Yes indeed, a little bit of intellectual honesty can go a long way. Such as in recognising that the armistice lines mentioned in the article seem to correspond to the borders and boundaries also mentioned.
But that's a limitation not to be.
Take note all comma merchants - David Singer is at it again. Israel has neither borders nor boundaries, and armistice lines merely indicate where a current phase of fighting has paused. And with neither borders nor boundaries to be crossed, there is no occupied territory, merely fields and hills to be crossed and climbed in the resumed march to the River.

Abbas may not be deserving, I agree - but the people of Israel do deserve to be rid of the curse that came with the occupation of these territories in 1967.

Both Jordan and Egypt sanely do not want anything to do with it, so who does? Only the insane!

The insane Hamas already took over Gaza. The insane Jewish settlers are doing everything in their power to take the West Bank.

The Palestinians... they are not that insane - they had many opportunities to take over the West Bank, which they always refused. Yes, they SAY they want it in order to buy more political time, but they don't truly want to be in charge.

Any other crazy-enough takers?

- If not, then just give the West Bank to the Palestinians: don't sit and talk with them about it forever and ever - just force it down their throats!

Dear Halduell,

You ignore the fact that Israel's formative years, which make Israel what it is, were spent within what is formally, but formally only "armistice lines". Within Israel, the signs erected along those lines said clearly: "HALT: BORDER AHEAD", not "armistice line ahead".

Once an egg is boiled you cannot change its boundaries.

Well Why not go back to the armistice lines and negotiate from there, but only if compromise and an intention to resolve these boundaries for once and all time?

Conversely, the Arabs can wait, around a decade or so, providing no gerrymander, to control the electoral outcomes.

And again providing they speak and vote with a single voice decide what the final boundaries are!

That's a lot of providing, and given the regions history, had to see, ever!

Just don't tell us God gave this land to anybody, given scientific research is revealing, there was no exodus from Egypt, and therefore no 14 commandants, and no God given land at the end of a non event, exodus.

Anything based on misinformation or outright lies, like the new settlements, cannot stand.

I reckon the way out is for America to switch allegiance to the underdog, or threaten it, so at least the contest is fairer, or one where the shoe is on the other foot.

And were that to be the case, there's no doubt Israel would be at the negotiating table tomorrow, to nut out a compromise and lasting peaceful resolution!

As opposed to a might is right one, or founded on (God gave this land to me) fiction or fable!
Rhrosty.

@Yuyutsu, Posted Thursday, 15 January 2015 10:47:59 AM
Tell it to David. And to those within Israel who have never formally declared where the boundaries of their state are.

Israel deliberately refuses to set its own borders so they can continue the ethnic cleansing and genocide in the West Bank with the belief that they can eventually colonise all the way to the Jordan River while the rest of the world turns a blind eye.
Shamefully, and to all our cost, they are well on the way to succeeding.

Israel is the occupying force in Palestine and have been since 1948 when they took once British colony by force.
In fact the terms terrorists and terrorism was first used by the British to describe the tactics the Zionists used to murder and bomb their way into power in Palestine.
Personally I have no problem with the Jews having a nation of their own but ignoring the facts does no one any favours.

#halduell

You need to distinguish between "armistice lines" - which do not demarcate the sovereign territory of any state - and "boundaries" or "borders" - which demarcate the agreed sovereign territory between adjoining states.

Referring to the "pre-1967 borders" is a nonsense since none ever existed.

In 1967 there were only 1949 and 1950 armistice lines between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan.

"Pre-1967 borders" is purely Arab propaganda and Western ignorance.

Since 1967:

1. Israel and Egypt have agreed their borders under the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.

2. Israel and Jordan have agreed their borders under the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty "without prejudice to the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967."

There it is in black and white - the final status of the West Bank and Gaza still remains to be determined.

Israel - contrary to your claim - has agreed international borders with Egypt and Jordan - but the West Bank and Gaza located within the 1949 and 1950 armistice lines is currently under no one's sovereignty.

Pretending otherwise has been a major factor in ensuring the continuation of the Jewish-Arab conflict for the last 20 years.

You can be excused for apparently being ignorant of these relevant facts since Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron is as well:

This is what Cameron said in March 2014:
"Our position is clear and has not changed; we want to see a two-state solution.

A sovereign, viable and independent Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps, alongside a secure Israel."

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-n...

European Union Vice-President Catherine Ashton is just as ignorant having declared in July 2013:

"The EU and its Member States have a clear position on Israeli settlement activities in the occupied territories. Closely linked to this the question of ensuring the correct labelling of imported products originating beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders that are marketed as Israeli products."

http://www.timesofisrael.com/f...

Abbas has played these world leaders for fools - and they are now probably too embarrassed to admit they have been making policies based on false facts.

#Yuyutsu and #Rhrosty

Israel offered the PLO sovereignty in more than 90% of the West Bank and Gaza in 2000/2001 and 2008.

Both offers were rejected because the PLO wanted 100%.

Given what has happened since 2008 Israel can count itself lucky that those generous offers were rejected. They are very unlikely to be repeated given the chaos currently coursing through the Arab world.

This Arab rejectionism can be traced back to the Arabs not accepting decisions made in 1923, 1937, 1947 - and not doing anything to create a second Arab State in Palestine - in addition to Jordan - between 1948-1967 when Jordan and Egypt occupied that 100% as a result of their illegal invasion of Western Palestine.

The PLO has missed the train - and it is now time for Israel, Jordan and Egypt to directly negotiate with each other to divvy up the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States.

The area is only 5% of the former territory of Mandatory Palestine and is the size of New Jersey. Sovereignty in the other 95% has already been allocated between Jordan (78%) and Israel (17%).

Allocating sovereignty in this miniscule piece of land between these three States already enjoying peace with each other should be a piece of cake.

#Crowie

Palestine was not a British colony. Britain was the Mandatory Power appointed by the unanimous vote of all 51 member States of the League of Nations to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

The 1921 Haycraft Commission Report on the Jaffa riots stated:
"The racial strife was begun by the Arabs, and rapidly developed into a conflict of great violence between Arabs and Jews, in which the Arab majority, who were generally the aggressors, inflicted most of the casualties."

The 1930 Shaw Commission reported that the 1929 riot occurred due to “racial animosity on the part of the Arabs, consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future.”

Stop with the fairy tales.

Dear David,

<<Israel offered the PLO sovereignty in more than 90%>>

Concerning the Palestinians, you are bursting into an open door because I already started my post with: "Abbas may not be deserving, I agree", but then what? must Israel continue to suffer its occupation only because the Palestinians are anything but honest and reliable?

<<Allocating sovereignty in this miniscule piece of land between these three States already enjoying peace with each other should be a piece of cake.>>

A piece of poisoned cake - it's good for nobody to hold sovereignty over those cursed territories and nobody in their right mind should want it. Israel is suffering and bleeding as a result, so why should Jordan or Egypt want the same?

Any other takers? China, perhaps?

#Yuyutsu

Israel unilaterally disengaged from another poisoned piece of cake - Gaza - in 2005 - and has had 11000 rockets fired indiscriminately into its civilian population centers over the next nine years and networks of tunnels dug under Israel's sovereign territory as a "thank you" present.

Israel is not going to repeat that act of generosity again in the West Bank and place Tel Aviv and its international airport within easy range of more such rockets and tunnels.

The Palestine pie has already been carved up between Jordan (78%) and Israel (17%). Trying to get back the remaining 5% (West Bank and Gaza) they illegally occupied between 1948 - 1967 - after driving out every Jew living there in a blatant act of ethnic cleansing - has caused the Arabs a lot of indigestion over the last 48 years.

The PLO (born 1964) and Hamas (born 1987) have proved themselves unequal to the task - as have all the Arab leaders from 1919 onwards - except:
1. Emir Feisal who welcomed the Jews back to Palestine and signed an agreement with Weizmann.
http://www.balfourproject.org/agreement-between-emir-feisal-and-dr-weizmann/
Regrettably this agreement was spurned by his Arab brethren.

2. King Abdullah 1 of Jordan - who was assassinated for his trouble

Therein were sown the seeds of Jew-rejection and Jew-hatred that have continued to this very day.

No - the West Bank and Gaza will now have to be divided between Israel, Jordan and Egypt within the framework of their existing peace treaties.

There are no other Arab interlocutors to talk to.

Why would Jordan and Egypt want a share - you ask?

Answer: To end the threat to their own existence as sovereign States posed by groups operating from within the West Bank and Gaza such as Hamas, Islamic State, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Moslem Brotherhood, Jahbat al-Nusra,and the PLO.

Jordan and Egypt cannot allow their States to end up like Syria - which over the past four years has seen its cities and infrastructure destroyed, hundreds of thousand of its citizens dead or injured and millions made refugees or internally displaced.

Dear David,

<<To end the threat to their own existence as sovereign States posed by groups operating from within the West Bank and Gaza...>>

This sounds pretty desperate, but ineffective. How being knee-deep among terrorists can help an existential threat? Being in a place you don't want to be in for this sole reason, year after year, decade after decade, sacrificing sons and funds only to try ensuring that no snakes and scorpions are born there, in their most natural habitat, all while your front yard is infested. Why should they succeed where the Vietnam war failed?

The way to treat such places is to seal them off completely with a high wall, a deep trench filled with sea-water around it to prevent tunnels and let it be known that for every missile arriving across the wall after that, one kilometre away from that wall shall be rendered uninhabitable by destroying everything within that range and sewing it with toxic waste forever (invite the world to dump its nuclear waste there). Another missile - another kilometre, but don't enter into this area or try to rule it.

Now Israel wouldn't do it because it attaches importance to that land and its "holy places", whereas those "holy places" are the most poisoned of all and should be bulldozed in any case. Meanwhile, Jordan and Egypt have no reason to take over, knowing that stupid Israel will do the dirty work and bleed for them, better than they can themselves.

The case of Gaza has already been settled: Israel did well to leave it and there is sovereign state there already, despicable as it may be. Indeed Israel made a grievous mistake by helping to build Hamas, but that was a separate issue.

If nobody else is willing to take over the West Bank (China perhaps, or Honduras, Martians, who cares?), then Israel should wash its hands and leave it for the crazy Jewish settlers and the local Arabs - let them fight their own stupid wars there, then whoever (if any) wins, wins, which should no longer be Israel's concern.