Tom Toles for April 27, 2012

They don’t have that much cheese left.

No, ISRAEL has all the cheese; Palestine just has the holes! Kinda like South Africa’s old “Homelands”.

In every Palestinian Zone, there should be an Israeli metropolis. In each Israeli metropolis, there should be a Palestinian quarter. In each Palestinian quarter, there should be an Israeli neighborhood. In each Israeli neighborhood, there should be a Palestinian apartment complex. In each Palestinian apartment complex, there should be an Israeli floor. On each Israeli floor, there should be a Palestinian apartment. The Palestinian family living in that apartment should foster and raise an Israeli orphan (according to Jewish standards). The same structure can be imposed in the Israeli Zones.

Each level is accountable to to the level above for the well-being of the level below. The children fostered under this system will have privileged status, and on reaching maturity will be enlisted in an informal council to oversee the system.

Ah I think we are already there.

“That will never work, they want a one nation state there—-only Jews in Israel. All others stay out.”

And the other side wants to drive the Jews into the sea. Either there is no hope of a solution, or we just haven’t thought of one yet. Fortunately, on either side there ARE those who continue to work together for peace, even if their respective leaders don’t cooperate.

The sad fact is that radicals, Zionist, or “Arab”, won’t resolve the issue Abraham created, unless they lose the “radical”. NOT likely to happen in the next 3,000 years any more than in the last??

There is no Palestinian State just like there is no Palestinian people, buddy. Stop being a liberal d-bag looking to feel good about “fighting for the downtrodden”, goofball. You’re on the wrong side, as usual.

“Yu sound like Lao Tzu!”

Not a coincidence. My vision of a dual state is based on the Yin-Yang symbol, regressed as far as practicable.

who cares at this point we have already made our country a mess in the non-ending wars. We don’t need another war!

“A hollow threat to be sure since Israel is the nuclear power in the region.”

I wouldn’t call it hollow; they’d do it if they could (and Israel’s nukes must be seen as an effective deterrant to any attempt, or else your argument is hollow). Besides, it’s probably inevitable that sooner or later one of Israel’s enemies (Iran or someone else) will become a nuclear power. But is it inevitable that either side would ever actually use nukes? Let’s hope not (which leads to…)

“Hope is overrated. Forget it an just press on for what you know to be right regardless.”

What I know to be right includes Israel’s right to exist, and their right to safeguard that existence. To echo zoidknight, above, “Why should Israelis be accountable to anyone or anything for their actions?” My own answer, as I’ve stated, is that there must be reciprocal accountability.

PS:“The hard right wing that does not recognize the Palestinians as a people or that some of them have been there awhile.”

At least you seem to acknowledge that it’s a faction of the Israelis who are intractable, as I’m aware that it’s a faction of the Palestinians (and other Muslims) who are committed to the erasure of Israel from the map. It may be that those factions are currently calling the shots, but that need not always be the case.

“Ahmadinejad (if that’s who you mean) never called for Israel to be wiped off the map.”

I didn’t specifically mean Ahmadinejad, but I wasn’t excluding him either, Most Muslim political leaders have publically accepted “Isreal’s right to exist”, but in some cases I suspect that they don’t believe it. I also don’t believe that the acknowledgement of that right (as lip-service or otherwise) is universal, even among non-Muslims.

Actually, the map ACCORDING TO THE PALESTINIANS, offered in 2000, and rejected, looked like this:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/rossmap2.html

Dear activist,

We appreciate your choosing to make Israel the object of your humanitarian concerns.

We know there were many other worthy choices.

You could have chosen to protest the Syrian regime’s daily savagery against its own people, which has claimed thousands of lives.

You could have chosen to protest the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and support of terrorism throughout the world.

You could have chosen to protest Hamas rule in Gaza, where terror organizations commit a double war crime by firing rockets at civilians and hiding behind civilians.

But instead you chose to protest against Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy, where women are equal, the press criticizes the government, human rights organizations can operate freely, religious freedom is protected for all and minorities do not live in fear.

Therefore we suggest to let you solve first the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience.

Have a nice flight.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/flytilla_fail.html#ixzz1tO3I8hBb

“[M]y own suspicion is that many of those guys don’t believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. That’s not at all the same as saying it has no right to exist, period, and not such an unreasonable view. Before 1994, a lot of people questioned whether South Africa had a right to exist as a Caucasian state.”

I acknowledge certain parallels, of course, but I also see significant differences. It seems to me that if Israel doesn’t exist as a Jewish state, then Israel doesn’t exist. The only hope I see is for a two-state solution of some sort or another.

I simply cannot see the conflict as a question of Right vs Wrong. When I look at their claims, I see Right vs Right. When I look at their actions, I see Wrong vs Wrong, and haven’t the the authority, the experience, or the inclination to adjudicate who’s MORE Right or MORE Wrong.

^Major Agressor?

sir, have you read the PLO charter?

or are you going to say that the Palestinians don’t really mean what they say or write?

The palestinian writings have been completely consistant with thier behaviour.

WITHOUT warning, bombing schoolbuses, schools and clubs. Lobbing missles into citites. Specifically targeting innocents.

WITHOUT question israeli’s responses to these attacks have been surgical, tightly targeted and restrained.

“If you’re just going to say “seems to me,” there’s really no basis for discussion.”

I can only say it “seems to me” because that’s the only thing I can honestly say.

“Jewish” doesn’t only refer to the religion of Judaism; it is also a culture and an “ethnicity”. To say “Joshua is Jewish, but not religious” is not an oxymoron. I refer to “a Jewish state” as a homeland for the Jews, not necessarily (or even desireably) as a theocracy. Yes, I will play the Holocaust card: Never Again.

I already said that I’m entirely uninterested in determining who is the “major aggressor”; and if you put military superiority on the Jewish side, you must put numerical superiority on the Muslim side; Israel is a postage-stamp-sized country surrounded by those who have been, and may or may not be now, but potentially may again be their ACTIVE enemies.

Both the Jews and the Moslems revere Solomon. Both are fully aware of the argument over the baby, and Solomon’s suggestion that it be cut in half. Both sides see the disputed territory (all of it) as “the baby,” and each side would face tremendous internal opposition to agreement that it be cut in half. So we can’t determine the “baby’s real mother” that way. Yet still, given that situation, cutting it in two seems to be the only hope of a lasting solution.

I’m not very interested in the past on this question, whether 30 years or 300 years or 3000 years. What’s done cannot be undone. But I’m trying to imagine what we want the situation to look like 100 years from now, 500 years from now, and figure out how to get there. It won’t be ideal for anybody, but maybe it can be liveable for everybody.

@Night-Gaunt49 Non-Jews are welcome in Israel and are 1st class citizens. Jews (even ant-Israel ones) are not allowed in Palestine. In Israel there are Muslims and Christians in parliament and the military (granted the military is the one place that citizens are not equal and I wish that would change). Hamas calls for killing Jews, not Israelis (not that that would be acceptable, but it would be better). In Israel they don’t call to kill Muslims (or anyone). So how do you come to saying “… only Jews in Israel. All others stay out”? Get your facts strait before you talk or you end up looking stupid.