Any Palestinians saying that peace with Israel is the main priority? There very well might be...but I've never heard of it.

Every Arab state, and every organization except Hamas says it will recognize Israel within the 1967 UN sanctioned borders and you know it.

Since they are occupied and living with Apartied in the Palestinian "territories", they want peace a lot more than Israel does. The war has been good for Israel's expansion...even as we post, Israel is probably evicting some hapless Palestinian family and seizing the land for "natural" lliving room for Jews...Israel has expanded its territory massively and stolen land and any fool can google the evidence all over the net. There are maps all over the place.

The only thing I can see that might make Arabs not want peace is that they might fear Israel's genocidal expansion knows no bounds....perhaps Israel, by the same logic with which it has stolen Palestine, wants to steal the entire Middle East and so soon as a Palestinian state is established, and peace seems secure, Israel would gin up some atrocity and the show would be back on, with the Palestinians absolutely helpless (because of the things Israel imposes on them in any settlement Israel offers.)

Perahps Palestinians are the tip of the sword against genocidal annexation? If so, then I can certainly see why they might not want peace now.

But that scenario has two to tango, and Israel would be the genocidal power in that scenario so how could anyone pointificate on thier behalf either?

It certainly would not be the first time someone associated with Americans stole a continent from its inhabitants...its what the USA did to Indians when my grandpa was a little boy.

So, by your lights, the only possible peace is one that leaves Israel with borders completely (and provably -- perhaps you don't remember the 1948, 1967, and 1973 wars?) open to attack and does nothing to curb the bloodlust of their neighbours, which has similarly been incontrovertibly demonstrated for decades.

Or will you get the Palestinians and Arabs to sign a peace of paper promising not to attack Israel? Yeah .. that'll work.

And, were Israel to 'steal the entire Middle East', both prosperity and liberty would increase in every state. As bogeymen go, that one is singularly unconvincing.

In point of fact, it is not possible for there to be peace in the Middle East until the Arab states become rational, intelligent, prosperous democracies -- but there's precious little evidence that that's anything that any but the most infinitesimal number of Arab Muslims actually want. So I'm not holding my breath.

Candoxx and vepxis nicely illustrate the biased, irrational, judgemental, inflexible extremists on both sides of this problem. Their examples of finger-pointing and blame-laying are instructive to those trying to make sense of the persistent problem in the area- the problem is people like these guys on both sides.

Screw Yeretzs Yisroel. And screw the Zionists and Chasidim, one and all.

It is possible to a) have numerous Jewish relatives without being a Jew,

b) love Jews and Judaism while hating the Israeli government, the nutzoid Ultr-Orthodox, and all of Zionism.

I am and do all the above. I know a hawk from a handsaw.. and I know Stuermstaffel when I smell them.

ShepJack

There is also the unlimited right of return -- demanded by a majority of Palestinans and impossible to grant, for we can be sure a great many terrorists would thereby be admitted. Your statement that the Jews or Zionists stole all the land isn't true and deserves no response.

My solution is to return all the borders to pre-'67-- returning the "occupied territory" to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria-- and see how excited "the Palestinians" are about their situation then.

Wolf has the correct solution. And if an Israeli settlement end up in Palestine, so be it. There are Arabs living in Israel, why not have Israelis living in Palestine?

Draw the borders, establish two states, establish a safe road from Gaza to West Bank, leave E. Jerusalem to the Muslims, W. Jerusalem to the jews and that's it.

Enough is enough on hacking each other to bits over tiny scraps of land.

I think perhaps you misunderstood my solution-- under which there would be no "Palestine" and the "Palestinians" would go back to living in Egypt, or Jordan, or Syria depending on where they were.

cassandra:

Any Palestinians saying that peace with Israel is the main priority? There very well might be...but I've never heard of it.

I was reading what was written on Slate when I came across this subject posted by Cassandra who claims that the Arabs might be warmongers! Since I am an Arab who suffered and still suffers from Israeli aircrafts flying over our airspace almost daily, with or without reason! Imagine if Syria or Egypt did so to Israel!

The Arabs have never ceased saying it, but none of you heard that, simply, because it was said and or written in Arabic; if you provided a little effort to learn that language, you could have ceased to say such things; there are a lot of people -Arabs of course- who constantly shout out loud, that they aspire to see real peace, one day, prevail! Unfortunately they say it in Arabic.

I hope I’m not misread!

Samy, I never said that all Palestinians were warmongers...merely that I had never heard of a Palestinian equivalent of J Street, although I would love to do so. My attitude has always been that we are dealing with a tragic war of brothers...and as our own Civil War showed us, that's the worst kind. I am very happy to hear that the Arabs have a very active peace movement, just as the Israelis do.

And, Shep, I hate to break this to you, but half of all the Jews in the world live in Israel. I don't think you really want that country to be wiped out, with all of them in it. At least, I HOPE you don't. Otherwise, you would be the Self-Hatred Poster Child.

Americans can't make any sense out of that stuff. You have to live there. It's strictly a local problem.

The only thing America has gotten out of meddling among the Israelis and Arabs has been trouble for America.

Actually, thanks to MEMRI, we don't have to learn Arabic. We can read in English what Arabs say to each other in Arabic.

The 'real peace' they want is a peace in which it would be impossible for Jews to survive as Jews. While that would certainly be a 'real peace', it is not one that Jews (and friends of Jews) are likely to find acceptable.

The greater part of intelligence is the ability to judge; if you disagree with my judgements, you are free to adduce evidence that Arab states actually are rational, intelligent, prosperous democracies and that therefore my conditions have already been met.

Or, contrariwise, to demonstrate that it is possible for one group of people to live companionably with a second group which is devoted, above all else, to their destruction.

The real problem is with those people who insist that 'there are two sides to every story' and bend over backwards to excuse the horrors of Arab Muslim culture and to manufacture horrors in Israeli Jewish culture in order to mask the moral degeneracy of the PLO and their ilk.

You haven't heard of the RATTs (The Rock and the Trees) who will provide a hiding place for the Jews being chased by the soldiers of Allah who are instructed to fight them until the end of time.

This is their cry for peace; Here is a Jew! Here is a Jew! Come and kill the Jew!

Then there will be peace, and Israel has only to cooperate for the world to finally live in harmony.