It is sad to see no progress in addressing the Middle East crisis. Yes there is a need for the two sides to strike a compromise - but is this not what has been happening all the time? Was it up to Israel to decide who should lead Palestine? It is not their business who the people of Palestine decide to lead them. THere is a lot of hypocrisy when it comes to defining democracy. They have not trusted Hamas from the begining - so, it is hard to expect them to negotiate in good faith. Israeli attitudes towards the Palestine government have to change first.If the US cannot be neutral they should leave the Middle East to deal with its issues - maybe there will be peace.

The land issue is a very controversial one and is not to be taken lightly - or be philosophical about it. There is a lot to learn from the South African experience for all nations.

Nobody has forgotten the refugees.

However, after 60 years, their descendants are expected to get on with their lives. They have been offered recompensation, they have been resettled, they can be resettled better, they can have their own state for the first time in history, and the only thing they cannot have is Granddad's old tenant farmsite. For a few reasons: Granddad never actually had title in the first place in most cases, the descendants don't want to be peaceful citizens of the country that now exists there, and there's really no room for them there any more. Millions of people were resettled in the wake of World War II, and most managed to make something of their lives after that. Only the Palestinians sacrificed everything else to cling to their grudge.

The UN has made special exemptions for the Palestinians to its usual definition of refugee, at the behest of the Arab bloc. But by the standards used for everyone else in the world, these people are no longer refugees or displaced persons. They have a place to live and could have decent living conditions if they would accept it, they just don't like its borders. Too bad.

There will be a solution when the 900,000 refugees who were kicked out by a bunch of European Jews migrants to Palestine in 1930's and 1940's, are allowed again to their 400 villages raized to the ground in 1950 or compensated. You all forget the root cause of the problem!

You don't basically change things if you are just looking to cure the present Gaza war.
The center of the problem sits in Washington. The first real big step towards peace has to come from there.
The world is faced with the fact that most political US moves made in the past were actually initiated by Israel's Lobby in the United States of America. It is of no use ignoring this fact. So it is easy to guess what the first move to peace in the Near East should be:
Stop the activities of the Israel Lobby (some call it the Lobby of a foreign nation), stop all financial, economic and political help to Israel for the time being.
Insist - and impose - that international laws and conventions are being respected by
by Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel has to prove that it can stand on its own - and it will!

You don't basically change things if you are just looking to cure the present Gaza war.
The center of the problem sits in Washington. The first real big step towards peace has to come from there.
The world is faced with the fact that most political US moves made in the past were actually initiated by Israel's Lobby in the United States of America. It is of no use ignoring this fact. So it is easy to guess what the first move to peace in the Near East should be:
Stop the activities of the Israel Lobby (some call it the Lobby of a foreign nation), stop all financial, economic and political help to Israel for the time being.
Insist - and impose - that international laws and conventions are being respected by
by Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel has to prove that it can stand on its own - and it will!

You don't basically change things if you are just looking to cure the present Gaza war.
The center of the problem sits in Washington. The first real big step towards peace has to come from there.
The world is faced with the fact that most political US moves made in the past were actually initiated by Israel's Lobby in the United States of America. It is of no use ignoring this fact. So it is easy to guess what the first move to peace in the Near East should be:
Stop the activities of the Israel Lobby (some call it the Lobby of a foreign nation), stop all financial, economic and political help to Israel for the time being.
Insist - and impose - that international laws and conventions are being respected by
by Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel has to prove that it can stand on its own - and it will!

The moot point from the Palestinian side is this, what is a nation to do when confronted with a new conqueror with a vastly superior military power.
The problem from the Israeli side is how can they convert their military superiority to something substantive and long lasting.
My own view is that unless the Palestinians are wiped out like the Red Indians as it happened not too long ago in North America by a invader with superior military power,the conflict will continue.
Another result of the Israeli invasion may be the slow migration of Palestinians to safer areas outside their home land. This will result in sufficient loss of man power
on the Palestininan side which will then be incapble to mount any serious threat to the future of the Israeli state. The Palestininan will then become one of the many lost nations in the pages of history.
As a nation with a very high literacy rate and as a nation which speaks a very viable living language (arabic)and has a very dynamic cultural life I feel that they are a match for the Israelis.
I expect this conflict to continue. I also think that there is no difference between Hamas and Fateh with regards to their basis aims. There tactics may differ. The same applies to the different parties in Israel.
It is really preposterous to talk of peace.
All we can do is watch and bet on the eventual outcome (which may not happen in our life time).
Assuming that the Palestinian to Israeli population ratio remains the same expect more of the same to continue.
Finally as long as the Israeli military might is incapable of effecting a change in the cultural life of the Palestinians its conquests will not last long since it is
another form of foreign European invasion of the Holy land.

Both Israel and Hamas obviously will have to reach some sort of compromise. However, by viewing the conflict through the lens of South African Aparthied we do not bring any real insight to the problem. However noble the author's intentions, by interposing the clear cut moral divisions of South Africa's struggle into the Arab-Israeli the effect is to distort what is a morally ambigious conflict with no clear 'high ground'.

I think the best solution to this problem came from the king of Saudi Arabia. Why are people not talking about it.
Is the United States misleading the Jews towards an historically untenable plight?
Some changes are permanent and can be attained by sheer military force. But most run their course. Take my own former country for example. The British eventually had to leave. Yes it took nearly two centuries. But today India Pakistan and Bangla Desh stand as example where the end game is eventually in hand of the native people. Take another example the United States with its vastly superior military force has been in Iraq for over 3 years.Time will tell what influence it eventually will have. But I suspect it will be no where comparable to the exploits of an 18 year old Arab general who conquered most of the regions comprising present day Pakistan and made changes that have lasted for over a thousand years. This is the real power. Mohammad bin Qasim attained all this in less than three years.

Like Apartheid south africa, Israel is settler-colonialist-state. Indeed, Zionists' arguments against equality, human rights of the indegenous people (the
Palestinians), and genuine democracy, and their defense of the Jewish
exclusivist system in Israel are virtually identical to those the
Afrikaner make in defense of South Africa's Apartheid.

Perhaps Israel will have its own De Klerk soon.

Except the palestinians, especially the elected leaders of Hamas have not shown a single iota of desire to compromise at all. They were offered a state on 95% of the west bank and all of Gaza. What more do the palestinians want?