more territory with which to attack us.

The problem is that it isn't Israel's territory to give. It's the Palestinians' territory. What Israel has is control over it. It occupies it. It has occupied since 1967 when Israel fought a defensive war and won.

One of the darkest days in modern Middle Eastern history was the day the Begin declared the West Bank and Gaza to be parts of Israel and began expanding the settlement program. That simply negated the whole idea of any kind of Palestine. Israelis would move there and Palestinians would have no more rights in these territories than the government wished to give them. That is odious.

That's not occupation. That's annexation. Worse than that, it is annexation with a denial of equal rights for 92% of the inhabitants of the occupied/annexed territory.

For there to be peace, everybody has to give up the idea of winning. There can be no peace and a Greater Israel. There can be no peace with Israel driven into the sea. There are two nations west of the Jordan. The trouble comes from those who do not admit that and try to drive the others out or otherwise dismiss the other nationality as inferior and without human rights.

We should expect the Israelis to do what they can to protect themselves from attacks from Palestinian territory and the Palestinians to do what they can to prevent the construction on their land of housing in which they cannot live and roads on which they cannot travel.

If neither side gives up the idea that it can just stick it to other, then expect the conflict to continue.