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The Forum > Article Comments > The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: breaking the deadlock > Comments

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: breaking the deadlock : Comments

By Alon Ben-Meir, published 4/5/2016

However, a majority of Israelis and Palestinians seek peace, and the desire of Arab countries to normalize their relations with Israel offers fertile ground for the resumption of peace negotiations.

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One thing that might help is to try to make one people of the Israelis. Schools are segregated, and children grow up with different and conflicting narratives. Establish an integrated school system so Jews of all types and beliefs along with non-Jews of all types and beliefs learn together, grow up together and work together. No one in Israel can get married unless clergy approve. Introduce civil marriage so that two people of different backgrounds can easily marry if they want to. People are divided by religious beliefs and educational level and content. Have separation of religion and state so clergy do not have any status as government functionaries. Make more opportunities for people to get together and become Israelis rather than Jews, Arabs, observant, non-observant, secular, traditional religious, ultra-religious etc. Those who wish to be separate in their own enclaves should not have any government support to sequester themselves from the general population.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 4 May 2016 6:32:06 PM
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As desirable as the above suggestion is unfortunately I don't see it panning out like that. Jewish people do not use the word human when referring to non Jews, they use the word uman. This is because they do not consider non-Jews to be human. This may not apply to all Jews of course.

What may work is for the US to use their influence with the Israeli govt and prevail upon them to adopt a more conciliatory approach to the Palestinians.
Posted by Referundemdrivensocienty, Wednesday, 4 May 2016 7:15:04 PM
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"Jewish people do not use the word human when referring to non Jews, they use the word uman."

The above is bigoted crap.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 4 May 2016 9:04:54 PM
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Referundemdrivensocienty wrote "Jewish people do not use the word human when referring to non Jews, they use the word uman."

The above is absolute rubbish.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 4 May 2016 9:07:30 PM
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Rabbi Kook is the preceptor of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank (Gush Emunim).

In the book "Orot," Orot Yisrael chapter 5, article 10 (page 156), Rabbi Kook wrote: "The difference between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing, and the soul of all the Gentiles, on all of their levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality."

Though common, many Jews do not hold such views, as summarised in http://www.come-and-hear.com/supplement/so-daat-emet/en_gentiles5.html

Judaism is primarily a national movement, not a religion. Its main theme is the advancement of the Jewish nation, while G-d is only an incidental character, relevant because He is told to help the Jewish cause.

Nevertheless, many Jewish individuals have flourished spiritually and managed to find true religion within the shade of Judaism.

It is not religion that brought about or feeds the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: it's nationality - on both sides, only sometimes disguised as religion. We have a case of a wolf in sheep's skin. Attacking religion is like attacking the sheep, hurting innocents, and would do nothing to stop the wolf!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 4 May 2016 11:25:46 PM
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Y,

Judaism is a religion, Zionism is a movement.

Peace is impossible without negotiations. Negotiations are impossible unless both sides abandon ridiculous preconditions.

The Palestinians must abandon their requirement that Israel return to the 1948 borders, and Israel must stop building settlements.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 5 May 2016 8:07:53 AM
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Dear Shadow Minister,

I agree with you. However, neither side will abandon ridiculous preconditions so the conflict will continue.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 5 May 2016 8:21:44 AM
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Dear SM,

It all depends what you include in "Zionism": the desire of the Jewish people to live in and control the land of Israel, is about 3500 years old.

Most of the Old-Testament was collected at the time of Ezra, the scribe (480–440 BCE), who also fathered the Jewish nation as we recognise it today. Being the tough and cruel administrator that he was, I doubt he was interested in anything spiritual: he used whatever materials he could to bring the nation together, so having incidentally found old scrolls with that character called G-d in them, he made use of it for his political ends.

In a twist, later on some Jews, notably the Christian, Kabbalistic and Hasidic movements, managed to somehow distil religion out of their Jewish framework, despite it having originally much to do with politics and little to do with the spirit (Ezra would have considered the former as traitors and the latter two as "useful idiots").

The Palestinians are not interested in Israel's withdrawal to the 1948(1949) borders - all they care about is to have Israel destroyed.
While the chances of peace between Israel and the Palestinians are slim, peace between Israel and the rest of the Arab world is quite feasible, so long as Israel withdraws from the territories it took in 1967 (which can be achieved by coordinated and decreasingly-gentle pressure from the rest of the world). No negotiations are necessary for that - the Palestinians might still kick and scream and still wouldn't recognise Israel and its right to exist, but they are powerless on their own.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 5 May 2016 6:48:24 PM
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Y,

So what you are saying is the armistice line of 1948 takes precedence over the armistice line of 1967?

Fat chance. Israel is not giving back Jerusalem.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 6 May 2016 10:31:50 AM
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Hamas is always firing rockets , I like Israel's Iron Dome technology that can trace projectile of each rockets fired by Hamas!!.
Posted by Boris Davenport, Monday, 9 May 2016 5:51:34 PM
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