Antony, if as you say 'The vast majority of Israeli citizens oppose the settler movement' is there not some way that majority opinion can be validated through a referendum? The settlements in the West Bank are a significant cause of international disapprobation, and their dismantling would be an undeniable sign of Israel's commitment to peace and fairness. There is no way a Palestinian state can be viable if it contains an archipelago of Israeli settlements.

This article is totally unfounded and misinformed. The so-called "settlements" do not define Israel as a Jewish state. There are many other elements that do define Israel as Jewish and Zionist - let's just start with 3,000 years of history, culture and tradition. Israel is so much more than the selective information you fixate on. And also no different from any other western nation forging an identity. Please get better informed.

It emerged last year that the majority of Israelis would prefer less confrontation with Palistinians and a less militant settler program. This article provides some sensible support for something only idealogues would dispute.

The claim such settlements do not define Israel is correct but this isn't what is being said. The article point out support for an IDF-run government is just not there anymore. "Any other western nation forging an identity" typically follows the law.

Elly- If you take a look at the author's credentials and his publishing history, I dare say he *is* well informed on the situation- just because someone doesn't agree with your point of view doesn't mean they're not well informed.

I agree completely, I've met many Jewish people who are increasingly concerned about the settlements, of various political orientations. These issues need to be addressed by the international community.

We've been hearing about he end of Israel as a Jewish state since its inception. Wishful thinking on the part of some.

I have no Jewish connections, but I am always bemused by the enemies of Israel - most of whom seem to want what the Nazis started to be finished by Islamic thugs and racists.

this topic should righfully concern both parties
and a wise person wouldnt get involved with an abrahamic family feud
#
trouble is the world is getting suckkked into this cause
the main drive of witch is to bring on armogeddon [AGAIN]

lest we forget the plains OF armogeddon[blood up to the stryrups]
clearly the 1000 years down the pit has done little for those called israel[meaning wars with god]

so as a brother to both sides
i will remind them both of the wise words of their messiah
who when he came was rejected even by his own

[who spoke of our living loving god of life
the personal [one to one god]

creator and life giver to all lands [all life]

there is not one living not given life from god
not one who is not a child of the father

think
how is the life GIVER served by death?

think jesus [THE messiah] died to prove
[even a thief on a cross ;WILL BE all BORN AGAIN

ie not wait smouldering in their graves till some 'reserection ''DAY'

but hey here is a deal
free land
just prove you got the right dna

but as the messiah said [know them by their fruits]
if the tree is good[true it is of good/god.

but also to be as jesus [not able to even see evil] in anyone
thus his teaching

love god
love neighbour
[do unto others as you would have them do unto YOU]

THAT YOU DO TO THE LEAST
you do to him

[even a beast knows the voice of its master]
know the life giver
isnt served by murder

3000 yrs of history,yeah right the Bible is a fairy story as far as I an concerned I think they made it up as they went along,the Palestinians have as much right to be there if not more than anyone.
Israel was brought into being by the Balfour Declaration after the UK gave away Palestine during the 1st World war for money.
There will never be peace until it is one state, it turned into a US supported South Africa,apartheid in the occupied territory,s with the settlers stealing more and more land,no wonder the Palestinians are fighting aganist this.

This article, while speaking in the name of "justice", in fact seeks to punish helpless victims.

Most Israelis, which Mr. Loewenstein seeks to punish, do not want the settlements, but can they do anything about it?

No: if they could - they already would!

While the settlers are relatively few in numbers, they are determined and formidable zealots. They have presence everywhere in Israel, including within the army ranks. They threaten army officers that try to remove them and already injured some. An Israeli police or army officer evacuating a major settlement can reasonably expect his child to be kidnapped on his/her way to kindergarten. Attempting to force the settlers to re-settle in Israel would bring about a civil war, of the type and magnitude that we saw in Bosnia and Ruanda.

Surprise surprise, many Israelis (including Ze'ev Sternhell and Gideon Levy, which were quoted in this article) do not even care about having a "Jewish state" (or at least, it is not that high on their priority-list), they just want to live peacefully, but what is the alternative? would that be a nicely civilized multi-cultured country like Australia?

No - for all realistic intents and purposes, the "enlightened" alternative is an oppressive Islamic regime, a Taliban apartheid state where both women and those Jews that will somehow still be allowed to live will be second-class citizens. I am sure the author would not be willing to live in such a country - so why should the Israelis agree?

The future seems bleak: the tendency is for many among the sensible and desperate Israelis that are able to do so, to leave the country, thus leaving it more and more in the hands of the settlers.

Pressuring innocent Israelis is not going to improve Israel's demographics and make it "less Jewish".

But why should someone who places Israel's terrible and real dangers withiin quotes (Hamas "terrorism" and Iranian "provocation") even care?

Could agree with you, Bennie.

But wouldn't it be better to take advice from another Jew, Henry Kissinger who not only wants Israel to get rid of its illegal Nukes, - but he also believes the whole world should get rid of its Nukes.

Let's hope with the now G20 global group now knocking out the old elitist G8 group something more sensible might happen.

Not only to follow the Kissinger Nil-Nuko's Plan, but also the nasty skity Western ideas causing much more hate from the ordinary Islamists.

Examples like us Westerners using ill-gotten gains to foolishly flash-up places like Dubai, with most lower class Arabs still only used as servants.

Which any high-school kid could tell them it's not the way for our world to go.

Cheers, BB, WA.

The more important issue is not 'The vast majority' of anything.....

it is "Which political/religious segment of the population is GROWING"

http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12436112

[The militant core group once numbered dozens, says the Israeli general commanding the West Bank, Gadi Shamni. Now there are hundreds. And they are backed, he says, by rabbis and political leaders from the more mainstream settler movement. The general sounds powerless, as he gives warning that “the extremist margins are growing wider.” The settlers have been running rings round the army for decades. That is how many of the settlements and outposts got built in the first place, defying the government’s purported restrictions.]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/842070.html
"Welcome to Settler Nation."

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/08/world/fg-settlers8
"Settler Block Growing."

http://jta.org/news/article/2007/04/02/101014/settlermovementisrael

"Settler movement bounces back"

COMMENT
Without reading Genesis/Exodus/Joshua/Judges.....you cannot even beGIN to appreciate the intensity of ideas driving the Settlers.
Just as Hamas followers minds are stuck in the 7th century... so to are the Settlers minds linked to the promises of G-d in those books.

"From the red sea to the Euphrates" is... "ISRAEL" if you believe those promises.

Don't bother trying to rip me apart.. simply "understannnnnnnd"..... that this is where the Settler movement comes from. Like it or lump it, hate it or love it... doesn't matter.. "understanding" it...does.

poly help me to understand the 'settler' mind set

so if i got a mother[or grand mother;ie less than one quaTer pure dna]i can come to israel and claim any palistein land FOR FREE?

because god gave it to my ancestors

well bro my ancestors are 100_percent_dutch[i want my families dutch estates back[what does abandonment for near 2000 years mean?my dutch estates are only abandoned for 54 years[i think i need to arm up[i got a case too]

i just do a sit-in right?weld door's shut[produce a fake reciept of sale?

ok now i just need a few quater/cast dutchies out there to form a mob

how about it[must be some quater cast dutchies out there]lets go claim back our dykes

god didnt give it[our ancestors BUILT it

wonder if belgum will sign an BELLfor style agreement letter with me
i will of course disregard EU motions for me to disist

we can abuse the dutch solgers[as traitors]when they try to break though my welded_shut boobytraped door

if enough of us do it we can control dutch politics

if we buy up the media they wont mention it to the natives[and we can twist the facts to suit ourselves

now how can we link this[to being by not gods will]but mans will

we built it/we own it

hey if all else fails
we will just open the dykes
and return the dirt back to the sea

those dutchies stole my land/were taking it back[forgive me beautrix][nothing personal you know]amstarDAMM becomes a gulag

rotterdam[west bank]will be mined so the dutchies dont get ideas[ha ha[they cant dig tunnels in swamps]

and we will use cluster bombs
we have 400 atomic bombs[and will use them]

just need some usa planes and bunker busting man-uitions
common clog hoppers unite[we can claim our homeland back[god knows we arnt accepted in these foreign shores]this govt actually decared a drug war on me]

when its a genetical condition[im dutch]and gen1;29,god gave me every herb bearing seed[for me it will be meet]

till we meet again on our homeland/built from the very dust of our ancestors

Must agree with polycarp on this one. Unless you take the time to understand a particular mindset, you might as well not try to deal with. It'll be like trying to stop the tide coming in.

Please, Polycarp, don't harp on about Israel's 500 atomic warheads - we still have sympathy for the modern Jews, but a newer better world won't stand for what you are on about.

As I mentioned in the earlier thread, any high school kid knows what a newer better world is all about.

Certainly us Westerners are to blame for Israel's awkward nuclear position in the first place - a position that could easily be the beginning of WW3.

Only pray that Obama can sense such a danger as well. such in mind as well.

Part of such a sense, of course, is that much of the danger was caused by us Westerners refusing to take any blame for the above problems, sheeting it all onto Islam.

Regards, BB, Buntine, WA

clearly any topic needs a cure
so i will try to reveal my vision of the cure

one state [not two state solution]
there are areas that have a dress code
and areas that dont

if muslim holy area then everyone wears the appropriate dress and custum[washing to enter mosque etc]

and for things link the wall everyone wears the correct dress and hat etc
basiclly everyone is dressed according to where they are

to enter the area everyone strips down their other clothing and wears the right [same] form of respectfull dress

policing will be difficult
thus police [army are paired [one from each sect]
each of who deals with their own belief

it cant be hard ,given god is a living loving god
we can give it a go sometime [why not now?]

jesus revealed EMANUEL [meaning GOD WITH US [all]
that we do to the least we do to him
we cover each other's back ]'s on holy days so the holy days of each is peacefull[does islam have a sabbeth?]

regardless this ongoing family fued is absurd
its time the people OF THE RISEN CHRIST mediate peace for the peacemaker[and while this ISNT HIS realm, he just may come for a visit
he just might bring pop[god[good] with him

how come his own know the messiah not?
test us our brother ,

know its about god [emanuel]WITH US
we just need to bring peace to the WHOLE[y] lands

and jesus will reveal there is much better than perpetual war

now we just need xtians to know
what jesus really did reveal about our father

who art owner possesor of the heavens
and did emerge the dust from the deep for all HIS children
[not just one family]

we can never know the all of god
[but through his creation]

I fear the outcome of denial among Jews. We don't hear of the millenia of life within the Pale from anything other than the elite Parisian zionist's derogatory view. There was a lot of romanticist claptrap written around then and it all turned to hell on European civilisation. So why is yiddish still so widely considered degenerate when along with this must go the same view of the lives of all those forebears from the pale. This doesn't bode well for what goes on in the heads of the jewish diaspora. And the wrong of invading and kicking out of the Palestinians justified by the crimes of europeans and the convenience of calling up the romantic scribblers call to arms and the evils of pursuing a utopian socialist emancipation. If zionism served a purpose after the holocaust its time has surely now passed. And the nepotism jews organise within finance, media, education and government will never do anything other than invite ganglike retaliation in any state.