Rick Jones:

And what right do the Arabs have to land they stole from the Byzantines, who took it from the Jew and subsequently lost it to the Ottoman Turks, who in turn lost it to the British?

You are denying the history of nations, all nations, because you despise then Jews for having power and military might on the edge of the Ummah.

Asalam aleikhum, habibi.

Maryanne:

As you say, the Jews were absent from the land of Palestine for almost two millennia. Then they return (with the aid of the world’s superpowers) to retake the land by force over the past 100 years, from the families whose ancestors have tended their flocks and orchards, and farmed the land for millennia. You want to force these people out of their homes and off their land at the point of gun. Is that your idea of justice? Shame!

This peace process will fail because the two-state solution is a nonstarter. The Jews have no right to a piece of Palestine after being absent for almost 2 millennia prior to 1947. The 5 million Israeli Jews should join their 5.7 million brethren in the USA and form a true Jewish homeland with 80% of the Jews on the planet. We can support it; Palestine cannot.

Peace? No. Two reasons:

1) Israel was formed illegally (do you really want to get into that?).

No justice - no peace.

Justice is long beyond the pale.

Ergo, no peace - ever.

2) Nationalism.

So extraordinarily and tragically sad.

The heart of this horrible tragedy?

1) the immorality of the US and the UK governments with the support of their immoral, stupid, and ignorant christian citizens.

Why didn't they take in the Hebrews?

Any moron would have seen this coming - would have known that they were mid-wife to a slaughter.

The footnote will read: "Truman trying to cash Balfour's check with the blood of Palestinians and Hebrews alike".

Completely backwards. The power of the Palestinians is in their opportunity to accept rather than reject. The tragedy is that they haven't exercised this power.

Those who self-identify with/subscribe to the Roman Palatinate/Palastine are delusional. Though "Caesar" lingers in the Papacy, as Hobbes instructs, Roman Palastine is only a vestige in disturbed minds unconcerned by the Papacy's recent commission of the Holocaust. America's Founding Whigs rejected the Roman Anti-Christ by establishing the New Secular Order (Novus Ordo Seclorem). The State of Israel has every right to reject it as well, particularly as its greatest proponents, the Maronite Roman Catholics, share the same Babylonian, child-molesting homosexual priesthood which created and endorsed Adolph Hitler.

Get rid of the Roman Anti-Christ's Fifth Column in the U.S.: Bush, Cheney, Rockefeller, etc. who financed Hitler, killed JFK to keep us in Vietnam, and committed 9-11; and let the State of Israel get rid of their Roman Catholic Fifth Column antagonists, including the Islamic Arab heirs of the clans of Sodom and Gommorah, as well.

Great article. It's nice to hear the Palestinian perspective for a change. All that is ever discussed is how the "Arabs" don't want peace and how they need to accept Israel when they have clearly already done so. I really don't know why this is STILL being discussed. The Palestinian government (PLO) accepted Israel's right to exist during its peace talks in 1993 between and Arafat and Rabin. And in 2002 the rest of the Arab nations on behalf of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's proposal have offered complete normalization of relations with Israel and acceptance of Israel's right to exist under the condition that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders which is in accordance with previous United Nations resolutions. This debate over the Arabs accepting Israel is baseless at this point.

Great article. It's nice to hear the Palestinian perspective for a change. All that is ever discussed is how the "Arabs" don't want peace and how they need to accept Israel when they have clearly already done so. I really don't know why this is STILL being discussed. The Palestinian government (PLO) accepted Israel's right to exist during its peace talks in 1993 between and Arafat and Rabin. And in 2006 the rest of the Arab nations on behalf of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's proposal have offered complete normalization of relations with Israel and acceptance of Israel's right to exist under the condition that Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders which is in accordance with previous United Nations resolutions. This debate over the Arabs accepting Israel is baseless at this point.

Perhaps President Clinton blamed the Palestinians for the collapse of the Camp David Accords, because they were to blame. Arafat never put forth a counter offer. His only contribution (according to Dennis Ross) was to declare that Jerusalem was never a Jewish city; contradicting both the new and the old Testament. Then he went back to start the war he had planned.

Yes the Palestinians have the right to say no, just as they did in 1922, 1947 and 2000. But the longer they say no, the less they receive in the end. They need to give up their dream of destroying Israel. Then they will have their state.

Such a quintessentially Palestinian viewpoint. "Our power is in saying No". They said their first No in 1947 to the partition plan and have continued to say No ever since. 60 years have passed, and they still don't see the connection between saying No and between the checkpoints, the separation wall, the settlements, and everything else they keep complaining about. Instead of the incessant complaints, why don't you try saying Yes for a change, and see what happens?

The claim that Palestinians want and yearn for peace is belied by the democratic election of Hamas, an ardent opponent of any form of peace with Israel. We wish it were true, but unfortunately the population has been brainwashed to demonize Jews as evil demons and glorify mass murderers as martyrs. Sadly, Palestinians don't want peace, they want victory. And until there is a deep cultural shift, their commitment to violence, in spite of its utter failure to achieve any benefits for half a century, will not abate no matter what happens in Anapolis.

If the Palestinian negotiators' principal power is to say no or nullify, then the principal power of the expatriate Palestinian journalist is to obfuscate: chide the West (in English) for failure to sanction Israel; tell the Arabs (in Arabic) to continue the struggle or concede at most a truce. The real issues on the table are never addressed directly: recognize of Israel, renounce the "right of return," and accept peace and normal relations with an Israel inside 1967 borders, a Palestine of Gaza and the West Bank, and perhaps a neutral control over key zones of Jerusalem. In English, Kuttab will write "maybe [blank], provided [pst, pst, $], but this turns out to be unsalable to the "base," including Hamas, no matter the $weeteners. So its back to denial and the cult of martyrdom, forever and ever. This is not a rewarding prospect.

Unfortunately, there can be no lasting peace until the Arab peoples--and the rest of the world--recognize the Land of Israel as the ancient and historic homeland of the Jewish People.

How, truly, can Israel be colonialist or illegitimate??

The Jews were the original inhabitants of the Holy Land.

The earliest reference to Israel is from the Funerary Stela of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah in 1209 B.C.! (And its sitting in museum in Cairo, by the way)

Indeed, ironic perhaps, but Jews' closest genetic cousins are Syrian. (The fact that most of these tests were done at Oxford is maybe even more ironic...)

After all, Jesus was a Jew--as was Isaac and Jacob, Jeremiah and Isaiah, all the Prophets, Kings David and Solomon, Mary, Josheph, John the Baptist, all the Disciples, etc....

The Jews were kicked out of their land by the Roman Empire and forced into Exile for nearly two thousand years.

One would think that this tiny group (there are 13.2 Million Jews in the world, compared to 2 Billion Christians and 1.6 Billion Muslims), expelled by Empire, exiled, and then returned to their original homeland after mass destruction in Europe and final expulsion from the Arab world would elicit sympathy and support among "Liberals."

Unfortunately, for those who believe in supersessionist philosophy--that Christianity and Islam superseded or replaced their mother faith community, the Jewish People--its rather a problem that the Jews returned to Jerusalem.

That means all the tenets that have been taught over the centuries--that Jews are no longer Chosen but in fact cursed and destined to live in exile, that all the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures relating to Israel and Judah now belong to the Church or, as stated in the Koran, the followers of Mohammad---might ring false.

Thus, most of the world can't stand the idea of Jews controlling their own country in their own ancestral homeland and returning to power in the city of their ancient Kings, Jerusalem.

Lebanon can shell Palestinian camps all day long--No one cares.

Jordan killed more Palestinians in Black September then Israel in all her history--No one said a word.

Iran persecutes more then a million Sunni Arabs within their borders, Syria forces its Kurds into abject poverty, etc., etc.....There are no protests.

As a Palestinian in East Jerusalem once told me, "the truth is, if we were to admit it to ourselves, is that people only pay attention to us because they hate the Jews."

What the heck did Abbas reject? He went to this conference after caving in on all requests for it to be substantive, deal with core issues, have timelines. He necer said NO to Condi or Israelis. The only time he said "NO" was to Hamas AFTER they sought negotiations post- June Gaza takeover. What did this achieve but leave the more pragmatic Hamas voices twisting in the wind. If he has any decency and no intention of turning West Bank into police state, which is the next thing that will happen, he will insist now gaining the freedom of Marwan Baghouti. Abbas can't deliver a Palestinian state, Marwan could.

I can only draw from a 'succesful' parallel, N. Ireland. Your country, as mine is split in 2, north-south, east-west. The IRA, Hamas. Hamas was not invited to the conference, participation as a ghost. What will come of this gathering of the living and the departed, the hopeful, the powerfull, the occupiers? The oppressed in poverty. IRA via Sinn Fein is in government with Unionists, but at Annapolis, the enemy is not even defined. 2 are missing, Hamas and Iran.

If you want to talk serious peace, talk to your enemies.