I will correct some of the points mentioned in the article. The Palestinians GAVE UP haifa because they accepted the UN resolution 242 as basis of peace negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian rejection of the partition plan in 1947 was based on the demographic balances at that time (%67 Palestinians and %33 Jews) and land ownership (Jewish land ownership in Palestine was under 7% as of 1947 according to Benny Morris p.170). Israel has NOT given up Nablus yet and still occupying the whole west bank! When you talk about the Palestinians you should calrify which Palestinians you are talking about. Fatah and the Palestinian leadership in the west bank announced clearly that they want to establish a Palestinian state on 1967 borders and make permenant peace with Israel, so you claim that they are planning to return to 1948 is false and baseless. However, if you are talking about the terrorists in Gaza (Hamas) i would have agreed with you. Hamas never denied that they want whole Palestine and the best they can offer is a long term truce!

The author has one important fact right. Every concessions fueled accord Israel ever signs with "Palestinians" means anti-rocket sirens in Israel will go off yet again. It means massive terror, rockets, maimed and murdered civilians. The "peace process" is a complete fraud so there can be no other result. There are no "Palestinians" any more than there are "Eurasians". Both are merely geographical terms. We are dealing with a pretend nation and a pretend claim on Israel.

I don't agree with this guy's opinions but understand that the view from the inside is very different than the view from the outside. We (Jews, Israelis) have a hard time telling the difference between Fatah, Hamas and other groups or who speaks for the Palestinian people. The messages from Palestinians in general are confusing and tend to contradict each other. I am sure we seem the same- again it is easier for us to understand our own side than understanding the other side. On another note, I think we can both distinguish between political/national/realistic boundaries and emotional boundaries. Both peoples emotionally feel connected and part of all the land. We will need to figure out how to make that understood without it being a threat to each others lives if we are to live together in peace some day.

Mohammad - UNSC 242 has NOTHING to do with them. It is between us and countries that attacked us in 1967. The PLO has NEVER denied that they want all of 'Palestine' either and by the way that means Jordan too! If they manage to kill us you and your apartheid regime is next.

Isn't the Hammas mentality, the worldview of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians or at least the current cultural predicament on the groung where that Palestinians can not speak out against this Hamas mentality? If no, explain, if yes, how do you break this culture of hating your enemy more than you love your family. And isn't the Hamas mentality, the Arab and Muslim worldview?

I think if both sides want to live in peace one day they should start to pay more attention to the view from the outside. I have spoken with many people from both sides and i found one thing they share in common: They both suffer from "tunnel vision syndrom" as they are unable to contemplate or to consider how the other side think or feel about the problem. If we want to make peace, we should stop being selfish and start thinking about the other. You brought a sensitive and very complicated issue which is: Who represents the Palestinian people or who is entitled to speak on behalf of them (Fatah & the PLO or Hamas)? I am not a Palestinian and i admit that its a very hard question to answer, and if i were an Israeli i would be concerned about the same issue: Who am i making peace with?? Luckily enough, Fatah and the liberal Palestinian leadership are in control in the west bank, and in my opinion, what happened in Gaza was a good lesson to everyone especially to the Palestinians in the west bank that being stupid and voting for a punch or terrorists will NOT make things better and will have dire consequences on the Palestinian people. And it was a good lesson for Fatah as well that corruption has affected its populairty and positon as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Israel's destiny is to be a part of this sick region and have no choice but to deal with reality. Israel has already redeployed from Gaza (which is ruled by Hamas) so any future negotiations will be about the west bank (where Fatah is in control) so Israel already have a peace partner in the west bank that is Abass. Signing a peace treaty will change the rules of the game. If Israel signed a peace treaty and got attacked afterwards, then Israel will be JUSTIFIED for using disporprtionate force and no one would ever blame Israel for using its deterrance power to defend itself because it wont be an OCCUPATION force. As long as Israel is occupying Palestinian land, the terrorist will continue to claim that they are "resisting the occupation" but if a peace treaty is yo be signed they will have no excuses whatsoever.

Arabs did not disagree with the UN Partition in 1947 because of demographics - they did so because they disagreed that ANY Jewish-ruled entity would exist there, and to a larger extent, any Jew. While Benny Morris will never admit it, the truth is this entire situation began when the racist Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Al-Husseini, led calls against Jews and violence that led to the massacres of many. Another issue that Benny Morris will not admit to is that private ownership of any land in Palestine was extremely low - based on Turkish records, it was only 5%. But the land Jews did own, was owned out-right, with deeds as proof. Morris also ignores the massive illegal Arab immigration into the region which pulled Arabs from as far away as Bosnia and Iraq. The British documented this clearly. So, is the rejection of the UN Partition on basis of demographics by Arabs really fair? Next, not one Arab accepted UNR242 - infact, Israel made the announcement on the BBC after the 6-Day war to give up WB and Gaza for peace. It was followed by the Arab Leagues 3 NOs, and one of them was recognition of Israel! So, I don't know who you know among "Palestinians" that accepted UNR242 and giving up Haifa, but prior to 1967, WB was not occupied (except by Jordan) and the goal of the Fayhadeen was to get back Haifa...and other land. It was this violence that prompted Israel to take West Bank, not a goal of expansion. Arafat himself admitted after signing Oslo Accords that his goal was to take back all land and rid the world of Israel.

They have been lying to the world for a long time but what is more they have been lying to themselves and this concoction has created one of the biggest myths in the history of mankind. Facts are indisputable but they have succeeded in distorting the path of history and for this success I take my hat off to them, much as it is to my consternation. I say this without predjudice and without negating the rights of the Palestinians as human beings and without negating the obligations of society as a whole to them. Israel and the Jews owe them nothing.

We signed the Oslo accord.. got suicide bombs.. We almost gave the entire country away in 2000... got the 2nd intifada We evacuated Gaza in 2005... we got qassams and kidnapped soldiers the "Palestinians" don't want peace, they WANT IT ALL WITH US DEAD! Let's solve this once and for all, and TRANSFER them NOW!

israel has to blame only herself for the mess she created, example: palestinians are actually - jews, because romans changed the name of the country and they have being jews till begin agreed to call arabs as palestinians. un partition plan never mentioned palestinian but arab and jewish state; arabs can not have pa but only paa - palestinian arab authority; there is no such thing as west bank , only judea and samaria. if you set these and other facts straight then it would be possible to talk.

In relation to UN partition plan in 1947, i am not a Palestinian but i only conveyed what the Palestinian themselves say. You can check it on Palestineremembered.com website and i am sorry for not being able to give you the exact link otherwise my reply to you wont be published lol (YNET does not publish palestinian links as i tried that before). Now if you dont believe in what they say, its up to you. One difference between myself and other discussants is that i dont question people's intentions and i dont pretend to be a mind reader and judge whether they are saying the truth or not, i just take what they say as it is unless i have an evidence! Two things i am sure of: 1- the partition plan was not fair for the Palestinians considering the demography at that time 2-Some jewish groups rejected the plan as well such as Irgun and Stern gang. In relation to Benny Morris, i mentioned him as a reference to where i got the percentage from. If you dont like him is another story but what i know about the man is that he recieved his PhD from the university of Cambridge and he is a professor of history in Ben Gurion university. Sorry, but your comment that not one Arab accepted the UNR242 is out of reality. Dont you know that Israel already signed two peace treaties (with Eygpt and Jordan) based on UNR 242, and dont you know that Israel and the Palestinians are both currently using 242 in the negotiations between them??!!! Finally you said "Arafat himself admitted after signing Oslo Accords that his goal was to take back all land and rid the world of Israel" I dont like Arafat but this is a very dangerous accusation, so could you please substantiate?

wh3en arab 5 year olds freely watch cartoons glorifying serial murderers of jews, and become worse ani semties than nazi 5 year olds....there is no frigging way there will be peace. Peace has to do with reconciliation and education of both narratives. At least education, reconciliation is a flagrant reach. Forced paper signings will not bring security, will not bring peace. Someone send some psychologists to the white house; this sint how you make 2 people live side by side in peace.

of Jews in Israel do not want a country that is 8 miles wide. The reasons are obvious. That is what the handover of Judea & Samaria would entail. Thus the best solution is to create a palestinian state but it should be in a country that already had a majority of its population Palestinian and has a land stake in the mandate of palestine (78% in fact). That same country is called Jordan.

First of all, the Palestinian Jews were the only indigenous Jews in Palestine prior to the European influx prior and subsequent to WWII. Before the influx of the Europeans, they lived in apparent peace with their Arab neighbors. Palestine was not a separate state, It was a province of the Ottoman Empire which disintegrated in WWI. They had no army. Yet, Palestinians have continually 'paid the price' of this invasion by outsiders. They have been made refugees, have had theur land stolen and have been brutalized by the Israeli Jews, many of whom are interlopers given legitimacy by an outside world which never took into account the rights of the indigenous natives. That is reality. The stories told and the redefinitions of reality are zioinist fictions designed to obscure the basic facts that the natives were, and have been, the victims of a foreign population and the myths promulgated by the foreigners to cover up the injustice of the situation.

Mohammed if you really arab and Moslem, then Shame on you to say :the terrorists in Gaza (Hamas) ..Hamas was elected in Gaza and West Bank in Free Elections .. I am still sure that all Palestinains even who are Hamas like me still dream to return to all Palestine and strongly beleive that it is a matter of Time and this dream will come true !!

The Arabs had a massive influx of non-native Arabs when the Jews came. They did not live in 'peace'. A simple google search will list dozens of pogroms and attacks prior to that. The 'Palestinians' paid no price for this invasion. We brought a higher standard of living, medicine and education to the local Arabs, which has not yet been equaled in any other Middle East to this date. They started their protests in 1920 when they were no longer 'Syrians' look it up. They are not and for the most part have never been refugees. Over 95% are living where they were born, their parents were born and for the most part grandparents were born. How many generations does it take until they are not refugees? Over 95% owned NO land, that is a fact that both Ottoman and British records support. Stop with the Arab propaganda, the lies are too easy to disprove.

Ali, if your attitude is representative of how the majority feel then you will never, never, never have a functional homeland and be living in peace. Let me repeat - never, never - get it? Only by compromise and goodwill will peace be attained. Never ever by resort to terrorism or rejectionism.

It was Arafat who tried to make Jordan into Palestine before he was kicked out in the Black September incident. The Palestinians have not forgotten and still want to claim all of "Trans-Jordan" as their homeland. So they want Hafia, Amman and everything in between. So anything said by Arafat or Abbas will only last until they get what they claimed to want and the next leader starts crying for more.

I dont identify myself as an Arab nor as a muslim. I idnetify myself as a "human" which means that the only way i use to judge and/or differeniate between both sides is by their ACTIONS, not by their race or religion. I agree with you that Hamas controled Gaza after a free election, but that does NOT make Hamas a democratic party because free elections is one aspect only of what real democracy is. A Taliban-like country that Hamas is trying to establish in Gaza will never be considered a democracy as it oppresses people and FORCES its medieval ideology on everyone. I define terrorism as "targeting civilians to acheive political goals" and thats why Hamas is a terrorist organization. I support the Palestinians right to resist the occupation using peaceful means. Mahatma Ghandi freed india from a long-lasted english occupation without spelling one drop of blood. I think Hamas and many other Arabs are misreading history by comparing Israeli occupation of Palestine with other EXTERNAL forces that colonized the region. You should understand that the Jews believe that this land is their home exactly the same way you do. If you try to kick them out by force they will only fight back because they have NO other place to go to. Finally, the good thing about democracy and free elections is that its a has a self correcting mechanism. When people vote for the wrong party they deal with the consequences of their decisions, and they will learn from it. Hitler was elected by a free election and look what he has done to his own people and to humanity, but the lesson has been well learned by the German people i believe.

No, ya think? Palestinians lying is like dogs barking, sun shining, water being wet, Democrats taking bribes. Get the point? This is no surprise. Muslims lie. The Koran says it's OK to lie, cheat, murder, rape, etc. The end, justifies the means. But, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob,(you know, the God who actually exists) is on His throne, and He keeps perfect records. One day, all of the lying, cheating, murder, rape, etc., will be at an end.

...there has been so much scholarly research in the last couple of decades that has recounted in a more accurate then ever before manner how Israel was formed and who was there at the birth of Israel. For those arguing using the old mythology and the years of incorrect hasbara, this is pretty much a last gasp for you.

...you are just making things up and any serious researcher knows it. The largest number of "illegal" immigrants might be in the neighborhood of 45,000 during the Mandate time. And even that is suspect. Every reputable historian on the planet holds a pretty even consensus that trying to make a political argument one way or another using the dearth of solid scholarly population statistics during the time in question. In other words, you are being intellectually dishonest.

For the Jews, the main point was to establish a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs, the main point was, always, to completely oppose any form of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine. The Arabs are not motivated by positive national aspirations. They have no desire to return to a "homeland" and to realize their imaginary "Palestinian" nationality. They simply want to make sure that the Jews are not in Israel. It is not despair caused by loss of what is theirs that motivates them; it is the hope to destroy what belongs to the Jews. The nurturing of this hope is the factor that gave birth to Arab nationalism. More at : http://xrl.us/be2ig9

It was to be part of the Jewish state according to the UN partition plan. This story makes no sense.

You write about all these reliable historians but you do not name any nor give the names of the books nor essays nor the page numbers nor any quotations. If you were a university student, you'd fail and the grade given would be "Blowhard". Now if you want to do something other than fart words, do us all a favour and report your "scholarly" findings in a clear, detailed and translucent manner. 'Nuff said.