A Jewish state, is not possible as just for now 1/3 of Israel citizens are non jewish and growing faster than the Jewish population.

Israel can only survive as a Jewish state if they use force, undemocratic means or violence, because otherwise non jewish people will be the majority in less than 20yrs.

Therefore there is no need of two states as being proposed which is in actual sence based on discrimination supremacism. Like South Africa, the indigenous and immigrant can co-habit if there is political will from both sides with a representative constitution (quotas).

The use of Holocust as a weapon to scare people should be stoped because it will never happen again. Jews have to learn to live with other. Slaughtering of Palestinians and using US to support these acts should stop just as the rockets from Hamas.

As a (recovered) Roosevelt Democrat I used to think I didn’t like you much. As a recently-minted Libertarian I have concluded that you make a lot of sense. I read this article on LewRockwell.com and I hope to continue to see your work there. Keep it up – it’s good stuff.

Israeli author Israel Shahak convincingly showed over a decade ago that Israel had absolutely no intension of allowing a two state solution. None whatsoever. The idea of a two state solution was merely put out by the Israeli government to mislead and assuage the guilt of liberals in the west.

Furthermore,and even more disturbing, was how Shahak showed how pervasive the idea of a “greater Israel” actually was among the Israeli elites. This means that not only has Israel has always meant to kick all the Palestinians completely out of their former homeland, it has also always had plans on the back burner to annex portions of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt et al. This idea or Eretz Israel wan’t new . This idea’s orgins can be traced all the way back to the Zionism birth in the in the late 19th century.

There is a current example of how this grand plan will be accomplished, the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. It is a place controlled by an Israeli puppet government that is also awash in Israeli mercenaries (essentialy occupation troops), all prepared to overthrow any Kurdish government is stupid enough to defy Israel.

Shahak, by the end of his life, had come to the conclusion that the only solution was one country with both Palestinian and Jewish citizens. Israel, he felt, was so inherently racist and expansionist, that its continued existence would bring nothing but disaster to the Mideast. Gaza is only the most current example of this ongoing tragedy and travesty.

“With Olmert, Rice, and Bush departing, and Obama and Hillary taking charge committed to talking to Iran, can the old intimacy survive the new friction and colliding agendas?”

Strikes me that this is wishful thinking based on not perceiving that to a limited but significant degree there is not a “colliding agenda” between U.S. interests and Israel’s. And that’s why I suspect Leon Hadar too might be somewhat mistaken in believing that Obama isn’t going to jump right into this mess.

While substantively I think the U.S. really has no vital national interest involving in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict it surely does on a purely political plane. That is, to desperately try to disguise the fact that without the support it gives Israel that Israel could not be doing what it has been doing Or at least to provide U.S. Presidents and diplomats with *something* to say. “Cover” as it were.

Or, to put it another way, if for some strange reason the rest of the world and especially the arab/moslem world did not perceive the U.S. to be complicit or culpable at all in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and etc., *then* we really *would* have about no interest whatsoever in the conflict aside from the theoretical humanitarian concern and the economic aspect of us giving Israel all the money that we do.

But that’s not the situation. The U.S. political situation is that we can’t help but providing all the political and economic support we do to Israel, and therefore our interest is purely and simply trying to persuade the world that we do care what Israel is doing. And even if and when that proves ridiculous, our Presidents and diplomats still of course must be provided with at least something to say, even if everyone and their mother knows it is pure moonshine.

Likewise, Israel has an interest in doing what it can to lessen the world’s anger at it, persuade whoever it can to not be hostile or lessen same and etc., and its Presidents need something to pretend to say too.

Ergo the common interest is at the very least some bit of kabuki “peace” theater/process.

And the funny thing with this is that with each turn of the ratchet demonstrating ever more the futility of any such “peace” process, the *need* for having same just grows greater. Therefore, even now in the wake of Gaza and with the utter destruction of Bush’s “roadmap” and castration of Abbas and the moderate Palestinians, precisely *because* things may explode further there is a greater need for the U.S. to prevent same because of the even further harm it will cause to its image/reputation and etc. “Gee, those were *our* tank shells being used in Gaza, and damnit, everyone seems to have *noticed* it….”

So even though things are now even more hopeless, the pressure on Obama is just all that more intense to try to persuade the arabs and the world that no no, the U.S. doesn’t *really* support the bad things Israel does and its colonization of those territories and etc.

My prediction then is that Obama will indeed put a lot of attention and emphasis on the Israeli/Palestinian issue right away. Yet another “process” or etc. will be announced, yet some more different words will be found to try to lend credence to the idea that something different is really being tried or done, and blah blah blah.

There are some 4,000,000-500,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied territories. Israel will never remove them since to a large extent now they are Israel. Israel may talk forever as if it might indeed remove them, but if any Israeli government ever *did* agree to remove any significant number of them that government would fall and be repudiated forthwith or else something else would be done rejecting that concession. Look at what was done to Rabin.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if even then, at that point, you would see whatever Israeli government that emerged and the U.S. get together to dramatically announce yet another grand peace process/initiative/whatever, once again implying that a solution is just around the corner. Even no matter if the entire world itself got together and put up a banner saying “Just what fools do you think we are?”

Gee, and people wonder why you see the image of Mr. bin Laden so often on the T-shirts of arab and moslem youth all over the world. Wonder how long before they start appearing on the streets of Europe, or are they there already?

Why cede to Olmert on this issue if Bush is leaving office in a matter of days, and thus does not have to face the wrath of the Israeli Lobby (like his old man did in the early 90s) by going against Israel’s demands?

Strange.