Boredalt wrote:
Since you can't correct past action, what would anyone propose the Israelis do? Right now, they control their territory surrounded by enemies. Every agreement ever made between the Israelis and Palestinians is shit on by hardliners on both sides. The Palestinians have elements among them who, encouraged and supported by other hardline Muslims, will accept nothing short of total Israeli capitulation. The Israelis have hardliners who will accept nothing short of their "divine heritage". Unfortunately, in my mind, the only way this will eventually sort itself out is when one side is totally crushed. For now, they'd both better protect themselves. Politics just don't work when it is those outside of the political process who are waging a large portion of a conflict.
And, before any of you decide you are willing to die for an important cause, why don't you stay alive and fight, instead? Once you've given your life for something, that's your last chance at changing anything. Also, I'll bet you can find plenty of issues to get furiously indignant about in your own back yard. A lot of you allow the media, and your rebellion against your upbringing, to manipulate you.
This wasn't Masada or a mass suicide. They were killed. Facing danger is not the same thing as choosing death. After all, the living hardly envy the dead, even though they respect their sacrifice.
Not so long ago, people said the same thing about the Europeans. They would never simply get along, and all bets were on some megalomaniac uniting the continent through force of arms. Obviously, that's not how it turned out. The reality is, peoples CAN learn to get along.
What should the Israelis do?
-Return to the pre-1967 lines. Forfeit holdings outside those lines if need be.
-Set up a democratic Palestinian government, and accept the vicissitudes of democracy. It is to their advantage to fight a democratic state hostile to them rather than a guerrilla war.
-Forfeit Jerusalem and refound it as a free city. Invite the UN or US or EU in to police it.
-Treat terrorism as organized crime to be handled surgically, and not as a military problem. They have the technology to maintain aerial surveillance on the tiny area in question, and pick the active terrorists out of the populace like fleas from a dog.
-Establish public and private enterprises to give the Palestinians jobs. Establish labor laws putting them on equal footing with their own citizens. Crack down on labor exploitation.