What is your point? If in 1948 the arabs accepted the proposal of dividing the land, there would have been recent settlements. If in 1956, 1967 and 1973 Israel was not attacked, there would have been no "occupied territory". If in 2000 Yassir Arafat, on behalf of his people, accepted the proposals put to him by Barak, there would be no recent settlements. If at any time the so called "Palestinian" arabs wanted to end the conflict Israel was ready to negotiate an agreement. The settlements are a result of "Palestinian" and arab actions; they were not instigated by the Israelis. Nevertheless, negotiations by a willing peace partner could have bridged and could still bridge the differences. Settlers are only the by-product of the misguided arabs acvtions. I am afraid you have to get your facts right before you pass judgement.

The writer over -looks the deep ties Palestinians have to their ancient, ancestoral villages. We were struck by the fact that all the kids in the refugee camps identified themselves by name and then by the village from which they came. Their identity was closely related to the villages which their families have live in, often, for hundreds of years. Some of them even had obtained soil from their villages which they treasured.

Can you provide a source for your information?

Hebrew is the language of the Torah. Jews have been reading, studying, and praying from the Torah for over 3000 years. Every Jewish child at the age of 13 reads from the Torah. The Hebrew language has never been, and never will be a dead language. You are right, Hebrew was modernized by Ben Yehuda last century and a lot of slang does come from Arabic, Russian, and English, but modern Hebrew is based on the same ancient roots of the Torah. Roots by the way, that no other language has in the world--namely, three letter words that can form many other words using the same root. I have no idea where you got "Jidish" from. Maybe you mean Yiddish, the language the Jews mainly spoke in Eastern Europe starting from the 13th century.

Now here's another hypothesis: "Jews want self-determination at the expense of Palestinian self-determination". This hypothesis is supported by the dream of Greater Israel, continued building of settlements and the declarations about Jerusalem as eternal undivided capital of Israel. If this hypothesis is true then making peace proposals to Israel is totally unproductive, indeed counterproductive.

“extend the hand of peace” The only viable peace in the holy land is when we all live in one democratic country with no group persecuting the other because of religion. This is how I’m trying to be reasonable. Jews dream of the pure Jewish state and hope if Palestinians would disappear. Is that the type of peace you think of? Or we should accept the building of settlements and destroying our olive trees and see how Israel steel the land peacefully “The distorted facts fed to you” Which facts? The fact that the first Zionists where thinking of Uganda or Argentina as a home land for the Jews? It’s written in Jewish history books and every Jew knows it. Or the fact that Jews escaped the Holocaust and no one would take them including the Americans so they came to punish the Palestinians for something they didn’t do. “The love Jews have for the land of Israel is genuine” Where is the land of Israel? Is it from Iraq to Egypt? The Jews abandoned the land of the prophets from Abraham to Yousef and Moses and will hold the 48 where no prophet had passed there. “Jews, for the past 2000+ years, thinks about Jerusalem and the destroyed temples several times a day” also Muslims and Christians think about Jerusalem the same way, why then should it become pure Jewish and why don’t Jews don’t think of Sinai and Iraq the same way they think about Jerusalem and make it pure Jewish. “The knowhow of Jews is far superior to most of the world's other nations, let alone those of the surrounding arabs. This they will use for their protection.” The sound of the “chosen people” and the superiority of the Jews over the rest of the world make the world hate your people because of this resist thinking your people have. And you say that my posting reeks of hate? “You did not even exist as a Palestinian until you claimed to be so in the 60's. Before that you were an arab” We exited there for thousands of years whether Palestinians, Arab, or Canaanites. You teach your children how to be resist and how to treat Palestinians until they come as IDF to check points in the west bank and start humiliates us there. Once you start teaching them that we are humans like you there will be peace in this land. We don’t want to through you in the sea like you want us to leave our land. Let’s all live together and make the holy land holy as it used to be. You sound like you want peace but you don't say what type of peace is this. It looks like you want the type of peace where Israel exist in the whole land and persecute us while we “peacefully” don’t say a word because you are the chosen people and we are less human than you.

from 1947 to 1967 when the Arabs controlled all of schem "the west bank" and gaza including Jerusalem why didnt they declare a state. In fact why didn't any Arab leader visit Jerusalem at the time if it was so holy to them? Why didnt arabs call themselfs palestinians then either? Why so some arabs believe they are descendants of caaninites and philistines when any history book will tell you that arabs are decendants of Ishmael who had the cannanintes as his neighbors and philistines as his european seabearing enemy. The fact that the Palestinian Area for thousands of years was mostly uninhabited is well known and recorded history. The populations of arabs that did live there was like many arabs of the time seasonal they where a population that migrated throughout the middle-east and mostly just passed through this foresaken area. The longest staying and largest populations where that of the Jews who have always been there. Those villages that the so called palestinian refugees have such strong ties to are from ancient jewish names not arabic. The arabs began to settle in large numbers when more jews began to spend money and effort restoring these uninhabited lands of their ancestors. Arabs come from Arabia Jews come from Judea that now the world knows as the west bank. If palestinians want their own state so bad why dont they fight for Jordan. Jordan is 90% populated by so called Palestinians. The reason for all these strange occurances is simply the arabs covet their younger brother the Jews. So much so that they inveted a religion to change the fact that God gave his blessing and his inheritance to the Jews and the bastard sons of Abraham have been trying to rewrite history ever since. Sorry Arabs, Muslims the Jews where and are chosen believe it how else can a determined few make the desert bloom, create a power full economy and military, a creative free society, a leader in so many different fields all the while the jelouse bigger more numerous brother the arabs tried to lie, beat, kill, steal everything their little brother had. Arabs go back to Arabia where you come from.

1.The settlements are not a REASON but an EXCUSE for continued Arab violence. 2. You will no doubt recall that in 2000 Barak offered not only to dismantle many of the settlements but to compensate the Palestinians with land from inside pre-1967 Israel in cases where the settlements were not to be dismantled. The Palestinian response was the murderous wave of violence that began in 2000 and has continued unabated up to the present time 3. Sharon unilaterally leveled ALL the settlements in the Gaza Strip. This has not done anything to reduce the violence or improve the situation on the ground. Strangely this demolition of settlements led to an even more fearsome and fanatical foe, the Hamas, to assume power. So much for the settlement myth. 5. By the way it is interesting to note what use that Palestinians have made of the land on which the settlements once stood. Actually none - but the Hamas are accusing the Fatah of illegal and corrupt seizure of these properties for their own personal gain. So much for the settlement myth - or have I said that before???

Aren't you overlooking a few "minor" historical facts in you attempt to create A FALSE SYMMETRY? For example: 1. The fact that the Jews accepted the partition plan, which would have facilitated Palestinian self determination with full international recognition. The Arabs rejected it. 2. Almost a decade and a half of Israeli governments that not only overtly RECOGNIZED and ACCEPTED Palestinian demands for self-determination but in many cases actually identified with them – in fact building much of their political platform and identity upon this. 3. Arab and Palestinian enmity toward the notion of a Jewish nation-state existed long before East Jerusalem was under Israeli control and before a single stone had being laid for a single settlement. Indeed the original Palestinian National Charter was formulated in 1964 when the entire area now claimed as the Palestinians ancient homeland was under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. 4. In spite of this, not even the most feeble effort was undertaken to establish Palestinian self determination in these areas or any other areas except those constituting the pre-1967 Jewish state. Go figure! 5. Interestingly enough, in the original Charter the Palestinians explicitly forgo any claims of sovereignty of the "West Bank" and Gaza, meekly accepting Jordanian and Egyptian rule in these territories. Again, go figure!

You are being very selective with your words. You are equating your personal statement of the longing of the "Palestinian" people for Jerusalem to the writings in the age old Torah and prayer books. Your idea of cohabitation is giving up the Jewish identity of Israel and turning it into a country for everybody. This will be acceptable if you can convince other countries to give up their identity. You agree you existed as Canaanites or Arabs. I also agree you did. You never existed as "Palestinians". So why this recent claim? As a Muslim your holy places are Mecca and Medina. You had no business in Jerusalem. Your prayers point you in that direction. Ours has always been Jerusalem's direction. Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in your Koram. When your fellow Arabs threw the Jews out you proceeded to desecrate their holy places and built the Al Aqsa mosque on top of our holiest spot. Some respect you showed to another religion! Your people have done nothing to try and solve the conflict. You have been offered your own land since 1948 which you declined because you wanted to deny the Jews their own. Israel allows people of all faiths to practice their own religion with the greatest respect. They have even rebuilt for you the mosque in Yaffo. I can go on forever but somehow I feel you are not interested in the truth. Your people are at least partly to blame for the humiliation you suffer. Strapping yourselves with explosives you detonate to kill women and children requires some counter-measures. I would say these counter-measures would have been more brutal if you were not dealing with kind hearted Jews. Salaam

first iread the article but have no time to read all the talkback ..i see the fault is of israil from its creation they look that the enemy is the states egypt syria lebanoon and as the palastinians had no state they did not look to palastinians as enemy as people lost their homes their lands and their life ....till 67 and after the israilian ocupy the west banke and gaza they still think is the states around them is the enemy as if palastine is a desert with no nation peoples children women and men have no jobs have no lands after 67 king hussien tried to get back the west bank with the people he had meeting with golda dian and ashkool ithink////israil want the land not the people but sure the land never be an enemy to any one but people do ..and till now the israil do not look to palastinians as people have loosing their rights but good if they realize that the people is the enemy not the state not the governor if there is a dectator governor salam yes as palastinians asking for our rights be enemy to any one take our rights even they arab or moslems not if they are jews ///so religion is not the main cause of the reflect arab is not but OUR HUMAN RIGHTS

Reading of Torah......if i live somewhere in Europe doesn't mean i speak with this language. Ancient roots of hebrew are in another language...aramic.....just like for arabic. Don't make from hebrew something unique....there are plenty of language round the world with deeper history than hebrew. Regarding modernization of hebrew.....rather we can say resurection !! To tell the truth.....first learn to pronounce correctly "hey" and "ayn".. "tav"..."tet" etc.....a then claim i'm speaking hebrew as it was for centuries. In contrast bear in mind....arabic the real historic language in this region!! Appology......you're right....."Yiddish" is the correct form......i'm not sure that it was in 13th century.....but i wonder why they created language that has nothing to do with hebrew. So.....to sum up......read and spoken are two different things !!

Both of you seem to be out of touch with traditional Jewish culture and the development of Semitic languages. Josh: All Semetic languages are based on 3-letter roots that are transformed to form various words. Most of these roots are identical in Hebrew and Classical Arabic (Lughrat Al'Fus'ha), though they are used differently. Paxos: Hebrew is pronounced "correctly" by numerous Jewish communities from the Middle East. However, even Ashkenazim pronounce Ayin for ritual purposes (I have always pronounced Ayin although my education in Hebrew language was entirely traditional (Yeshivas etc.) - Your problems with Yiddish are odd, because, as with almost any group living in the the Middle East in antiquity, Jews spoke the ligua franca of the day. Aramic from the Assyrian Empire until the Persian, Greek during the Hellenic and Roman Empires, and Arabic during the Islamic Empire. The Jews who moved to Europe similarly spoke the vernacular of the larger society i.e. German. German was important because Jews mainly settled in German areas in the middle ages, thus Ashkenazim ("Germans in Classical Hebrew). However, after they were forced to leave for Eastern Europe during the crusades there was an increased separation from the mainstream society an thus German was retained and morphed into Yiddish. There are similar Judiaifyed languages acros the world: Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Aramiac, Ladino, etc. - Since you seem to know something about these languages you should already know that Arabic went through a similar process of modernization, with the creation of Modern Standard Arabic, and the the spoken vernacular Arabic of any given community ('Amiyah) bare little resenblance to the Classical Arabic and its modernized version MSA.

Paxos, I was just woderning why you feel that a language must remain static for it to be valid. Although Ashkenazi pronounciation of Hebrew is certainly different than its historical form (as almost all Jews would admit) all languages change over time. As should be obvious from the various English dialects that exist. Interestingly American English is more similar to Shakesperian English than modern British English, an interesting case of how nationalistic ideologies of language correctness have little relationship with historical realtity. The point is that languages change, and there is nothing wrong with this. The fact that Jews chose to use Hebrew only for writing and ritual does not invalidate it, nor does it imply that the language is dead. A dead language by definition is one that has ceased to evolve and change, and writting Hebrew Style can easily be identifyed based on region and time-frame. So... to sum up... languages are human creation that can be what ever there users wish, not "Divine" demarcators of a people or cultures validity.

the vowels and accents of the masoretic text reflects the particular tradition of the tiberian masoretes. they were not the only system of punctuation of the biblical text. but there is a linguistic disconnect not only between mishnaic hebrew (from which modern hebrew is based) but also ancient or classical hebrew. what we have today is very similar, textually and gramatically, but the fact is that spoken hebrew died twice without concerted efforts to preserve it. the pronunciation is only a fair approximation of what the original pronunciation of the text was, but barring some new ground-breaking archaelogical discovery the original vowelage is unrecoverable. the point is that languages do evolve over time and province but hebrew has two major interruptions in it's evolution. since the establishment of the masoretic code the pronunciation and development of hebrew has evolved fairly normally.

started to fight back !!!

The symmetry is not perfect but there are reasons on both sides to suspect the intentions of the other side. Regarding your points: 1. But that changed in 1967, when Jews started entertaining and implementing the idea of Greater Israel. Since then, Palestinians have started accepting the idea of a two-state solution, with their state in the WB, Gaza and East Jerusalem. 2. And simultaneously, the Israeli governments continued disrupting WB contiguity by creating new settlements and continuing the building of blocs like Ariel and Maale Adumim which would be very difficult to evacuate. All the while solidifying Israel's hold of Jerusalem, not hiding their intention to keep it wholy under Israel's sovereignty. 3. Palestinian enmity to the notion of a Jewish state has obviously existed, however read point 1. 4. Well, the first step toward Palestinian self-determination (if we don't include the terrorist attacks earlier) was the establishment of Palestinian Authority, which exercised civil and security control in agreed areas and built an international airport in Gaza. That this interim government was corrupt doesn't mean that no effort was made to establish Palestinian self-determination in those areas. 5. So the Palestinians were ready to accept the rule of Arab countries in their territories, but not of Israel. Is that surprising? Their culture and religion is surely closer to Arab countries than to Israel.

Mo, by saying Romans expelled us from Israel, you are pretty much saying Jews were here before Arabs as Romans were here before arabs as well. And that's right, we were expelled from OUR HOMELAND, yes it was our homeland before arabs got there. And that is exactly why we were in europe, middle east, america etc. We were scattered apart with no homeland. Israel was given _back_ to us. Maybe it wasn't you who expelled us, but you occupy what is our land. And what is your land only after the romans expelled us and got out of there theirselves.

You tell 'em Chaya!! Wow!! You are awesome!!!

Propaganda. They teach these kids from birth as a weapon, not as remembrance. But they teach nothing about Jewish ancestral ties. Looks like you've been suckered in, too. Have you any compassion left for the Jews, or is that not a consideration?

Mike's abolutely right......this is crux of the matter is that......in fact hebrew died......so didn't evolve continuously at all. That's all for Josh......just to pinpoint, that is not divine language with long continuous history...like he presents

Nothing you say is revevant to the article at hand. You cannot reasonably respond with an intelligent argument so you fall back on a tired "settlement" excuse. Now you want to start history in 1967, 1948, 1800? Too bad Jews are such an ancient people and go back thousands of years back, and on top of everything, they have been literate for thousands of years as well, leaving all this written history for all to read -- that is for those willing to read and learn.