Originally posted by 911fever
I've wrote a fair amount on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and even some of it showed up on beyond. I'm too lazy to find all that I've wrote, but most of it details how Israel left the Gaza strip (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4235768.stm), while Palestine is learning the same lessons from Lebanon and their war with Israel (http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-03-0...-strikes-hamas):
"What we learned from Hezbollah," he said, "is that resistance is a choice that can work."
Palestine won't give in at all with Israel, they believe Israel as a country shouldn't exist and that it is solely only their land. They won't budge on that. Even though Israel fair and square is deemed a country and has full ownership of it, Palestine will NOT give in.
The whole reason there's all this fighting over the Holy Land in the Middle East is because it's that, Holy Land, where eventually Armageddeon will occur. The End Times in the Bible reveal that this will be the area where it will all go down. Just look at the past 100 years. So much fighting over such a small piece of land.. not just about religion, this land is significant. It's where the Jews call their homeland (and it's been their homeland since B.C.) So all this is doing is setting everything up for the end times. Do I think Israel is always in the right? Heck no, look at them refusing to back down from building more settlements, it even embarassed the US (who didn't handle it properly). But on a whole, Israel has been more willing to compromise and deal with their Muslim neighbors. Easily. In the Camp David Summit in 2000, Israel offered Palestine a great amount of land etc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli...inian_conflict)
Arafat rejected this offer. President Clinton reportedly requested that Arafat make a counter-offer, but he proposed none. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami who kept a diary of the negotiations said in an interview in 2001, when asked whether the Palestinians made a counterproposal: "No. And that is the heart of the matter. Never, in the negotiations between us and the Palestinians, was there a Palestinian counterproposal".
Israel is hated by everyone in the region, Iran backs Hamas and Hezbollah, and they have a right to defend themself. Iran won't even recognize Israel as a country, and the President of Iran has even wished that Jews/Israel would be 'wiped out'. If that's not fighting words, what is? Imagine if someone said that Canadians should be 'wiped off the earth'? War isn't pretty, but if Israel let a few rockets fly into their country and didn't retaliate, chances are strong that other countries would see Israel as being weak with defending itself. Israel has to defend itself because it's sovereignty completely relies on it.