[Dragon]

US is firmly on Israeli side, so I'm afraid this wouldn't be the best solution. Whoever would enforce such thing should be completely nonpartisan and US doesn't fulfill the requirement. This could work, but would be risky and prone to abuse.

"who was there first" is a stupid way to resolve the issues.

I know it's not a good way to resolve issues, but it's a valid point to consider. It was Israeli who came in there, and Palestinians who were there. Jews' claims to territory are based on religion, while Palestinians' claims are based on living there. I know it's an oversimplification, but I doubt a common Palestinian citizen was going to delve into religious/historical dispute after being chased out of his home by a bunch of foreigners.
I'll respond to the rest later.

[Klaustrophobia]

religion shouldn't even come into this.  the fact that it's considered their "holy land" doesn't automatically make their claim purely religious and invalid. they DID live there and were forcibly removed.  that's just historical fact, no matter what consideration you give to the religion.

[karajorma]

It's also holy to the Muslims and Christians though, and has been own by both of those too at some point, so that makes it a wash.

Especially since the Jews only got hold of the land in the first place by kicking out or killing everyone who had the land before them. Pretty hard to claim "It was our country 2000 years but we got kicked out" when that's pretty much what you did to the people who had it before you.

[Bobboau]

well, the big difference is they made sure there were no survivors to claim the land after.

[MP-Ryan]

It's also holy to the Muslims and Christians though, and has been own by both of those too at some point, so that makes it a wash.

Especially since the Jews only got hold of the land in the first place by kicking out or killing everyone who had the land before them. Pretty hard to claim "It was our country 2000 years but we got kicked out" when that's pretty much what you did to the people who had it before you.

Exactly my point - you can't use history to decide who was there first because it has changed hands so many times (and between so many religions) that I don't think anyone could actually sort it out.

Better to deal with there here and now.

[Dragon]

religion shouldn't even come into this.  the fact that it's considered their "holy land" doesn't automatically make their claim purely religious and invalid. they DID live there and were forcibly removed.  that's just historical fact, no matter what consideration you give to the religion.

However, this happened 2000 years ago. I think there aren't any Jews (other than Palestinian ones, that is) who can claim that his/her family lived there since grandfather's grandfather. You could easily find a Palestinian who could make such claim. Just imagine that: You're living in your house in Central America (which your family has owned for a century and a half), when suddenly, a bunch of Apaches comes around and tells you to pack your bags, since 200 years ago, they had their village there and they've been chased off by the Pioneers. Would you oblige and move out, being left with no place to call home, or would you go to court?

It might be that I come from a country where this was commonplace. It still is, BTW. There's a lot of friction between "rightful" owners of some lands and buildings and the new ones, who bought them after Communists stole and divided them. Israeli/Palestinian dispute is easy compared to those, since in both cases, the claims are very recent (30-60 years ago vs. 70 years ago instead of 70 years ago vs. 2000 years ago). Of course, Poland being what it is, in most cases it ends with the old owners (often Germans, because of WWII border changes) coming and throwing whoever lived in the place to the street. Those people end up with no place to live, while the old owners usually have another house, maybe even several. Do you think it's a good thing?

[NGTM-1R]

I think there aren't any Jews (other than Palestinian ones, that is) who can claim that his/her family lived there since grandfather's grandfather.

Hi.

You're wrong.

There are people on all three religious claimants living in the area who can trace their lineage in the area to before the Crusades, if not longer.

[Sandwich]

Wanted to stop by and drop this here before responding to a few comments:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/m-what_i_saw_during_operation_pillar_of_defense.html

Also, I'm proud of you guys for keeping this so civil.

I do think personally that it would be a good gesture on Israels' part to be more pro-active with regards to the removal of the settlements...

We did that when we pulled out of Lebanon and Gaza, and in both cases we were rewarded with happy-happy joy-joy feelings of peace and lov-oh, wait. 

Well, the naval blockade is obviously not doing it's job then. Can't their radar cover the whole coast of the Gaza strip? You can't really smuggle rockets in a dinghy either, those smuggling ships should be detectable. As for Egyptian route, there's still a sizable patch of Israeli soil between Egypt and Gaza. I would expect it to be pretty heavily blockaded, I wonder how those smugglers sneak past. AFAIK, to carry a load of artillery rockets you need a pretty big cargo truck, and they aren't easy to hide in aid packages.

Tunnels. The network of tunnels they have is ridiculous. At one point there was talk of digging a huge trench between Gaza and Egypt and flooding it with seawater. Not sure what the latest is on that, but I doubt it'll happen as long as they keep the ceasefire (and it looks good so far).

Another thing to consider: Hamas isn't stupid. I don't think they would start killing "treacherous" Palestinians if they know that it will hurt them. There's a reason why they built rockets in populated areas. There's a reason why they terrorize their own people and get away with it.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by that, but they did execute 6 suspected collaborators (18+ link): http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e49_1353437540

Those settlements are certainly the crux of the argument, Palestine specifically stated talks would not resume whilst those settlements were being built, so it's no surprise the retaliation came from that direction. I suppose that at the very least, political rattle-throwing is better than munitions flying back and forth, though I suspect that is how it will end.

Actually, Israel clearly informed the PA that if it made such a unilateral move, we would make this move with the settlements. I don't know any more details about that specifically, though.

Also, here's something that puzzles me. Everyone recognizes that the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and that the PA charter and education system literally does not have Israel on the maps and calls the entire country "Palestine". And yet whenever the settlement issue comes up, suddenly Side A's goal of annihilating Side B is no longer a factor - no, now the crux of the matter is that Side B is building houses. I mean,

And the whole "this has to happen for us to come to the negotiation table" shpiel? What is this, negotiation-ception? That's what negotiating is all about - finding the smallest bit of common ground, grabbing on to it, and then finding another bit of common ground. Preconditions to negotiations is an excuse, nothing more.

I'd say, Israelis should give up Gaza and West Bank, they have enough other territories.

Have you seen a map of the Middle-East in the last, oh, few hundred years?

[Dragon]

I know Israel is dinky compared to the rest of Muslim world. I meant that I don't think it really needs additional territories, especially troublesome ones. From what I've seen, Israel isn't crowded enough to need a bigger border.

There are people on all three religious claimants living in the area who can trace their lineage in the area to before the Crusades, if not longer.

I know. That's why I mentioned Palestinian Jews, who obviously did live there just like every other Palestinian. The point was, Israel was formed by foreigners, and the majority of it's population, as well as it's dominant culture, came in recently. Also, if somebody lived around there, but left during The Crusades and didn't came back until now, then it's just as flimsy of a territory claim as ones from 2000 years ago. I don't know what was the situation of Palestinian Jews before Israel was formed, but I don't think it was too bad.

[karajorma]

Have you seen a map of the Middle-East in the last, oh, few hundred years?

Ah, but you're assuming that all Muslims are the same. Do the same thing with Palestinian countries.

[Mongoose]

I know. That's why I mentioned Palestinian Jews, who obviously did live there just like every other Palestinian. The point was, Israel was formed by foreigners, and the majority of it's population, as well as it's dominant culture, came in recently.

See, that's the bit of history that I'm still foggy on.  Just how many people of Jewish descent were living in the overall Palestinian area as of 1948, and where exactly?  Though it was never actually implemented as such, the UN Partition Plan did seem to be based on areas of land ownership, and the overall outline roughly corresponds to the modern West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights.  The picture this all paints is a lot more complicated than a statement like, "The UN kicked out Arabs to make room for Jews."

[karajorma]

Yeah but many of the Jews there in 1948 weren't there in 1900. There had been several waves of immigration before 1948.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism#History

Note that in 1922 Jews were 13% of the population but by 1946 they were 33%

[SypheDMar]

Another thing to consider: Hamas isn't stupid. I don't think they would start killing "treacherous" Palestinians if they know that it will hurt them. There's a reason why they built rockets in populated areas. There's a reason why they terrorize their own people and get away with it.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by that, but they did execute 6 suspected collaborators (18+ link): http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e49_1353437540

That's exactly what I meant. They can terrorize their own people and get away with it. If they couldn't, they won't be doing so.

[Mongoose]

Yeah but many of the Jews there in 1948 weren't there in 1900. There had been several waves of immigration before 1948.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism#History

Note that in 1922 Jews were 13% of the population but by 1946 they were 33%

That kind of gets back to the whole question of exactly where we're supposed to draw a historical line, though.  From that article, it seems like there were disputes over settlements in the 1920s, but hell if I can determine which side was in the right, or if such a "right" even existed either way.

[Aardwolf]

--> Ignore historical. Just draw a line based on current population, and stick with it. With UN peacekeepers to beat the crap out of anyone who messes with it.

[Sandwich]

That leaves the question of what to do with the Israeli Arabs, the majority of whom do not want to live under the PA after having tasted the freedom of capitalism under Israel. The population is far more intermingled here than I think most of you realize, and by and large, where the populace is intermingled, the populace also gets along wonderfully. It's mainly when the Arabs are isolated under the PA/Hamas that they start causing trouble.

[Dragon]

And here we can reach into history of Poland again, just after WWI. Let them vote on where they want to live. There were territories in which there was plenty of mingled German/Polish population, and plebiscites were held to decide how the territories were to be divided. Granted, since among them there were strategic areas (Silesia, bristling with coal mines and refineries), the Germans cheated and the Polish organized an uprising. Though it did work in other, less important areas.
In Israel, this should go better, since IIRC, the conflict areas aren't very resource-rich, and the divisions are much cleaner (not to mention today's UN isn't the old League of Nations, and botches such things much less frequently). It's not really about ethnicity or religion, but about national identity. If an Arab feels Israeli, then let him/her be Israeli. If a Jew feels Palestinian, nothing stops him/her from voting so.

[Sandwich]

If a Jew feels Palestinian, nothing stops him/her from voting so.

Actually... that's a life-threatening situation, and is not permitted from the PA's side. IIRC.

[Sandwich]

Haha!

The Deadly Israeli House
(by Daniel Greenfield - FrontPage.com - December 5th, 2012)
 
There are few weapons as deadly as the Israeli house. When its bricks and mortar are combined together, the house, whether it is one of those modest one-story hilltop affairs or a five-floor apartment building complete with hot and cold running water, becomes far more dangerous than anything green and glowing that comes out of the Iranian centrifuges.
 
Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses. Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don’t impress anyone in Europe or in Washington, DC. Genocide is equally not worthy of attention when in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment downwind from Jerusalem.
 
Sudan may have built a small mountain of African corpses, but it can’t expect to command the full and undivided attention of the world until it does something truly outrageous like building a house and filling it with Jews. Since the Sudanese Jews are as gone as the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Syria and good old Afghanistan, the chances of Bashir the Butcher pulling off that trick are rather slim.
 
Due to the Muslim world’s shortsightedness in driving out its Jews from Cairo, Aleppo and Baghdad to Jerusalem, the ultimate weapon in international affairs is entirely controlled by the Jewish State. The Jewish State’s stockpile of Jews should worry the international community far more than its hypothetical stockpiles of nuclear weapons. No one besides Israel cares much about the Iranian bomb. But when Israel builds a house, then the international community tears its clothes, wails, threatens to recall its ambassadors and boycott Israeli peaches.
 
You can spit on the White House carpets and steal all the gold in Greece. You can blow up anything you like and threaten anyone you will, but you had better not lift a drill near Gilgal, where Joshua and a few million escaped Hebrew slaves pitched their camp.
 
Obama has yet to respond to the Muslim Brotherhood coup in Egypt. The gangs of paid rapists assaulting women in Tahrir Square on behalf of the Sharia state are nothing for the White House to worry about. Everyone has their standards and he and the international community have theirs. There are things that we all cannot abide. And for all the Miss America answers about ending war, hunger and people who wear plaid in public, the one thing that everyone will stand up against or sit down in opposition to is the Israeli house.
 
White House officials are already insisting that Netanyahu “humiliated” Obama by authorizing the building of houses. This is the worst Israeli crime since two years ago when the city of Jerusalem passed some houses through one stage of a multi-stage approval process while Biden was visiting the country.
 
Hillary called it an insult and spent two hours yelling at Netanyahu over the phone. Axelrod declared it an affront. Biden was so furious that he refused to come down for dinner until an hour later. For weeks the media howled that Netanyahu had humiliated Obama through the dastardly act of allowing one of the country’s mayors to approve housing while the sacred presence of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was intersecting with Israeli airspace.
 
Now that Netanyahu has gone to the mattresses, literally, by authorizing new housing, the media has begun braying that Israel has humiliated Obama all over again. They say that every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. But every time an Israeli jackhammer roars, Obama stands, like that famous trash-mourning fake Indian, off Highway 1 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with a tear slowly making its way down one glistening cheek at the sight of another humiliating Israeli house.
 
According to the New York Times, which is never wrong, building more houses makes peace impossible. Peace, which is not in any way obstructed by rockets, suicide bombers, unilateral statehood bids and declarations of war, comes up against only one obstacle. The stout unyielding wall of the Israeli house. You can shell Israeli houses, bomb them and break inside to massacre the people living inside, but then after all that, Israel goes and builds more of those darned things.
 
Hamas shoots thousands of rockets and Israel builds thousands of houses. But Israeli houses generally stay where they’re built, while Hamas rockets are as likely to kill Gazans as they are to put holes in the roofs of those dastardly houses. And in the arms race between houses and rockets, the Israelis appear to be winning. And that’s not good for peace. If Israelis get the dangerous idea that they can just keep building houses and outlast all the talented rocketeers who spend their time with the Koran in front of one eye and the Anarchist’s Cookbook in front of the other, then what hope is there for peace?
 
That is why no one cares much about Hamas rockets, which only kill Israelis, who most reasonable people in London, Paris and Brussels think have it coming anyway, but get into a foaming lather about an Israeli house. Killing Israelis has never been any obstacle to peace. Twenty years of killing Israelis has not dissuaded a single Israeli government from sitting down at the table to dicker with the terrorists. But an Israeli family living in a house is holding down territory that it will be harder to then cede to terrorists.
 
This peace plan, which has worked as well as fighting fire with gasoline, has not in any way been endangered by two decades of terror, but trembles down to its toes every time an Israeli hammer falls on an Israeli nail in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Because that land must go back so that rockets can be shot from it into Israel, so that Israel can invade it and reclaim it, and then sit down for another peace process to return the land from which the rockets will be fired, which will be invaded, which will be given back… for peace.
 
And Israeli houses endanger this cycle of peace and violence. They endanger it by creating “facts on the ground,” a piquant phrase that only seems to apply to houses with Jews. Muslim houses in no way create facts on the ground, even though they are built out of the same material and filled with people. Or perhaps they create the good kind of facts on the ground. The kind of preemption of negotiations that the professional peacemakers approve of.
 
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has declared Israeli houses to be an “almost fatal blow” to the peace process. It is, of course, only an “almost fatal blow” because the peace process, like Dracula, cannot be killed. Israeli houses, fearsome as they may be with their balconies and poor heating in winter, are never quite enough to kill it.
 
Like the monster of a horror movie, the peace process always comes back and no matter how many blows the Israeli house delivers to it, a year later there’s a sequel where the Israeli house is being stalked by the peace process monster all over again.
 
The army of lethal Israeli houses, which may not be built for another five years, if ever, seem formidable in the black newsprint of the New York Times, in the fulminations of Guardian columnists and the shrill talkingpointation of CNN talking heads, but its actual potency is limited to housing Jewish families and infuriating international diplomats and their media coat hangers.
 
Europe is furious, Obama is seething, the UN is energized, and somewhere in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wipes the grease out of his mustache and wonders what he could do to get this much attention. He briefly scribbles down some thoughts on a napkin but then dismisses it as being too implausible. As much as it might get the world’s attention, there is just no way Iran can put up apartment buildings in Jerusalem.

[karajorma]

If you want America to stop telling you off, stop taking their money.