So you did not put "It's like conversing with Bucky!" in the title of your post?

Of course I said that.

David Sugarman actually would have been a better example. Go back to whatever it was you were doing.

It means every self defined Palestinian everywhere on the planet forever unto infinity. Literally yes it does. 10 x 10 generations from now, anyone can claim they are a Palestinian refugee, even if their grandparents grandparents grandparents grandparents went to Canada became citizens, lost their Arab name, forgot their ancestry, didn't know jack from squat.

Would that I could reclaim my Belarussia, Italian, Irish, Polish and German homeland. Would that the hillbillies in NC could go back to Scotland and declare themselves long lost Scotts. Would that all the Russians could declare themselves ancient Mongols entitled to the Mongolian homeland.

In the UN there are two different, parallel and separate refugee organizations. UNWRA - for the Palestinians and another agency, for everyone else in the world. UNWRA was established specifically and only for the Palestinians. Moreover their definition of who even is a Palestinian constitutes anyone who can or wishes to demonstrate with little or no documentation, that their family lived generally in the area of the British Mandate in 2 of the 3 years 1947-49. And once that is granted then every single descendant unto the day the sun explodes, forever and forever on is deemed a 'refugee'. Any Palestinian American in the US today, for perhaps 4 generations could, if they wanted to, apply to the UN for refugee status and get their names added to the roster of people the UN wants to see forcibly repatriated to Israel.

So the notion of diaspora takes on a different meaning for Palestinians than it does for anyone else. Check your law books next time. Or just call me names, that works too.

Well it seems the weapons for the nuclear attack are in place.

There was that strange incident where a B-52 Stratofortress flew from Minot Air Force base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana carrying six nuclear missiles in August 2007. This was illegal under existing treaties and the USAF has not flown nuclear weapons anywhere in the US for nearly forty years. The official story is that it was all an 'error'. The story is the crew flew the nukes without knowing they were on board. This in spite of the fact that the missiles were not in the cargo hold but mounted on the wings and primed for firing. It's simply not credible that the crew didn't know and flew 1500 miles across America with six nuclear tipped cruise missiles on their wings without noticing.

This all only came out because crewmen at Barksdale AFB blew the whistle and told the 'Military Times' services publication what had happened. The word is that the whole thing was orchestrated by Dick Cheney for his own dark purposes. I don't think it's too hard to guess what those purposes are.

I'm mystified as to how either of you can read "genuine peace has always been easy to achieve" as anything but "peace is easy to achieve."

I can't say what Rosen was referring to, but if you go way back, peace generally has existed in the Middle East when both sides have agreed to stop killing each other and left the other alone. (I know---childish, isn't it?)

The Turks left the Christians alone within certain restrictions (paying a tax rather than serving in the Caliph's armies) and with certain privileges (like running the empire instead). Similar with the Jews. Each religion or sect had its own town, village, or quarter.

The Crusaders and Seljuks had peace whenever the military leaders on both sides agreed on it. Same with inter-Arab wars.

Only the Romans couldn't leave the Jews alone. They too had a political war machine that, like ours, drove them to attack their neighbors for no better reason than to make money, lay waste to competitors, meddle with politics, and so on, or for no reason at all. And they went out of their way to oppress first the Jews, then the Christians.

(Funny how states can control their behavior toward other states---and their peoples' behavior toward minorities---when they want to.)

So I read Rosen as saying that the solution is blatantly obvious: stop refusing to let people live in autonomy and decent circumstances. Leave each other alone, and there will be no need for fences. Stop encouraging the politicians to prolong the situation just to take advantage of it.

The 2-state approach does not fully deliver on those points, and will always fail as long as the Israelis---or whomever they have put in control of the Palestinian territory---are dishonest with the Arabs and with themselves. A policy of return would cut out the political middlemen on both sides and settle the problem directly. That's my feeling.

And the reason I jumped on your use of the suicide excuse in the first place is that pretending Israelis can't and won't figure this out on their own is a familiar lie. It's analogous to stating that Americans will never stop driving Hummers, so we shouldn't consider giving them other options they might prefer. It's also a well-known dishonesty.

OK fair enough. I confused the Jewish population of Israel with the total.

I still think there is room to move on "right of return" versus "unrestricted, complete right of return." It strikes me that this is exactly the type of thing that can be achieved through negotiation.

I just can't see a stable solution with a huge number of Palestinians crowded in poverty on the West Bank and Gaza, surrounded. I see nothing "practical" about that.

If it were up to me and I ruled the world I would step in with a big stick

A liberal interventionist ready to swing the big stick. Gee. I'm surprised by this.

Yeah, well, we won't be the worlds sole superpower forever either. We'll go the way of Britain before too long.

Why not just let Iron Man fly in and save the day?

The technological and accurate killing power of the Military Industrial Complex but with a liberal intervenionist's Midas Touch and bleeding bionic heart. An American War Machine flying in to save some rat hole of a country from itself, without all of the depleted uranium, collateral damage, blowback, cleaning up, pulling out, and bankster morality.