ubertuber

Here's what I wonder... If Israel is so determined to keep the West Bank and Gaza, what is their long term plan? At some point the occupants of the land that Israel took from Egypt, Syria, and Jordan (people referred to as Palestinians) have to be taken into account. If Israel was serious about integrating occupied land, then those people would be naturalized citizens with the right to vote - and Israel would be building schools, not walls. Remember, we aren't talking about illegal immigrants. These people didn't come to Israel - Israel came to them. To me, Israel's willingness to occupy land without integrating its citizens into their population for 37 years is a sign of a certain level of disingenuity.

Let's see - people who pay taxes on their property and income, who are subject to laws that abridge their rights more than their franchised neighbors, who are stereotyped and oppressed by law, and have no representation or ability to work with the system, yet are living within the borders of a "democratic" nation... Sounds familiar, only the Israelis have tanks where the US had fire hoses, and the Palestinians have Arafat where we had Martin Luther King.

To paraphrase Thomas Friedman, an author that anyone interested in this situation should make themselves familiar with - Israel wants three things. They want to be democratic, Jewish, and to have control of all of ancient Palestine. They have to choose two out of these three - and the last 37 years have been a process of putting that choice off. Perhaps if the Palestinian people saw Israel as a creator of their future rather than its destroyer there wouldn't be enough anger to produce the civil unrest we have seen. Sure, there would always be agitators for a separate state, but I believe this protest would be a weed, not a tree. The roots would not extend so deep that the average citizen would send their daughter off to war with a belt of bombs because instead they would be saving up for her college education.

Don't forget - the Palestinian land was occupied by Jordan when Israel was created after WWII. Israel went to war with Jordan, not the Palestinian people. They won a war against Jordan, and occupied a land peopled not with Jordanians, but with Palestinians. I can see why those Palestinians are unhappy with their plight. Until the reality of that situation is recognized as a FACT, not an opinion, the Palestinians will remain a people straining against their occupiers.

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam