No I don't think the current situation is sustainable, nor do I have anything against negotiated solutions.

My scorn and derision was specifically aimed at the notion that a solution including right of return is practically possible, let alone "easy."

"Begin where you are."

My time machine broke. I can't go back and change the creation of Israel. Sorry 'bout that.

Israeli Arabs who can practice Islam openly however they wish. There are 11 Arab parties in the government and the deputy speaker of the Knesset is an Arab. About 20% of the medical staff of Hadassah hospital is Palestinian including the head of the organ transplant unit. There are about a dozen Arab language newspapers in Israel. Also Arab websites, radion and TV stations. Also Christian relgions, Druze and Bahai operate freely and openly. Bahai world headquarter are in Haifa Israel.

Apart from 5000 Jews in Tunisia and Morocco each and 25,000 Jews in Iran there are essentially zero Jews in the Arab/Farsi world, thrown out, often at gunpoint in the period 1945-54. Roughly 1 million were expelled. Judaism is illegal in many Arab countries and entrance is barred to any Jews or any Israelis even Israeli Arabs. 4th Generation Palestinians in Lebanon & Syria are barred from citizenship. About 75% of Jordan is Palestinian yet most Palestinians who entered the country after 1949 are barred from citizenship. Gazan Palestinians were expelled into Gaza from Egypt byEgypt in 1948-67 (who by the way illegally occupied Gaza according to UN181) and then cut them all loose in 67 by unilaterally surrendering Gaza to Israel even though zero IDF troops ever fought in or entered Gaza during the 6 Day war.

Facts and reality don't matter to Salon, so hoist your flaming crosses and uncork your Zyklon-B, for peace and freedom. We'll be over here poisoning wells and kidnapping white children for our secret blood rites.

My time machine broke. I can't go back and change the creation of Israel. Sorry 'bout that.

-- Jan R

That's unfortunate. We agree we can't go back and put Saddam back in charge in Iraq. But that is a different situation.

In point of fact, Israel proper has two ways to go. It can learn deal with its neighbors, the only real guarantors of their security, or it can plow on ahead and be history in about 30 years. You don't even need a time machine to see that, bub.

At the risk of sounding paranoid, I really do think the neocons ,and their likely and unlikely allies of late, are planning to invade Iran and we are seeing the first waves of Psych Ops, of propoganda attack, right now.

We've nothing to 'invade' Iran with right now, so that's out.

There's plenty of air power that might be employed. Whether the Bush Administration is idiot enough to actually try using it is entirely another matter.

Wow. These comments help me remember there are certainly high passions for politics and that threads go off into unintended directions. I'm glad folks are passionate.

Even though there has been no uproar over my last post (thankfully), I just wanted to clarify for the record that when I use the term "neoconservative" or "neocon," I'm using it in a pro-perpetual-war-machine kind of sense. I see it as a defending-the-Bush-Doctrine word, not a rejection of the state of Israel or the thinkers who defined the movement in the late 20th century.

As y'all were...sorry for the interruption.

I don't think Rosen said "easy." Was it "easy" for South Africa to give up and stop eating its children? No, but it was sure as hell simple.

My scorn and derision was specifically aimed at the notion that a solution including right of return is practically possible, let alone "easy."

Jan, you're still sounding disingenuous. I personally doubt that any solution that does NOT include some right of return would in fact be a solution at all. Rosen seems to be saying the same thing. So to me, you are saying a solution is simple but impossible. Well, that's how we got here---thinking the problem is intractable.

So here we are back at South Africa.

In point of fact, Israel proper has two ways to go. It can learn deal with its neighbors, the only real guarantors of their security, or it can plow on ahead and be history in about 30 years. You don't even need a time machine to see that, bub.

Well, bub, I don't believe I've ever said any different.

Now tell me, do you really believe that Palestinian right of return will be part of that deal? Is it not far more practical to seek a two state solution that leaves Jews in the majority in one state? Or is that not an acceptable option to you?

(the Democracy Now! interview) are excellent.

I heartily recommend the second of the two, if you don't have time for both. Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the presidential candidates and the Iraq occupation. Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Senator Clinton seemed to sum up the view of the Democratic leadership, that Iraqis should take responsibility for themselves now that the US has given them what she called, quote, “the precious gift of freedom.”

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: I have been outlining plans as to what we can and must do to begin bringing our sons and daughters home. I am convinced that we can start within sixty days and do it in a responsible and careful manner, recognizing that the Iraqi government has to take responsibility for its own future, that we have given them the precious gift of freedom, and it is up to them to decide whether or not they will use it. But we cannot win their civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and John McCain—you’ve been in Baghdad. Have you been following? And what have you observed?

NIR ROSEN: I haven’t seen the “precious gift of freedom” in Iraq. I mean, she’s just utterly contemptible. The Democrats in general are, because they’ve been blaming the Iraqis. I mean, we know that the Republicans are despicable, that this is their war, but the Democrats have also been blaming the Iraqis: “The Iraqis have to choose freedom. The Iraqis have to step up to the plate.”

The Iraqis were demonstrating for elections in April 2003. I was there, and many other journalists saw this, as well. We denied them freedom. We denied them sovereignty. We denied them their own government. We imposed a series of dictators on them: Garner, Bremer, Allawi. We created a civil war in Iraq, or at least we caused it. Iraq, a country that had never experienced a civil war, we did that to them. This isn’t like Rwanda, where we can just say these Hutus and Tutsis were killing each other, we had nothing to do with it. We did this to Iraq.

“Precious gift of freedom”—there’s freedom to kill whoever you want, there’s freedom for militias. The Americans certainly aren’t agents of freedom in Iraq. They’ve arrested tens of thousands of Iraqis. They’ve killed thousands of Iraqis. They’ve empowered militias in Iraq. There’s no Iraqi government. When she says that the Iraqi government has to step up, there is no Iraqi state. It provides no services. You have various militias in charge of various ministries. They’re weak. No electricity, no power, no security, no health services. It’s a failed state. It’s Somalia, with different militias controlling different areas.