What do you think about this article?

Question

What are your opinions? Personally, I do NOT agree!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071008/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_jerusalem

Okay, how about this? I believe Israel should be left for the Israelis and shouldn't be divided.

Answer 1

They shouldn't divide it! It's the Jews land.

Answer 2

OK I'll give this a go, even though I fully expect to be shot down by both sides over this supremely sensitive issue.

Let me start by stating that it isn't hard to work out what a fair solution to the Israeli/Palestinian dispute would be. Such a resolution naturally involves compromise from both sides, and includes one particularly bitter pill for each to swallow.

For the Palestinians, their bitter pill is that in any final status division of Israel/Palestine, any right of return of refugees to the Israeli half will have to be extremely limited. This is because the State of Israel was created as a place for Jews to be able to feel safe and in charge of themselves, and that means retaining a Jewish majority within that State. This is the one criterion which Israel can never ever compromise, because it would undermine the very purpose of its creation.

For the Israelis, our bitter pill is that Jerusalem will have to be shared. It is a holy city to three religions, and so it cannot possibly be fair for one single faith to control all of it.

So, if Israel is simply laying out what would be on offer under such a final status resolution, I think there is no problem with that whatsoever. But if Israel is thinking of surrendering its biggest negotiating card without a full and simultaneous resolution of ALL the security issues and problems, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al, that would be very foolish indeed.

We are a long long way away from any such resolution because Hamas isn't even prepared to begin to negotiate at this time, so I would assume that any peace agreement which would involve the actual division of Jerusalem is very remote. In the meantime, there's no harm in discussing the possibility, provided that it is understood that this is only on the table as part of a complete and comprehensive final status resolution.

Redsandrider - dismissing and disrespecting people's religious beliefs isn't going to make them go away. Religion is a very important factor in the Middle East, and has to be given central consideration.

Answer 3

I don't agree either, but I'll bet it's not for the same reason as you!

Since Jeruselem is "holy ground" for three of the big self-deception cults (oops I mean "religions"), it should be international territory.

All of the rest of the land currently occupied by Israel, a backward, religious-based apartheid regime, PLUS the land currently run by the backward Islamic regimes, should be part of a democratic, SECULAR, and socialist regional federation.

There is no place for religious-based states in the modern world. They can only lead to oppression and bloodshed. Put the mullahs in the mosques, the rabbis in the schuls, and the ministers and priests in the churches -- let them stay out of politics and nation-building and let the rest of us LIVE.

*****
Londoner, I don't think you understand how angry some people are about this in the USA. Three days ago I heard a respectable, conservative, American Jewish construction superintendent(not a radical like me, chuckle), heck, he has family in Tel Aviv, say "They should put the Israeli Prime Minister and the Palestinian President in a room and tell 'em if they don't make a deal neither of them will get another penny from us. If they leave the room without a deal they should both be shot in the head and their replacements put in the room next. And if either of them makes any military move AT ALL, us and the Russians should take turns bombing the area until it's just a radioactive desert."

Understand, this is NOT MY OPINION -- I'm quoting someone else. I'm a socialist and think the Jewish workers and Palestinian workers should get together and take the place over. But this is how angry some people are here about this issue. Even though neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis had anything to do with 9/11, a lot of people here blame the situation for it. Heck, Sadaam and Osama were trying to kill each other for most of the 1990s, and look at how we blamed 9/11 on Iraq! Logic has nothing to do with it.

If it doesn't get settled soon, I'm afraid some crazy Republican or Democrat will do something terrible to distract us from our losing occupation in Iraq, or our failing status as the number one imperial power.

You don't want to be anywhere NEAR a place that Americans decide is a "plague on both your houses" situation.