"Nothing will provide Israel greater security than peace, and there is never, ever a bad time to make peace."

Great sentiment but unfortunately totally disproved by historical facts.

Besides the efforts of its own people, the best guarantor of Israeli security has been the power of the USA. However in 2008 the USA elected the most anti-Israeli pro-Muslim president in its history. Unsurprisingly Israel has had to become even more self-reliant.

If I was an Israeli the one lesson I would take since 1948 is that stupidest decision made since the birth of the nation was hand over Gaza in 2005. Netanyahu was a member of the Israeli government and resigned over this decision. In his first speech to the Knesset post his resignation he said, "Only we in the Knesset are able to stop this evil. Everything that the Knesset has decided, it is also capable of changing. I am calling on all those who grasp the danger: Gather strength and do the right thing. I don't know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages. [Don't] give [the Palestinians] guns, don't give them rockets, don't give them a sea port, and don't give them a huge base for terror."

Subsequent events have proven him totally right.

Israel's shattered image? Same old Israel to me.

' Although the Palestinians have also contributed to the enmity and distrust between the two sides,'

let's start with the notion, that there two sides to an invasion and conquest, that the loser should submit gracefully, and beg for mercy.

you can use that one, i take a different view.

the invasion of palestine by european jews was, and is, criminal aggression. returning israel's boundaries to those initially agreed to by the united nations is probably the best solution possible, although creating a secular state of palestine and compelling jews and muslims to live there in peace and equality seems more desirable to me.

Firstly, one might want to read these documents.
One might then begin to make sense of what is happening in the ME.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
http://www.dougfeith.com/docs/Clean_Break.pdf

You might start to see whats happened in Iraq and Syria as not happening by accident.

I am wondering whether democracy and Israel are even compatible with each other, given Israel's ban on intermarriage.

Jumping sharks again? Sometimes one needs to ignore the Scolds, shrug ones shoulders and walk away. Scolds really don't matter let them play in their echo chamber and if they try something, slap 'em down.