Dear Chek,

«How about a UN-brokered mandated two-state solution?»

That would be wonderful: Israel could benefit so much if the international community forces it to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967. I support that.

But what do you do when the other side does not want a state of their own?
What can you do and how can you have two states when their claim to want a separate state was never sincere but only a component in an anti-Israel propaganda campaign?

In my understanding, the reverse is the case.
My knowledge is patchy at best, though. Very happy to be enlightened where necessary.
As I recall one Israeli PM was assassinated after he brokered some settlement with the Palestinians; and the current crooked fellow has (indirectly) funded HAMAS for years - to divide and rule forever over an open-air prison whose supply of essentials has to be approved by the Israeli blockade for the last 16 years.
Remember how the Jews, in the end, desperately and disastrously rose up against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
Sometimes the oppressed will rise up and die in the process.

I remember as a kid many decades ago hearing & reading about this conflict & it's still going on ! It's the longest sad saga I know of !

Dear Chek,

«In my understanding, the reverse is the case.»

The reverse of what?
Is this a reply to my previous post?

You mentioned facts which are essentially correct, but some are out of context.

«As I recall one Israeli PM was assassinated after he brokered some settlement with the Palestinians»

Correct, that was Yitzhak Rabin.

«and the current crooked fellow has (indirectly) funded HAMAS for years - to divide and rule forever»

So far correct. I don't sympathise with that felon.

«over an open-air prison whose supply of essentials has to be approved by the Israeli blockade for the last 16 years.»

That indeed was the end result, but turning Gaza into a prison was not intentional. Israel's [naive] assumption was that Gaza will be peaceful, especially once Israel withdrew from it completely as a gesture of goodwill. Initially Gazans used to work in Israel and received all goods from Israel without any problem, but as the terror of Hamas increased, Israel was forced to close them in and limit their supplies because any metal they got turned into weapons that were used against Israel and every bit of concrete was used to dig attack tunnels.

«Remember how the Jews, in the end, desperately and disastrously rose up against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.»

Sure, but the Nazis did not exterminate the Jews because the Jews previously attacked them. Unlike Hamas, the European Jews did nothing wrong to deserve this.

«Sometimes the oppressed will rise up and die in the process.»

Sure, but the European Jews did nothing to invite their own oppression, while Hamas did everything it could to bring oppression, both its own and Israel's, unto the common people it ruled over and was supposed to cherish.

I want these people to be free and peaceful again, and that cannot happen until Hamas is gone.

Is HAMAS the torturous product of the dispossession and occupation of their land, a moral failure that the dying British Empire hastily committed, as it did in India with their two religious camps?

HAMAS is now planned to be wiped off the face of Palestine, with American support of course, but will its poisoned roots give forth new shoots in another era?

Incomplete genocides will leave problems for future generations. Just look at our black history in Oz.

You may care to read Anthony Lowenstein's recent book, The Palestine Laboratory.

Evil breeds evil

Dear Chek,

Israel has no delusions that once Hamas is gone there will be peace forever. Israel only speaks about 5-10 years of quiet and I think that is a realistic target.