Tynan Kelly from Beriut, Lebanon writes:
There is no such thing as striking back in this conflict. Both sides have accused the other of unprovoked attacks and both feel the other is a great threat to their security; and both are right in saying so.
Not mentioned, however, is the tiny matter of PROPORTIONALITY. One striker strikes quite a bit harder than the other, and always has, and always will.
Joesav from Tel Aviv writes:
The view from here is .....really depressing. The only decent prospect that I can see is the deeper and deeper U.S. involvement. Not that that's a guarentee of success, but things left to their own otherwise is a sure disaster.
I'd call this wishful thinking. The U.S. has been involved to various extents (sometimes pretty deeply) for 40 years. And we haven't accomplished, well, anything, really. This is perhaps the most obvious example of American impotence in the sphere of international diplomacy, OR, a subtle example of American kabuki posturing, to deflect its citizens (and media commentators) from pressing domestic concerns.
Alex T. commenting from Paris says:
Only the USA has the power to get Israel to comply. At no time does Israel feel the massive subsidies it gets from the US are in jeopardy. Its time to bring this to bear.
Most commentators agree that the Israel/Palestine conflict is a prime factor in conflict throughout the middle east and terrorism around the world. Its bigger than just the countries involved.
Time for America to do the 'unthinkable' and make the real threat of cutting off its multi-billion dollar allowance to its very spoiled child. Only that will focus the minds of the Israeli administration.
I seriously doubt that the US has neither the political or economic power (any more) to make any kind of impact. Certainly not the political will. Back when Al Franken's senate election was being held up, and the great state of Minnesota was limited to one Senator in Congress, there was a joke going around that went like this:
Q: What's the difference between the State of Minnesota and the State of Israel?
A: In the US, the interests of the people of the state of Minnesota are represented by one senator, while the interests of the people of the state of Israel are represented by 73 senators.
Anyway, making the "threat" of cutting of aid to Israel, and actually cutting of aid to Israel are two VERY different things.
Brendan Holleran of Dublin Ireland writes:
Israel has come up with a new demand before it will agree to the 2 month halting of construction on the West Bank. The Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Israel created this new demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a "Jewish" state knowing that the Palestinians could not do so. At the same time when a Palestinian negotiator tried to give an Israeli negotiator in Washington a paper on their position on borders he refused to take it. This happened in the presence of US officials including George Mitchell. So, it's quite clear Israel is not serious about peace. As one of the Palestinian negotiators says in an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz today, Palestinians recognised Israel's right to exist in peace and security 17 years ago. Israel has 78% of the original land of Palestine. Before the 1948 war 33% of the population were Jews.
But of that 33% of the population or the Palestinian territories, most of those Jews were indigenous to the lands, their families having lived there for several thousands of years. That dirty little secret: Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together in the Palestinian lands for centuries. Further little dirty secret: the Jews living in what is now Israel are regarded as being of lesser and lower class than the European immigrants.
Commentator Bruxman from Europe perceptively writes:
I have watched this conflict for the last 35 years and I have come to the conclusion that a majority of Israelis wants the land. If the land comes with peace, even better, but peace is clearly not the priority.
We all know that Israel cannot have both, the land between the Jordan river and the sea and peace. It is the job of the USA to teach this lesson. It's simply just not being done.
One can read comments here that peace would come once the Palestinians give up the armed struggle. But this is a flawed perception. The armed struggle is the result of Israel's land grab and oppression. It is not the cause.
And lest we forget, there is another overarching issue - the right of return of the exiled Palestinians, the millions whose families were driven from their homes during the ethnic cleansing by the Jews of the Arabs from the late 1940's. The Palestinians living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, do not have the rights of citizens in those countries.
Eric from Minneapolis writes:
Israel's actions demonstrate that its primary goal is not peace, or even security, it is land--Palestinian land, I doubt that the President--or anyone--will ever convince Israel to make any real concessions. The U.S. should cut its umbilical cord of money and weapons to Israel.
And stop buying Israeli technology to support what was once the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) but has now been aptly renamed "The Long War." Let American workers produce that technology, dammit! (Soon I will post on what Naomi Klein has written about this in her illusion shattering book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.)
Carol Christ writing from Molivos Lesbos offers this:
I have been against anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism all of my adult life, but Israel has been consistently acting as if it intends to keep the territories (or parts of them) that it conquered in the 1967 war, which is against international law. This is wrong.
Keeping those territories, and adding others. In one instance paying 500 settlers money to settle in the heart of an Arab city of more than 200,000 people, and then sending in 1,500 IDF troops to "protect" the settlers.
Israel is a colonial enterprise, just as was American, back in the day, when the desire for settlement expansion was one of the drivers of support for the revolution against Britain. The British had made treaty with the Indians, forbidding settlement west of the Appalachians. This was not acceptable to many of the American colonists.
It's interesting that of the 15 highlighted comments, 10 come from outside the U.S.
It's also interesting that so many of the highlighted comments are fact free.
But then, this is a very emotional, tribal issue.
