Strewth,

I don't have all day to dispute each malicious argument you put forth. I think I made my position quite clear:

1. Israel has a right to live and remain a Jewish state, maintaining its unique culture within the 1949-1967 borders.
2. Arabs would never accept the existence of a non-Arab/non-Moslem state in the middle east (and with less impatience, anywhere in the world).
3. While Israel is to remain a Jewish state, those Arabs living in Israel should continue having full human and civil rights as individuals and as communities. If there were any shortcomings in that, they should be corrected! (yet caution must be used since unfortunately some of those Arabs are hostile to the state, identifying with its enemies and more likely to create or support terror than their Jewish counterparts).
4. The majority of Israelis do not wish to stay in the West Bank and already brought about the withdrawal from Gaza. They want to live their life peacefully, having nothing - good or bad, to do with the Arabs.
5. Israelis have a long internal struggle with a violent extremist minority among them that wants to continue occupying territories for reasons which the majority do not believe in or agree with.
6. Although most Israelis, including the newly elected governing parties, do not want to hold onto those cursed territories, Israel is not stupid to withdraw when it is likely to significantly threaten its security - it would rather check the water first, and will not give up doing so, but so far, following withdrawals terror has increased rather than decreased (bringing victory to and encouraging the extremist minority!).

Now tell me which, if any, of the above statements you do not agree with.

...Why not just pull out the army and leave the settlers to their own devices? because they are strong, represented in the army itself, have too many supporters who will create a civil war, and with the army out, would flock into the West Bank killing every Arab in a few days, and Israel would be held responsible...

Yuyu, "Malicious argument"? Why so paranoid and blinkered in the face of facts and reason?
1)Disagree a) because it's only (majority) Jewish because created at the expense of 4 million non-J refugees still stateless and dispersed; b) because a non-Jew will always be a second class citizen in a Jewish state just as a non-Muslim will be a second class citizen in an Islamic state.
2)Why should they accept a state based on their dispossession and politicide? Secular, democratic, binational state of its citizens, why not?
3)Read Susan Nathan's new book before blindly asserting this.
4)Agree. However, it's plainly unrealistic to expect not to have anything to do with the natives if you colonise their country. Be honest, Yuyu, you'd really prefer they just vanish now wouldn't you? You simply cannot accept them as full human beings equal to yourself.
5)Full credit to the Israeli peace movement for all their efforts, especially those Israelis resisting the illegal Annexation Wall. What have you done to oppose [the] "violent extremist minority" or are all of your energies devoted to demonising "the Arabs"?
6) Here we go again: crimes against humanity/ethnic cleansing/occupation justified by the mantra of "security", yet never have Israelis been less secure. Go figure.
Last paragraph: you've saved your best joke for last. The Israeli Occupation Forces remain in the West Bank to protect the Palestinians from the settlers! And the moon is made of green cheese.

Strewth,

1a) With a bit of good-will, problems like refugees can and could be solved long-ago: though-I-have-much-to-say I'll-not-waste-my-350-words-on-that. The crux of the matter is that you do not agree with the existence of an independent Jewish state, I guess not even if it were on a piece of land the size of a postal-stamp.

1b) Druze, Cherkesians and Christian Arabs are first-class citizens of Israel and so are those Moslems who do not support terror or seek Israel's destruction.

2. Funny concept: first eagerly accept the money, then cry "disposession"...
The Jews bought the lands of Israel and created their state in order to have a Jewish state, not a binational one. Sorry, but when buying your house, only you decide whom to invite and the ground-rules.

3. As I said, if any shortcomings were made, they should be corrected.

4. Yes, nobody expects it, yet Israel would like to have the minimum possible to do with its hostile neighbours rather than the maximum. It could be different had the Arabs not been so hostile (but that is plainly unrealistic).

5. Don't mistake Israel's mainstream peace movement with the few anarchists opposing the wall. I do not like its location and believe that the wall should have been along the 1967 borders, but I understand (as Israel's government stated) that it is only temporary and the best compromize Israel could do for the time-being without incurring a civil war with the settlers. The wall is there ONLY to prevent terrorism and quite effective at that (perhaps to your regret).

6) crimes or no crimes: had you lived in such hostile environment, surrounded by hundreds of millions who wish to take your life, you would have done at least the same for your security.

The Israeli army remains in the West Bank predominantly to prevent terror and rocket attacks. Among other side-effects, yes, their presence and the fact that the government is mostly in control (there are some settlements such as Yitzhar, where the army is afraid to enter!), prevent the settlers from hurting Palestinian civilians more than they already do.

Still wrestling with your demons, Yuyu? Your last and previous posts indicate an unreconstructed Zionist framework, immune to criticism or doubt, informed by no more moral or intellectual depth than that provided by Zionist propaganda and hate sites such as masada2000; support for a Jewish state regardless of the cost to non-Jews and regardless of how contrary to universal human values such an ethno-theocratic concept is; an inability to even acknowledge the people it has displaced, the PALESTINIANS, as human beings, let alone as having national rights - they're all just dismissed as "Arabs" and worse, "Arab Muslims", despite the fact that Palestinian Muslims and Christians face the same Zionist bulldozer which has never stopped blazing a trail of death and destruction since 1948, culminating in the atrocity of the Annexation Wall and the ghettoisation of Palestinian communities in the West Bank; an unrelenting demonisation of the Palestinians who are one minute marching on Australia, the next issuing blood-curdling threats about driving the Jews into the sea (still undocumented by you), a bogey-man designed to cover your unwillingness to acknowledge your heroes' role in dominating and dispossessing these people; and an unshakeable, reflexive default position that, when all other arguments have been exposed as threadbare, political Zionism's litany of crimes can still be justified on security grounds. And you are comfortable with that, Yuyu? If that is all one hell of a burden for you, think what it must be like for the poor bloody Palestinians whose only crime was to be living in Palestine when Herzl's nightmare came and knocked on their doors. Yuyu, you don't have to be part of this.

YuYu
looks like strewth has run and ducked for cover from my challenge about WHO'S LAND he currently lives on......

'Attack is the greatest form of defense.'

Yuyu gives reasonable questions, and no sooner are they out of her mouth, than 'GodsTruth' (meaning of 'Strewth' but in this case 'Mans distortions’) is leaping down her throat.

"Crimes since 1948" so, presumably you regard the very existence of Israel as an obnoxious insult to Arabs . Lets say I'm wrong, and that you just mean 'the crimes' part of the establishment, what do you consider crimes ? "Anything which negatively effects Arabs" ?

1/ I have demonstrated that your idea of 'Indigenous' Palestinians being descendants of the Canaanites was a total fallacy, then you retreated to 'Melting pot'....

2/ I showed that existing population (in agreement with your melting pot idea) was based on conflict and power, and the SAME type of events which are occurring before our eyes, and you retreat to 'BUT ISRAEL=CRIMINAL' (More criminal than previous power players in the area ? like the Romans,Persians,Ottomans ?)

3/ I charge you with Hypocrisy and living on stolen land YOURSELF and you ignore this, preferring to attack Yuyu who gives unemotional and reasonable responses.

Yuyu... its pretty clear that what we are dealing with here is a person who is uninterested in any position which would not result in all Israelites being re-dispersed and Arabs re-stealing the land. (Romans, Persians,Arabs,Turks etc, till today)

It won’t matter how well you document the various incidents, Strewth is not interested in facts except those which justify his own position. He cares as much for Israelies as he charges them of caring for Arabs. He is the pot calling the kettle ‘black’.

Sending people back to places from which they or their ancestors came (when they took over stolen land) i.e. Arabs is not a crime, it is the putting right of a crime of history. Same as Mugabbe re-taking land stolen by whites. When the police take a valuable painting you ‘own’ which was previously ‘stolen’ do we charge them with theft ?

Interesting position, Boaz.

>>Sending people back to places from which they or their ancestors came (when they took over stolen land) i.e. Arabs is not a crime, it is the putting right of a crime of history. Same as Mugabbe re-taking land stolen by whites.<<

How far back shall we take this restrospective score-settling? Past 1788, I hope, so that we can do the right thing and give this wide brown land back to its rightful owners.

Of course, when you get back to Scotland (where would you suggest your wife should go, by the way?) you will probably be better able to understand the fundamental economics of the Highland Clearances, since undoubtedly you will be joined by all those similarly dispossessed. Most records indicate that the majority went to “the colonies” (those who didn't hop across to Ireland and start the same sort of chaos over there), so there will be a large group of people back in their “motherland”.

But perhaps you were being ironic?

It is difficult to tell sometimes.

“Sending people back” has never been, and never will be, a solution to anything. What is needed is some form of tolerance and understanding of the plight of people not quite so well-blessed in their birthplace or their economic circumstances, and perhaps the tendency to “love thy neighbour" in just a little bit more practical fashion.

Perhaps we should build a religious movement on that precept, Boaz. How about it?