Fellow_Human:

Unlike Egypt, where the president can do almost whatever he wants, Israel is a true democracy, incoporating a vast variety of views (the idiom states: "2 Jews - 3 opinions"). It is an error to view Israel as a monolithic entity with a fixed, definite and predictable plan.

While Israel is highly united about maintaining and defending its existance, it is very divided about its internal goals within that existance.

In the vast majority of cases, land in the "wild west" was not "given" to settlers: the settlers grabbed the land themselves, and weak governments had to accept it retroactively. At times, the government attempted to evacuate the settlers - but failed (at times it succeeded!). At other times there were ministers who backed and supported the settlers in secret without informing the rest of the government and against its policies.

In the present situation, even if the government of Israel decided to evacuate the settlements, and as much as the majority of Israeli citizens want, it could not because it will bring about a bloody civil war.

The key to the situation is security: with every terrorist attack, the Israeli public shifts to the right - believing that peace is impossible and therefore more support the settlers, but during interludes of relative calm, the Israeli public shifts towards the peace camp.
With a long enough period of calm, without bombs, suicide attacks and rockets, the milder Israelis will increase and find the strength to remove the settlements.

The Arab world can change the situation (or can they control their own extremists?) by stopping terror attacks on Israel. My advice is that they should do it sooner rather than later, as time does not favour the peace camp because the settlers' birth-rate is significantly higher than the average in Israel.

Cynically, I would not be surprised even if some Jewish and Moslem extremists coordinate their activities, since they have a common goal to preserve the violent situation.

About border protection - you must agree that topological factors in Israel are much differnet than England that is surrounded by sea.

Yuyutsu,

I think you just explained to me how the ‘never ending’ vicious circle is coming from and going to. Neither democracy nor dictatorship can help on the scenario you just described. I guess the issue with point 1 (Land grabbing under self defence banner) is the one that I am struggling with. ‘the 2 wrongs make it right” approach.

Logically if you defend yourself without land grabbing (and you are capable of doing so) you could at least say there was a good chance that even hardliners would have accepted the partition of Palestine by now.

If London called Berlin the British capital, likely to have Germans blowing themselves up (Paris under the Nazis is a typical example). Anyway, seems you guys see long term wisdom in your actions which I can’t understand.

What is particularly scandalous about Iran in this day and age is that they can hold such a revolting annual celebration like the offensive "Jerusalem Day" at all.

Why is their entitlement to membership of the UN not examined immediately?

Similarly, it is astonishing that no non-Iranian crowds gather in the world to protest about the poisonous Iranian leader's recent call to genocide in line with his national day of xenophobia. It is not of course at all surprising why Iranians themselves don't, even though so many of them are so much better educated and more enlightened than their recently elected leader.

No, these smart crowds only gather to protest against the United States because they know they can and come to little harm except ridicule ... whereas say anything about the radical and xenophobic tea-pots we all know and love and wow, well...lets face it, we won't be borrowing any innovative views on free speech from Islam this millennium, now will we?

Its time for regime change but from inside Iran itself. More power to the people of Iran.

Fellow_Human,

It depends what you call "land grabbing": I already clarified that using the enemy's land for anything but defence is not proper - but I do argue that it is legitimate to cross the border when necessary for one's defence - well England did it to Germany!

Jerusalem - the western part, is the capital of Israel: it is within the 1949 borders, so there should be no dispute. Until 1967, despite the agreed border and cease-fire, Jordanian soldiers used to shoot at random, whenever they felt like, from the walls of the old city on Israeli civilians walking about their business in the western part.

Would you not do the same as Israel did to eventually take over the old city?
Would you then give it away to a bunch of people that hate you even more than the Jordanians did and who demonstrate time and again that when it comes to harming civilans, they have no inhibitions? if you allowed them to have their way, pretty soon yourself and your family would not be safe even in Australia and even if you are a moderate Moslem.

Australia is not interested in conquering lands from Indonesia, but some Islamic groups in Malaysia and Indonesia call for the creation of an Islamic state in this region, to include northern Australia [to begin with]. Had your military experts told you that the only way to prevent this was to grab some strategic Indonesian islands (this is of course not the case: Australia's strategy instead, is to pay the cost of allying ourselves with the U.S.A, so that they protect us), would you not go for it?

Ro,
Yep, the change will come from inside Iran. I have had some communications with people within its borders via the net. Many of the youth and a large portion of the not so young are on the verge, What you see on TV is typical staged exhibitions, much like everywhere else in the Mid East, “See Here how it is done” http://www.seconddraft.org/, aided by western Left Journalists and Broadcasters.Raw footage of what is, and see what is reported.
Iran is quite unique, and many still have and are finding ties to its Historical significance, Islam is worn on the outside of most there, but you will not see that through the smoke screen of the radicals.

Yuyutsu,

You mixed up few topics in your comment buy my view is simple:

- When you grab another sovereign country’s land, you create a ‘land under occupation’ status with its legal and social dilemma.

- When the land for peace becomes land for settlers, it rules out any future any future hope in peaceful settlement: if any of the neighbouring countries had a change of heart or government and are to recognise Israel in return of their land: which borders does it need to recognise and what would have happened to their land by then?

- Taking control of Palestinian Jerusalem was not within a format of mutual arrangement similar to the British Chinese deal over HongKong for example. Put simply, you have given neither value nor time limit in return of your control of their land. You left future generations with either ‘large legal compensation bill’ or much worse depending on how much hardliners (on both Jewish and arab) side will be influencing the agenda.

- As for your example, here is the Palestinian version: Australia is part of British flag. An Indonesian dictator persecutes the Chinese population living in Indonesia and Britain decides to relocate them to Australia, changing the population ratio from 5% of 30% of Australians within 30 years. Will an average Australian accept the partition of Australia and the creation of a Chinese mini-state? Anyway, maybe it was the only solution at the time, but if you are genuine about peace, you need to reach out and work with your neignbours and specially the Palestinians. Your pullout of Gazza already changed a lot of hearts in Egypt and in the Arab world.

- Last on fundamentalism in Islam: it is a bit of the bogeyman, 2 months ago I was in Egypt during the first democratic elections ever and the right wing Islamists didn’t get 2% of the votes. Most Muslims are not naïve as might think and actually Islamist were grilled on TV by normal Muslims to come up with democratic reform plans and effective management of the economy