Irfan:

I am not opposed to the two state solution. What I maintain is that it will not happen because:

1. The Arabs want 100% of the West Bank and Gaza
2. The Arabs want 500000 Jews kicked out of the West Bank
3. The Arabs want the right to return to Israel

They are perfectly entitled to make these demands.But Israel is perfectly entitled to reject them.

Result - no two state solution is possible.

These Arab demands have remained unchanged and unmodified since 1967 and there is no indication they will be altered. You don't have to be an Einstein to conclude that the two state solution is a dead duck.

Further from *David's* comments, the militant Israelies will not as a matter of "security" policy tolerate hostiles or even potential hostiles on their border.

For the sake of public opinion and the cameras they will play the game of "peace talks" but that is all they are, a game only.

Where is the evidence for this U may ask, well, history to date suggets that every time a peaceful solution comes close, one hostile from one side or the other will commit an attrocity and suddenly old wounds are re-opened, old prejudices inflamed and in rapid time all cards for peace are off the table. Thus, my view is that if the prospect of peace is allowed to be ruined over and over by the hostile minority, then the so called "peace" overtures of the political establishment are duplicitous.

As spoken of recently, way back in '97 *Shimon Peres* said
"Someone must pay the price."

My view is, why should the Palestinian population as a whole be made to suffer? Rather, if it was up to me, I would disable the joint Israeli/Hamas defence grid (the civilian non combatants) and offer them something like an EU passport with temporary "holiday houses" in other places, well away from the combat zone and military line of control. They need not relinquish their claims to their land of course, but neither should they have to suffer in so doing.

The Arabians, some of whom are also Muslims, are blessed with more than enough wealth to be able to do this.

Then, if some want to smash on with Israel, then do so without risking the children, women and oldies.

But U must know, the hard line Israelies are well off the leash and the "real" Jews will not be able to control them. If it came to a time when there were only willing combatants left in Gaza and the West Bank, my bet would be that they will kill U all.

Sometimes it is necessary to lose the battle in order to win the war.

...Adam...

"No one - Jew or Arab - need leave his current house if the West Bank is divided between Jordan and Israel. Is this clear enough?" (David Singer)

1. Then what about those who WANT to leave their current house?

The quoted number of 500,000 includes residents of Jewish suburbs of east-Jerusalem, not just hard-core settlers. About half of those (250,000) are on the wrong side of the border only for economic reasons, being lured there by cheap-housing offered by previous governments. They will eagerly return to Israel once given the financial incentive. Are you proposing to simply forget them there?

Then again, what about the Palestinians who want to leave and go to Arab countries but are not allowed to?

2. Nobody wants the west bank, it is good for no-one.

Jordan could receive full control of the west-bank any day if they wanted, but they rejected the offer because, understandably, they are not stupid and don't need a subversive Palestinian majority in their country.

Israel is suffering from the occupation which corrupts it from the inside. Once there is no conflict, thus no security needs, why should it keep holding those toxic places for even one minute longer?

The Palestinians don't want this land either, they say they do for the camera, but never mean it, they rejected it several times when offered, because they don't want to have the responsibility that comes with having a proper state.

The only ones that seem to want this place are the lunatics - both the Jewish settlers and Hamas: perhaps they should be given control there so they decimate each other until none is left.

Dream On

Your suggestion to issue non-civilian combatants the chance to temporarily leave Gaza is a sound one. The West wrings its hands at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza but hesitates to take any action to evacuate the threatened population or demand that Hamas allows them to leave and seek safer havens. Holding them hostage to the conflict raises not one comment of concern.

Yuyutsu

1. Anyone - Jew or Arab - wanting to leave his current home in the West Bank should be free do so. Jews can certainly live in Israel.The future of the Arab residents is somewhat less clear because as you say the Arab states are reluctant to accept them. An international drive to offer citizenship to departing West Bank Arabs would probably allow their resettlement without too much trauma.

2. The West Bank is the biblical heartland of the Jewish people. It was called Judea and Samaria until the name "West Bank" began to be used in 1950 after Jordan drove out the Jews then living there and attempted to annex it following the Arab invasion of Palestine in 1948 It is no man's land at present in that neither Jews nor Arabs exercise internationally recognised sovereignty. I think your assessment that no one wants it is wide of the mark.

3. Equating Jews living in the West Bank with Hamas is wide of the mark.
I don't know of these Jewish residents - or any Jews - proclaiming their rights in the same blunt direct way as Hamas does:

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day."

David,

No doubt that Jewish settlers are allowed to go back to Israel and then... sleep in the streets? The question is whether you agree that the Israeli government that pushed about half of them into the occupied territories (including east Jerusalem) with economic incentives, ought to compensate them with alternate housing.

I had no intention of making a general comparison between the [other half of the] settlers and Hamas. Of course they have differences, but they do have one thing in common: they are both interested in this piece of land. This land is harmful for Israel, harmful to Jordan, unwanted by most Palestinians, but nevertheless those two fanatic groups want it, for whatever irrational reasons of their own, so I was suggesting to let them have it in common, thus allowing them to finish each other off there and relieve the middle-east and the world of their presence.

Yuyutsu

Israel has offered to introduce a compensation package to enable 70000 Jews to leave the sparsely Jewish populated areas of the West Bank thus allowing the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state in about 93.5% of the West Bank.

A land swap offered by Israel equivalent to the other 6.5% would allow the remaining 430000 Jews to stay in their current homes in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority (PA)reportedly will not have a bar of this proposal. It wants all 500000 Jews removed and is resisting a land swap.

The parties are presently stalemated and it will take a miracle for the PA to change its negotiating position on these two dealbreakers.

Hanging out for 100% when you have been offered the equivalent of 100% is bizarre Arab bazaar bargaining taken to its most ridiculous extreme. That is their prerogative but it makes absolutely no sense at all. It is reminiscent of scores of lost opportunities that have eluded the Arabs of Palestine since 1937.

Why every square metre of the West Bank now needs to be transformed into a 22nd Arab State is a real mystery. There has never been an independent Arab State located there.

When the Arabs conquered and occupied it between 1948-1967 and drove out the Jews living there they never once thought of creating a state for its exclusively Arab population. Instead it was used as a giant refugee concentration camp with its occupants dependent on UNWRA handouts. It became the frontline to launch terrorist attacks into Israel and as a launching pad to attack Israel in 1967.

In view of the PA's intransigent position, maybe Israel should offer to compensate 70000 Arabs living in close proximity to heavily populated Jewish areas in the West Bank to leave.

This would enable them to emigrate to willing host countries where they could begin a new life freed of the irrational policies of the PA that are causing them personal suffering on a daily basis.