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• Tuesday, January 13, 2009 11:26 AM

  @Paul in KY

  Paul in KY: "IMO, that's why the Palestinians need to 'think outside the box' and temporarily turn into Finns. Or at least make a concerted effort to show the U.S. (and the Israelis) that they can act with total restraint when necessary."

  Ideally I agree with you. In an ideal world the Palestinians, while working to establish their own independent state, could and thus would stop all terrorists activities by their own people.

  However: the Israelis, when they were working to establish their own independent state, could not and thus would not stop all terrorists activities by their own people - those terrorists activities instead only stopped after the state of Israel was established. Given that reality, what makes you think that the Palestinians could achieve what the Israelis could not in that regard?

  Paul in KY: "The above one says you can't take your boot off their neck"

  Why are the Israelis not only "keeping the boot on the neck" of the Palestinians but also continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank? Because as anyone who follows the conflict knows, continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank undermines confidence amongst the Palestinians in a negotiated peace process.

  Also: why are we Americans continuing allow Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank? Because, and also as anyone who follows the conflict knows, all the United States has to do is make our "aid" to Israeli conditional on Israel stopping settlement expansion and that's what would happen. And since we don't do that we are instead actively helping to extend and inflame the conflict.

  —Publicola Read Publicola's other letters
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