Wobbles: On re-reading the contributions to this chat, it seems as if most people here are more concerned about allocating blame, rather than suggesting ways out of the impasse. Each side treats the other as if it were one person who can be "taught a lesson"...all Palestinians are Hamas, all Israelis are greedy settlers, etc. At base it's a quarrel over land, irrespective of who got there first. The Palestinians are justifiably resentful at being robbed of their land, while Israelis, justifiably determined to see no repetition of the Holocaust, resent terror attacks and cannot understand Palestinian resentment. King Solomon, where are you when we need you?

wobbles

A problem is that the fundamentalists in the surrounding states believe with sincerity that their God given mission is to make everyone a follower of the Prophet Muhammed as they interpret his words. They also believe that they are entitled, indeed obliged, to kill anyone that gets in the way of that mission. Israel is therefore a sticking point, a non Islamic state right in the middle of their territory. They have already freed Lebanon from its Christian majority, but Israel grows in strength.

The fundamentalists are only a small minority in the Islamic world. Most Muslims are a decent moral bunch who we would all enjoy having as neighbours, but even a tiny minority amongst such a large religious group still numbers many times the population of Australia. Because of a failure of most middle eastern states to establish conditions where the populace at large can live comfortable lives free of poverty, this minority has a large leverage amongst discontented people throughout the region. Blaming Israel is a perfect way to distract their attention away from the leaders.

Is has nothing to do with Zionism or Jews, Israel is a thorn in the side of these people. It could have been Buddhists or Confucians, look at what happened to the Baha'i and Druze, or for that matter Christians in the area.

Recognise the real problem and remember that the majority in Israel are refugees from other ME countries.

Yes, Wobbles, the answer is unequivocal YES to your second question:

"If those organisations ended tomorrow, would Israel just pack up and quietly go home and abandon all it's objectives?"

This is exactly what Israel did when it signed a peace agreement with Egypt, this is what it will do once there is a credible peace with Syria, this is what Israel is currently offering Lebanon.

True, there are some lunatic Jewish settlers with crazy messianic agendas (believing that occupying land will hasten the coming of their messiah), but they are a minority and the objective of the vast majority of Israelis is just to live in peace. If not for the deadly terror attacks, Israel would have brought those settlers under control - the tragedy is that those terror attacks paralyse Israeli politics to the extent that it is unable to deal with the violent settlers.
Just yesterday the Israeli army attempted to remove caravans from an illegal settlement - one settler snatched a soldier's gun and shot 5 times in the air, while another attached a knife to a soldier's throat and took his helmet. Previously those settlers sabotaged army vehicles, wounded military officers and threatened their families.

With such an undecisive government, the *mighty* Israeli army is afraid of the settlers: Israel is simply too weak to deal with so many terrorists at once, but once the terrorists across the border are gone, it will be able to deal effectively with its inner ones.

Without those Muslim terrorists, the Palestinians could have had a happy flourishing state long ago, including both the West Bank and Gaza, a bridge between them and the refugee problem satisfactorily solved, but as "Logic" explained just above, this would go against the ineterests of Hezbollah and Hamas, who are secret-allies of the Jewish settlers: they cannot live without each other!

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Bushbred:
In theory I like your idea of a Multi-National permanent protection force for Israel, but in practice, what mother will accept her son to be killed for foreign interests? wouldn't they all flee at the first shot?

Thanks for the credit, Yuyutsu, and also agree that commonsense as it could be called, would be difficult to ensue.

Hope it is okay for me to use a heading from the logic of Immanuel Kant, late 18th century German preacher and philosopher who first coined the idea for a Federation of Nations, which actually did help to begin the League of Nations as well as the United Nations.

But unfortunately the inheritors did not stick to Kant's concluding message of warning that -

from this day on not one personage nor even one great nation must ever be trusted to ensue - what he called - Perpetual Peace.

Far better it be a Federation of Nations.

As Kant concluded.

Yoohooo boys,

The game has changed!

Bushbred is likely right to suggest the Iranians have coldwar nuclear warheads. Why else would they show the world they have the rockets capable of delivering them? As they did a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think the Iranians need to or will attack anyone with them. Like Israel the threat of having them is enough. I think they are smart enough to let the world see just how militarialy pigheaded Israel can be.

The tide to peace is underway in the region. Israel is negotiating with Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria. Israel by now, at US prodding, must realise it can no longer safely baulk at least to returning to it's '67 borders. .. and removing the occupation and the land those settlements are built on. All other issues are now absolutely irrelevant.

Young Steve,

The truth is that most Palestinians living in the territories are supporters of either Hamas or Fatah. If you have seen any footage of the territories you would know that the cult of death is pervasive. Photos of “Martyrs” are everywhere.

Support for Israel’s settlers runs about 10 to 15% of the population. Yutsu-Yutsu is bang with his analysis of the difficulties of Israel dealing with settlers, whilst the terrorists are continuing with their bombing campaign. Hamas can’t even stop firing missiles at Israel during a ceasefire, for gods sake.

Mahmoud Abbas and his bunch are Israels best chance of securing a lasting peace deal. Unfortunately, they are also a bunch of corrupt b@stards.

You say >> “The Palestinians are justifiably resentful at being robbed of their land”

But what about the Gazans? Why are they more militant than the occupied West Bank citizens? They had the chance to start building their country, instead they used the opportunity to better attack Israel. Israel’s crackdown on Gaza came AFTER the rocket and other terror attacks from that territory.

The problem is the Islamic extremism of Hamas. They are not interested in negotiated settlements. They believe they have God on their side, and they want to win it all.

I understand that some people might say Israels settlers are the same. I agree they are. But the settlers aren’t the gov’t in Israel. They don’t have a lot of support, and if the terror attacks stopped, the gov’t would have the ability to face these groups down.

Israel has done it before. They unilaterally pulled out of Gaza, leaving their settlements behind. If the attacks had stopped I have little doubt that Israel would have continued by withdrawing from all of the Palestinian areas of the West Bank as well as a number of the smaller settlements.

Israels experience with Gaza shows that it is not as simple as just withdrawing from the territories. All that will achieve is more Israeli casualties as new locations for rocket attacks and suicide bomber infiltration, will be found.