Clearly the issue of the existence of Israel has been a source of tension and turmoil up through the 21st century.

Without using a time machine and using the world as it exists today as a starting point . . .


The question for debate is:

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.

And if you dare be so bold or naive, How would your solution accomplish the elusive peace in the Middle East?


Use logic not flame.

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.

I believe it is too late for a "just and fair" solution. A long, slow war is in progress, but it is war nonetheless, and it will determine the future of Palestine. But I think that in the end, some Jews will be allowed to remain in Palestine on the basis that they hold legitimate title to lands that were in Jewish hands at the time the Zionist state was founded. Any title obtained since Israel was founded would be suspect, due to the coercion implicit in Israel's very existence (e.g. a Palestinian sold his land under the reasonable belief that he could never come back to occupy it). But ideally, a court would be set up to adjudicate such cases, and might find that some titles obtained since 1948 were entirely legitimate. All other Jews in Palestine should be subject to deportation, which is not to say that they should all be deported; that would be at the discression of the new government.

Any public lands of the Zionist state should become public lands of the Palestinian state; and any private claim to them by Palestinian individuals should be justly compensated.

The government of Palestine should be a secular institution, but if otherwise, it should at least recognize the civil rights of everyone, including Jews, and it should confer upon all its citizens, including Jews, the greatest possible rights of religious observance.

The United States and other powers should pay reparations to the new government of Palestine at least equal to the military and other aid respectively and previously given to Israel; their acceptance of any Jews deported from Palestine should count against these debts in some appropriate amount per capita.

No surprise to see a communist suggesting a purge...

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.

Link.

A just and fair way to resolve the conflict would be to establish Israel as one nation with full inclusion of the Palestinian Arabs as equal citizens, as should really have happened from the get go.


And if you dare be so bold or naive, How would your solution accomplish the elusive peace in the Middle East?

It wouldn't.

The Muslims will never accept the loss of any land (they still lay a claim to the Iberian peninsula) especially not to a former subject group like the Jews. Even if the Palestinian Arabs were to be included as citizens of Israel, they would simply fight it from within, using the same terrorist tactics they're already now using in Europe and by the culture of huge families in order to out bred those who surround them. This is a time honoured method used in all Muslim regions to great effect and there is no 'moral' western counter to it that can prevent it. Once you let Muslims into a country it is only a question of time before they take over. No country in history has ever managed to contain a Muslim minority.

Thus in essence, the common situation is the best course of action. Until Islam stops being a social factor in the Middle East there can be no room for any non Islamic nation to exist, so any such nation must be very strong in order to defend itself.

As a couple of points of clarification.
Arab and Palestinian Arabs who resided in the territory that became Israel without fleeing as refugees were awarded full citizenshhip rights with special exemptions form compulsory military service. Arab citizens of Israel

Also there is little evidence of the behavior that you declare to be inevitable, from a population that would seemingly have greater motivation to behave in such a way.

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.
Give all the Palestinians title to the entire continent of Antarctica, including McMurdo Station even! Ship 'em down there on Carnival Cruiselines.

And if you dare be so bold or naive, How would your solution accomplish the elusive peace in the Middle East?
It wouldn't. The only sure peace in the Middle East over the next 2 score years will be accomplished either by putting virtually all the Israelis or pretty much all the Arabs 6 feet under. Even with all the "Palestinians" chilling wayyyy down under, there's enough nutjob Islamofascists that will continue blowing themselves and others up. Total, complete, humiliating defeat, which may entail annihilation, is the only sure solution. "Negotiated" peace has a bad habit of failing to bring real peace. Consider the Treaty of Versailles for a most significant example, although the Oslo Accords are making a run for the title of most useless peace treaty, might even nose out the Munich Accords.

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.
Give Texas to the Israelis.
Solves a lot of problems with a single blow. No more strife in the middle east. No more suicide bombings.
We get people who would have no problems taking over border control. The terrain seems to be similar so little adaption is needed. Since they're Jews they are Jesus's kin so Texans have to let them in 'cause they are family. Most seem conservative so it doesn't really affect the GOP stronghold. Instant answer to our stretched military problem PLUS since we don't need to cover them we get to keep our aid money and use it for many other useful things--perhaps Katrina rebuilding.
Palestinians will finally have to take responsibility for their own failure to get their act together as a people and a nation.

Added bonus. With the Jews gone from Israel if anyone in the Middle East --this is after all their biggest complaint-- ever so much as burps the wrong way at us we can feel free to now just level the place.

I was specifically refering to the other Palestinian Arabs, those who are not now Israeli's but who would be if Israel had included all the Palestinian Arabs in its foundation.

What would be the most just and fair way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict today. Account for all of the inhabitants of this area in your solution.

Build a fence around the entire region - Israel and the Palestinian territories. Give every man, woman and child a stick. Last man standing gets the place. For the kindler gentler solution replace sticks with pies. The side with the fewest members covered in pie get the place. Rules of the second - Israelis can't load pies on tanks or use pie catapults... Palestinians can't strap a bunch of pies to themselves and just run into a crowd of people - getting pie on them and himself in the process.

But seriously... it seems to me the best solution at this point is to leave them alone. Provide humanitarian aid to the inevitable onslaught that will occur, but let them at it. It will be bloody for a time - but tell me when the creation of a nation wasn't bloody. But this means no support for Israel and no support for the Palestinians beyond humanitarian aid. Any country found to be aiding either group militarily or financially beyond humanitarian aid would be sanctioned to the utmost.

It is time for those in that region to - to borrow a phrase from someone in another related thread - sink or swim. All our best efforts - or calculated interventions - have only served to prolong the violence without solving the problem one way or the other.

And if you dare be so bold or naive, How would your solution accomplish the elusive peace in the Middle East?

For a long time, it won't. But if the international community - so wise in its belief that it could create the sloppy two state solution it saw in 1947 - would accept that the prevailer in the conflict would be recognized, some modicum of peace could be achieved in time.

There is only one fair solution.

For those that are so willing to give Israeli land and citizenship away, guess what it ain't yours to give. Israelis do not want to be Americans, nor would they much care for Texas, anymore than Texans would care for them.

The only way there will ever be peace is to have the Arabs return to the the 78% of the original Mandate that they already own. They got over three-quarters that should be enough. They need to go to Jordan where a majority of them are citizens already.

I see... of the original Mandate. Return? The Arabs should return there? And what about those Arabs who lived in the region known as the Palestine Mandate post-1922. I know it's not the original Mandate, but it is the accepted Mandate region post-1922. And what percentage of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza are Jordanian citizens who were not granted citizenship in 1954 as refugees from the post-1922 Mandate region? How many are Jordanian citizens born in Jordan and - for those born in Jordan - aren't the children of Palestinian refugees?

Give the Palestinians the land deal of 1967 – as a state of their own.

I can see no other way to move forward. Also Israel holds the Golan Heights for imo little strategic reason today. Nice high ground but not something that would cost Israel much in a war.

http://books.google.com/books?id=2RRY0IUtM...mu8P5ecupZAgb2A

I know that a significant aspect of this is control of Jerusalem. Would it do any good to declare it a universal holy site, and place an international commision in charge of it, with a mandate to allow unhindered access to all religions, plus atheists?

I wish I could believe either side would go for it.

Also, we took Egypt out of the equation a while ago, and they were a tough nut. I know that it took some carrots and sticks, and Sadat got killed over it, but it seems to be working out. Is there simply no way to beat or bait Israel's other neighbors into playing nice?

If MAD doesn't work, and the plight of their own ppl doesn't work, what the heck will it take? I'd really rather avoid the glowing desert full of skeletons option.

Gee to suggest that the Arabs give up anything is not acceptable but to demand that Israel take in millions of hostile people and surrender their capital to a bunch of terrorists is.

That says a whole lot.

Jordan was part of the territory that was to go to the Jews under the San Remo Treaty that also established all the Arab regimes in the area. But the British took away 78% of land and gave it to the Arabs. Which formed a country that is 70% Palestinian today. Most of the non-Jewish people living in Judea and Samaria have Jordanian citizenship. Why do I say non-Jewish because Jordan is an apartheid country that has the death penalty for selling land to Jews. And they ethnically cleansed all the Jews living there and in Judea and Samaria in 1948. Something Israel has been accused of and didn't occur.

If the concept of 'land for peace' is valid then why is only Israel the one to give up land? The Arabs have been the aggressors in every war. They too can give up land for peace.

What are you on about? This appears to be typical of you. You can't provide facts, so you just accuse.



Could you please provide some source for your statistics? Could you also address the questions I posed earlier regarding Jordanian citizenship rather than simply restating your position.




This was attempted before. It didn't work.

Death. The people who want to "push Israel into the sea" won't be happy even if that happens. Therefore death is the only workable, logical solution.

With no one left alive in the region there cannot be unrest.


Seriously. Think about it.


**

Oh BA aren't you being flip? Are you seriously suggesting that everyone over there needs to be dead for there to be peace?

Yes.