Stupid, arrogant, stiff-necked pride.

[TheWraith]

That's what the situation in the Middle East boils down to. You hear all about how it's an age-old feud of land, and culture, and religion, etcetera, going back thousands of years. A little bit of truth there. But the biggest part of the problem really started about a hundred years ago, with a back-and-forth exchange of pride-fueled anger that would be kind of funny if it weren't the cause of so much suffering.

Tiny steps, each side going a little farther each time, fueled by an absolute unwillingness to compromise even the slightest bit. The Israelis don't want to give up control of the land, so they build settlements. The Palestinians don't like the settlements on their land so they fire some mortars in. The Israelis decide removing the settlements would be "showing weakness," so they reenforce and expand them. Which angers the Palestinians...

It's repeated over and over, with every issue. Did you know that in 1967 the Israeli parliment voted to return the territory that they captured in the Six Day War to Egypt and Syria in exchange for a peace deal? Except that since both sides refused to directly talk to each other, and because the message was not passed along to the US that we were supposed to convey this information to Egypt and Syria, action that could have prevented the 1973 Yom Kippur/Ramadan War was not taken.

Did you know that in 1965, because Jordan and Syria were working on a water reservoir that would have decreased the amount of fresh water flowing into Israel by 10%, the Israeli Defense Force launched three unprovoked attacks on the project during the course of that year to try and stop it?

It's not an ancient religious feud. It's just simple, ordinary pride and arrogance, with no one involved being willing to say "Wait, maybe we can work this out."

[Ron Green]

1. They don't have Jesus.

I'm serious. Their religions are strictly Old-Testament style monotheistic systems that allow for retribution against "enemies," rather than seeing the "enemy" as part of one's own self and therefore forgiving the self AND the world.

I'm not defending Christianity here, either as it's defined or practiced. I'm just saying that "turning the other cheek" is the most powerful move toward reconciliation, and neither of these adversaries in the Middle East has it written in their rules.

[villager]

3. plenty of Hebrew prophets -- before Jesus -- said basically the same thing

Read your Amos, your Isaiah, etc. Which is why prophets were mostly ignored, and had arrest warrants out for them....

[Ediacara]

2. Maybe I'm naive, but what's wrong with a one-state solution?

As in a single multi-ethnic secular state...

[DonCoquixote]

4. The problem is

That neither the Muslim or Jewish clerics will allow that, they will make sure that they get a RELIGIOUS state. Not to knock all Muslims here, but many of them in that part of the world refuse to think of any state that is not controlled by religion. Of course, The Rabis there are just as fascist, a fact that many would be Israelis in New York refuse to get.

[TheWraith]

7. In theory, nothing. In practice, suspicion.

The reason the Israelis refuse to allow a right of return--the ability for Palestinians who originally lived inside what's now Israel, or their descendants, to come back to their old lands that they were forced out of during the 1948 war--is because they imagine that Palestinians will swarm across the border, become Israeli citizens, and then politically take over the country. I wish I were kidding.

This is despite the fact that polls have shown that only a tiny fraction of the Palestinian population would be interested in actually exercising a right of return, but that it's a very visible concession that would make a lot of goodwill.

It goes the other way too--the Palestinians wouldn't trust Israeli politicians, or military leaders, or virtually anyone else. In essence what you'd have to build would be the equivalent of the kind of government a country has after an inconclusive civil war, where the factions share equal measures of responsibility in all areas of government and national defense.

Add to that the fact that the Israelis would have extra worries that the Palestinians would sell them out to one of the other Arab countries that surround them. Not very likely in my opinion: the other Arab countries have treated the Palestinians pretty badly. Not as badly as the Israelis have, but about as close as you can get and not be shooting at them.

I don't mean to make it sound impossible: it's not. In fact, some people consider it the only practical solution given the way the population is layed out. But so long as the entire area is being run by people who consider it okay to play politics with dead children, there's not a chance in hell of any of the steps being taken that would have to be before anyone could even seriously discuss it.

[rrneck]

5. The entire planet

has a stake in what happens to that little spit of land. Stiff necked pride plays a large part, but so does plain old greed supplied in no small part by the United States.

[Statistical]

6. Backing down doesn't seem to working either....

Tiny steps, each side going a little farther each time, fueled by an absolute unwillingness to compromise even the slightest bit. The Israelis don't want to give up control of the land, so they build settlements. The Palestinians don't like the settlements on their land so they fire some mortars in. The Israelis decide removing the settlements would be "showing weakness," so they reenforce and expand them. Which angers the Palestinians...

Israel abandoned the settlements in Gaza. Left everything. Schools, businesses, homes, vinyards, farms. The security wall runs along the "green line". They even dug up the gaveyards to bring the bodies back to Israel. They (at urging of world community) allowed Palestinian self rule in Gaza (despite considerable protest to the "riskiness" of the idea back in Israel).

In return attacks INCREASED.

Their are doves on both sides however the massive effort taken by doves to make any kind of small step towards peace is crushed by the actions of the hawks. Often years of small steps are erased in a single action.

[trof]

8. Israel doesn't talk to the Arabs. The Arabs don't talk to Israel. Even in aviation.

I flew for TWA.
We could fly from Athens to Tel Aviv.
Next day from Athens to Cairo.
No way from Cairo to Tel Aviv.
Or vice versa.
Cairo wouldn't stamp our passports so that we could still fly into Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv did the same.
Silly and dumb.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. All of the middle east suffers from the delusion that their particular God needs protection.

Which is ironic in that the various versions are all called the "All Mighty" and other similar conceits.