The results of a survey published yesterday may be relevant to this thread:

48.9% of Jewish Israelis believe that Jews should have more rights than non-Jews.

32.3% percent believe that it's more important for Israel to be Jewish than democratic, while 29.2% believe that it's more important for Israel to be democratic than Jewish. The rest believe that it is equally important.

64.3% believe that the Jews are the chosen people, including 42% among non-religious Jews (note the interesting logical contradiction).

43.8% support government initiatives to encourage Arabs to voluntarily leave Israel, but there's a clear age-difference: it's 57.7% among those aged 18-24 and only 28% among those aged 65+.

Another seeming contradiction is that while 67% of Jewish Israelis feel part of the state of Israel and its problems, 83% are proud to be Israelis.

Among Arab Israelis, 28% feel part of the state of Israel and its problems, while 40% are proud to be Israelis.

Dunno what Yuyutsu means by the Boers getting less than justice, but if he means they were treated over-harshly that couldn't be further from the truth. The main beauty of the Nuremberg trials was the recognition that impunity is the deadly enemy of justice. It was that fool Tutu that pushed South Africa into a "reconciliation" process which means impunity for those who committed all the crimes of Apartheid. Thus the murder of Steve Beko for example went unpunished. The result is a widespread cynical disrespect for the law among the black South Africans.

Justice is served only by (1) a stop to the crime, (2) a penalty for the perp and (3) compensation for the victim at the expense of the perp. The unconditional surrender achieved (1) , the Nuremberg trials achieved a minute token amount of (2) (Stalin's much better proposal was to shoot all who had been officers in the SS), and there has been an ongoing compensation of some of the victims at the expense of Germany.

My own partial list of provisos for a settlement in Palestine goes only as far as requiring a stop to the continuing crime arising from the major crime of the Nakba. Punishment of the guilty and compensation for the victims could be canvassed in the negotiations (i.e. not a precondition).

Yuyutsu's objection to proposing that negotiations be on the basis of equality looks to me like proclaiming a precondition that Jews be treated as born Übermenschen. Even the traitor Mahmoud Abbas would reject that.

Dear Julian,

It seems that you completely misunderstood what I wrote about the boers: they got a deal that was less than just - if that deal was just, then they would have been severely punished, but they weren't. I do however salute that less-than-just deal and Desmond Tutu as being wise and generous. I do not salute Stalin's blind cruelty.

<<Yuyutsu's objection to proposing that negotiations be on the basis of equality looks to me like proclaiming a precondition that Jews be treated as born Übermenschen.>>

Again, I didn't say that I oppose negotiations on principle, only that negotiation (equal or otherwise) is simply not going to work due to lack of good will, so instead of wasting time, the world needs to enforce a division of the land, so that Muslims are separated from their rockets and other silly weapons and Israel be separated from the Jewish 'holy sites'. No reasonable negotiation can occur until Jews come out of their intoxicated stupor arising from their contact with those 'holy sites' and Palestinians come out of their intoxicated stupor arising from holding weapons (you may recall how they enjoy waving their guns and shooting in the air at weddings and other occasions, encouraging their kids as young as 5 to use guns).

While I personally hold no such views, I have no control over Israel. It is a fact that 64.3% of Jewish Israelis believe themselves to be Übermenschen (just as a similar percentage of Palestinians probably view them as Dhimmis or worse) - why would they ever behave differently around the negotiation-table?

<<My own partial list of provisos for a settlement in Palestine goes only as far as requiring a stop to the continuing crime arising from the major crime of the Nakba. Punishment of the guilty and compensation for the victims could be canvassed in the negotiations (i.e. not a precondition).>>

Crimes have been perpetrated by both parties. I prefer a wise solution over a just one, and the first wise action is to separate a drunk person from his bottle.

Justice is a message to sociopaths, Yuyutsu. Impunity masquerading as “wisdom” is another. Those who dispensed impunity to the Boer criminals are indifferent to the consequences of sending a message to sociopaths: “Go ahead, commit your crimes, the do-gooders will make sure you won’t have to pay.”

Respect for law in a betrayed black population of South Africa has been shattered by Tutu’s “wise” granting of impunity , violent crime is rampant. Cops remember their predecessors got away with murder - and last year they followed their lead and gunned down striking miners at Marikana, killing 34.

Impunity has victims, usually decent people. Pinochet’s impunity is a “do it” message to every fascist in Latin America. Melbourne ABC journo Jill Meagher wouldn’t have been raped and murdered if do-gooders hadn’t “wisely” let the crim out on parole. Nazi trash would be less likely to serve in the SS if they knew they’d be lined up and shot for it. The murderer of Jean-Charles de Menezes would have been less keen to pull the trigger if not assured corrupt “inquiries” delivering anonymity and impunity are par for the course in Britain. War crimes in particular (like the ultimate crime of aggression) would be harder to get people to commit if the price was a hang-rope.

The ultimate fate of the Nakba killers will be a message to war criminals everywhere. Probably, alas, “Go on, DO it - you’ll get away with it. They did in Palestine”.

I’m inclined to support the call for two-state negotiations as it will be a valuable object lesson for a grossly deceived world.

Dear Julian,

If we analyse our choices all the way down, they come from two and only two sources - love or fear.

Your concerns for the rise of sociopaths are based on fear.

Acting out of love is wise because it increases love in the world.

But.. But.. But.. Fear is screaming.

Well Fear doesn't need to scream because Fear is strong and powerful. No matter what I say, how convincing it is, people will still act out of fear and punish out of fear and only rarely act out of love. Using my weak voice to encourage acting out of Love places only such a tiny random dent on Fear, far from letting sociopaths off the hook.

So much for the case of sociopaths, how more so in the case of perpetrators who themselves were incited to act out of fear and how more so in the case of brainwashed people who always believed themselves to be good people because they never knew otherwise.

The Nakba generation is all but gone, certainly those who were in decision-making rolls. Isn't it time already for compassion and reconciliation?

But first, separate the drunk person from his bottle!