I'll get behind the idea of a Palestinian state if and only if the terrorism can end and Israel's right to exist is validated. You can not create a state based on hate.

guys, let's face it... if both sides (Israel and the Palestinian) want to survive, there is nothing to do rather than accept each other's right to exist and that is it! no matter who is the right side on the conflict, both the people exist on the same land... just like jews are not willing to go back to europe, pals are not willing to go to jordan or any other arab country... there is no point on that! jews claim it is the land given to our great great great great grandfather.... pals claim it is the land of their great great great great grandfather... both are connected to it... if for historical reasons it is the first time both have to coexist on the same piece of land, we have to accept it and not fight against it... let them have their state! we have conquered ours in 48!!! if there are going to have security concerns or wars or whatever... it will not be very different from what we have now... the difference is that there will have no occupation, then, and both israel and the pals will be on the same level... it will be a fair game =).... we have a few settlers on the WB, ok... how many israelis live or ever lived in nablus or ramallah, since 1948??? if we never had it, why do we insist wanting it???? if the only problem are the religious sites.... lets build tunnels that allow israelis to get to them in safety, and problem solved! don't you come shouting at me saying i don't know what i am talking about, cos i live on the other side of the world... i've lived in israel for a long time, i uderstand the situation pretty well... i lived in sderot and had rockets falling over my head everyday... but i also had friends in the WB and for many times while traveling on the WB i saw how horrible it is not to be able to live your life because of the idf

The truth is that Palestine has had U.N. recognition for decades. The P.A., and it's allies, have passed hundreds of Israel bashing resolutions and they are about to pass another one. Yet it doesn't make the slightest difference. Palestine is forever fictional. Only Israel has the power to make this hideous nightmare come true and the overwhelming majority of Israelis won't let it happen. That's the bottom line.

Just the fact that they choose to use the Roman name for the Jewish land is quite spectacular. They aren't even able to find a name of their own. Maybe that is caused by the fact that they have no connection whatsoever to the country.

The author is still babbling about a Palestinian state. If the Palestinians do this, blah, blah, blah.. If the Palestinians do that, blah, blah blah. You would think he didn't read his own article. Hello. The Palestinians aren't going to do anything. They can't reconcile themselves to our existence. . This conflict is over 100 years old. The whole idea is flawed anyway, a Palestinian state isn't viable. Then we come to the real problem. We can't trust the Palestinians. The conflict will not end with a Palestinian state. We cannot stop them from obtaining arms, any agreement is unenforceable. We can't stop them from having an air force, just imagine what that would mean to our security. Can we stop them from allowing Hezbollah to set up shop? Can we stop them from letting Turkey station troops in ''Palestine''??? Or Iran? Given the geography, the small distances, can we risk another Gaza? Or are we completely nuts? Given the instability of the Jordanian regime, can we risk losing control of the Jordan Valley? Let's get serious here. The whole discussion about a Palestinian state is total BS, based on unrealistic & delusional assumptions. Our best option is to annex Area C which has a Jewish population, parts of Area B, & the Jordan Valley. As for Area A which contains 95% of the Palestinian population, we keep sovereignty while we try to develop some kind of civil society based on autonomy for municipalities without the PLO or Fatah. Gaza is a separate problem & it's Egypt's problem.

It's not just a flawed interpretation of history, but the creation of history and international laws that never occurred. They do not have a single legal claim to any of the land west of the Jordan River. I challenge anybody to prove that wrong. Their sole claim is that they want what is ours - which is a typical Arab action. They are thieves and destroyers - not builders or creators.

How is this "state" going to pay for itself? Unemployment is very high, there is no industry...just global welfare. Gaza has become Hamastan. What is to prevent Judea and Samaria (palestine) from becoming another terror enclave? Nothing. Fatah will quickly be replaced by Hamas and now the trouble really starts. There is no way in hell the PA is ready for a "state"...it is a joke of sickening proportion.

world wants to give the palestinian arabs a state who have always wanted to destroy Israel and the Jews and danced on 911 when towers came down. Arab palestinian tactics have been terror murder and teaching their children hate, jihad and lies! When a state is force magically peace will break out and love will be in the air and the cost of oil will be dirt cheap, and iran will give up the nuke weapons.

Palestinians as a people is a joke. Everyone living in the British Palestine from 1917-1948 was called a Palestinian - whether a Jew or an Arab. The Arabs living on pre 1948 saw themselves as Arabs. Not different than their brothers in what is now Jordan, lebanon, Syria, Egypt etc. Mant of them indeed came to British palestine from these places. They never dreamt of creating an Arab "Palestinian" state in 1947, they wanted to have one big Arab nation that will include what is now Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and parts of Egypt. They had no distinct national identity. And the author of this article is right. What prevented peace in the area 44 years ago and still now, is not Israei occupation but the Arabs' refusal to recognize the right of the Jews to have their own state ANYWHERE on this land. No matter what the borders are.

"How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! ..." - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Ch. 2 THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Romirowsky is way off. To begin with, there were never Arabs called "Palestinians". 100 years ago when you talked about "the Palestinians" you were talking about Jews, not Arabs. Next, the Arabs view of history or reality is not "flawed". It is based on solidly put together propaganda, that has the explicit purpose of creating fact from fiction. The propaganda campaign has made the world think that the Jews conquered a country called "Palestine" and are thus "illegally occupying" the Jewish homeland. In fact, the worldview goes a lot further than that. In includes a total denial that Jews ever lived in Israel and pretends that Jews come from Siberia. Thus, the Palestinians pretend that there was no such thing as a Jewish Temple (upon which the Muslims built mosques). The Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are indeed lying on purpose. Their entire modern culture is built on lies, and pretends that there was some Palestinian "nation" that lived here before the 20th century. This is, of course, a total fabrication and a rewriting of history. Yes, a big part of the problem came from the Brits and Yanks and French carving up the tribal Middle East after WW1, before which many of the countries simply did not exist. Go back 3000 years and in history you most certainly did have Israel and Egypt and Lebanon. But no, you did not have "Palestine" or "Jordan" - both modern creations.

Well said! This will not be settled diplomatically because you need people willing to compromise. The Arabs (so-called Palestinians) do not have that ability in them. They want all or nothing. Let us give them their wish. Since we are not giving them all, we will give them nothing.

All true. Islam sees Jews and Judaism as inferior and they have always persecuted Jews. The Moslem world's potential acceptance of a Jewish state is dependent on Arab/ Moslem acceptance of tolerance and hence democracy and the rights of non-Moslems to equality. It will be a very long process and our survival depends on contiued ability to defend ourselves in every way.

Terry You are SPOT ON. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about Israel, will agree with you, I definitely do. My Dad came to Israel in 1936, lived in a Kibbutz, paved the first cobblestone sidewalks in Petach Tikva with his bare hands and worked in the refineries in Haifa together with Arabs, some of whome spoke Yiddish. They were not Palestinians - they Arabs, until the Palestinians were invented after the 6 Days War! The Alon plan which called for making Jordan (with 70% "palestinian" population) the Palestinian State, was the most sensible plan but as most things that make sense - it was ignored and now we have this endless nonesense discussions about a Palestinian state on the land of Israel.

basically it boils down to this: "if we kill the jews and try to destroy them, then we will be unified and engaged in a glorious battle" its been used since the start of islam: war directed at an outside enemy allowed them to unify and stop killing each other. now, they have never succeded in winning a military war (israel wouldn't be here if they did), but due to more than 1billion moslems, control of the worlds oil and a corner on the terrorism market, they can be assured to ALWAYS win the diplomatic war. any UN votes for an independant Kurdistan? - i didn't think so.

What is the author trying to prove and to whom?!? Fact is: The Palestinians are entitled to self-determination under international law. Fact is: Israel under Netanyahu has done pretty much everything possible to subvert direct negotiations with the Palestinians and thwart the process aimed at arriving at a mutually-agreeable solution. I'm no fan of the Palestinians, but what, exactly, were/are they supposed to do??? I hope they get their West Bank state already, and this whole circus leaves town. I for one am sick of it.

Terry and Joshua: You are definitely on the right path. Jordan in fact tried to confederate with West Bank Arabs several times before King Hussein washed his hands of them (and revoked their Jordanian citizenship). The Rabin government in the 1990's should have split the West Bank with Jordan as part of the peace treaty. That would have been the perfect opportunity to solve the problem. Gazans, Arabs just like the Egyptians, could have been folded into Egypt. Even with a super-generous land offer, another Arab state west of the Jordan is just not going to be a viable independent nation. Question is, will the Israeli government have the courage to state this fact and ask Jordan to amend the peace treaty?

#5 Terry- Your comments save me lots of work; you've said it all. Keep up the good work.

Don't you know Hamas has repeatedly declared that they will NEVER recognize Israel? It's not just a question of the West Bank. They want the Jews out of the Middle East! Period! I am surprised to see a Jew not to see this.

Talk is cheap, I agree. This phony peace process has been going round and round for almost 20 years. Israel has occupied the WB and Gaza Strip for over 40 years. On top of that, Israel has moved 500,000 settlers into the WB and East Jerusalem. Now that the PA has chosen a different route, Israel now wants more talks. It is like talking about how the pizza will be divided with one side already eating it.

running a state.

To #17 to have the International rights you speak of you must be a real people. And the so called Palestinians are not. And were made up out of thin air. They do not and have not existed ever. If they did what was their language? The form of government? When were they declared a country and who recognized them? Why are there no Historical documents or evidence of this discovered in the land and they continue to destroy all Jewish evidence? What was their religion? What was their Capital city? Name one leader before Arafat please. The silence is deadly

Ok,your post is very good and I would gladly accept what you said but there is a big problem-how do we develop some kind of civil society based on autonomy etc with stubborn greedy leaders like Abbas etc.Do you mean that we should get rid of them?That we should have "revolution"against them as people did in the other Arab countries?

Do you know how many jews in israel say the same about arabs? both the sides are just the same thing!!!

Obama will appear at the UN to cast the negative vote for America, it was on Today’s news One thing though, those souvenir coffee mugs and flags will nice toys for the kids to tinker with

especially if you replace the word "palestinians" in your post with "Israelis"

"I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”Those six words will change history.” PM Natenyahu, May 24, 2011. In a democracy like Israel everyone has lots of opinions, but the overall Israeli consensus and the official position of the government is that Israel DOES accept the existence of a Palestinian state. Not only in Natenyahu's speech to the US Congress and in his speeches to Kensset, but also in prior statehood offers in 2009 and 2001, 1995, and others... Israel DOES accept a Palestinian state. Palestinian leadership does not accept a Jewish state. That part of the equation has to change.

... spoke yesterday in Ramallah about the "occupation", he talked about "63 years of 'occupation'". The meaning: the sovereign state of Israel, 63 years of age, is considered by the head of the PLO and the PA, according to the PLO's Charter, as an "occupied" territory. Thus, what is the true intent of the PLO that is eager to get off the yoke of "occupation"...??!!