WmTrevor,

You mean a one-state solution? It wouldn't work.

What experience have the Palestinians for running a progressive 'country'. They've had sixty years to prove they can and what have they got to show for it? What about their political disfunction?

Unfortunately - but logically - Israelis would float to the top positions. What an international scream this would cause ... and the chest thumping (but very effective) 'victimhood'..

Danielle, if I had meant a one-state solution I would have said so… if by one state we refer to a single state with equal rights for all in a combined entity of a single territory without regard to ethnicity or religion?

What I was glibly suggesting was analogous to strata title: to a single piece of real estate vested with two separate owners.

I might have equally glibly suggested – without having to bother with details – a one-God solution, since both 'sides' hold such a view.

If it would help I'll change my previous final sentence to… But we three know it won't happen!

Dear David,

<<If you're worried about your Israeli family, get them out of there instead of trying to write the history of the M.E. to suit them!>>

Have I not tried already?

There are two problems about that and you may be able to help with the first, but I doubt you can do anything about the second:

1. The Australian government is not as generous as yourself when it comes to immigration/visas. Perhaps you should lobby them, if not for everyone then at least to declare all Israelis as refugees.

2. They don't want to leave - and some would be unable to travel due to health even if they wanted. They have everything there - their friends, their homes, their language, their trees, their memories, the children's schools, the adults' jobs and the elderly their doctors, pharmacies and carers.

I can assure you that none in my family is interested in "A greater Israel". All they want is to have a life and live peacefully in their own homes.

My family, as are most Israelis, are hostages to the same 'tiny bunch of elitist religious fanatics' you mentioned (although I disagree with that use of 'religious': Judaism is a nationality, not a religion, but anyway the result is only worse). Some of my family have already left everything they had while escaping Hitler in 1933: What you are asking, is to turn the victims into refugees again and perhaps you would even succeed if they haven't had nukes - but they have!

Israel is the most split society on earth, comprising of different people and groups who hate each other to death. The only glue which holds it together is the existential fear of the Muslim-fundamentalist threat surrounding them: take that away and Israel will fall apart in no time.

Yuyutsu you quote "My family, as are most Israelis, are hostages to the same 'tiny bunch of elitist religious fanatics' you mentioned (although I disagree with that use of 'religious': Judaism is a nationality, not a religion, but anyway the result is only worse). Some of my family have already left everything they had while escaping Hitler in 1933: What you are asking, is to turn the victims into refugees again and perhaps you would even succeed if they haven't had nukes - but they have!"

Perhaps you should question why your so-called 'family' did not return to whatever country they were ousted by Hitler and his Nazi fanatics............why Israel, a false state created during a time of crisis, leading to further crisis and one that has no legitimacy under law, or at least to those of use whom recognise the Palestinian people as a historic people under a national government usurped by the British and American interests for a base within the middle east to grow their hegemony.

You also cite "comprising different people and groups who hate each other to death.", what a great way to start a nation based on fear loathing and an assumed right to nationhood based on a complete falsehood, perhaps your 'family' should return to Europe from whence they originally came, maybe they have some 'god given right' to claim a small patch in the EU that no one is currently aware of:

The question remains why you’re so called ‘family’ are victims; perhaps the answer remains opaque within the question that you seek.

A complete sad state of affairs, myopia sometimes leads to blindness and a slanted view of history and fairness!

You bastard, Geoff, for clearly you had no experience of family. May your so-called mother die of cancer, may your so-called father die of AIDS in jail, may your so-called brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins and children all die miserably, and yourself you have 25 minutes to pack up and return to England to claim there a small patch that no one is currently aware of, after coming here to disturb the original people of Australia.

You may have to worry about the history of your ancestry and the legitimacy of the choices of your grand-grand parents, long before you were born, not so my family - want to know the difference? They've got nukes to protect them, which your family doesn't have!

Yes, they have to pay the price, daily: living in Israel with those fanatic Jews all around is a pain, having to send the children to the army is terrible, to fight wars for goals they have no interest in (such as Jewish domination); and being blamed day-and-night by people like yourself for wanting to survive and remain in the homes they built.

While some of my family fled Hitler in 1933, others were in Israel long before any of your ancestors was in Australia - that is since the year 1600. As technology improved since the Nazis, I suppose you would like to use genetic methods to separate their common offspring, deciding who can stay and who must be sent to Europe...

Israel may be a false state, but it currently shields my family from a sea of Muslim fanatics which would otherwise tear them apart, and that's all I care.

Well said, Yuyutsu.
Some think history started less than 100 years ago.
Mugs, they are.