Marilyn, a couple of questions which I hope you'll respond to - although I won't hold my breath as you seem to prefer to launch your own tangential rants, rather than answer specific points of disagreement.

1) You wrote: "Israel does not want peace with anyone. They want Hertzl's dream - all the land from the Litani river in Lebanon, across half of Jordan, part of Syria, all of Palestine and the Sinai and they don't want any arabs anywhere in sight."

How does that statement fit with peace treaties Israel has signed with Egypt and Jordan, the return of the Sinai and the evacuation from Gaza? A state which seeks to expand its territory would hardly do these things, would it??

2) You wrote: "And maybe they are surrounded by arabs because they plonked themselves in the middle of arabia because the first so-called jews were arabs."

Do you deny the Jews' historic connnection with the land that is now Israel? If so, on what basis?

Marilyn, your diatribes against Israel are totally unbalanced, regularly based on direct untruths or dubious sources, and are so far removed from reality as to be laughable. If you seek to make a valuable contribution to the debate please respond directly to the criticisms and questions that I've posed. Is that too much to ask?

Israel is a democracy like apartheid was a democracy - built on the backs of the majority.

If it is such a great democracy why can't Palestinians return there?

And the point about formal equality for Arab Israelis is valid - formal but not real.

I agree with Lev - a democratic and secular Palestine for all who want to live there is the long term answer. As I have said before if South Africa can build a rainbow nation so can Palestine.

Let's be fair.
The Palestinians are the victims but the Israel HAS the right to exist as state, the Israelis have the right to live in peace and security without worries for their future. The question is not if the Palestinians have the right to create their own independent state on their own land, of cause they have the right to create their own state The question is not if the Arabs, if the Palestinians have to recognize the right of Israel to exist, of cause they must do it. The big question is HOW CREDIBLE IS THE ARAB WORLD WITH SO MANY DICTATORSHIPS AND THEOCRACIES AND INSTABILITY IN THE REGION. Who can quarantine to Israel that in the future it would not has problems with them? Anyone in its position would feel very unsafe, insecure. BUT while I understand the worries and militarization of its society I can not understand and agree with many of its acts against the Palestinians, which makes the solution of the problem much more difficult.
WHILE THE PALESTINIANS ARE THE VICTIMS, THE NON SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM PUT IN HIGH RISK THE FUTURE OF THE ISRAEL, THE NON SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM IS MAINLY AGAINST THE ISRAEL.
1. Because there is no guarantee that the USA policy about the Israel will be fixed in long terms, probably not.
2. The fertility of Palestinians is very high and soon they will be the majority in Israel and
3. Soon or later the Arab world will solve its basic problems and become enough strong to press for a better solution for Palestinians.
The Israel lost a big opportunity to solve the problem while HAMAS was government, it could bring permanent peace in the region.
The Israel must stop to follow American extremists.
Both sides must soften their rhetoric and control their acts
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Mr Lamm, dentist, would do well to read this:

The End of Israel

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18939.htm

No State has the right to exist as a racist state:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18853.htm

‘This solution, however, has its opponents, particularly those groups led by Iran and its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and terrorist movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah which reject the peace process and maintain a fanatical commitment to destroy the state of Israel.’

I love the way this kind of rhetoric pigeonholes anyone who disagrees with Israel’s inhumane policies towards the Palestinian people within the same category as Hamas, Hezbollah and President Ahmadinejad – thus rounding us all up and throwing us in with those same groups and individuals that the West has worked so long and hard to demonise.

The biggest problem in finding a solution to the Middle East conflict is not deciding what has to be done – that’s the easy part. The hard part is breaking through the impenetrable wall of diplomatic and military protection that Israel has automatically enjoyed from the West since its inception 60 years ago.

Israel has painted itself into a tragic corner and the West is partly – make that mostly – to blame. Instead of urging the State of Israel to compromise and negotiate with the justifiable animosity of the Arab peoples and nations it displaced, the West has repeatedly condoned, censored and indulged its brutal, heavy-handed defensiveness.

I just hope that Israel reaches the same conclusions reached by the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the extremist Paisleyites in Northern Ireland. Force is no substitute for injustice. Sooner or later you have to forgive those you have wronged.

To maybe get slightly off point, this year marks the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising when a coalition of left groups called the ZOB took up arms against the fascists. What indomitableness of spirit, what courage, what resourcefulness, what humanity, for these left wing groups to rise up against the Nazis and keep them at bay for months, knowing they faced an enemy so overwhelming that they would almost certainly die.

It is the thirst for freedom that drives people around the world to fight against their oppressors no matter how hopeless the situation seems.