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Originally Posted by roachboy
first thing that would have to happen is for sharon to get booted from power.
he has been even better than the folk who stage manage the bushimage have been in exploiting peoples fear to his own political ends. and it seems obvious that so long as sharon is in power, nothing will happen that will reduce hostility.
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Sharon was elected by the Israeli people, so nobody will boot him from power. Besides (as you state yourself), Arafat and the entire Palestinian leadership should be booted too.
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the wall should be dismantled.
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Why? If the wall runs along the original, UN-backed lines, I have no problems with a wall; if it keeps the Israelis from being blown up, it's their right to build a wall.
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the settlements should be dismantled and the programs of encouraging them stopped.
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Agreed, but not realistic in some cases - the settlers are typically extremists, who don't need any encouragement.
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i think the israelis have no long-run choice but to concede right of return.
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I strongly disagree. Thanks to a lot of people claiming they're "Palestinians" (when they were really workers coming from the surrounding countries), and a lot of births since then, Israel has no choice but to oppose the right of return. If all the "Palestinians" return, there won't be an Israel left. It'll turn into yet another Muslim state very quickly (simply demographics - Palestinians have way more kids than the Jews).
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i would support gibingus' suggestion concerning the status of jerusalem, but no-one will like it.
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If noone likes it, it's not going to happen.
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the only way around or out of this is for the palestinian population to be accorded dignity, which under present conditions is stripped from them every day. if there is to be a seperate state, it would have to be economically viable--something which the israelis seem to oppose. the outline of such a state, floated in the period around the oslo accords, did not seem to meet this criterion.
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The only way out of this is for the Muslims in the m.e. to accept Israel for what it is, and stop their endless anti-Jewish rhetoric. The people there are force-fed this crap from birth, and will never be content as long as there's a single Jew left in Israel. Giving "dignity" to the Palestinians won't change that at all.
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i have no illusions about the viability of these ideas---but they would seem to me to function as a baseline set of conditions for anything approaching a resolution of these conflicts.
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You (along with many others) seem to be under the impression that Israel is the source of the problem, and the poor Palestinians the victims. In reality, both sides are to blame, and both sides are victims. Israel shouldn't be forced to give up anything as long as the Palestinians and the surrounding states won't accept Israel's right to excist in the first place. If you ignore that last bit, and let Israel concede everything, the end result will be the destruction of Israel, and the murder of most of the Jews living there.
IMO, the Muslims in the m.e. can't stand the idea that a small group of infidels has been able to survive their attempts to drive them out. They're angry that someone has dared to "invade" their precious little desert, and want their land (pride/honor) back at all costs. That's pretty much the same reason many Muslims/Arabs resent the American presence in Iraq - fellow Muslims have been beaten by infidels, who are now in control of part of *their* land - the positive sides are ignored for the sake of Muslim pride.