"Exactly! Why shouldn't the Palestinians be afforded just that right? Why do they have to deal with having these fanatics foisted on them?"

And why should Israel have to deal with the Hamas fanatics, their tunnels (designed to kidnap Israelis) and missiles, and had the wall not been there, suicide-bombers as well?

"They have plenty of their own to deal with"

Indeed, and they have not demonstrated any success there either.

"Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis should be allowed to export their problems"

What is done is done: the daemons are already out of the bottle, and they never asked for permissions in the first place. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have the power to take back their daemon and push it back into its bottle, it is simply IMPOSSIBLE. They already grabbed their territories - the settlement-areas and the Gaza strip, so these are lost and all that is left is to build a strong wall around them and good anti-missile and anti-tunnel defences, as to minimize the damage to innocent people.

"The only way those problems can be owned by all is in a single state."

The only way is to isolate and keep out the fanatics.
No combination of one-state, 2-states or even 5-states can be stable with the fanatics inside.

Normal Israelis and normal Palestinians have no conflict between them, so once the fanatics are kept out, they will easily come to an agreement. Let them decide what's best for themselves, but I suspect that it will not be a single state, simply because they speak different languages and their cultures are too different. However, it could be a federation or a confederation, or simply 2 friendly states (not including the fanatics' ghettos) living side-by-side and sharing resources as part of the European-Union (assuming that Europe will pull its weight and contribute to the peace by accepting both).

Rstuart “I have 'comprehended' the gravity of their actions while certainly not excusing those on the other side of the conflict.”

You are not the sole vessel of comprehension.

I comprehend the consequences of tolerating states, like Palestine (or whatever you choose to call it), who see terrorism as a legitimate tool of diplomacy.

As dearest Margaret observed

"Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace."

As the Palestinians continue to demonstrate, regardless what concessions Israel has made or may make,

rockets and terrorist attacks on Israel will continue

It is Palestinian intransigence which is the major hurdle to peace.

“So you want to dismiss the Court, international law, the UN General Assembly? I think that takes a certain lack of comprehension on what it takes to work toward a more peaceful world.”

Kowtowing to a bunch of murderous terrorists will achieve nothing.

The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist and if they coincidentally happen to be Palestinians, so be it.

Recent history is littered with the vacillating deceit and lies of the Palestinians.

Now they fight among themselves and cause havoc in Lebanon…

The Israelis are entitled to keep Israel safe and the territory Israeli acquired as the “spoils of war” from the 1967 war, is israel's to decide the disposition of, regardless what the international court or the UN (both toothless tigers) say because we, including the Palestinians, all know… what the UN and the international court will actually do

Sweet FA.

Regarding Israeli settlers terrorists

This is simple,

Israel sends her “settler terrorists” to trial and prison.

Palestine idolizes terrorists and award them places of honour in their community.

Each state can be considered in how they deal with terrorists “from their own ranks”
and obviously, I have no problem in supporting Israel,

what you do is a matter for your conscience

Dear Col Rouge,

Not quite as funny but all right.

Although 'dearest Margaret' did get a chuckle. I'm getting an image of Maggie's picture on your bedside table...am I close?

And calling me rstuart wasn't bad either.

However I am a little disappointed you seem to have given up on the gipper so soon.

I like the 'land for peace' question. One wonders how much of the West Bank the long suffering Palestinians have to give up before they get peace? They have effective control of less than half of it now. What is going to satisfy the Israelis?

It is like Japan invading Australia and placing us all in South Australia then every time we reacted they took a little more and if we protested the answer would be 'there is always New Zealand'.

So you've given the UN, the International Court and international law the flick can we try the Israeli Civil Administration who defines the unauthorised seizure of private Palestinian land as 'theft'. They also admit that one third of settlements are built on private Palestinian land originally seized by the IDF for 'security purposes'. This mentality of grabbing land for settlers then grabbing more land to secure them, letting that land be settled thus having reason to grab more is only headed one way.

Australia finally joined most of the rest of the world in condemning the settlements in 2008.

The rest of the world and now even the USA see Israeli “intransigence which is the major hurdle to peace.”

So Col Rouge at what point do you deem enough is enough if at all?

And please excuse the impertinence of the question but are you Jewish?

Dear Yuyutsu,

I was wondering if you have the same attitude to the Christian fanatics in Serbia? Should that area be separated into its religious divides as well, as many states as it takes?

The Christians in Serbia committed genocide on a scale that dwarfs the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the latter part of last century. I find it instructive to learn Serbia actually suspended the teaching of evolution in their schools for a short period of time until wiser heads prevailed.

Dear Csteele,

Sorry, I am not familiar with the situation in Serbia, so I never established any opinions on that matter. I guess that if your description is correct, so it's more or less the same as the middle-east and Serbian fanatics cannot be controlled otherwise, then an area should be designated and set aside, where all fanatics, Christian or otherwise, will be concentrated and conduct there their wars against each other without disturbing the others.

All I care is for my family to be able to live in safety and peace, without the nuisance of terrorists within their own country (of whatever religion) and being caught in-between those gangs fighting each other. They deserve to have a big wall that will keep those crazy fanatics locked behind it forever.

There is no war or conflict between ordinary Israelis and ordinary Palestinians. Even religion is not a big deal or a point of contention for normal people.

The world fails miserably to solve the middle-east crisis because it failed to identify the problem correctly in the first place: so many talks about the presumed "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" - how can one ever solve a problem that does not exist?!

The real crisis is about fanatic terrorists on both sides which neither Israel nor Palestine have the resources to control. If the world wants to help, we should be helping those people to quash this cancer instead of blindly attacking their healthy cells as well.