Wow so many words about one TV image and none about the shooting of a shackled Palestinian by an Israeli soldier. Most of the readers of this blog don’t see Al Jazeera but in the Arab press and web sites the shooting in Bilein of the shackled Palestinian was headline news and preceded this attack. It could very well be that it was used to motivate it.
Israel can easily survive without Palestinian labor force as it did in 2002 during the second Intifada. the real issue is Israel had no clearly defined borders 60 years after it got independence! Israel needs a clearly defined border with a fence to separate between Israelis and Palestinians. It is no coincidence most attacks are in Jerusalem where the separation fence is absent.
Bob the Builder the 1st. (The first attacker using the Caterpillar) was an Israeli citizen who got his Israeli citizenship because Israel annexed his village in the 1967 war. Israel refuses to admit the failure of the vision of Unified Jerusalem. Currently Jerusalem and Hebron are a noose on Israel’s neck. These are two poor, dirty, violent and fractioned towns. What is needed here is a real vision like turning Jerusalem to an international town ruled jointly by Christians, Arabs and Jews. Either way this pile of s**t (the entire world swears by) is not worth fighting for. As per Hebron where attacks are so common they aren’t even news anymore Israel should simply withdraw and pull the settlers out of there and if possible stright back to Brooklyn where they belong in some basement.

I agree with you that Jews should participate in all kinds of work; nothing is too trivial. Cooking, construction, cleaning, agricultural labor–All are needed. The Kibbutz movement knew this (at least until very recently!) I learned while in Israel that many menial jobs are done by Filipinos and Thailanders. At least in the case of the Filipinos, Israel has required that infants of Filipino parents must be returned to the Filipines at the age of one year–most likely because Israel does not want to promulgate a practice of acquiring citizens of Filipino origins…some of whom are Moslim(???)The sad fact is that the people wno need work are the Palestinians, but, with reason, Israel cannot trust them.
I don’t have an answer.
I have just returened from a wonderful visit to Israel. I was three blocks away from Jaffa Street when the first bulldozer incident took place. I wish to share the story of one of the people killed in that incident. She was in her late twenties, an Orthodox Jew who taught nursery school and the blind. She had difficulty concieving, but after two years on fertility treatments, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was in her car on Jaffa Street with her five-month old daughter on that fatal day. When she saw the bulldozer approaching, she realized that she would be crushed; there was no time for her to escape. She unbuckeled her daughter from her car seat and screamed for someonw to grab the infant. In a miracle, someone pulled the infant to safety just at the mother was being crushed. From all sources of people who knew this woman, she was an exceptional, beautiful, caring person.

Al Jazeera ,Fox News and CNN all broadcast to the home crowd. Due to that we have no dialog. Each side goes to bed thinking he is clean and the other a murderer. I’d settle for Al Jazeera, Fox and CNN dedicating 5% of their time to show the other side’s perspective. Yet on this blog one must address all aspects of the issue.
BTW,
No need to give me all due respect, I didn’t earn it yet.

Giora-I know that the Palestinian people have suffered. However, Israeli Arabs have not. They have been offered full Israeli citisenship with privliges. Palestinians live in poverty, squalor, and self-pity, but not Arab Israelis.
How dare Arab Israelis` attack fellow citizens?
Also–Jerusalem is hardly a noose on Israel’s neck–or a poor, dirty city. It is the most moving, beautiful, vibrant place I have ever visited. No wonder that everyone in the wrld wants a piece of it!
Lucy

Lucy,
I think you are confusing between your vacation to day to day reality.
The hotel strip near King David isn’t Jerusalem nor are the empty apartments of American Jews who go there three times a year. Jerusalem is the major city with the highest drop out rate from high school. Most of its population live of a pay check from the Israeli government. The first twenty years of Israel existence was without “Unified Jerusalem”. Yes a major noose.
Your personal moving experience there is yours to keep yet one must diffrentiate it from the day to day realities of the local population.
Israeli Arabs in Jerusalem are stuck between a rock and a hard place. For the Jewish populations they are Arabs and for the Palestinians bastardized brothers. If you don’t believe me ask them to describe how easy it is to them to rent an apartment in Israel.

Yes, the first twenty years of Israel’s existence was without “Unified Jerusalem.” In 1968, when the Israelis took it from the Jordanians, the sacred Old City was in horrible condition. Sacred Jewish sites had been desecrated, used a urinals, and destroyed by bombing. In the meantime, the Arab population has been given the Al Acqba Mosque. My husband and I were barred from vising it as simple tourists because it was protected for Moslom prayer.
Injustices have been committed on both sides, but somehow we have to find a dialogue. This idiocy of killing cannot continue forever. There comes an end to everything, including hatred. I believe that we have to go back to 1948 and look at the necessity of building a homeland for Jews and the sad atrocities of Plan D, the evacuaton of Arab villages.
Is there an answer?

I am fully aware that Jerusalem was under Jordanian control for the first twenty years of Israel’s existence. Are you aware of the condition of Jerusalem and the Old City at that time? Jewish sacred sited were desecrated and destroyed. The population was all dirt poor.
Giroa, I am a person who truly does not harbor hatred toward anyone. I know that the Palestinian people were evacuated from their homes in 1948 because Israel could not be established with enemies within its borders. I know the bitterness and pain that is felt. Yet, Israel had to happen.
Personally, I feel that Palestinians want the right of return to their homes. The idea of two states coexisting to me seems like nothing more than rubbing salt in a tender wound. I don’t have an answer, but a dialogue about what happened in 1948 must be where the answer lies.

Agree about the dialog.
When you say that “Jewish sacred sited were desecrated and destroyed” which one exactly? I think all sacred places should be ruled by representative of the three religions.
Currently Jerusalem and its population are consuming too much and producing too little. Its a loser investment Israel should attempt to unwind.

Currently Jerusalem and its population are consuming too much and producing too little. Its a loser investment Israel should attempt to unwind.
And once Israel “unwinds” itself of Jersualem, what then? What do you suggest should happen to this holiest of cities? Who should control it or live there, and why?

Do you really intend to treat the Arab population living in East Jerusalem as equal citizens? Will you provide them education, health, and other governmental services? Will you allow East Jerusalem Arabs to obtain building permits?
Sovernty is not only a flag waving in the wind. It has a price one has to pay in real money and land. Since after forty years Israel never paid the price clearly it is not sovereign in East Jerusalem.
Whatever solutions for this very problematic city will be, it must include equal representation of at least Jews and Arabs. The only other alternative is a real fence somewhere in the middle and that will be beyond hidious. Either way make no mistake there will be an Arab flag on temple mount.

My dad was removed from an orphanage to be with his biological mother and a Jewish stepfather. I consider his stepfather to be worth a whole lot more than his biological father who checked out of the family program.
I had a friendship with a Jewish boy throughout elementary school. His family was incredibly generous with me. On weekends, I practically lived at their house.
Why not just have Jewish folks come and live here in the States? I have no problem with Jewish neighbors and co-workers; or even having my posterity marry Jews.
Ideally, it would’ve been nice if the US would’ve had an open immigration policy right after World War II for Jews. That’s ideally though. Look at how folks feel about Latinos (Some people have extreme feelings towards Mexicans where I live – it’s as if Mexicans are the cause of all the problems.)
Considering that most of Isreal’s neighbors are against her and that problems persist in Israel, I’d just assume have the Jewish population move here.
America has her own prejudiced groups, but they seem mild compared to groups like Hezbollah.
I don’t blame the Zionists for wanting a country. I think there was a lot of antisemitism in Europe, even after World War II. But, now I just don’t think it’s working out.
I’d rather take my chances in New York rather than Jerusalem.

You can see part of the problem here in Brad’s post. He’s obviously scared to death that someone will think he’s “justifying” Palestinian terrorism if he says anything harsh about Israel’s behavior, so he uses vague terms like root causes. The fact is that the two sides have been committing terrible atrocities against each other for decades. People who can’t forthrightly admit that there are murderers on both sides are part of the problem.
As for the Israeli use of bulldozers, as I recall they’ve been used to kill on more than one occasion. Still, it must feel good to pretend that it’s demolition of property on the one hand vs. murder on the other. I’ve seen that kind of dishonest comparison more than once on this subject.

Giora, only the hostorically near-sighted can call Jerusalem a noose. In your tiny, short, microcosmic existence it is now problematic. But it is simply so because it is dear to many people. It does not fit into your definition of a modern city- not a cosmopolitan Tel Aviv full of night clubs and hipster restaurants. No wealthy locals. No international businessman flying around. You know what? I am a New Yorker, so I see plenty of that. Maybe the contrast is exactly what is desired for those tourists (jewish AND non-jewish), as well as the millenia-old sites.
Speak to the poor of jerusalem, especially in those neighborhoods you leave out. Most of them arent bothered by lack of materialistic goods that we wouldnt be able to survive a minute without.
Think long term.

chinkjunior:
Excellent, now lets take this romantic view of Jerusalem and attempt to sell it to the Israelis living in the rest of the country paying for it. The only problem is they won’t buy it and its quite probable if you would have had to pay taxes there and send your kids to the army you would not either.

“Most of them arent bothered by lack of materialistic goods that we wouldnt be able to survive a minute without”
Are they really? and if so how is it that the political parties representing them deal with one thing only – getting subsidies to support them?
Sadly they have no marketable skills and their leaders are making sure this situation will never change so they will continue to depend on their leaders. I don’t think we should put them on a pedestal.

Seems like plenty of Israelis buy it and support it. Don’t see much in the wya of support of giving Palestinian autonomy of the holy sites. Again, your philosophy is predicated on the belief that once “we give” the palestinians the West Bank and Jlem, then all will be hunky dory. This is unsupported.
Political parties are there to strengthen their position and people. They will take as much as given. And since they vote as a block, have representative power. This last fact is probably what pisses Secular Israelis off more than anything else.

With Jewish mothers killing 300 babies everyday, why worry about 4 more killed?

Where is the site of this ungodly slaughter? Tell me please!

This is only the begining, we are in for a bigger beating! We have lost the will to WIN!!

Please stop borrowing headlines from the anti-Israeli Washington Post stylebook. The human beings who were hurt were not hurt by the action of abulldozer. They were hurt by the action of a Palestinian. Confronting this truth may hurt the construction industry. Ignoring it may cost lives