Oh Gawd – more pontfications from foreigners to Palestine on how the natives should rearrange “their” affairs. How about this for a rearrangement: Foreign settlers and Palestinian exiles all to return to the land of their birth. What right do foreigners, ourselves included, have to order the affairs of the people born in or exiled from Palestine on any other ground than the right of peoples to self-determination in the land where they were born or who live in enforced exile from where they were born or where proven individual forebears were born?

EmperorJulian, as the last apostate Emperor, didn't you die fighting Arabs over land ?

For once David Singer you actually have something interesting to say.

I think with the opening of the Rafah crossing "Hamastan" will gravitate towards Egypt. That's all to the good from Israel's perspective. Let Gaza become Egypt's problem.

I also think that Israel needs to do more to bring the "48 Arabs" into the mainstream of Israeli life.

Then I think some kind of peaceful co-existence with "Fatahland" may be possible.

Until the intifada there was quite a lot of border movement between the "Fatahland" Arabs and Israel. Many actually worked in Israel.

Shannah Tovah.

To Apsley: I think it was Persians, not Arabs. Damn fool, was doing well till he got himself killed in an adventure.

Dear Steven,

I'm actually going to echo that sentiment, even though Mr Singer couldn't help himself with the Jordan reference it still is a far more interesting piece than the repetitive nonsense he had been dishing up for at least the last year.

Graham Young has every right to allow a platform to whomever he chooses as it is his site but I had been wondering about the relationship between he and Mr Singer. I would venture to say Singer is the most prolific author on OLO, some months contributing five pieces. Doing the math his offerings can sometimes make up 5% of the contributions in a particular month.

If they were of consistently high quality and variation then we might understand but the repetitive banging of the same drum seems to indicate there might be some other factor going on with the selection criteria. Are they old school chums? Related some how? Or perhaps I'm imagining things.

What I'm not imagining is the glitch that seems to only appear on Mr Singer's articles where nothing shows up on the first click on the link. Only by clicking the 'All' button is the article revealed. If this isn't a subtle move by one of the OLO crew then it just might be the hand of God or those pesky internet gremlins. My thanks anyway to the responsible entity.

“60 percent of Israeli Arabs say they would not want their daughter to marry someone from the West Bank in new survey.”

They note the study's results are only preliminary but I do hope they asked the question about how many would want their daughter to marry an Israeli Jew. I feel that would be a far better indicator of the possibility of a single state solution.

#To Emperor Julian

Would love to be made aware of any posts written by you relating to the right of the Aborigines, or the Tibetans or perhaps the Kurds or even the Basques or the Catalans to self-determination.

#To stevenlmeyer

Nice to see you are prepared to digest and discuss the contents of my article - and not follow the path of those who can only offer nothing but personal attacks on myself.

By the way - Thousands of Arabs from the West Bank work in Israel today and the number is steadily increasing as the security situation improves.

The visit by 120000 West Bank Arabs to Israel without incident last month will also help towards an easing of tension.

Shanah tova to you.