1) You have bought into the Arab narrative of Israel being an “occupier.” Legally you can ONLY occupy a country. The last time the West Bank was part of an officially recognized country was when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. The land has been and continues to be disputed territory since 1948. Even the 1949 armistice agreement between Israel & Jordan specifically states so. So while Israel is in control of the land, it is not an “occupier.” By the way, the League of Nations gave then entire land that made up the British Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish people. So we have a firm international legal claim on the land as well. (Google -San Remo Conference)

2) The 47% figure that you mention included ALL of the Arabs west of the Jordan including about 1.5 million in Gaza. The vast majority of all Arabs west of the Jordan River who are not currently Israeli citizens are under their own autonomous government. They are hardy “occupied” by Israel. The number of Arabs not living within the autonomous Arab areas is relatively small. So your 47% is a red herring.

3) You have bought into Yasir Arafat’s greatest accomplishment, making the world (and even his “own people” - actually he was born in Egypt) believe that there is such a thing as a ‘Palestinian” people. Please tell me the name who the last leader of an country called Palestine.

I agree with you that IF, in fact, people threw chemicals at the IDF soldiers it is to be strongly condemned. However, I believe that the the initial report may have been proven to be untrue. However, even if true, you are pointing to an isolated act of a few people, if that, and applying it to thousands and people and their supporters who did no such thing. Your assertion of treason is worthy of a propaganda posting and monumentally distorts the truth. That isolated act (if it actually happened) hardly qualifies you to paint everyone as being treasonous.  (You still haven’t answered about the leftist who illegally met with the PLO which eventually resulted in 1,000+ Jewish deaths and counting!)

So you admit that giving away land will not bring peace. Would you agree that it would worsen the security situation, allowing all of central Israel and the international airport to be within missile range from the east? (Don’t worry, about give away the land in the east (ie. West Bank). Israel’s enemies have everything covered. The PA/Hamas/Iran in the east, Hamas/Iran has the west and south covered and Hizbollah/Iran has the north covered. ( No problem. In the next week or two Israel is scheduled to have another round of national air raid practice drills for the civilians.) Isn’t the 1967 armistice line referred to as the ‘Aushwitz borders.” But going back to it makes sense to you!

Didn’t the Gaza handover make security matters much worse? Did leaving Lebanon without an agreement make thing safer? So why would you propose to give away land that would only make it easier for Israel’s enemies to kill Israelis? Perhaps your visceral hate of religious Jewish settlers that come through so powerfully in your posts is obfuscating rational thought !  That’s right. Put the entire state and its people at risk, as long we get those dangerous treasonous religious Jews out!

Bottom line, the vast majority of Arabs do not recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel and would destroy it if they could. Until that sentiment changes, there will be no peace. Giving way land will only whette their appetities for more land (i.e. the whole state) and demonstrate weakness, which, in the Middle East, can easily be fatal.

(Let me know when you hear another Arab leader talk openly about making peace with Israel like Sadat. We all know what happened to him. Wait till Mubarak dies and the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas’ parent organization) takes over Egypt. Let me know when the PLO & Hamas changes their charters. I’m not holding my breathe.)

Thank God (Matt - sorry to have to mention him), for the Jews in Hebron and their brethren!! THEY are protecting Israel and us.

No, I don’t think pulling the settlements out of the West Bank will bring peace. None of us do anymore. It won’t stop the rockets, that’s for sure. And I, for one, think keeping troops there for a while is probably necessary.

That’s not the point. The point is the residential settlements, which you conflate with the military occupation. The point is that ruling over millions of angry and resentful Arabs is draining Israel dry, and is not a long-term sustainable situation, especially now that they represent 47% of the population west of the Jordan river. I want Israel out of there for Israel’s interests, not anyone else’s.

As for the settlers of Gaza, give me a break. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the horrifying photos of settlers refusing Israel’s orders to evacuate, calling Israeli soldiers Nazis, and throwing chemicals on the faces of Israeli troops, but I have not. When people attack Israel’s troops, they’re being disloyal. Sorry, but that’s just the facts.

And so that leaves us with the question again: Should Israel, by a democratic process, decide to pull out of the West Bank settlements, which side will the settlers take? And how do you know?

Did the PLO/PA ever change its charter calling for the destruction of Israel, as they were required to do under the Oslo Accords? NO!

Will Hamas ever recognize Israel? NO! Their charter goes one step further, it calls for a war on ALL Jews, EVERYWHERE!

Even when Barack offers 97% of the West Bank, Arafat literally ran out of the meeting! Madeline Albright had to shout to the guards to close the gates! But Arafat could not accept that! Why?

Hertzl may have been offered to set up a state in Africa, but he recognized the Jewish nations’ attachment to their ancestral land. He recognized that ONLY in the ancestral land would the enterprise of building a country succeed.

I wonder why Ben-Gurion would not return Jerusalem after the 6 day war?

As for the Israeli “settlers,” they have already demonstrated their loyalties when then left Gaza without a shot being fired. Shame on you for questioning their loyalties! When and where did they
“openly defy the laws and rulings of the government of Israel. They question and deny the authority and legitimacy of Israel’s democratic government..”

If I remember correctly it was the leftists who broke the law against Israeli’s meeting with the PLO in Madrid. Why aren’t you questioning their loyalties. Look at the DISASTER that have brought the Israel with the Oslo Accords. How many dead since Oslo? More Israelis died in terror attacks since Oslo that ALL the years prior! The leftists brought a defeated PLO from Tunis, gave them land and autonomy which immediately became and still is a breeding ground for suicide bombers and terrorists.

Who exactly are Israel’s peace partners. The holocaust denying Abu Mazen?

Wake up and look around you. Giving away land will not bring peace, as has been proven. It will only increase the appetite of the enemies of Israel to fight for its destruction. Speaking in favor of giving away land only encourages the enemies to fight on!

Tell me, if given the choice between Hebron and the Knesset, which would they choose? If the Israeli government, by a democratic process, did, in fact, decide to evacuate the outposts in the West Bank, and Hebron, and so forth, would they abandon the land, or would they abandon the state of Israel?

I’m on the side of Israel, whatever it decides to do. But where do their loyalties ultimately lie? If push comes to shove, and the moment of truth comes, which side will they take?

Herzl’s purpose, like that of all the other secular founders of Modern Zionism, was to normalize the Jewish people by returning them to nationhood, escape from Europe, solve the problem of antisemitism, and give the Jewish people a physical refuge, self-determination, and the capacity to defend themselves once and for all. The religious issue of serving Ha-shem by returning to the holy land was not foremost in the minds of these people, many of whom were socialists and atheists. I will not abide by any religious arguments for staying in the West Bank. If you believe Israel should be in the West Bank to serve Ha-shem, then I will bid you a good day.

Anyway, the aforementioned principles are why Herzl and others of his time toyed with putting Israel in other geographic locales, eventually settling on Palestine for the entirely prosaic reasons that there were already lots of Jews there, there was plenty of enthusiasm among Jews for the land, and because the British controlled the territory and could (sometimes) be negotiated with. They didn’t care about religious justifications. They didn’t believe in them.

The ultimate goal of Zionism should be to serve Herzl’s vision: To preserve Israel as a place of refuge for Jews in trouble, as a nation where the Jewish people have self-determination and the power to defend themselves from threats, and where Jews of all ideological and cultural persuasions can be allowed to flower and develop without molestation. All decisions about Israel’s future should be based on those goals. Religious arguments are worthless and not worth discussing.

Some believe that the settlements further those goals, and others, like myself, do not. The fanatical religious ideology that sprang up in Israel in full force after 1967 terrified many of Israel’s founders, including Ben-Gurion himself, who counseled Israel to give back all the land (except Jerusalem and Golan). But what did Ben-Gurion know? All he did was found a nation!

A lot has changed since 1967, by the way. That was over forty years ago. And Israel hasn’t won a war outright in over thirty-five years. Times have changed, and our thinking should change as well. Wasting money and resources, as well as Israel’s talented armed forces, checking bags and humiliating Arab families at checkpoints in the West Bank is not a long-term and sustainable solution, especially now that the Arab population in Israel and the territories has reached 47%.

That’s why Michael Oren, who was just picked by Lieberman to be Israel’s new ambassador to the US, insisted just a few months ago that Israel unilaterally get out of the West Bank for good. And few people understand history and the Middle East better than he does.

Unloading responsibility for millions of resentful Arabs would be a great unburdening for Israel, as soon as Israel can get its act together and do it. Why anyone would want to rule over millions of angry, unwilling residents boggles the mind. That’s why Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria should give the Kurds self-determination, and China should give the Tibetans self-determination, too. It’s just not worth the effort.

I don’t even care if Israel decides to go out of its way to build a state for them. Let them do it themselves. But first things first: Cut them loose, and let them stew in their own problems without having anyone else to blame for their problems. And don’t give me religious arguments for keeping the settlements; Ha-shem isn’t going to come and solve Israel’s problems.

The noble people there and their families are not playing a “cowboy-and-indjuns fantasy.” People don’t put their families at risk to play games. They believe in something. Just like those Jews who were forced to leave Gaza, (should I say the awful word… settlers) with deadly results, so too these people are protecting YOU, as well as the State, its people and our heritage.

I guess that you believe that Hertzl was also playing a “cowboy-and-indjuns fantasy.” Perhaps he should have just sold out for the money.

If the Palestinians really wanted a state, they could have had it when 75% of the Palestine mandate was cut out for an Arab state!  Or they could have had it in 1947 with a partition plan that the Jews, disappointing as it would have been with the results, accepted!  Or they could have had it after the 1967 war if their brethren had not issued the famous Khartoum “Three Nos”!

Frankly, I have had it with the Palestinians and their demands.  If they are suffering, it is their own fault, the fault of their leadership, and the fault of the Arabs in general.  If they truly want peace, let them live in their state and leave us alone in ours--the one state where we should be able to live in peace.  Unfortunately, they will not leave us alone due to the mistaken belief that they must have all of Palestine, which they are not entitled to.  Frankly, I don’t care if the rest of the world (and our president) is ticked off, if the rest of the world wants a real peace, they had better listen to the settlers and their allies as well as the Palestinians.

Behold! A Hebron without Jewish vandals or bullies! A Hebron where Arabs are learning their proper place! A Hebron where good, wholesome Jews are civilizing the savages!

Who cares that millions of hard-nosed Israelis living in the real world are trying to keep the state in the 21st century as an economic, technological, and scientific powerhouse? Who cares if the settlers and their boosters are fulfilling every bloody stereotype about extremist Jews? Who cares if it’s ticking off Israel’s one dedicated and most important ally, the United States? Hebron is the place where Abraham is buried! Hooray!

Go Hebron! Join us! It’s bliss!