David,

To save words, I will refrain from quoting the above 10 points:

1. Stereotyping? I know some of those people, they have faces, they were forced into the West-Bank and Eastern-Jerusalem when their families grew, could not afford adequate housing in Israel, but received 0-interest mortgage from the government on condition they stay across the border. They vote for pro-withdrawal parties and still pray for financial-compensation that will allow them to return to Israel.

2. Personal acquaintance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Emunim

3. Only the hard-core settlers who wish to stay there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Messiah%27s_Donkey

4. Body-pieces aside (that's essentially performed by Ultra-Orthodox "Zaka", not the settlers), hard-core settlers are most happy to serve in the army, they see it as a way to arm and train themselves, and to work within the army to prevent their evacuation. They also use their military experience to threaten military officers that if they try to evacuate them, they will kidnap their children on their way to kindy.

5. Certainly not. I refer to 1001 deliberate acts by settlers to make Arab everyday-life miserable. Including stone-throwing, road-blocking, beatings, noise, graffiti, cutting-down-trees, taking away water, etc. etc. The aim being to make them want to leave.

6. I meant ON TOP of the obvious and unavoidable blood spilt during legitimate defense from Arab attacks on Israel.

7. Beyond the facts of occupation and settlement, Israel is also condemned for the disgraceful behaviour of those settlers as well as for the extra cruel and humiliating measures which the Israeli army needs to take in order to protect those settlers, following their shameful and cowardly behaviour.

8. The occupation changed the face of Jewish-Israeli society, from being a humble people who thank God for what they have into a militant society that believes that everything they have was achieved by their own arms. From compassion to aggression, from modesty to arrogance. Once cruelty was accepted as the norm beyond the border, it sipped into all walks of life, including domestically, in schools, criminally and on the roads.

Continued...

...continued

9. So you say that the Arabs and/or the security-council, have the right to ruin Israel from within? that because the Arabs did this-and-that, Israel is no longer allowed to be content with what it was previously content with? That would, in other words, mean that Israel lets itself be controlled and led-astray by the Arabs! Israel is committing national suicide by hanging on to those cursed territories, not by letting go of them.

10. Completely irrelevant: what's between the fact that some nations want to eliminate Israel and this perceived monopoly game, based on the premise that "the more land you acquire, the better"? Those occupied territories are not an asset, but a liability - they are a TRAP. As monopoly seeks to make opponents financially bankrupt, holding those territories makes Israel morally bankrupt.

"If you are trying to tell us the jewish settlers are the crux of the problem - how come peace was not achieved between 1948-1967"

Other factors were indeed more dominant 30-60 years ago, but today the remaining crux of the problem is equally the Hamas and the settlers.

Among things that have changed are:

* The fall of the soviet empire, which stood behind the Arabs.
* The formation of a Palestinian middle-class.
* Israel's nuclear weapons.
* Peace with Egypt and Jordan.
* The Saudi peace plan, being accepted by almost all Arab countries (probably to the exclusion of Lebanon).
* The Iranian Shiite threat that is common to Israel and most Arab countries.

I am sick of these arm-chair historians and 'we can make it right' outsiders. If you've never lived in the Mid-East your only knowledge can come from the propaganda issued. Surely the West recognizes the State of Israel and its value as the only democratic and advanced "Western" country in the Mid-East.

All this nonsense about 'borders' and who owns what, is all directly related back to the British who, at the same time they were dishing up the Mid-East were also drawing lines on the Indian sub-continent and what a hash they made of that. Same department of the British Foreign Office, same Under-Secretaries, same British BS. Time to deal with present day realities.

If you Muslims want Peace, drop your weapons, it's not surrender, it's something we call in the West 'reality'. Israel is not going to go away, it's a fact of life in the 21st century. Grow up, you tried to destroy Israel many times, you made wars, you lost - and not a single US or foreign military person was involved. Todays situation is the result of your aggression. Get over it.

John Pilger tells us that:
"I can think of few books about Israel and Palestine, written by an Australian, as important as Antony Loewenstein's, "My Israel Question." Dr Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer at the University of Haifa, Israel, and author of "A History of Modern Palestine," confirms, "My Israel Question," will serve as an essential guide for those who dare criticise Zionist wrongdoing in the past and Israeli policies in the present, without being deterred by false allegations of antisemitism." The book is available from any regional library and
is a very interesting read for anyone interested in the conflict. Taken from the cover of the book, we are told that "Antony Loewenstein, a young Australian Jew, fearlessly investigates the ways in which the Jewish diaspora in Australia and elsewhere have campaigned on Israel's behalf, in the media and in political and business spheres."

"He also considers the historical rationale for Zionism, including the centurues of virulent European antisemitism from which it grew, and asks how relevant and sustainable twentieth-century Zionism is today. "My Israel Question" is a searching discussion from a significant new voice in one of the most important debates of our times." It's a highly recommended read for anyone interested in the
conflict, written by an Australian Jew who has done his research.

The article below documents proof that is very difficult to dispute that there is a land call Palestine and Arab Muslims are natives of the land.

" Indeed, many an Arab politician and historian denied that there was ever a country called “Palestine.”

To name the amount of Arab political figures and historians who stated this would require an article all by itself. Suffice to say that Arabs such as the late Hashemite monarch Hussein “Chairman” Arafat, and noted Arab historian Philip K. Hitti, have all candidly admitted that no such country as “Palestine” ever existed.

...The late King Hussein, who knew about artificial entities (i.e., Transjordan – now “Jordan”) said that “[T]he truth is that Jordan is Palestine, and Palestine is Jordan.” He said this on more than one occasion in the 19070s and as late as December 26, 1981 in an interview with the Paris based Arabic newspaper An-Nahar Al Arabi (“The Arabic Daily”).

And in one of the most candid admissions ever made, Zuhair Muhsin, little known leader of the PLO splinter gang known as “Al Sa’iqa” (The Storm) and backed by Syria, said in a March 31, 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:

'The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.'

And of course, there was “Chairman” Arafat who in a 1974 interview with The New Republic stated: “What you call Jordan is actually Palestine.” http://www.islam-watch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=492

If the West is going to recognise the "state of Palestine" they are going to make the same mistake as Kosovo. The Europeans have evidence that Kosovo is ruled by "thugs and organised crime"
http://www.newsmild.com/kosovo-pm-denies-mafia-style-crime-allegations

Lexi,

I have a great deal of problem with Pilger. Let's leave it at that.

As for Illan Pappe (and Benny Morris) they are revisionist historians. This is a review of their work in Middle East Opinion
http://www.middleeastopinion.com/history-&-policy/node/39

"The central thesis here is that the new historians provided more detail than was previously available to the orthodox or old historians, but more detail does not mean more objective history. While their accounts are rich in detail, they tend to inflate certain items at the expense of larger issues - like discussing the Titanic without mentioning the iceberg. A historian should allow all of the available sources guide their conclusions; it should not be guided by a determination to debunk a narrative. By and large, the revisionists argue points based on a selective focus and the full context of the time in question becomes blurred. They have an agenda and they do not attempt to disguise it. As Ilan Pappe explained in what amounts to the "new historian's" manifesto, the "new history" is a revolutionary movement whose goal is to "reconsider the validity of the quest for a Jewish nation-state in what used to be geographic Palestine."

The new availability of Israeli archives in the 1980s sent the revisionists to scrutinize Israeli actions. There was no new archival evidence available in the Arab world. Some revisionists, including Benny Morris, could not read Arabic even if Arab archives were opened. Thus, the focus was on Israeli actions and the context was lost. The selective focus and lack of context has remained a revisionist tradition through the present day."

cont ...