the analysis provided is really a manipulation of words that really does no good, and does not help in addressing the injustices and the real issues at hand........ waste of time, and this sort of thinking has plagued the Palestinian -Israeli conflict since the beginning. it seems that the only thing important is winning the support of the American, and European public.....all what we hear is word manipulation and buzz words all the time....(such as Terrorism, antisemitism, jihadist, islamo-fashists..) and other wonderful terms......all this does is mask the real problem, and just avoids dealing with the real issues which are communication, bridging the gap, and resolving this conflict....in reality, no American or European public opinion is important, you (we) are wasting our time- no one really cares. the only opinion that counts is that of the other side, because the other side are the people that at the end of the day -will share the country with you........ as for the issue of refugees, it is a real injustice, and denying that it is is really a poor attempt at hiding facts, just put your self in the shoes of these peoples,and think how bad it has been (and continues to be for them), you might start pointing figures, and blaming everyone around you , but the reality is that their ordeal was as a result of the creation of Israel, and any decent, fair, Israeli knows that, even if they don't announce it....... a true and just solution for their problem should be provided, in an ideal world, that means going back to their homes, but at this day and age, the issue needs more flexible, and realistic thinking...but please understand how hard this is for us, it is really the core of the conflict, and everything else is really easy to deal with...this whole issue generates really harsh questions for Palestinians, such as: if we are going to accept this why not since day one? who is going to make that decision? and does he/she have the right to do that? what about all the lives lost, were they in vain? what about the 60 years these people lived in misery, were they for nothing? these questions are really the tip of the iceberg, and they are so many questions and complications that will need to be addressed, thats why it is so hard of an issue to deal with...... the misery is genuine, and the injustice is genuine..... words, and UN resolutions could be manipulated forever, that will not change the facts..... but i guess it is time to address this issue, and bury this damn conflict before it buries us all....it will never end.... the first step is talking, and i still don't see anyone attempting to do that, especially your current government ...this is really not the kind of problem that will go away if neglected, on the contrary, it gets worse by time....and it is about time to end this, for the sake of our loved ones, both Palestinians and Israelis.. the only questions that should be asked now are "do i want to live in peace with my neighbor? and what will need to be done to achieve that? "...... thats what the focus should be, nothing else! i hope you understand that i mean good by this......

I'll play the Roman word game. They created the name Palestine and superimposed it over Judea. Now what do you say about that, bent-lefty?

to take note of some so called "MIddle East experts". The land which is Israel since 1948 was before that period sparsley populated, and as matter of fact Jews were already in the beginning of the 20th century the majority on this land. No more myths about Arabs being the majority land owners, please. Beside the facts on the gound have changed dramastically. 1923 you would count a total population of roughly of few hundred thousand (with a Jewish majority), the population swelled now to roughly seven million people. Still you have left wingers and some Arabs trying to proclaim that they have the right to claim back some muslim owned homes which are now either torn down due to new developments or the previous owners died or both. There were literally thousands of acres passed on to Jews through legimitate and documented real estate sales transactions of which nobody wants to talk about. Those who fled (and never returned) were in the first place scared by surrounding Arab governments who infamously spread out propaganda, that the Jews will slaughter all Muslims, which of course was nonsense. The only slaughters haven been committed were by Muslims (see the Hebron massacre 1929 and the wars and terror attacks since 1948). Palestinians are not a people per say, they invented the name "Palestinian" in order to destroy the Jewish State. Arabs living in former "Palestine" before 1948 were simply living in Nomad like conditions but never had a country for themselves where they could claim now that property would have presumably been stolen.

The right of return is not negotiable.

They stole Prussia from us and changed the names. My home city of Koningsberg is now inhabited by Russian colonists who call it Kaliningrad. But we will go back.

See bible for more

How about they go to the countries who lured them out in the first place? how about - like EVERY OTHER people who DELIBERATELY picked one side in a conflict, they LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS? Amazing that there isn't the same amount of clamor for all the JEWS THROWN OUT of ARAB countries - WITHOUT compensation, I might add.

Every single so-called Palestinian who is READY TO LIVE IN PEACE WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS is allowed to come back. Look to the so-called victims as to why this never happened. Res 194 is in full force and no pathetic attempt on your part to devalue 181 is fooling anyone but you & your fellow terrorist supporters.

If you say that 181 doesn;t guarantee Israel's right to exist then you have to admit that being ATTACKED by every one of her neighbors and beating them all back certainly DOES. Now you can apply the same standards to the Jews that you do the so-called Palestinians, and ask for ALL The ARAB countries who THREW OUT ALL their Jews - as opposed to the so-called Palestinians who LEFT of their own accord - to either take them back & compensate them.

First off, the UN has never asked Israel to withdraw "to the 67 borders", much less an "unconditional" withdrawal.. You are reading into things what you ant. Secondly, the fact that "the UN discussions have been about Palestinian refugees, not Jewish ones" shows that they share the same bias as you: until 1948, Palestinian MEANT "Jewish inhabitant of the mandate". Thirdly, your point about "where Jews want to live "is specious & desperate. The rest of your post is just completely untrue, and shows that you only know propaganda and hatred.

You were right: that's what tyou provided. "Racism" my aunt fanny - stop being so desperate!

Mr. Segal's piece is pure sophistry that won't hold up for 5 seconds in any international tribunal. Once Israel accepts 194, which as a General Assembly resolution is not otherwise binding, it will be legally bound to allow any refugee (and of course descendants of refugees deprived of their rights in their lifetimes) to return to their homes in Israel (whether the building is still standing or not) as long as the refugee says that he is willing to live in peace with his neighbors. End of story. Gamesplaying like this can only be intended to mislead the Israeli public into taking the suicidal step of accepting 194 in any shape, manner or form in the illusory hope that it won't matter. It will.

When dealing with a new unity PA government that doesn't even acknowledge the right for Israel to exist and exaults its extermination.... How could any rational, thinking people consider the Right of Return in any agreement....When the PA gets rid of Hamas....then talks can begin...

You are asking yourself :" do I want to live in peace with my neighbor?". Than you are asking :" what will need to be done to achieve that ?". THE school textbooks of your kids are FULL of hatred towards the Jewish People. TAKE all the hatred towards the Jewish People OUT from those textbooks. THAT will be a good start. BUT remember, it takes a generation (one generation consists of 30 years) to readjust everything. THIS generation with so much hate towards the Jewish People - is a LOST generation. If you change your kids textbooks TODAY - than after 30 years your community leaders than will be friends with the Jewish People. MEANING: only at that time peace will be feasible between the both of you. You write :" the first step is talking, ...". NOT only the first step is talking, but ALSO the middle step is talking and thereafter you will continue talking. BECAUSE that is what friends do -- they talk always. Isn't it ? Because THAT is how problems and discords are solved. By talking. BUT what do we see -- Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared to continue using guns and rockets against Israel. SO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad uses guns and rockets -- than the Israeli Government has to hunt down the users and their order-givers -- and kill them. ON a different note : you and all the Arabs SHOULD know that Judea and Samaria, nowadays known as the West Bank, is part of the Jewish Homeland recovered in 1967 during the Six Day War by the Israeli Defense Forces.

He engages in typical neurotic Zionist "pikpuk". The RIGHT of refugees to return to their homes is already enshrined in international law and Geneva conventions, and doesn't need explicit repetition in every one of the hundreds of UN resolutions violated by the Zionist regime.

the world works right now . This is New Middle east , The time Israel decides what it want is over , i might add. Reality Check ,world

As soon as Israel returns to the 1967 borders (and the 3-5 day life expectancy in case of an Arab invasion that went with them) it will be destroyed and the refugees will have plenty of room.

Point 1; you are right, there were Arabs living there since it was a former part of the Muslim empires, but that doesn't mean that Jews had no right to come live there (which they started doing as soon as WWI ended or earlier even, and since the land between 1918 and 1948 was owned by the British and the Zionists paid top dollar for it, Jews have full rights to a state there Point 2: You are absolutely right, but since arabs had been attacking Jews moving to Palestine since the 1920s, and since it was they who started the war, Jews had a full right to expel them in the process of the war, and other armies have done much worse to enemies that had treated them the way the Palestiniasn did the orginal Jews in Israel (and whatever country you are from, I guarantee you your predecesors treated the people who used to inhabit alll or part of your country in a similar manner, and had they not done so your country would probably not exist today Point 3 Right yet again, and the fact that Jews founded Jerusalem does not give them exclusive rights to it, but the fact that they conquered it, and in a defensive war no less, does. Istanbul, formerly constantinople, is the holiest city in Eastern Orthodox chrstianity, more so than to Muslims, and unlike Jerusalem, it was conquered in an expansionary, imperial war, but you're not suggesting that the Turks split it with the Greeks? And there are many other such cities in the world; including most of the capitals of Europe, and if your policy went into effect they would all have to be divided (except that those people who hold them now have mostly long ago eliminated or assimilated the others that used to value them). Point 4: Right again (four in a row that's impressive) except that all concessions so far have been made by Israel, and Israel has been right to stone-wall negotioations because every agreement it has made has lead to a worse security situation for it. The Sinai, first returned after the Suez crisis, played a key role in the 67 Egyptian invasion plan (and had Israel not held it in 73 it would not have survived the Yom Kippur War). The second return of the Sinai showed Israel's enemies that it can be coerced into making concessions, and mortar attacks from Lebanon started, not coincidentally, mere months after the Camp David accords. The Oslo Occords touched off a campaign of terror more bloody than any other the world has ever seen (with the exception of Iraq today, but it came pretty close) trust me, I was there for it. Oh, and of course there's the disengagement, which has led directly to more than two thousand rocket attacks from Gaza. O and lets not forget the 2000 Lebanon withdrawal, without which the war you so enjoyed watching on TV last summer would never have happened. Point 5 WRONG, (you just couldn't make all the points right, could you. The Palestinians never started Asking for the right of return until after the 73 war, when it became apperent that Israel could not be destroyed militarily. And they have absolutely no attachment to the land, because as soon as they got a state in 1948 (the first state the "Palestinians" ever got, since before then they were either part of a Muslim empire or the British Empire) they gambled it in an attempt to destroy Israel (and lost). They never complained about Gaza and the West Bank being occupied by Egypt and Jorden respectively from 1948 to 1967 (and you "international observers" didn't complain either). And no matter how much of this land they have gotten back they have not become more peaceful but in fact more violent. Oh, and by the way The Romans and Carthaginians fought for at least eighty years, and the British and French fought a war that lasted for a hundred years (and is creatively called the Hundred Years' War).

PALESTINA was the name that the Romans gave their province of JUDEA after they had expelled the JEWS from it. So far as I know the Muslims never called it that after they had conquered it, and the name was only revived after the british got it after WWI and converted the name to PALESTINE to make it sound more English (in the same way the Mons PALATINA was converted to the PALATINE hill) and thus the British gave the name PALESTINIAN to everyone who lived in their province of PALESTINE; Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or otherwise. When the Jewish state was established its people took the name Israelis and thus stopped being Palestinians, but the people of the Arab state established along side it never bothered to give that state a name, since they intended to conquere Israel the day after it was created and then attach it to Egypt or Jordan, and so they remained Palestinians by the name that the British gave them.

This is the New Middle East, but the results are not what you think. The Islamic golden age died long ago. The rest of the world will not be dhimmi for your domination agenda. And Israel is part of the rest of the world. Your time has passed and you are locked in the year 700. Reality check, moron.

Every tiniest bit that anyone in the world thinks Israel is not in compliance, ALL the world screams and screams that Israel is evil and something must be done, NEVERMIND that all we do is just to keep our own state. When UN makes a resolution arabs don't like, they ignore it, but the real problem is ALL THE WORLD IGNORES THE FACT THAT ARABS SPIT ON UN. Even simplest direction that even schoolgirls can understand like "RETURN THE ABDUCTED SOLDIERS" Not one person on earth even whispers that Arabs are ignoring UN and spit on UN resolution papers. IDF forces removed from Lebanon, but WHERE ARE OUR SOLDIERS? Why does Hezbulla still have rockets? SCR 1559, 1680, 1701 very clear. Arabs screaming about Israel must comply with pullout, but they dont have to comply with part about returning soldiers or disarming. When US elects weak liberal anti-semitic left wing democrat president, who will appoint an "American-muslim-Arab" to UN Security council, then the end will come. Israel must then leave UN and finally repay these dogs that surround us. Keep shooting smart guys, we will finish what we should have done in 67. American support for Israel is the only thing saving you now.

I agree completely, and see my comments #7, #12, #13. Let's talk some more, you and me!

thanks for the comments my friend, i respect what you said a lot... this is how it should be instead of these horrible people on this website... our politicians are playing games with us....they don't care about any of us, and they will do what will only make them stronger, richer, and keep them in their positions ...and i mean both sides by this.....this conflict has gone on for too long, and my fear is that we don't have forever to end it....i think that if we neglect this more, peace will become impossible at one point...we are at the time when both socities are becoming more and more extreme, relegious, and sinking into DARKNESS.......no one is using their heads any more....this conflict is becoming more dangerous by the minute.....it is heading towards "muslim vs jew"....instead of "israeli vs palestinian" which is what it really is....... this conflict has to end today....waiting for the other side to become some "ideal entity" is not going to happen.....on the contrary, both sides are becoming worse by the minute......so why are we not talking? why don't we get together with a true will to fix this instead of pointing fingers and blaming the other side for their failures? i really don't know, but i think that our leaders have failed us over the years, and they will continue to do that , unless we do something about it........ my respects to you ....