Massacre at Jerusalem seminary

FBC, I never doubted that your heart is in the right place, and I've stated a couple of times my awareness of the stupid and criminal things done by Israelis... but please, why does "forgetting" what happened in 1948 justify massacres of unarmed Israeli citizens several decades later in a period when the "concentration camp" conditions have all but disappeared? Can you possibly acknowledge that West Bank Arabs were being welcomed into Israeli jobs and culture? Will you insist on seeing classism and racism -- things that never go away -- even as things demonstrably move away from them?

You insist on remembering the past. I couldn't agree more. But you stop short of seeing the situation as dynamic, and project that flat view on others. I don't use belief. I know that a growing majority of Israelis want to give the land back, want to end the oppressive sanctions, and know that as soon as those compromises are made, Syrian/Iranian/Saudi-backed terrorists will start right where they left off, making the daily carnage in Baghdad look like a schoolyard at recess. You ascribe extreme views to all Israelis, and you fail to acknowledge the circumstances that permit the very small minority who actually have those views to dominate the debate... the very "propaganda" you decry is given its fuel by the Arab minority who continues to see the destruction of Israel and death of all Jews as the only compromise.

I know what the solution is. It is actually quite simple, and it's price would be measured in the blood of innocents on both sides. It is the solution because no solution will succeed that doesn't rub the world's face in the realities of the situation.

1) Unconditional return to pre-1967 boundaries, including surrendering east Jerusalem.

2) Unconditional right of return to all refugees.

3) Completely open boundaries other than normal, civilized immigration controls.

Results:

Daily suicide bombings and gun attacks in every major urban center in Israel. Arab newspaper headlines crowing that the end of the Jewish invasion is near. In the growing horror of the present world's ignorance that these things happened in the past, the Israeli army invades the Palestinian territories and destroys their ability to launch attacks, and in simple self-defense expels every Arab from their borders -- and you know what that means in civilian casualties.

Tell me that the attacks would not happen. Tell me that the Israelis would be unjustified in such a response. Go ahead, call it propaganda. Take us back to the "crime" of the partition in 1948. Explain to me what that all is supposed to mean.

...your face being one of those in need of a rubbing.

My core disagreement with FBC -- and ser, despite my sometimes sarcastic take on your positions, I do recognize the valid points you make -- is that no one, neither liberals nor conservatives, diplomats nor politicians, are willing to step up and make the balanced case:

1) Israel was created for people who had spent centuries being easy targets for genocide.

2) Natives in Palestine were treated badly by every side of the political "solution", and have suffered for decades as a result.

3) The first crime worthy of emphasis in the present case is the Arab response to do in the Jews once and for all.

4) The Israeli paranoia, given the credence it gets from #3, must no longer be tolerated as a valid, policy-making factor.

5) The present Palestinian "authorities", in whatever incarnation, must be tasked with ending the military attacks against Israel in direct response to a cessation of military attacks by Israel against targets in the West Bank and Gaza.

I take no joy in the possibility of being right about what FBC sees as prescience. I pray to every deity there is that I'm wrong. However, the stakes must be set, clearly:

1) If Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders, all attacks must cease.

2) If any such attacks continue, either Israel must be given carte blanche for punitive response, or a third-party response must be made that is decisive and severe.

So long as Hamas and Hezbollah -- with their documented and demonstrated intention to destroy Israel -- remain political and military forces, explicitly supported by sovereign Arab nations in the Middle East and elsewhere, there can be no peace in Palestine. Any attempt by Israel to meet halfway will only kill more Israelis, who will then kill more Palestinians, and we might all have saved our breath and bandwidth and not even thought about it.

And FBC, to your implied requirement that someone be punished for past crimes, I respectfully point you to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. At some point, healing must also take place.