Top Israeli Officer Says Tactics Are Backfiring

I heard about this. It's huge.

 

What the hell are they supposed to do? Play nice and hope the Palestinians do as well? Well, those tactics must be doing some good, because the Israelis have foiled seven homicide bombing attempts in the past week alone.


Oct. 29, 2003
Seven suicide bombings thwarted in past week
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH

In the past ten days, the Shin Bet and IDF forces succeeded in thwarting seven potential suicide bomb attacks in Israel, including a double suicide bomb attack that was to have taken place in Beit She'an, and a car bomb attack in Israel.

The security establishment registered 41 warnings of plans by terrorists to perpetrate attacks on Wednesday, a security official told The Jerusalem Post, noting that the majority of the warnings received related to potential suicide bomb attacks.

"People should not be misguided by the supposed calm," the official said, noting that the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank continues in its efforts to launch attacks against Israeli citizens.

On October 19, security forces arrested two senior terrorist commanders affiliated with the Islamic Jihad and Tanzim who were described by officials as 'ticking bombs'. The two, Said Zid and Yakub Jawadra were planning to perpetrate an imminent suicide bomb attack in Beit She'an and later disclosed to security officials the whereabouts of the two explosive belts, each weighing ten kilos they planned to use in the attack.

On October 20, Fares Abu Hamda, a Palestinian teenager affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and described by security officials as a " potential attacker" was arrested in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus.

A day later near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, IDF forces shot a number of terrorists attempting to infiltrate members of their cell into Israel to perpetrate attacks.

In Hebron, On October 22, IDF forces arrested Imad Natsche and Wajah Abu Shama, members of the Islamic Jihad who they spotted hiding in a car parked next to Natsche's home. Troops shot and killed Tanzim fugitive A-Khadi Natsche spotted fleeing from Imad's house.

Basem Natsura an Islamic Jihad fugitive was arrested in Kalkilya by security forces and revealed plans to smuggle a car rigged with explosives into Israel.

Sami Jeradat, an Islamic Jihad commander was arrested in Silat A Hartiyah and was involved in the plotting of suicide bomb attacks including the attack at the Maxim restaurant earlier this month in which 22 Israelis were killed and scores wounded.

Officials said Jeradat was also involved in the planning of additional attacks against Israelis. In the same village security forces also arrested Iman Jeradat who assisted Sami in the planning.

Ahmed Hamis a senior PFLP commander was shot and killed while evading arrest by security forces in Kalkilya. Officials said Hamis was involved in plotting and planning shooting and bomb attacks against Israeli vehicles traveling on roads in the area and was also involved in attempts to launch suicide and shooting attacks against Israelis on the seam line border.

In the village of Rai' security forces arrested Mohammed Melahem a member of the Islamic Jihad who was involved in tracking down and recruiting two potential suicide bombers willing to perpetrate attacks on behalf of the Islamic Jihad.

In Ramallah, security forces arrested Osama Braham, an Islamic Jihad commander and bomb expert, who operates in the Tulkarm area and was visiting in the city.

During his investigation it was revealed that he prepared a number of bombs and smuggled potential suicide bombers on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine into Ramallah

link

 

Didn't now Sharon was being investigated.

 

What the hell are they supposed to do? Play nice and hope the Palestinians do as well? Well, those tactics must be doing some good, because the Israelis have foiled seven homicide bombing attempts in the past week alone.

The number of bombing attempts foiled isn't a measure of the success of the tactics. If the tactics inspire 50 new suicide bombers and 7 get caught, then it was counterproductive.

There's way too much focus here on the short-term successes, which are totally irrelevent. The only question that matters is long-term effects. Does this make the situation worse or better in the long-run? If better, then the tactics are working; if not, then they aren't. (this is the same question that's getting ignored in the war on terror and on Iraq - things that Rumsfeld, to his credit, brought up very clearly in his memo)

 

I don't see why anyone would be happy about this. Nothing is working with the Palestinians. During the 1990's and Oslo, they were given a lot more autonomy, and it didn't work. Israel HAD to crack down after the Intifada, just as a matter of life and death, and now it's still not getting better.

Is the Israeli officer right? I don't know. I find it silly that some of them are comparing it to Vietnam, or saying things like "there should be a public debate in Israel." There is no debate in Israel? That's news to me. I clearly remember Israel electing Sharon because he would take a tougher line on terrorism.

There does seem to be a parallel to the US. Many US officers opposed invasion to Iraq, while political leaders saw the importance.

 

I don't see why anyone would be happy about this. Nothing is working with the Palestinians. During the 1990's and Oslo, they were given a lot more autonomy, and it didn't work.

I think we quickly forget that there were significant periods of peace and progress in the 1990's. Rabin getting assassinated really messed things up, but if I recall correctly, we had periods of a year+ at a time when the terrorism stopped before this latest intifada started.

It's possible to do - it's just a matter figuring out how to make it last.

 

The problem is that the "Palestinians" are never going to live with Israel as peaceful neighbors. The terrorism has been going on for decades and will continue until the Israelis are allowed to eject these Arabs back to the other Arab states where they belong.

 

But the end result was the Intifada. Yes, there were periods of peace, but did it work in the end? The answer is no. And right before the Intifida started, the Israelis were led by Barak who gave the Palestinians the most generous offer yet.

I don't know what will work, but attempting a peace plan when so many Palestinians do not want it doesn't seem to work.

 

let's dispel this "barak had a great plan" notion right here.
it might seem generous to you, but it included the israeli annexation of illegal jewish settlements in the west bank.

put it this way, let me made YOU a generous offer, by offering to rob only 20% of your income, 20% of your bank account, 20% of your kids, 20% of your house. i'll consider giving some of it back later, but hey you get to keep all 80% of whatever's left right now! how dare you say i'm being unkind!

 

i think i might have come across too harsh there. all i'm trying to say is that while it's tough to say what is fair, barak's proposal being the best among a string of bad offers doesn't make it good.

i really liked the plan brought up by cohen a while back negotiated by palestinians and israeli politicians a month ago. it addressed a lot more issues, the right of return, the settlements, the 1967 borders, etc. etc.

 

i bring you two related articles from the Guardian, a UK paper, which i think would shed a bit more light on what this general is saying.

'I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do this'

On Friday a four-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by a soldier - the most recent child victim of the Israeli army. Chris McGreal investigates a shocking series of deaths

Monday July 28, 2003
The Guardian

Nine-year-old Abdul Rahman Jadallah's promise to the corpse of the shy little girl who lived up the street was, in all probability, kept for him by an Israeli bullet. The boy - Rahman to his family - barely knew Haneen Suliaman in life. But whenever there was a killing in the dense Palestinian towns of southern Gaza he would race to the morgue to join the throng around the mutilated victim. Then he would tag along with the surging, angry funerals of those felled by rarely seen soldiers hovering far above in helicopters or cocooned behind the thick concrete of their pillboxes. Haneen, who was eight years old, had been shot twice in the head by an Israeli soldier as she walked down the street in Khan Yunis refugee camp with her mother, Lila Abu Selmi.
"Almost every day here the Israelis shoot at random, so when you hear it you get inside as quickly as possible," says Mrs Selmi. "Haneen went to the grocery store to buy some crisps. When the shooting started, I came out to find her. She was coming down the street and ran to me and hugged me, crying, 'Mother, mother'. Two bullets hit her in the head, one straight after the other. She was still in my arms and she died."

Later that day, the crowds pushed into the morgue at the local hospital to see the young girl on the slab, partly in homage, partly to vent their anger. Rahman pressed his way to the front so he could touch Haneen. Then he went home and told his mother, Haniya Abed Atallah, that he too wanted to die. "Rahman went to the morgue and kissed Haneen. He came home and told us he had promised the dead girl he would die too. I made him apologise to his father," Mrs Atallah says.

Weeks passed and another Israeli bullet shattered the life of another young Palestinian girl. Huda Darwish was sitting at her school desk when a cluster of shots ripped through the top of a tree outside her classroom and buried themselves in the wall. But one ricocheted off the window frame, smashed through the glass and lodged in the 12-year-old girl's brain. Huda's teacher, Said Sinwar, was standing in front of the blackboard. "It was a normal lesson when suddenly there was this shooting without any warning. The children were terrified and trying to run. I was shouting at them to get under their desks. Suddenly the bullet hit the little girl and she slumped to the floor with a sigh, not even screaming," he says.

Sinwar dragged Huda from under her desk and ran with her across the road to the hospital, itself scarred by Israeli bullets. After weeks in hospital, she has started breathing for herself again, through a windpipe cut into her throat. She has regained use of her arms and legs, but will be blind for the rest of her life.

Rahman was in another class at the same school. The next day, lessons were cancelled and the boy defied his mother to tag along at the funeral of a slain Palestinian fighter. The burial evolved into the ritual protest of children marching to the security fence that separates Gaza's dense and beggared Khan Yunis refugee camp from the spacious religious exclusivity of the neighbouring Jewish settlement. As Rahman hung a Palestinian flag on the fence, a bullet caught him under his left eye. He died on the spot. "It looks as if the soldiers saw him put the flag on the fence and they shot him," says Rahman's brother, 19-year-old Ijaram. "There were many kids next to him, next to the fence. But he was the only one carrying the flag. Why else would they have shot him?"

Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, recently praised the Israeli military as the most humanitarian in the world because it claims to risk its soldiers' lives to avoid killing innocent Palestinians. It is a belief echoed by most Israelis, who revere the army as an institution of national salvation. Yet among the most shocking aspects of the past three years of intifada that has no shortage of horrors - not least the teenage suicide bombers revelling in mass murder - has been the killing of children by the Israeli army.

The numbers are staggering; one in five Palestinian dead is a child. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) says at least 408 Palestinian children have been killed since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000. Nearly half were killed in the Gaza strip, and most of those died in two refugee camps in the south, Khan Yunis and Rafah. The PCHR says they were victims of "indiscriminate shooting, excessive force, a shoot-to-kill policy and the deliberate targeting of children".

And children continue to die, even after the ceasefire declared by Hamas and other groups at the end of June. On Friday, a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint shot dead a four-year-old boy, Ghassan Kabaha, and wounded his two young sisters after "accidentally" letting loose at a car with a burst of machinegun fire from his armoured vehicle. The rate of killing since the beginning of the ceasefire has dropped sharply, but almost every day the army has continued to fire heavy machineguns into Khan Yunis or Rafah. Among the latest victims of apparently indiscriminate shooting were three teenagers and an eight-year-old, Yousef Abu Jaza, hit in the knee when soldiers shot at a group of children playing football in Khan Yunis.

The military says it is difficult to distinguish between youths and men who might be Palestinian fighters, but the statistics show that nearly a quarter of the children killed were under 12. Last year alone, 50 children under the age of eight were shot dead or blown up by the Israeli army in Gaza: eight, one of whom was two months old, were slaughtered when a one-tonne bomb was dropped on a block of flats to kill a lone Hamas leader, Sheikh Salah Mustafa Shehada. But Rahman, Huda and Haneen were not "collateral damage" in the assassination of Hamas "terrorists", or caught in crossfire. There was no combat when they were shot. There was nothing more than a single burst of fire, sometimes a single bullet, from an Israeli soldier's gun.

It was the same when seven-year-old Ali Ghureiz was shot in the head on the street outside his house in Rafah. And when Haneen Abu Sitta, 12, was killed while walking home after school near the fence with a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza. And when Nada Madhi, also 12, was shot in the stomach and died as she leaned out of her bedroom window in Rafah to watch the funeral procession for another child killed earlier.

The army offered a senior officer of its southern command to discuss the shooting of these six children over a period of just 10 weeks earlier this year. The military told me I could not name him, even though his identity is no secret to the Israeli public or his enemies; it was this officer who explained to the nation how an army bulldozer came to crush to death the young American peace activist, Rachel Corrie.

"I want you to know we are not a bunch of crazies down here," he says. At his headquarters in the Gush Khatif Jewish settlement in Gaza, the commander rattles through the army's version of the shootings: either the military knew nothing of them, or the children had been caught in crossfire - a justification used so frequently, and so often disproved, that it is rarely believed. But three hours later, after poring over maps and military logs, timings and regulations, he concedes that his soldiers were responsible - even culpable - in several of the killings.

The Israeli army's instinctive response is to muddy the waters when confronted with a controversial killing. At first, it questioned whether Huda was even shot. I described for the soldiers the scene in the classroom with blood rippling up the wall behind the child's desk.

"I don't know how this happened," says the commander. "I take responsibility for this. It could have been one of ours. I think it probably was."

The killing of Haneen is clearer in the commander's mind. "We checked it and we know that on the same day there was shooting of a mortar," he says. "The troops from the post shot back at the area where the mortar was launched, the area where the girl was killed. We didn't see if we hit someone. I assume that a stray bullet hit Haneen. Unfortunately." Doesn't he think that simply shooting back in the general direction of a mortar attack is irresponsible at best? He says not. "You cannot have soldiers sitting and doing nothing when they are shot at," he says.

Haneen's mother, Mrs Selmi, believes her daughter was shot from "the container". The metal box dangling from a crane evokes more constant fear in Khan Yunis than the helicopter rocket attacks and tank incursions. Nestled inside is an Israeli sniper shielded by camouflage netting and hoisted high enough to see deep into the refugee camp. From inside, it is striking how much the box moves around in the wind, leaving little hope of an accurate shot. Peering from behind the camouflage, the view is mostly of Palestinian houses riddled with bullet holes, a testament to the scale of incoming Israeli fire. Haneen's home sits a few metres from the security fence separating Khan Yunis from the Jewish settlement. But, because the house is inhabited, the damage is mostly limited to the upper floor, with 27 bulletholes around the windows. "In this area, we shoot at the houses," says the Israeli commander. "We don't want people on the second floor. I gave the order: shoot at the windows."

He may concede his soldiers are responsible for shooting Huda and Haneen, but he denies their responsibility for the slaying of Rahman, the nine-year-old shot while hanging the flag at the security fence. "We saw the children, we saw them for sure. They always demonstrate in this area after funerals. But I don't have any report from the troops on our shooting on this occasion," he says. "We have rules of engagement that we don't shoot children."

Seven-year-old Ali Ghureiz's father scoffs at the claim. "They meant to kill him, for sure," says Talab Ghureiz. "I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do this."

The killing of Ali and wounding of his five-year-old brother is particularly disturbing because the commander admits there was no combat and the boys were the focus of the soldier's attention. The Ghureiz house lies on the very edge of Rafah. At the bottom of the street, an Israeli armoured vehicle and guard posts sit in the midst of a "no-go" area of tangled wire, broken buildings and mud. On the other side is the Egyptian border. "There were three kids. They were playing 50m from the house," says Ghureiz. "The Israelis fired two or three bullets, maybe more. No one could have made a mistake. They were only 100m from the children. I don't know why they did it. Ali was shot in the face immediately below his left eye. It was a big bullet. It did a lot of damage," he whispers.

"This is the first I've heard of this," says the commander. "According to the log, in the afternoon there were children trying to cross the border. The tower fired five bullets and didn't report any children hurt. Usually with children this age, we don't shoot. There is a very strict rule of engagement about shooting at children. You don't do it." But Ali is dead. "They [Palestinian fighters] send children to the fence. An older guy, usually 25 or so, gives them the order to go to the fence, or dig next to it. They know we don't shoot at children. If one of my soldiers goes out to chase them away, a sniper will be waiting for him."

Fences usually mark defined limits but, as with so much in the occupied territories, the rules are deliberately vague. There is an ill-defined ban on "approaching" the security fences separating Gaza from Israel or the Jewish settlements. "We have a danger zone 100 to 200m from the fence around Gush Katif [settlement]. They [the Palestinians] know where the danger zone is," the commander says. But many houses in Rafah and Khan Yunis are within the "danger zone". Children play in its shadow, and many adults fear walking to their own front doors.

"We have in our rules of engagement how to handle this," the commander says. "During the day, if someone is inside the zone without a weapon and not attempting to harm or with hostile intent, then we do not shoot. If he has a weapon or hostile intent, you can shoot to kill. If he doesn't have a weapon, you shoot 50m from him into something solid that will stop the bullet, like a wall. You shoot twice in the air, and if he continues to move then you are allowed to shoot him in the leg."

The regulations are drummed into every soldier, but there is ample evidence that the army barely enforces them. The military's critics say the vast majority of soldiers do not commit such crimes but those that do are rarely called to account. The result is an atmosphere of impunity. Israel's army chief-of-staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, claims that every shooting of a civilian is investigated. "Harming innocent civilians is firstly a matter of morals and values, and we cannot permit ourselves to let this happen. I deal with it personally," he told the Israeli press. But Yaalon has not dealt personally with any of the killings of the six children reported on here.

The army's indifferent handling of the shootings of civilians has even drawn stinging criticism from a member of Ariel Sharon's Likud party in the Israeli parliament, Michael Eitan. "I am not certain that the responsible officials are aware of the fact that there are gross violations of human rights in the field, despite army regulations," he said.

The case of Khalil al-Mughrabi is telling. The 11-year-old was shot dead in Rafah by the Israeli army two years ago as he played football with a group of friends near the security fence. One of Israel's most respected human rights organisations, B'Tselem, wrote to the judge advocate general's office, responsible for prosecuting soldiers, demanding an inquiry. Months later, the office wrote back saying that Khalil was shot by soldiers who acted with "restraint and control" to disperse a riot in the area. However, the judge advocate general's office made the mistake of attaching a copy of its own, supposedly secret, investigation which came to a quite different conclusion - that the riot had been much earlier in the day and the soldiers who shot the child should not have opened fire. The report says a "serious deviation from obligatory norms of behaviour" took place.

In the report, the chief military prosecutor, Colonel Einat Ron, then spelled out alternative false scenarios that should be offered to B'Tselem. B'Tselem said the internal report confirmed that the army has a policy of covering up its crimes. "The message that the judge advocate general's office transmits to soldiers is clear: soldiers who violate the 'Open Fire Regulations', even if their breach results in death, will not be investigated and will not be prosecuted."

Towards the end of the interview, the commander in Gaza finally concedes that his soldiers were at fault to some degree or other in the killing of most - but not all - of the children we discussed. They include a 12-year-old girl, Haneen Abu Sitta, shot dead in Rafah as she walked home from school near a security fence around one of the fortified Jewish settlements. The army moved swiftly to cover it up. It leaked a false story to more compliant parts of the Israeli media, claiming Haneen was shot during a gun battle between troops and "terrorists" in an area known for weapons smuggling across the border from Egypt. But the army commander concedes that there was no battle. "Every name of a child here, it makes me feel bad because it's the fault of my soldiers. I need to learn and see the mistakes of my troops," he says. But by the end of the interview, he is combative again. "I remember the Holocaust. We have a choice, to fight the terrorists or to face being consumed by the flames again," he says.

The Israeli army insists that interviews with its commanders about controversial issues are off the record. Depending on what the officer says, that bar is sometimes lifted. I ask to be able to name the commander in Gaza. The army refuses. "He has admitted his soldiers were responsible for at least some of those killings," says an army spokesman who sat in on the interview. "In this day and age that raises the prospect of war crimes, not here but if he travels abroad he could be arrested some time in the future. Some people might think there is something wrong here."

 

Our strategy helps the terrorists - army chief warns Sharon

Fierce rebuke exposes rift between military and government

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Friday October 31, 2003
The Guardian

Israel's army chief has exposed deep divisions between the military and Ariel Sharon by branding the government's hardline treatment of Palestinian civilians counter-productive and saying that the policy intensifies hatred and strengthens the "terror organisations".
Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon also told Israeli journalists in an off-the-record briefing that the army was opposed to the route of the "security fence" through the West Bank. The government also contributed to the fall of the former Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, by offering only "stingy" support for his attempts to end the conflict, he said.

Gen Ya'alon had apparently hoped his anonymous criticisms would strengthen the army's voice, which has been subordinated to the views of the intelligence services in shaping policy.

But the comments were so devastating that he was swiftly revealed as the source.

The statements - which a close associate characterised to the Israeli press as warning that the country was "on the verge of a catastrophe" - will also reinforce a growing perception among the public that Mr Sharon is unable to deliver the peace with security he promised when he came to office nearly three years ago.

The criticism is made all the more searing because Gen Ya'alon is not known for being soft on the Palestinians. As deputy chief of staff, he called the latest conflict the second stage of Israel's independence war.

The general warned that the continued curfews, reoccupation of towns and severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, combined with the economic crisis they have caused, were increasing the threat to Israel's security.

"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest," Gen Ya'alon said. "It increases hatred for Israel and strengthens the terror organisations."

Earlier this week, army commanders in the West Bank told the military administration in the occupied territories that Palestinians had reached new depths of despair, which was fuelling a hatred for Israeli that had little to do with the propaganda so often blamed by the government.

"There is no hope, no expectations for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, nor in Bethlehem and Jericho," said Gen Ya'alon.

The commanders warned that the situation was strengthening Hamas, a view the Israeli intelligence services agreed with. But while the army sees the solution as easing most oppressive elements of occupation, the Shin Bet argues that rising support for Islamist groups is a reason to keep the clampdown in place. This is the preferred option of the defence minister and Gen Ya'alon's predecessor as army chief of staff, Shaul Mofaz.

Mr Sharon and Mr Mofaz were reportedly furious at the general's statements and initially demanded that he retract them or resign. But the political establishment apparently decided it would be better to deride Gen Ya'alon.

Anonymous sources in the prime minister's office were quoted in the Israeli press complaining that the army chief was trying to blame the politicians for the military's failures.

But army radio reported yesterday that the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, agreed that there needs to be a substantial easing of restrictions on the Palestinian population. The deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was also reported to have backed the general's view.

Gen Ya'alon also waded into one of the most contentious issues of the day by saying the army had recommended a less controversial route for the steel and concrete "security fence" through the West Bank.

He said the military had warned that the fence, which digs deep into Palestinian territory, caging some towns and villages and cutting farmers off from their land, will make the lives of some Palestinians "unbearable" and require too many soldiers to guard it.

Further questions were raised yesterday after the chairman of parliament's defence budget committee revealed that the cost of the fence could triple to £1.3bn - or 3% of the national budget - if Mr Sharon fulfils his plan for the fence to run around Jewish settlements and the length of the Jordan valley so that it encircles the bulk of the Palestinian population.

In response to questions about Gen Ya'alon's comments, the army's chief spokeswoman, Brigadier General Ruth Yaron, said they reflected a debate within the military.

"No uniformed officer has expressed criticism of the government. The articles reflect fundamental deliberations within the army, in light of a complex reality," she said.

 

They weren't given a lot of autonomy. The order to prevent them from having any business which could economically compete with an Israeli business was in full effect even in the 90's and Oslow. The Palestinians still weren't allowed to drill for water, or even deepen existing wells. They were still charged more for the water than their Israeli neighbors.

 

When they attempt a legitimate peace plan it might work.

 

Wow talk about ignoring history, and presenting lopsided arguments.

Q.Which ruling party voted to never accept living next to a state from the other, even if the present leadership was gone?

A. Israel. The likud party voted to never recognize a Palestinian State ever. It wasn't on conditions of peace or removal of Arafat. In fact Netanyahu said specifically that even if Arafat was gone that his party would never recognize a Palestinian State next to Israel.

The Arabs have back to where they belong? Please do a little research and see which group has been in the region for the longest continuous time? Just because the area was once controlled by other Arab countries doesn't mean the people weren't there or that they have some place to go 'back' to.

I don't believe the Israelis should have to go anywhere either, despite the fact that most of them and their families have been there less than 100 years.

 

They shouldn't ever recognize a "Palestinian" state because:
A. there has never been a state called "Palestine"
B. there is no distinctive culture or language of the "Palestinians"
C. the "Palestinians" are Arabs like the rest of their neighbors.
-So why is it that only Israel, the smallest country in the ME, is always asked to contribute land to this "Palestinian" state?
-Why is it that one of the "Palestinian" demands is the "right of return," which would simply be an unopposed invasion of Israel by Arabs who hate Jews.
-This has nothing to do with the "Palestinians" wanting a country of their own. When the Jordanians ruled the West Bank and Gaza Strip, did they ever think of giving the "Palestinians" a state?Of course not. Why? Because this "Palestinian" state business is simply a dodge, a way for the Arabs to destroy Israel and wipe out all those who live there. Besides, the "Palestinians" have only started calling themselves that in the past thirty years.

Here's my solution:
A. Arrange for all the Palestinians to be expatriated to the Arab states and the Israelis would pay for the costs of reintegrating them back into the Arab societies where they belong and compensate them for the property they left behind.

B. The Arab states would compensate the Israelis for all the costs of integrating hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing prosecution in Arab states and compensate them for the property they left behind. Most Jews fleeing Arab lands arrived in Israel with the clothes on their backs and nothing more.

C. The Arab states would be forced to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and normalize relations with the Jewish state.

 

A. Irrelevant.
B.That's actually not true. They do have their own culture, and linguistic differences which don't amount to a language, but is a different dialect.
C.The ruling group of Israelis are largely European decent, unlike their neighbors. What difference does that make? Do you think German culture is the same as French Culture or Scottish?

As for the right of return, the most recent peace offer that was talked about here called for Palestinians to give up the right of return.

I'm glad that you do propose a solution. I don't agree with it, but that's more than some people do.

 

They shouldn't ever recognize a "Palestinian" state because:

I have to invent a new term for this guy, Chickenhawk Zionist". He is willing to fight till the last Jew or Palestinian to prevent a Palestinian State.

 

there was never a country called America, and it had no traditions, cultures, nor did it have its own language. The other questions have been heatedly debated in other threads.

Palestinians do for a fact have their own cultural traditions and although they dont have the same language it really doesnt matter, if there were only countries made by language, then Canada, USA, UK, and Australia would be one big country. And All of the Arab countries would be one big country