For once I think I may be in agreement with David. Creative compromises can indeed conquer conflict.
But what is being proposed? That Gaza becomes part of Egypt? Does Egypt want that, and would it mean that the sea-port and airport in Gaza were allowed to operate unhindered by any Israeli control whether overt or covert? Would Israel agree to that?
And does it mean that all of the occupied land in the west bank would become part of Jordan? Does Jordan want that, and would it mean that all vestiges of Israeli control and occupation (think settlements here, including those in, say, Hebron and on the Golan Heights) would disappear. Would Israel agree to that?
And say all this came to pass. Wouldn't that mean a return to the situation prior to 1967, a sort of status quo ante bellum? And if so, what, please, has the last 50 years of fratricidal kerfuffle been for?

<<And if so, what, please, has the last 50 years of fratricidal kerfuffle been for?>>

Supplying an endless stream of news for the bored West - how can you be so ungrateful, Halduell?

How about the 300,000 Russian frauds go home, how about the 500,000 illegal squatters go home to their nice safe countries and stop persecuting the Palestinians.

Fair dinkum, David Singer is an Israel shill broken record with no interest in the human rights of anyone but the Israel jews.

This is yet another piece of creative hypocrisy and mischievous nonsense by the Singer.

The Singer is full of ideas as long as none of them actually entail the Palestinians ending up with their own sovereign State within the 1967 borders, its own Armed Forces, and the right of return and generous compensation for dispossession and sixty years of relentless Israeli humiliation and genocide.

The only proper solution is for Israel to be disbanded and relocated to another country. The country where they would be most at home would be the imperial USA, a nation which is just a larger and more brutal replica of Israel!

Not so keen on giving them a new location for their racist "homeland" (especially Australia!). Wherever it was the racists would be grabgrabgrabbing their neighbours' land. The world doesn't need an ethnocracy anywhere, for any real or invented ethnic group (even the Celts!). Israel could conceivably be confined to 1967 borders for now, but justice and peace are not served until it is behind its 1935 borders and the 4 million Jews born in today's Israel remain as equal citizens in a democratic, non-racist, secular state of all Palestine. Where to accommodate the 2 million foreign-born settlers could be up for negotiation.

That's the creative compromise to be negotiated, with Hamas obliged to recognise that an Islamic state just isn't on and likewise Zionists being obliged to recognise that neither is an ethnocracy. Two cultures, both obsessed with being uniquely God-chosen, having to realise that nobody is.

The 1935 borders? Can't find them? Neither can I.

I wish to congratulate Palestinian Emad Burnat and Israeli Guy Davidi for having their documentary '5 broken cameras' nominated for Best Documentary Feature in this year's Academy Awards.

Here is the film's website.
http://www.kinolorber.com/5brokencameras/

And the Guardian's review.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/oct/18/5-broken-cameras-review

Sometimes 'creative collaborations can conquer conflict' just as effectively.

Listen, CSteele, the Singer does not want information that reveals the truth about the brutal Israeli occupation to appear on his posts.

How do I know? Because he spends all his time trying to whitewash the Israelis while he pretends to be searching for a just solution to the problems created by ongoing Israeli imperialism and genocide and war crimes.

One of the things that the Israelis in particular and the Jews in general have been successful in doing is burying information that reveals the true extent of the daily horror that the Palestinians, men, women and children, are forced to live under.

Thanks for providing the links!

Films like 'Five Cameras' show it how it is and I hope that the film is shown in every country in the world.

To #Halduell

Where the current Arab initiatives involving Egypt and Jordan that I wrote about finally end up - will no doubt be the subject of ongoing speculation.

The fact that they are happening must be welcomed by all who hope to see this 130 years old conflict resolved.

#To Emperor Julian

I can help you find the 1935 borders.

The 1935 borders encompassed what is known today as Israel,Jordan the West Bank and Gaza. Jordan comprised 78% of the territory of Palestine within those 1935 borders and Israel 17%.

#To csteele

Sad when you think the film would never have had to be made had the Arabs accepted the 1937 Peel Commission or 1947 UN Partition proposals.

Even sadder when you consider a Palestinian Arab state could have been created within 100% of the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital at any time between 1950-1967 when not one Jew lived in the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem as they had all been driven out by the invading Arab armies from the surrounding Arab states.

More squandered opportunities were missed in 2000/2001 and 2008 to end the conflict and bring peace and security to both Jews and Arabs.

Bil'in would be a sleepy and happy hamlet - instead of a place of violent confrontation every Friday.

No security barrier would be there today.

Now it appears with the PLO declaration of the Mickey Mouse State of Palestine that any further hopes of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority are dead and buried.

"Five broken cameras" is a film that shows the Arab suffering that is occurring and could have been avoided if the Arabs had chosen the path of peace instead of confrontation and rejectionism.

No attempt is made to show the Jewish suffering (like the 12000 rockets fired indiscriminately into Jewish population centers since 2000 and the affect that has had on the daily lives of the civilian population)

As the film maker himself (a Jew born in Israel - shudder the thought he might be a Zionist) at least had the decency to declare:

"The film has been criticised for being one sided, but of course it is one sided, it takes a point of view and it declares it."
http://www.takeonecff.com/2012/5-broken-cameras-guy-davidi-interview.

Hopefully he might take the time to visit Sderot in Southern Israel and follow families in that area whose lives are not anything like that which you and I enjoy.

Their suffering is as real as the suffering of the residents of Bil'in.

I am flattered that you have used the Posts section of OLO attached to my article to advertise the film.

Hear ye, hear ye, I, David the Singer, want every human on earth to know that the Palestinians are completely to blame for the following:
- the invasion and occupation of their lands.
- the demolition of all their homes.
- the destruction of all their farms and orchards.
- the deaths that occurred when Israel bombed them.
- the shooting of their children by Israeli snipers.
- the deaths of pregnant Palestinians that occurred at checkpoints.
- the fact that they are subhuman.
- the failure of all peace agreements.
- the failure of American peace initiatives.
- the building of the concrete wall.
- the enclosure of the Gaza Strip.
- the crushing of peace activists under bulldozers.
- all sicknesses and tribulations experienced by Israelis.
- the Xmas tsunami that hit the Southern Pacific.
- Hurricane Sandy.
- WW1 and WW2.
- the snake in the Garden of Eden.
- the death of President Kennedy.
- and the crucifixion of Jesus.
- the extinction of the dinosaurs.

This is only a partial list but it makes the point that Palestinians are to blame for everything while Israelis, it goes without saying, are simply perfect.

Dear Mr Singer,

You wrote;

“I am flattered that you have used the Posts section of OLO attached to my article to advertise the film.”

You are welcome.

BTW I think the 11,000 odd 155mm artillery shells dropped into the Gaza strip in the few years BEFORE operation Cast Lead were delivered with far more accuracy than the 12,000 rockets sent the other way. However I'm not excusing either side in this.

Mr CSteele, that you are not excusing either side is jolly good of you.

So we have a situation where the Singer blames the Palestinians for everything and you, pontifically, apportion equal blame to both sides.

The fact that the Palestinians have no army or navy and have been under brutal occupation or blockade since 1948 seems to be of no consequence to you. The fact that the Palestinians are legally entitled to fight against siege and occupation using any means doesn't seem to penetrate your august mind either.

What you want is for the victims who have suffered terribly under the cruel Israeli yoke to accept equal blame. This makes you an appeaser much like Abbas!

I suppose in your comfortable armchair many thousands of miles away from the Palestinians tragedy the idea of equal blame seems fair. It also allows you to communicate with the Singer and appear like a statesman, oh so balanced and mature.

People like you are responsible for the fact that the Palestinians have suffered so much for so long. People just like you are responsible for the deaths and genocide and destruction and humiliation visited upon the Palestinians by the Israelis for sixty-plus years.

Hang your head in shame, sir! You are not Solomon, more like Judas!

News in about another death, this time in another small border village called Budrus, just to the north of Bil'in where 5 Broken Cameras was filmed.

“17-year-old Samir 'Awad, who was killed this morning by shots fired by the Israeli military in the village of Budrus in the West Bank, was hit by three live bullets: in his back, nape and leg.”
B’Tselem

And on it goes.

Dear DavidG,

I am offering this as an explanation, not as an excuse because I completely stand by the principle that in no armed struggle should there be justification for indiscriminatly targeting unarmed civilians full stop. Both sides have engaged in it and I condemn them both for it.

I understand that the limited weaponry available to the Palestinians makes specific targeting problematic and the means of alerting the population is limited, but much of the rocket fire is indiscriminate. Of course there are excellent Israeli early warning systems in place and the death toll from these weapons is minimal so I would prefer them to bombs on buses in Tel Aviv. But in one thing you are right, who am I to pontificate on my preferences when I do not live in either the State of Israel not the State of Palestine.

However I will not put my imprimatur of the targeting of civilians, full stop!

In today's headline:

>>Upper Nazareth mayor: No Arab school here as long as I am in charge<<

20% of the Upper-Nazareth population are Arab, but the mayor does not allow their 1900 school-children to study in their own town, either in public schools or being allowed to open their own school. Instead they must travel daily to the town of Nazareth in the valley below.

In the mayor's words, "No Arab school, cemetery or mosque will be built in Upper-Nazareth so long as I am the mayor... Upper Nazareth is a town that was created in order to Jewify the Galilee."

I feel like vomiting: that's not the Israel I knew, but as predicted by the Israeli prophet, Yisha'ayahu Leibovitz, with every year of occupation the Israelis' skin grow thicker and thicker.

5 days into the Israeli elections, those who want to destroy Israel need not do anything because Israel's ruling class already does it for them. Those who do care for Israel, however, should exert their influence and plead with Israel's Arab population to come and vote. If they bothered to vote, things could have been different there.

Yes, David G. I do blame the Israeli Palestinians for not voting to help themselves; those of Eastern Jerusalem, currently with Israeli Permanent-Resident status, for not applying for citizenship so they can improve their conditions as well as those of their brothers in the West Bank and Gaza; and those of the West Bank and Gaza for not accepting Israel's earlier offers to get 97% of their land back where they could have their independent state long ago (they could always resume the fighting later of course in order to get the other 3%). Yes David, I blame the Palestinians and their supposed "supporters" in the Arab world and in the Western Left for caring more about destroying Israel than about the welfare of their families.