shadow minister,

Mahmoud Abbas has consistently and recently accepted
the two-state solution. Rejection of individual peace
plans because of their flaws is not the same as rejecting
the two-state solution.

Israel has also rejected peace plans, yet that does not
mean it has rejected the two state-solution.

A two state solution is worth pursuing.

Foxy,

"The popular media both in the US and here has been sold
the myth that Israel is the victim in this conflict and
is only defending itself against its hostile neighbours."

Well you might call it a myth but the Palestinian leadership specifically and over a long period have said that their aim is to destroy Israel and kill and/or expel all Jews from the Levant. On what basis do you decide to ignore what they actually say. What Ben Gurion said 70 years ago might have some minor relevance to today and certainly has relevance in understanding that past period.

Why do you, however, decide to ignore the specific words and threats from the CURRENT Palestinian leadership? Do you think they lie in their stated aims?

If they are not lying, if indeed they do hope to achieve the aim of destroying Israel, do you think Israel has the right to defend itself? If not, why not?

"Do you concede that Israel sits
on stolen land"

No. Stolen from who? Israel exists in the original Palestinian Mandate. The nation exists within those original boarders. It is no more 'occupied' or 'stolen' than say, Tennessee is stolen as a result of having lost a civil war. A civil war was fought in 1948 and that established the existence of Israel as being the land of the Palestinian Mandate.

"while the people fighting back have rocks and
essentially bottle rockets."

Am I to take it that you're OK with Israel defending itself, but that it should do so with one arm tied behind it back in order to make the fight fairer? I wonder if you'd be in favour of make the fight fair if you lived in the attack zone of Hamas' rockets?

Pauliar,

Those that falsely claim that Israeli tanks are deliberately driving over Palestinian mothers and babies are certainly anti-semitic.

As a green, you have shown your true anti-semitic colours. You should be ashamed.

Foxy,

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-has-done-everything-it-can-for-peace-and-was-rejected-opinion-669687

"It is essential to know that the Palestinians turned down two concrete Israeli offers of peace according to their own demands (in 2000 and 2008), ending the occupation and creating a Palestinian state. That’s to say, the vaunted, holy peace process reached its logical conclusion, but it did not result in peace. Twice.
By rejecting these offers, the Palestinians destroyed the Israeli peace camp. Support for the two-state solution, Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace, has dropped to its lowest level among Israelis, 42%. Zionist Israeli political parties built on the idea of peace with the Palestinians scramble to remake their images but still poll in single digits. That includes Labor, which ruled Israel practically unchallenged for the first three decades of its existence. Whatever government emerges from Israel’s current political mess will not have peace with the Palestinians anywhere near the top of its agenda. The issue will continue to be a club to bash political opponents with, no more.
By turning down Israel’s offers in 2000 and 2008, the Palestinians betrayed their Israeli backers, creating instead a whole new classification: the Oslo-disappointed – a reference to the 1993 and 1995 accords between Israel and the Palestinians that were supposed to have led to a two-state solution but failed.
Yet the chorus continues. Here are some of the options of “all Israel has to do”:
• Pull out of the West Bank
• Create a federation with Palestine and Jordan
• grant full citizenship to the Palestinians in the West Bank
• Allow unlimited humanitarian aid to enter Gaza
Let’s look at these, one by one:

• Israel pulled out of Gaza unconditionally, removing its 8,500 settlers and its military, in 2005. The hope was that Gaza would be a hub of international trade, progress, and enlightenment. Instead, it became a hub of Hamas terrorism, repression, and rocket attacks. No one in their right mind would expect Israel to just up and pull out of the West Bank after that, leaving its main population centres less than 10 miles from the border."

Cont,

• A federation with Palestine and Jordan would create a state with a huge majority of Arabs and a minority of Jews. The Jews would get a Bantustan formerly known as Israel, and the overriding Arab majority in the joint government would … well, just imagine.

• There are those who believe that we should all just be citizens of some state no longer, or not for long, called Israel, and we’ll just live happily ever after. Among the advocates are Jews who believe that the biblical land of Israel belongs to the Jews, and Arabs who believe that this is the most efficient way to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel. Guess who’s right.

• Humanitarian aid is already moving into Gaza, and the turf wars over who will control it are afoot. The new US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says it will weaken Hamas and presumably lead toward peace. He probably knows better. We’ve been here before. Hamas controls Gaza and Hamas will control the aid and the building supplies, siphoning them off for its own “needs”—primarily rebuilding the tunnels and weapons workshops destroyed in 11 days of Israeli airstrikes.

That brings us to the distortions. First, when in the history of the world was the side that was attacked with more than 4,000 rockets pressured to stop its own military operation, acknowledged as accurately hitting Hamas targets and not so many civilians by no less than the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the obsolete and hate-mongering UN Palestinian refugee organization, after just 11 days? How long did the US carry out military operations in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands, with little pressure from the world to stop, and little or no evidence that anyone there actually attacked the US? Israel appears to be in a whole new category of nations with its own very special set of rules. But we knew that.

mhaze,

"Violence is part of the resistance to occupation.
The basic fact is not the violence; the basic fact
is the occupation. Violence is a symptom; the
occupation is the disease - a mortal disease for everybody
concerned, the occupied and the occupiers."
(Uri Avnery).

Have you read Ilan Pappe's book - "The ethnic cleansing of
Palestine," and its relevance to resolving the conflict?

_____________________________________________________________________

shadow minister,

It all depends on whose version of events you read, doesn't it?
Here's another version for you:

http://theguardian.com/world/2017/may/16/the-real-reason-the-israel-palestine-peace-process-always-fails