Because Israel *is* in deadly danger, not so much from its hostile neighbors, but from its own inner conflicts. The Israeli-Arab birthrate is such that withing a generation they will probably have the largest parliamentary group in the Knesset. And the fastest growing Jewish group are the Haredim, who don't do well in school and don't serve in the armed forces.. It is interesting to see how the performance of Israeli school children has declined since 2003 in the latest PISA report.

Much of Israel's behavior is easier to understand when approached using information like this, instead of the zionut rhetoric.

The tragedy of the moment and of the design, is that the reigns are in the hands of a fumbling, incompetent and during an election time. Even though he and Cheney aren't running, their "allies" are, and many of their allies are committed to the greater Israel strategy, rather than the enough Israel strategy.

In Israel, only a couple parties support the expansionistic vision, though they include political spoilers and the "hilltop youth".

I'm glad that Phil came around to the hopefulness of the two-state solution.

While on paper a civil one-state Palestine/Israel appeals to liberal democratic sensibilities, in practise it becomes LESS democratic as the much of the population defines themselves in oil-water associations, which then requires that a large minority gets subordinated harshly in a single-state.

It IS the time. And it IS the time to bring the weight even of voters (individual and organized) to the Geneva and Saudi proposals.

For Israel they are even desirable, as the settlement maze is indefensible and is structured to compel occupation if not annexation, and should be abandoned.

In the end none of them want to negotiate peace, they both want victory.

Frankly, I think the Israelis have painted themselves into a corner. Their best hope was the Madrid conference with the lone superpower USA guaranteeing UN-242 after the First Gulf War. I believe that that was their last chance and they missed it. That train wont pass again anytime soon.

I would like to draw reader's attention to another matter. I live in Highland Park, NJ, where there is a high concentration of Orthodox Jews as well as a very diverse community of other ethnicities. People live mostly very respectfully together here.

One matter, however, illustrates some of the conflicts that are occurring around the IP conflict in this country. Recently, a "Ten Thousand Villages" Fair Trade Store opened in Highland Park. The chain of stores is owned by the Mennonite Central Committee, and it sells products from developing countries in order to help artisans from the third world.

Recently, there have been a spate of articles in Jewish newspapers both locally and nationally calling for a boycott of these stores for two reasons: 1) they sell nothing that is made in Israel while they do sell products from the West Bank and Gaza (it is worth noting that they don't sell any products from developed countries, including Europe, North America, and China) and 2) the Mennonite Church, one of the four peace churches, is very pro-Palestinian and attempts to draw attention to the suffering of Palestinians in the WB and Gaza as well as the refugees. So the end result of this is that Israeli supporters in the area are trying to organize a boycott of the store, and to this effect, a big sign was recently affixed to the store window which said "BOYCOTT."

In any case, you can read about how "The Jewish State" newspaper reported about this at the following link: http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/12/08/israeli-defense.html#comment-67516 <p>From Realistic Dove (http://www.realisticdove.org/archives/179):<br /> <br /> "Guess what, Phil. I also think that, eventually, a federated solution would make perfect sense. It used to be a respectable idea among the Zionists in Palestine. In the unlikely event that we ever arrive at the juncture you describe, I’ll join you on the idealists’ barricades. In the meantime, welcome home, my brother!"</p> From Realistic Dove (link to realisticdove.org
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"Guess what, Phil. I also think that, eventually, a federated solution would make perfect sense. It used to be a respectable idea among the Zionists in Palestine. In the unlikely event that we ever arrive at the juncture you describe, I’ll join you on the idealists’ barricades. In the meantime, welcome home, my brother!"

I'm really surprised that you, of all people, would take the words of Ramon and Sneh at face value, and proceed extoll their virtues and tell us of the beauty of doing such an event and how all of this is going to make the world a better place and solve everything.

These people ARE the establishment that is oppressing Palestinians. While not perfectting the plans of the next blockade and checkpoint, they have another job: to go to the outside world, cry crocodile tears about how much they want peace, and still manage to convince people like you that this is in Israel's interest and it's an existential crisis. When these people start actually doing something against the occupation, we'll talk; until then, they're no different from any other criminal in the Israeli government.

This facade of 'Israelis want peace' is such a flimsy load of nonsense that could only be believed in a place like America, the same place that believes in "Barak's Generous Offer", "the Palestinians just left on their own in 1948", "terrorism causes settlements" and other such mythical tales.

It is absolutely vital for the status quo to be consolidated forever for Israelis to continue to claim that they want peace, while doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to achieve it. It's really reassuring for them that even you are now buying into this cr@p.

When I was taking Jewish studies classes at Harvard, and we students were realizing how little the facts corresponded to common (Eastern European) Jewish beliefs about Jews, one of my fellow students quipped, "Many the lie that Jews live by."

Later, when Benny Morris published "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem," I realized how right he was.

If one tries to address the crimes of the organized Jewish community and the Israel Lobby, one must get use to almost inconceivable levels of abuse and vituperation, and these two groups will invariably be convinced of their absolute righteousness because they are simply dealing with the eternal hatred of Jews by non-Jews.

My wife Karin addressed the issue in an essay that Juan Cole featured on his blog.

Take a look at link to eaazi.blogspot.com
.

'Two state solution' is code for 'no right to return', in other words, a validation of genocide. Its silver lining is a state without natural resources, a tiny GDP, and the highest population density in the world, a collection of refugee camps just over the hills from those who dispossessed them.

That's where the 'reasonable' Zionism of the type Phil is returning inevitably ends up.

Well, that certainly is reassuring. (By the way, I believe you said you were in the public relations business, or am I thinking of someone else?)