What are your thoughts about the Palestinian/Israeli Issue?

So let me get this straight, you want the whole thing for yourselves? Not being snide, just trying to gague where you stand.

Thanks for responding and sharing your realistic views.You are right both sides should work for peace.Similarly big powers,especially USA,should never support Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.UNO should also play dominant role to bring peace in this area.

A number of Palestinians who have painful memories of 1948 and 1967 still want to reclaim all Palestinian land and want Israel removed from the map. Whilst it is true that the Western powers of the 1930s and 40s did encourage Jewish settlement in Palestinian land at that time prior to the Israeli state coming into being, we are where we are. Realisticially, the clock cannot be turned back 60 years: a similar situation applied to Northern Ireland where Queen Elizabeth I and her successors pursued a policy of settling Ireland with protestants from Scotland. This settlement of protestant people in Catholic Ireland caused all kinds of trouble over the centuries with vicious sectarian warfare between Catholic and Protestant. But how far do you go back, you can't turn the clock back 400 years! In the end, peace was achieved in Northern Ireland because former enemies started to talk to each other and accept that they would have to live side by side and compromise if they wanted peace. The same situation therefore applies to Palestine. However hard it is for Palestinians to accept that they won't get all their land back (ie turn the clock back to pre-1948), if they want peace and a better life in the future, they will have to accept compromise, accept Israel's right to exist side by side with a new Palestinian state broadly along the 1967 borders. Again, we can't turn the clock back regarding the right of return issue: I cannot see how Israel would agree to have all these Palestinians back as I suspect the Israelis would then become a minority in their own State. But a compromise can be reached where those Palestinians who were evicted in 1948 could be given generous compensation, something where the Quartet could help with. On the other side, Israel will also have to compromise, primarily by removing all settlements built illegally since 1967 and will also have to reach an agreement re the status of Jerusalem, which may also require compromise between the two peoples. Northern Ireland should show that there is a way if only people have the vision and determination to grasp it. If people persist in their entrenched positions, then I guarantee there will never be peace: ie if the Palestinians (including Hamas) refuse to accept Israel's right to exist along 1967 borders and refuse to compromise re the right of return issue, then there will be no peace. Similarly, if Israel insists on holding on to the illegal settlements it has built in the occupied territories and refuses to compromise re the status of Jerusalem, then there will be no peace.

Agreed re Hamas. They also will have to compromise if they want peace, and that will mean accepting Israel's right to exist and stop attacking it. Hamas can declare all the hudnas that it wants, but until it is prepared to say unequivocally that Israel has the right to exist, then this whole process will get nowhere. No doubt the US has sent aid to the Palestinians, but I can't agree that the current Bush has been even-handed. For instance, he was the first president who moved away from the previously agreed line (agreed by all former US presidents) that the building of settlements in occupied Palestine was illegal and would have to be dismantled for peace to be achieved. By stating that Israel could keep some of these illegal settlements, he gave the green light to Israel to go and build some more. Also, whenever Bush discussed a peace process, it was always the Palestinians who had to jump through several hoops before Israel would be called upon to do anything. A serious peace process would have required both parties to simultaneously take steps in tandem to improve confidence and trust and get the peace process moving. That approach was as far as I can see never really undertaken by this administration...