The Palestinians are still holding out for it. Their own state is not enough, they want the right to turn Israel into a Muslim-majority country. The Palestinian Authority must know that the Israelis will never agree to such a thing, yet it is still a key demand.
How can you negotiate with an adversary who demands nothing less than your destruction? Why even try?
Israel continues settlements in occupied territories… Bargaining chips. Why try? Because continued conflict is expensive and draining.
Wasn’t this discussed not a week ago?
The Israelies are still holding out against it. Their own state isn’t enough, they want the right to send Muslims who had homes in the region into permanent exile. Israel must know that the Palestinians will never agree to such a thing, yet it is still a key demand.
How can you negotiate with an adversary who demands nothing less than the forced relocation of your people, often to de facto internment camps? Why even try?
Not my opinions on the matter – just trying to show that the OP was hopelessly dismissive of the complexities and basic intractibility of the situation.
Oh, great. I need this thread like I need a hole in the head.
Listen, VarlosZ - you’ve got your facts wrong. The homes the Palestinians were kicked out of? That where the Israelis are living right now. The habitable parts of Israel are currently among the most heavily populated in the world, and there certainly isn’t room for four million hostile Arabs who are demanding back homes that were torn down and replaced with condominiums and minimalls iforty fucking years ago.
If the Palestinians come back, the Jews have to leave. Now, you may not have a problem with that. But it ain’t gonna happen.
OK - now I see your footnote (don’t blame ne - I thought it was a sig. I think I’ve developed Sig Blindness). Sorry about the vehemence. It’s been a very trying couple of days back home.
I’d like to clear out the entire area(maybe a fake plague), then turn it into a radioactive wasteland. There is too much history from too many different religious groups for there EVER to be a peaceful resolution.
Or instead of a peaceful resolution, we can have a warlike resolution. Or we can have no resolution at all, and just live our lives the best we can.
You know what peace is, Slythe? It’s that quiet period you get between wars.
Or after you’re dead.
Yeah, that’s a “my bad” on the footmote. It didn’t occur to me that the line I used to separate it would look just like the line above a sig until I saw it posted; again, an instance where preview would have helped. When will I ever learn? (Why even try?)
I was without any doubt dismissive of complexities, but I think the intractability was my point (The post was actually made as a knee-jerk reaction to news of a fresh bombing. Next time I sleep first, and then post). ‘Adversary’ is interchangeably Israeli or Palestinian. When you have two adversaries who want the same patch of ground, and the other guy off of it, why do we have a world pushing both sides to be reasonable and negotiate? It’s not a reasonable situation.
Actually, Czarcasm probably suggested the only fair solution. It’s not desireable land, anyway, so radiation wouldn’t change a whole helluva lot.
Because it is desireable land. Holy sites to the three major Abrahimic religions, of great interest to a large segement of the oil-producing nations.
Aside from the obvious stupidity if using nukes? It would simply move the problem.
Nor is the land all that undesirable per se, it is not desert.
I see. Trucido, my friend, have you ever actually been there, or do you get your travel information from CNN?
Tell me - have you ever seen the hills of the Galilee turn green, yellow and red with the flowering of early spring? Have you seen the citrus groves of the coastal plains? Have you climbed the lonely mountains of the Negev and shared your solitute with the wind? Have you seen the palm trees sway by Lake Tiberius? Have you explored the allyways of Jerusalem and the streets of old Tel Aviv? Have you climbed Massada before dawn to watch the sun rise over the Mountains of Edom?
Have you?
Then hold your peace.
Besides, even if it wasn’t beautiful, it would still be home. Only one who’s always had a home can fail to understand what it’s like not have a land you can call your own.