Yuyutsu,I salute your honest and heartfelt post.I have perhaps not been reading you clearly enough.I agree with all you have said. The real battlefield is demography.I cant see how the end is going to pan out.Idealistically I hope to see one state with Palestinians and Israelis living in accord under an independent police force and judiciary for a transition before there is no need for them as each community accepts the other and can live in harmony, temple and synagogue attended by worshippers alike in peace.
Wont come? Ah well,one can dream.

socratease.

Thank you Socratease,

A one-state solution is not such a good idea, even as an ideal. Some sort of a confederation is better.
Assuming we already solved the big, life-and-death issues, there are still very different cultures.

It comes down to practical day-to-day matters. To begin with, they speak different languages, and most cannot speak, read or write each other's language.

Take just as one example the issue of the weekly day-of-rest: observant Jews cannot work on the Sabbath - they need to be home from work before sunset on Friday. Israel is the only country in the world where no employee can be expected to work on the sabbath, where no-one can get sacked and no Centerlink payments stopped if one insists on stopping work earlier on Fridays (especially in the winter).
Muslims, on the other hand, have their day-of-rest on Friday, and their most important prayer is on Friday morning (Sunday, BTW, is the first day of a normal working-week).

That was just one example: there are hundreds of such similar issues, each looking small in relation to the life-and-death matters that we face now, but together determine the fabric and quality of life. It is unwise to force different cultures to merge. See Yugoslavia, Checheslovakia, and recently Belgium.

Yuyutsu, you are absolutely right in stating that no solution will come about because of history, but the fact of the matter is, whether you like it or not, that Israel exists and where it exists is purely because of history and the value that people, both the Jewish people and others, have put on that history.

You, as a person, and your family, are inherently no different to the Palestinians. It is simply not a case of rational Israelis and irrational Palestinians. Or simply complaining about 'radicals' on both sides. If only it where quite so simple.

Both sides see their reality from their personal viewpoint placed in their own view on history, both recent and ancient, and the importance thereof. There is not a single Israeli or Palestinian who does not.

Also, I feel a bit dismayed that you find that different requirements, such a different rest day as of any importance whatsoever.

By focusing on the Religious aspect of it, it becomes a particular source of irritation and focus of difference, when that shouldn't be the case at all. People with children, people studying part-time, people with a disability, the list is really quite endless, where there is a case of requesting special consideration.

There are many legitimate requirements that workers may have and in this day and age it is expected that the workforce are no longer seen as faceless drones who all need the same, feel the same, act the same.

And on another note, if there is indeed a 50-50 feeling in Israel that Israel may not survive, well-how effective is the campaign of fear then? Sorry, that is just not a realistic fear. You are being played by your politicians. How afraid do you think the Palestinians can be made to feel then? That must be an even easier cake-walk with the recent show of Israeli military might.

Anansi,

I know more and more Israelis who don't give a damn about history. I can only hope that it is the same on the Palestinian side.

Most of the world drives on the right side of the road, so the driver's wheel and controls are on the left. In Australia though, we drive on the left side and the driver sits on the right. Now suppose you wanted to unite Australia and the Philippines, you would face a serious and expensive problem.

I am not claiming that it is insurmountable, but when facing hundreds of similar issues at once, it is either sheer ignorance or sheer cruelty to try to forcibly bridge the gaps. What's the point in shaking up people's lives so violently? of course it can be done, it even happened before... in the Chinese cultural revolution and by Pol Pot in Cambodia. Do we need more of that?

I also mentioned the issue of language: for most people there is a short window of opportunity to learn a new language. If you haven't spoken a language before the age of 10, you will never feel natural and at ease with it as with the language(s) you grew up with. If you haven't learned a language before the age of 20, you will hardly ever speak it fluently.

Of course, when it is a life-and-death matter, if it is the only way to stop a war, then there can be certain sacrifices, but I don't believe this is the case. What is the point in such cruelty? would I ask you to marry and share your life with someone you do not like, who has totally different values and habits?
(arranged marriages? the Moonies?... is this your example?)

About the 50-50 feeling: the main fear is of Iran. The Iranian leadership is known to be irrational. They consider it a religious duty to wipe-out israel and are not afraid to die because they believe in the near "second-coming" of their hidden-Imam. Once they have nukes, they will not hesitate to launch them and/or hand them to Hezbollah/Hamas.

You give a certain reality Yuyutsu, expressed from a secular viewpoint. It is not religious hypocrisy which is to be exposed by the abandonment of Israel as legitimate entity – but one coming from the purely secular. Many who join the defamation and delegitimisation of the state Israel certainly do so while claiming only the highest ethical motives - a list of American and European Jews of this class would also fill many pages. The militarism, of the Jewish setters, however, is not to be in any way condoned, as their own scripture might suggest, “…You eat with the blood and lift up your eyes towards your idols, and shed blood; and shall you possess the land? You stand upon your sword, you carry out disgusting deeds…and shall you possess the land?” (Ezekiel 33: 23-26)

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 brought with it the installation of a clerical regime that has sought to expand its influence by taking the lead in promoting Israel's destruction. This has presented Israel with a grave new threat. In terms of broader enmity in the Muslim world, however, the greatest factor has been aggressive Saudi export of Wahhabi fundamentalism, its preaching of virulent Jew-hatred (and hatred of other non-Muslims), and its ever increasing influence not only in once tolerant Islamic nations but also in Muslim communities in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere.

In terms of Israel's Palestinian Arab neighbors, Hamas and the other Islamist organisations continue to be committed to Israel's ultimate destruction. Whatever true moderates exist among the Palestinians, they have no political voice or influence. In addition to the animosity of the Arab world, Israel is faced with much hostile sentiment in Europe, fed by traditional anti-Semitism, by leftist anti-Americanism and association of Israel with America, by perverse, ahistorical leftist twisting of the Israeli-Arab conflict into Israeli colonialists brutalising the supposedly indigenous population, and by the European media being house organs for anti-Israel bigotry of all these pedigrees. Will Islamist hostility be appeased, if only Israel would make sufficient amends or simply disappear? – Hardly (if you have a reasonable grasp of history).

WHERE WILL THE JEWS GO IF THEY LEAVE ISRAEL?

There is the problem of where the Jews are to go if they leave Israel. This was why they ended up in Palestine after world war 2 because nobody else in the world wanted them in such large numbers even the British and American and Australians who fought to stop their slaughter. (ALTHOUGH,the West didn't really fight to save the Jews,they fought to save themselves from Hitlers everadvancing army especially when he took Poland and set his sights on France.

Well, where DO we resettle the Jews today? Maybe all the Muslim immigrants in Europe and the West could be sent to LIve in Israel and all the Jews resettled in Europe,America and Australia.

Their are millions of muslims in the West just as there are millions of Jews on Arab land. Let's do a swap. No. Why Not?
Because not only do the Arabs want Israel they want to eventually overrun Europe,America and Britain. As was stated in earlier posts either Demography or genecide will ultimately decide this issue,peace talks will not.

The Muslims and the Jews generate their own problems in host countries because they both practice segration and aparthied and will not marry outside of their tribes. (the ultimate racism).

That's what got the Jews killed in Germany and it is what causes the resentment of muslim immigrants in welcoming countries around the world.