thats a bit early. why not at a more social time?

Because as it is says in the Call Out that's the time the shift begins. Don't you think the oppressed people of Palestine are worth you getting out of bed for ?

"...the oppressed people of Palestine are worth you getting out of bed for"




Its not that simple. 6.30am is really early I mean who on earth gets to work at that time ?

I think you need to check you facts as I very much doubt a shift starts that early.

At my Dad's office the working day starts at 9am, why would EDO be different ?

I'm not going to argue that there is a bias in the media, I'll let a journalist do that for me:

"By the mid- 1980s, the AP [Associated Press - a news agency supplying reports to the international media] used 'terrorist' about Arabs but rarely about the IRA in Northern Ireland, where the agreed word was 'guerrillas', presumably because AP serves a number of news outlets in the United States with a large Irish-American audience.

The BBC, which increasingly referred to Arab 'terrorists', always referred to the IRA as 'terrorists' but scarcely ever called ANC bombers in South Africa 'terrorists', probably because the BBC, in its wisdom had decided that the ANC's cause was more 'justified' than the Palestinians or the IRA's.

Tass and Pravda, [Tass being the Russian version of AP] of course, referred to Afghan rebels as 'terrorists'.

The Western press would never do this, even though the Afghan guerrillas - 'freedom fighters' or 'insurgents' were alternative descriptions - murdered the wives and children of Communist party officials, burned down schools and fired rockets onto the civilian population of Kabul.

A startling example of double standards occurred in September 1985, when a British newspaper reported that an airliner carrying civilian passengers had been 'downed by rebels'. Something wrong here, surely. Terrorists destroy civilian airliners. No one was in any doubt about that in 1988 when a bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Scotland, killing all on board.

"But 'terrorism' no longer means terrorism. It is not a definition; it is a political contrivance. 'Terrorists' are those who use violence against the side that is using the word.

"To adopt the word means that we have taken a side in the Middle east, not between right and wrong, good and evil, David and Goliath, but with one set of combatants against another. For journalists in the Middle East, the use of the word 'terrorism' is akin to carrying a gun.

Unless the word is use against all acts of terrorism - which it is not - then it's employment turns the reporter into a participant in the war. He becomes a belligerent."
(From "Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War" by Robert Fisk page 439)

Nor am I going to argue that the media often inhibits an understanding of situations, particularly in regard to foreign policy issues, where almost all of us are dependent on 'second hand' information and where most of us receive our 'second hand' information from the corporate media. Again, I'm going to let some one else do this.

"in surveys carried out by the Center for Studies in Communication of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, those who watched the most television on the Gulf War were the least informed about basic facts of life in the region.

Among the most frequent watchers, 32 percent thought Kuwait was a democracy; only 23 per cent were aware that there were other occupations in the Middle East besides Iraq's, and only 10 per cent had heard of the intifada, the most sustained revolt in modern Middle East history.

When queried as to which three nations vetoed the recent United Nations resolution calling for an international peace conference (the United States, Israel, and Dominica), 14 per cent correctly identified the U.S., but another 12 per cent thought it has to be Iraq. The Center's polls showed that only 13 per cent of these TV viewers were aware of what official U.S. policy was toward Iraq before the August 2 invasion."
(From 'For Palestine' by Jay Murphy page iii)

What I'm going to do is ask 'Why?'.

Why don't we have a media which attempts to be unbiased and objective?

Why don't we have a media which presents all relevant information rather than selecting some information for prominent display and largely rejecting other information?

Why don't we have a wider diversity of opinion in the media?

Firstly, there is a weighty concentration of ownership.

We all know the media barons, the Blacks, Maxwells, Murdochs, Berlusconis, and O'Reillys.

It requires a great amount of start up capital to get up and going in this business and that restricts ownership of major media to a tiny number of the super rich or to giant mega corporations themselves owned by a slightly larger circle of the super rich.

The point is not that the owner directly influences what goes into the newspaper, although that can happen as former Daily Mirror journalist John Pilger shows in his book Hidden Agendas.

The point is that there is not a 'level playing field' where anyone can set up a media outlet and compete - you have to be enormously wealthy to do so.

Secondly, the primary market for all media, at least all non-State owned media, is not the general public but advertisers.

Who places advertisements? Why corporations of course and it is to them the media is sold, which is why you can have T.V. stations and newspapers without paying for them, or why T.V. stations and newspapers advertise themselves as reaching a large audience.

To look at what this means consider a recent issue of 'The Economist' (That of September 22nd - 28th).

On page 12 we have a clear rejection of the idea that there is any link between US power in the Middle East and the September 11th attacks - "the idea that America brought the assault on itself is absurd."

On page 5 we have a full page ad. extolling the virtues of investment in Saudi Arabia, paid for by 'The Ministry of Information' (you couldn't make it up!) of Saudi's ruling family aka government.

On page 27 you have a job advertisement on behalf of Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company.

Clearly it is totally incompatible to sell yourself to these people and to run a piece to the effect that the Middle East has been a battlefield for the competing forces of US Imperialism and indigenous nationalism for decades, and that now that battlefield includes New York.

Given that a major aspect of U.S. Imperialism in the region is the relationship with the rulers of Arabia.

To say such is to be anti-American, or a supporter of Islamic fundamentalism, or to justify terrorism. Which means that at least one segment of the Pentagon is anti-American, supporters of Islamic fundamentalism and justifies terrorism.

How come? Because a 1997 U.S. Department of Defence study found that: "As part of its global power position, the United States is called upon frequently to respond to international causes and deploy forces around the world. America's position in the world invites attack simply because of its presence. Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States." (Quoted in the CATO website  http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-050es.html)

Now it is not that advertisers order the media not to run a certain story or put pressure on the media, although that can happen.

It is simply that a publication which even in just 25% of its copy ran stories highly critical of corporate power, opinion pieces and editorials questioning the basis of our society, could hardly expect to get advertising revenue from those same corporations.

Thus a publication which did so could not compete in the market place.

Perhaps of more concern in regard to domestic issues is the fact that advertisers are aiming for groups in the 'high income' brackets with the greater disposable income to spend on consumer goods. 'The Irish Times' for instance sells itself by saying "8 out of 10 senior business people read" it.

Thus newspapers, and media in general, which appeal to the interests and concerns of the better off are more likely to get advertising revenue.

Again doing the opposite will effect your ability to compete.

Thirdly the media, like any industry, is dependant on its supply of raw material.

In this case information. Where does it get this information? What are its sources? In the context of a war the primary sources are government/military, and they do their utmost to make sure it stays that way.

Journalist Peter Preston describes the situation during the Falklands War:

"Those of us who yomped through the Ministry of Defence in the Falklands soon got the changed hang of things. Top chaps in dark suits would summon up the full authority of their office and lie like troopers."

"The Falklands war was more than a distant side show. It hugely impressed the Pentagon. Ensure that reporters are cooped upon on aircraft carriers or minded by Mod male nurses far from the front and, as long as you keep decent clamps on back at the political ranch, there is total information control."
(The Guardian 8/10/01)

The United States military, as so often before, took the example from their British colleagues and employed it in Grenada, Panama and the Gulf.

Consider the coverage during the Second Gulf War, and the build up to it.

Firstly we had the reports of Iraqi troops massed at the Saudi border poised to invade the personal property of the House of Saud, a gang of oil rich religious fanatic depots. O.K. I'm lying Saudi Arabia was not described like that, but nonetheless Iraqi armour was about to sweep down into Saudi in a Hitlerian blitzkrieg. We were originally told that U.S. troops were going out there to protect Saudi Arabia. Except this story was completely false. As was later admitted by U.S. Generals, and known to be false both by the media (but never reported) and the Pentagon, because satellite photos existed which saw Iraqi withdrawals back into Iraq's pre-August 2nd 1990 borders.

Secondly we had the 'Iraqi soldiers kill babies by throwing them out of incubators' story. Again false. Not only had the Iraqi Army not done this but the hospital where it was supposed to have happened didn't even have enough incubators for the 300 babies supposedly slain.

Thirdly we had the "smart bombs". Which is probably the single thing which will be most remembered from the Second Gulf War (except for Iraqis who will remember deaths, injuries and fear). Except even if we accept the premise that these "smart bombs" only hit what they were supposed to and that what they were supposed to hit was not power stations, bridges, water works etc.., still only 7% of the missiles and bombs used were "smart".

We saw just how "smart" these bombing campaigns are during the air strikes on Yugoslavia. The difference then was that with a body of international journalists on both sides of the frontline it was far harder for the Pentagon and the MoD to impose total control on what was being reported. Nonetheless the factors detailed above still worked to ensure that when "accidents" happened the spin, slant, and interpretation given to events remained one which favoured the war effort.

In other words a report of an event which exposed the reality of war, but coupled with an interpretation which accepted the paradigm of the war party.

For example: 'the bombing is killing innocent people and not doing the job, we must send ground troops'(assuming that a full scale invasion would not do the same and not questioning the goals but just the means).

Or: 'what can NATO do to ensure that there are no civilian deaths?' (supporting the war effort, assuming that such a thing is possible and assuming that the apparatchiks of NATO give a fuck so long as their bloody handwork is not on the Six o'clock news) .

We now have defence experts (creatures of Ministries of Defence and Defence industries), retired officers and serving officers pontificating upon what is happening in Afghanistan. Surely a more accurate answer to that question could be given by interviewing survivors from the bombing of Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq and Yugoslavia.

We are seeing maps with troop dispositions, bases, and aircraft carriers surely pictures of the effects of previous wars would be just as apt. We have diagrams of warplanes showing their attributes but no pictures of what they do to the bodies of human beings.

So what impact is this having on the American media?

As it stands today hardly a glimmer of dissent is tolerated. According to film director Michael Moore :

"Our media, it's so pathetic and embarrassing"

"I've been called by the CBC, BBC, and ABC in Australia.

I've been on the nightly newscast of every Western country practically, and I've not had a single call from the American networks .. .. .Because I'm going to go on there and say the things they don't want to hear. I'm going to be off message. I'm not going to sing with the chorus. And the media is part of the chorus now. They're wearing their ribbons and they're not being objective journalists and they're not presenting all sides."
(Toronto Globe and Mail 6/10/01)

Michael Moore, has had, in a further silencing of dissent, the distribution of his latest book halted by the publishing company (owned by Rupert Murdoch) which was bringing it out.

Furthermore at least two journalists have been fired for criticising President George Bush Jnr. The boss of one of them wrote a front page apology for the fact a member of his staff had criticised Dubya ending it with:

"May God Bless President George W. Bush and other leaders. And God Bless America!".
(Toronto Globe and Mail 6/10/01)

Outside the United States, there have been more dissenting voices and more of a debate in the media.

Still it has been primarily dissenting voices questioning the means not the end of Western policy, questioning the injustice of sanctions on Iraq or the injustice of support for Israeli Defence Forces repression but not relating this to corporate investments in the Middle East oilfields.

Or debate within a very narrow spectrum which accepts the supposed goals of Western military intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia, with the dissenting voices merely asking for more United Nations involvement or to give more opportunity for the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden.

Never are the dots joined and the connection made between corporate investments and markets in the Middle East, military intervention to defend them, support for client states such as Israel and Saudi Arabia to do likewise, the rise of indigenous nationalist movements and September 11th's attacks. There is a war for control of the Middle East, and there has been for decades, but you might never know it.

Can't see many being there at that time. Why not organise a protest that confronts the workers when they are on their way home ?

I was interested the other day when I heard that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah made a statement which was received by many in this country as if it were a statement of fact, as if it were something new — a concept for peace in the Middle East that no one had ever heard of before. I was kind of shocked that it was so well received by many people who had been down this road before.

I suggest to you that what Crown Prince Abdullah talked about was not new at all. He talked about the fact that under the Abdullah plan, Arabs would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state surrendering the territory it received after the 1976 Six-Day War as if that were something new. When it gets right down to it, the land doesn’t make that much difference because Yasir Arafat and others don’t recognize Israel’s right to any of the land. They do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

I would like to emphasize seven reasons why Israel has the right to its land.

1. Israel has the right to the land because of all of the archeological evidence.

Every time there is a dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the fact that Israelis have had a presence there for 3,000 years. The coins, the cities, the pottery, the culture — there is no mistaking the fact that Israelis have been present in that land for 3,000 years.

The ancient Philistines are extinct. Many other ancient peoples are extinct. They do not have the unbroken line to this date that the Israelis have. Even the Egyptians of today are not racial Egyptians of 2,000, or 3,000 years ago. They are primarily an Arab people. The land is called Egypt, but they are not the same racial and ethnic stock as the old Egyptians of the ancient world. The first Israelis are in fact descended from the original Israelites.

2. The second proof of Israel’s right to the land is the historic right.

History supports it totally and completely. We know there had been an Israel up until the time of the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered the land, although Jews were allowed to live there. They were driven from the land in two dispersions: One was in 70 A.D. and the other was in 135 A.D. But there was always a Jewish presence in the land.

The Turks took over about 700 years ago and ruled up until about World War I, when the land was conquered by the British. The British government -- grateful to a Jewish chemist named Weizmann who discovered a way to manufacture nitroglycerin from materials that existed in England and to Jewish bankers who helped finance the war — promised to give the Jewish people a homeland. That is all a part of history. It is all written down in history.

The homeland that Britain said it would set aside consisted of all of what is now Israel and all of what is Jordan — the whole thing. That was what Britain promised to give the Jews. In the beginning, there was some Arab support for this action. There was not a huge Arab population in the land at that time, and there is a reason for that. The land was not able to sustain a large population of people. It just did not have the development it needed to handle those people, and the land was not really wanted by anybody. Nobody really wanted this land. It was considered to be worthless land.

I want the Presiding Officer to hear what Mark Twain said. Mark Twain — Samuel Clemens — took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This is how he described that land. We are talking about Israel now. He said:

“A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

Where was this great Palestinian nation? It did not exist. It was not there. Palestinians were not there. Palestine was a region named by the Romans, but at that time it was under the control of Turkey, and there was no large mass of people there because the land would not support them.

The report of the Palestinian Royal Commission, created by the British, quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913:

“The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Yavnev village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.”

In short, under the Turks the land suffered from neglect and low population. That is a historical fact. The nation became populated by both Jews and Arabs because the land came to prosper when Jews came back and began to reclaim it.

If there had never been any archaeological evidence to support the rights of the Israelis to the territory, it is also important to recognize that other nations in the area have no longstanding claim to the country either.

Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941; the borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well.

3. The third reason that land belongs to Israel is the practical value of the Israelis being there.

Israel today is a modern marvel of agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out of a desert environment than any other country in the world. The Arab nations ought to make Israel their friend and import technology from Israel that would allow all the Middle East, not just Israel, to become an exporter of food. Israel has unarguable success in its agriculture.

4. The fourth reason I believe Israel has the right to the land is on the grounds of humanitarian concern.

You see, there were six million Jews slaughtered in Europe in World War II. The persecution against the Jews had been very strong in Russia since the advent of communism. It was against them even before then under the Czars. These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not going to allow them a homeland in the Middle East, then where? What other nation on Earth is going to cede territory, is going to give up land? They are not asking for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel would fit into my home state of Oklahoma seven times.

5. The fifth reason Israel ought to have the land is that she is a strategic ally of the United States.

Israel is a detriment, an impediment, to certain groups hostile to democracies, hostile to what we believe in, hostile to that which makes us the greatest nation in the history of the world. Israel has kept them from taking complete control of the Middle East. If it were not for Israel, they would overrun the region.

Israel is our strategic ally. It is good to know we have a friend in the Middle East on whom we can count. They vote with us in the United Nations more than England, more than Canada, more than France, more than Germany — more than any other country in the world.

6. The sixth reason is that Israel is a roadblock to terrorism.

The war we are now facing is not against a sovereign nation; it is against a group of terrorists who are very fluid, moving from one country to another. They are almost invisible. That is whom we are fighting against today. We need every ally we can get. If we do not stop terrorism in the Middle East, it will be on our shores.

One of the reasons I believe the door was opened for an attack against us is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis — and demand it with pressure — not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them.

There were 39 Scud missiles that landed on Israeli soil during the Gulf War. Our president asked Israel not to respond. In order to have the Arab nations on board, we asked Israel not to participate in the war. The Israelis showed tremendous restraint and did not. Now we have asked them to stand back and not do anything over these last several attacks. We have criticized them. We have criticized them in our media. Local people in television and radio often criticize Israel, not knowing the true facts. We need to be informed.

Back in December the Israelis went into Gaza with gunships and into the West Bank with F-16s. With the exception of last May, the Israelis had not used F-16s since the 1967 Six-Day War. And I am so proud of them, because we have to stop terrorism. It is not going to go away.

If Israel were driven into the sea tomorrow, if every Jew in the Middle East were killed, terrorism would not end. You know that in your heart. Should they be successful in overrunning Israel — which they won’t be — it would not be enough. They will never be satisfied.

7. The seventh, and most important, reason why we ought to support Israel is because G-d said so.

Look it up in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: The L-rd said to Abram, “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever....Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.”

That is G-d talking.

The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the L-rd. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where G-d appeared to Abram and said, “I am giving you this land” — the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the Word of G-d is true.

Israel’s Hand Of Peace Rejected

Eight years ago on the lawn of the White House, Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasir Arafat. It was a historic occasion. It was a tragic occasion. At that time, the official policy of the government of Israel began to be, “Let us appease the terrorists. Let us begin to trade the land for peace.”

This process continued unabated up until last year. At Camp David in the summer of 2000, the then-prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, offered the most generous concessions to Arafat that had ever been laid on the table. He offered him more than 90 percent of all the West Bank territory, sovereign control of it. There were parts he did not want to offer, but in exchange for that he said he would give up land in Israel proper that the PLO had not even asked for.

And he also did the unthinkable. He spoke of dividing Jerusalem and allowing the Palestinians to have their capital there in the East. Arafat stormed out of the meeting. Why did he storm out of the meeting? Everything he had said he wanted was offered there. It was put into his hands. Why did he storm out of the meeting?

A couple of months later there began riots and terrorism. It began when the current Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, went to the Temple Mount. Did you know that Sharon did not go unannounced and that he contacted the Islamic authorities before he went and secured their permission and had permission to be there?

It was no surprise. The response was very carefully calculated. The Palestinians knew the world would not pay attention to the details. They would portray this in the Arab world as an attack upon the holy mosque and use it as an excuse to riot.

Over these past eight years of the peace process, when the Israeli public pressured its leaders to give up land for peace because they were tired of fighting, there has been increased terror. In fact, it has been greater in the past eight years than any other time in Israel’s history. Showing restraint and giving in has not produced any kind of peace.

Israel did offer a hand of peace, and it was not taken. Even today the stationery of the PLO still has on it the map of the entire state of Israel, not just the tiny little part they call the West Bank that they say they want. They want it all.

One of the most frustrating things to watch is the powerful anti-Israeli and sometimes outright anti-Semitic current that is prevalent in too much of Europe’s media. Bat Ye’or’s predictions about Arab anti-Semitism spreading in Europe as the continent’s Islamization and descent into Eurabia continues have so far proved depressingly accurate. This trend needs to be fought, vigorously, by all serious European anti-Jihadists. Not only because it is immoral and unfair to Israelis, which it is, but also because those who assist it are depriving Europeans of the opportunity to fully grasp the threat and understand the nature of the Jihad that is now targeting much of Europe as well.

In 2005 the Norwegian police issued a mobile security alarm to Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing Progress Party. Mr. Hagen had criticized Islam and could see no similarity with the concept of morality and justice found in Christianity. During the 1990s, Mr. Hagen was one of the few politicians who protested against giving money to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a part of the Norwegian-brokered Oslo Peace Process.

Hagen said that if Israel loses in the Middle East, Europe will succumb to Islam next. He felt that Christians should support Israel and oppose Islamic inroads into Europe. In an unprecedented step, a group of Muslim ambassadors to Norway blasted Carl I. Hagen in a letter to the newspaper Aftenposten, claiming that he had offended 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. Other Norwegian politicians quickly caved in and condemned Hagen. Maybe Norway, “the country of peace” and home to the Nobel Peace Prize, will get along just fine with Islam, “the religion of peace.”

Although some political leaders such as Mr. Carl I. Hagen have a clear understanding of what’s going on, they are unfortunately few and far between. Most European media commentators are hostile to the Jewish state of Israel, partly because they get angry with anybody defending themselves against Islamic Jihad instead of surrendering, and partly because they want to project their own feelings of guilt from the Holocaust onto Israel by recasting the Jews as villains and the Palestinians as victims.

French filmmaker Pierre Rehov made the film Suicide Killers where he interviewed the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He warns that we are facing “a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization,” a “culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God. I hear a mother saying ‘Thank God, my son is dead.’ Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. [...] They don’t see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.”

Rehov believes that we are dealing with “a new form of Nazism” that it is going to spread to Europe and the United States, too.

Spanish journalist Sebastian Villar Rodriguez claims that Europe died in Auschwitz: “We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims!” Yet in 2007, Ciempozuelos, a small Madrid suburb, refused to commemorate Holocaust Day and opted instead to commemorate the ‘Day of Palestinian Genocide.’ In Britain following Muslim pressure, the Bolton Council scrapped its Holocaust Memorial Day event. The Muslim Council of Britain asked for a Genocide Day to protest the Israeli “genocide” against the Palestinians. The secretary-general of the MCB, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, has earlier compared the situation of Muslims in Britain to Jews under Hitler.

We thus have the absurd situation where the Nazis of today are presented as Jews while the Jews are presented as Nazis.

French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut thinks that Auschwitz has become part of the foundation of the European Union, a culture based on guilt. “I can understand the feeling of remorse that is leading Europe to this, but this remorse goes too far.” It is too great a gift to present Hitler to reject every single aspect of European culture. This is said by the Jewish son of an Auschwitz prisoner.

The Holocaust was an unspeakable crime. It also did massive damage to Europe’s own identity and cultural confidence, and is one of the major causes of Europe’s seeming inability to withstand the ongoing Islamic Jihad.

As Hugh Fitzgerald notes, “Fortunately for so many, and for the Arabs, the victory of Israel in the Six-Day War promptly provided a reason to depict Jews as villains, not victims. This found an eager audience of Europeans, who were already eager for psychological reasons to find fault with Jews so as to avoid thinking unduly about the behavior of many European peoples and states during the war. [...] The damage done to the morale of Europe because of the destruction of European Jewry has been great. If Western Europe, or the West generally, were after all that has happened to permit Israel to go under, Europe would not recover.”

He warns that those who believe sacrificing Israel would in any way stop the global Jihad are very wrong. On the contrary, “The loss of Israel would fill the Arabs and Muslims with such triumphalism that their Jihad in Western Europe and elsewhere (including the Americas) would receive a gigantic boost. The duty is to make sure that Islam covers the globe; that Islam dominates, and Muslims rule.”

Europeans need to understand how closely intertwined are the fates of Israel and of Europe itself. The term “Judeo-Christian” is not a cliche. We cannot defend Western civilization without defending its Jewish component, without which modern Western culture would have been unthinkable.

The religious identity of the West has two legs: The Christian and the Jewish ones. It needs both to stand upright. Sacrificing one to save the other is like fighting a battle by chopping off one of your legs, throwing it at the feet of your enemies and shouting: “You won’t get the other one! We will never surrender!” We could always hope that our enemies will laugh themselves to death faster than we bleed to death, the Monty Python way of fighting. Maybe that works, but most likely it will leave us crippled and pathetic, if not dead.

I agree with Mr. Finkielkraut: To reduce absolutely everything about Europe to gas chambers, thereby allowing the Nazis the opportunity to expropriate everything that has been created during thousands of years, is to grant Adolf Hitler victory posthumously. We should not award him that pleasure, especially since what would replace Western civilization would be Islamic culture, the most warlike and anti-Semitic on earth, and greatly admired by Mr. Hitler for it.

We cannot change what has happened in the past. We should, however, consider it our duty to combat anti-Semitism in the here and now and make sure that the remaining Jews both in Europe and in Israel are safe. This is not just because it is our moral and historical obligation, which it is, but also because we only gain the right to defend ourselves against Islamization of we grant the same right to Israel. Likewise, we can only begin to heal our self-inflicted civilizational wounds if we embrace the Jewish component of our cultural identity.

The European bureautocracy is shocked by the American stance toward Israel. The common views outside the United States range from seeing Israel as an oppressor state — some say "terrorist" — to the milder "well, both sides are guilty, but Israel is stronger."

Americans don`t see things that way.

I`m not Jewish. Most Americans aren`t Jewish. Large numbers of Americans, though (including myself), support Israel. What`s up with that? To listen to America`s critics, their implied message seems to be that only a Jew could care about the Jews, and that therefore something sneaky must be going on in the United States.

In a poll taken by the Pew Research Center in early April, the growing transatlantic gap in opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict was confirmed. According to the poll, most people on the continent (France 63 per cent, Germany 63 per cent, Italy 51 per cent) disapprove of current U.S. policies with regard to the Middle East, while only 26 per cent of Americans themselves polled said they "disapprove".

Further, when asked to choose sides between Israel and the Palestinians, most Europeans either primarily sided with the Palestinians (France 36 per cent, Great Britain 28 per cent), or selected "neither" (Germany 33 per cent, Italy 32 per cent). Most Americans, on the other hand, placed their sympathies with Israel (41 per cent), with 21 per cent saying "neither" and only 13 per cent choosing the Palestinians. (Interestingly, in every country surveyed, those sympathizing with "both" were outnumbered by those choosing "neither.")

So what`s going on here?

First, it should be noted that in past polls, going back many years, Americans have generally always sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians, with percentages ranging from 34 per cent in 1990 to 48 per cent in 1997. Our views on this issue, in fact, have not changed substantially since before the September Atrocity.

This, of course, feeds the tired claims of a "Jewish controlled media" and the supposedly stunning power of Jewish lobby groups in the U.S. This is probably the oldest of attempted explanations for American support of Israel. As explanations go, though, these claims are not terribly convincing. If a "Zionist conspiracy" really ran this country, Arabs would be commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Arafat`s martyrdom about now.

It is true that as lobby efforts go, those supporting Israel are among the most powerful. But how powerful is that? Certainly not enough to so radically sway common public opinion to the point that we see Israel exactly opposite of how Europe perceives Israel.

A more recent attempt at explaining American support for Israel involves two components of the Republican constituency that were core to President Bush`s election. The first is the Evangelical Christian movement. (The Boston Globe recently cited Evangelicals as strong supporters of Israel, dismissively implying the motives of the Christian Right as essentially scriptural.)

According to a recent article in The Economist, the other component, the so- called neoconservatives (an ever-shifting label), support Israel as part of an overall desire to see America "play a more forceful role in the world." That`s, well, interesting. Being occasionally tagged as a neocon myself, I find it hard to disagree with the author`s statement that "Neocons are obsessed with the grand design of foreign policy." But so what? I`d say Marxists are similarly obsessed, but — despite Israel`s regrettable socialist idiosyncrasies — this bare fact does not amount to anything.

So let`s be generous and lump these two groups together (the total Jewish population in America is too small to have a significant impact on these numbers, by the way) and not question the attributed motives. Do neocons and theocons really make up 41 per cent of the American Public? Some might wish that it were so, but how then would one explain two terms of Clinton? Remember, we`re talking about stable levels of public support for Israel since at least the late 1970`s.

Here`s one more data point: among Europeans, the "highly educated" were far more likely to respond as sympathizing with the Palestinians, compared to their non-Sorbonne-impaired neighbors. France, in particular, showed a dramatic difference among these two demographics, with only 30 per cent of French with "low" education supporting the Palestinians, versus 51 per cent of those with "high" education.

And here, I think, is the real cause of this historical rift between opinions. Call us middle-brow, say we lack nuance, whine about American exceptionalism, but the basic truth is that Americans are idealistic where Europeans are cynical, and cynics where Europeans are idealists.

Take the European response to President Bush`s declaration of the Axis of Evil, for example. Across all four European nations polled, the majority disapproved of the statement — France by a whopping 74 per cent. In the United States, the majority approved, with only 34 percent saying they disapproved.

So do Americans support Israel because we think the Second Coming is, well, coming? Do we do it out of some nefarious scheme to launch a New Imperialism? Are we bamboozled by the dreaded "Jewish Controlled Media"?

No. We believe — more than Europe does — that some things are just plain wrong. No excuses, no rationalizations. Like my mom used to say, "I don`t care what he did first, if you hit, you`re wrong!" Sure, that policy lacked nuance, but it certainly was clear.

President Bush`s popularity is in large part due to the great gift he brought us in September: moral clarity.

Academic quibbles among the intelligencia about moral equivalency and "root causes" frankly cause the average American`s eyes to glaze over. Sure, the average American thinks, Israel may have misbehaved. Sure, there should be a separate Palestinian state. But once people started blowing up pizza parlors, a far more important — and far more clear — problem walked onto the scene. Until the absolutely clear evil of terrorism, suicide bombing, and attempted policide is eliminated, other, lesser problems are put on hold.

Europeans call this idealism simplistic, and maybe it is.

On the flip side, Americans are sometimes dumbfounded to discover how oddly credulous Europeans are when it comes to so much else. Europeans put a value on words that is foreign to the average American. Just because "peace process" sounds like maybe there`s a process that can create peace, it does not mean that anything baring the label is actually worthy of any respect.

As idealistic as many Americans are when it comes to notions of right and wrong, we are deeply, deeply cynical when it comes to words and ideas. We are the "show-me" nation. And that`s one more reason the notion of a conspiratorial Jewish Controlled Media is so silly to the average American. Who trusts the media?!

We Americans sniff out conflicts of interest as a knee-jerk reflex, assume everyone has a bias, and know that just because there`s a picture of the batboy shaking hands with Jimmy Carter doesn`t mean the event actually happened. Some poor souls here still have a hard time accepting that Elvis is dead. I mean, did you see the body?

This, in the end, is the great divide between Europe and the U.S.: We believe nothing, they believe in nothing.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the early 20th century.[1] The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between the Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman and then British rule. It forms part of the wider Arab–Israeli conflict. The remaining key issues are: mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements,[2] Palestinian freedom of movement[3] and legalities concerning refugees. The violence resulting from the conflict has prompted international actions, as well as other security and human rights concerns, both within and between both sides, and internationally. In addition, the violence has curbed expansion of tourism in the region, which is full of historic and religious sites that are of interest to many people around the world.
Many attempts have been made to broker a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside an independent Jewish state or next to the State of Israel (after Israel's establishment in 1948). As recently as 2007, a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a number of polls, prefer the two-state solution over any other solution as a means of resolving the conflict.[4] Moreover, a considerable majority of the Jewish public sees the Palestinians' demand for an independent state as just, and thinks Israel can agree to the establishment of such a state.[5] A majority of Palestinians and Israelis view the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an acceptable location of the hypothetical Palestinian state in a two-state solution.[6] However, there are significant areas of disagreement over the shape of any final agreement and also regarding the level of credibility each side sees in the other in upholding basic commitments.[7]
Within Israeli and Palestinian society, the conflict generates a wide variety of views and opinions. This highlights the deep divisions which exist not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but also within each society. A hallmark of the conflict has been the level of violence witnessed for virtually its entire duration. Fighting has been conducted by regular armies, paramilitary groups, terror cells and individuals. Casualties have not been restricted to the military, with a large number of fatalities in civilian population on both sides. There are prominent international actors involved in the conflict. The two parties engaged in direct negotiation are the Israeli government, currently led by Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), currently headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The official negotiations are mediated by an international contingent known as the Quartet on the Middle East (the Quartet) represented by a special envoy that consists of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. The Arab League is another important actor, which has proposed an alternative peace plan. Egypt, a founding member of the Arab League, has historically been a key participant.
Since 2003, the Palestinian side has been fractured by conflict between the two major factions: Fatah, the traditionally dominant party, and its later electoral challenger, Hamas. Following Hamas' seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the territory controlled by the Palestinian National Authority (the Palestinian interim government) is split between Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The division of governance between the parties has effectively resulted in the collapse of bipartisan governance of the Palestinian National Authority (PA). A round of peace negotiations began at Annapolis, Maryland, United States, in November 2007. These talks were aimed at having a final resolution by the end of 2008.[8] Direct negotiations between the Israeli government and Palestinian leadership began in September 2010 aimed at reaching an official final status settlement.


In July 2000, US President Bill Clinton convened a peace summit between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak reportedly offered the Palestinian leader approximately 95% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem,[13] and that 69 Jewish settlements (which comprise 85% of the West Bank's Jewish settlers) would be ceded to Israel. He also proposed "temporary Israeli control" indefinitely over another 10% of the West Bank territory—an area including many more Jewish settlements. According to Palestinian sources, the remaining area would be under Palestinian control, yet certain areas would be broken up by Israeli bypass roads and checkpoints. Depending on how the security roads would be configured, these Israeli roads might impede free travel by Palestinians throughout their proposed nation and reduce the ability to absorb Palestinian refugees.
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."[14]
No tenable solution was crafted which would satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian demands, even under intense US pressure. Clinton blamed Arafat for the failure of the Camp David Summit. In the months following the summit, Clinton appointed former US Senator George J. Mitchell to lead a fact-finding committee that later published the Mitchell Report aimed at restoring the peace process.
Taba Summit (2001)
Main article: Taba Summit
The Israeli negotiation team presented a new map at the Taba Summit in Taba, Egypt in January 2001. The proposition removed the "temporarily Israeli controlled" areas, and the Palestinian side accepted this as a basis for further negotiation. However, Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not conduct further negotiations at that time; the talks ended without an agreement. The following month the Likud party candidate Ariel Sharon was elected as Israeli prime minister on 7 February 2001.
Road Map for Peace
Main article: Road map for peace
One peace proposal, presented by the Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States on 17 September 2002, was the Road Map for Peace. This plan did not attempt to resolve difficult questions such as the fate of Jerusalem or Israeli settlements, but left that to be negotiated in later phases of the process. The proposal never made it beyond the first phase, which called for a halt to Israeli settlement construction and a halt to Israeli and Palestinian violence, none of which was achieved.[citation needed]
Arab Peace Initiative
Main article: Arab Peace Initiative
The Arab Peace Initiative (Arabic: مبادرة السلام العربية‎ Mubādirat as-Salām al-ʿArabīyyah) was first proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in the Beirut Summit. The peace initiative is a proposed solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict as a whole, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in particular.
The initiative was initially published on 28 March 2002, at the Beirut Summit, and agreed upon again in 2007 in the Riyadh Summit.
Unlike the Road Map for Peace, it spelled out "final-solution" borders based explicitly on the UN borders established before the 1967 Six-Day War. It offered full normalization of relations with Israel, in exchange for the withdrawal of its forces from all the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights, to recognize "an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a "just solution" for the Palestinian refugees.[15]
A number of Israeli officials have responded to the initiative with both support and criticism. The Israeli government has expressed reservations on 'red line,' issues such as the Palestinian refugee problem, homeland security concerns, and the nature of Jerusalem.[16] However, the Arab League continues to raise it as a possible solution, and meetings between the Arab League and Israel have been held.[17]
Present status
The peace process has been predicated on a "two-state solution" thus far, but questions have been raised towards both sides' resolve to end the dispute.
Israel has had its settlement growth and policies in the Palestinian territories harshly criticized by the European Union citing it as increasingly undermining the viability of the two-state solution and running in contrary to the Israeli-stated commitment to resume negotiations.[18][19] In December 2011, all the regional groupings on the UN Security Council named continued settlement construction and settler violence as disruptive to the resumption of talks, a call viewed by Russia as a "historic step".[20][21][22]
The Palestinians have had their continuing incitement to violence against Jews and Israel harshly criticized by Israeli officials and other political figures. In 2011, Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu noted that that while many asked Israel to undertake confidence building measures toward the Palestinians, the incitement promulgated by the Palestinian Authority was destroying Israel’s confidence, and he condemned the glorification of the murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar on PA television.[23] This had come shortly after the official Palestinian Authority Mufti in Jerusalem publicly read out an Islamic hadith that says killing Jews will speed up the redemption[24] which was criticised by the UK's Minister for the Middle East and North Africa as potentially stirring up "hatred and prejudice".[25][26] Following the Itamar massacre and a bombing in Jerusalem, 27 US senators sent a letter requesting the US Secretary of State to identify the administration's steps to end Palestinian incitement to violence against Jews and Israel that was occurring within the "Palestinian media, mosques and schools, and even by individuals or institutions affiliated with the Palestinian Authority."[27] The United Nations body UNESCO stopped funding a children's magazine sponsored by the Palestinian Authority that commended Hitler's killing of Jews. It deplored this publication as contrary to its principles of building tolerance and respect for human rights and human dignity.[28]
The PLO's campaign for full member status for the state of Palestine at the UN and have recognition on the 1967 borders received widespread support[29][30] though it was criticised by some countries, as it avoided bilateral negotiation.[31][32] Netanyahu criticized the Palestinians for bypassing direct talks,[33] while Abbas argued that the continued construction of Jewish settlements was "undermining the realistic potential" for the two-state solution.[34]
Polling data has produced mixed results regarding the level of support among Palestinians for the two-state solution. The most recent poll was carried out in 2011 by the Hebrew University. It indicated that support for a two-state solution was growing among both Israelis and Palestinians. The poll found that 58% of Israelis and 50% of Palestinians supported a two-state solution based on the Clinton Parameters, compared with 47% of Israelis and 39% of Palestinians in 2003, the first year the poll was carried out. The poll also found that an increasing percentage of both populations supported an end to violence—63% of Palestinians and 70% of Israelis expressing their support for an end to violence, an increase of 2% for Israelis and 5% for Palestinians from the previous year.[35]
A poll conducted in July 2011 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion in the West Bank and Gaza indicated that only 34% of Palestinians supported the "two states for two peoples" premise and that two-thirds claimed, “The real goal should be to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.” According to the same poll, 65% preferred talks and 20% preferred violence. More than 70 percent of Palestinians agreed with a clause of the Hamas Charter that declares, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews".[36] The poll further reported that "72% of Palestinians endorsed the denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools."[37]
Current issues in dispute

The following outlined positions are the official positions of the two parties; however, it is important to note that neither side holds a single position. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides include both moderate and extremist bodies as well as dovish and hawkish bodies.
One of the primary obstacles to the current peace process is a deepset and growing distrust between its participants. Unilateral strategies and the rhetoric of hard-line political factions, coupled with violence and incitements by civilians against one another, have fostered mutual embitterment and hostility and a loss of faith in the peace process. Support among Palestinians for Hamas is considerable, and as its members consistently call for the destruction of Israel and violence remains a threat, security becomes a prime concern for many Israelis. The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has led the majority of Palestinians to believe that Israel is not committed to reaching an agreement, but rather to a pursuit of establishing permanent control over this territory in order to provide that security.[38]
Jerusalem
Main article: Positions on Jerusalem
See also: Western Wall, Temple Mount, and Al-Aqsa Mosque


Greater Jerusalem, May 2006. CIA remote sensing map showing what CIA regards as settlements, plus refugee camps, fences, and walls
The border of Jerusalem is a particularly delicate issue, with each side asserting claims over this city. The three largest Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—include Jerusalem as an important setting for their religious and historical narratives.[39] Israel asserts that the city should not be divided and should remain unified within Israel's political control. Palestinians claim at least the parts of the city which were not part of Israel prior to June 1967. As of 2005, there were more than 719,000 people living in Jerusalem; 465,000 were Jews (mostly living in West Jerusalem) and 232,000 were Muslims (mostly living in East Jerusalem).[40]
The Israeli government, including the Knesset and Supreme Court, is centered in the "new city" of West Jerusalem and has been since Israel's founding in 1948. After Israel captured the Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, it assumed complete administrative control of East Jerusalem. In 1980, Israel issued a new law stating, "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel."[41]
At the Camp David and Taba Summits in 2000–01, the United States proposed a plan in which the Arab parts of Jerusalem would be given to the proposed Palestinian state while the Jewish parts of Jerusalem were retained by Israel. All archaeological work under the Temple Mount would be jointly controlled by the Israeli and Palestinian governments. Both sides accepted the proposal in principle, but the summits ultimately failed.[42]
Israel has grave concerns regarding the welfare of Jewish holy places under possible Palestinian control. When Jerusalem was under Jordanian control, no Jews were allowed to visit the Western Wall or other Jewish holy places, and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was desecrated.[42] In 2000, a Palestinian mob took over Joseph's Tomb, a shrine considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims, looted and burned the building and turned it into a mosque.[43] There are unauthorized Palestinian excavations for construction on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which could threaten the stability of the Western Wall.[citation needed] Israel, on the other hand, has seldom blocked access to holy places sacred to other religions.[44] Israeli security agencies routinely monitor and arrest Jewish extremists that plan attacks, resulting in almost no serious incidents for the last 20 years.[45][not in citation given] Moreover, Israel has given almost complete autonomy to the Muslim trust (Waqf) over the Temple Mount.[42]
Israel expresses concern over the security of its residents if neighborhoods of Jerusalem are placed under Palestinian control. Jerusalem has been a prime target for attacks by militant groups against civilian targets since 1967. Many Jewish neighborhoods have been fired upon from Arab areas. The proximity of the Arab areas, if these regions were to fall in the boundaries of a Palestinian state, would be so close as to threaten the safety of Jewish residents. Nadav Shragai states this idea in his study for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "An Israeli security body that was tasked in March 2000 with examining the possibility of transferring three Arab villages just outside of Jerusalem – Abu Dis, Al Azaria, and a-Ram – to Palestinian security control, assessed at the time that: 'Terrorists will be able to exploit the short distances, sometimes involving no more than crossing a street, to cause damage to people or property. A terrorist will be able to stand on the other side of the road, shoot at an Israeli or throw a bomb, and it may be impossible to do anything about it. The road will constitute the border.' If that is the case for neighborhoods outside of Jerusalem's municipal boundaries, how much more so for Arab neighborhoods within those boundaries.[46]
Palestinians have voiced concerns regarding the welfare of Christian and Muslim holy places under Israeli control.[47]
Some Palestinian advocates have made statements alleging that the Western Wall tunnel was re-opened with the intent of causing the mosque's collapse.[48] Israel considers these statements to be totally baseless and unfounded, and to be deliberately intended to incite aggression and public disorder,[49] and stated this in a 1996 speech at the UN.[50] The Israeli government insists it treats the Muslim and Christian holy sites with utmost respect. According to a 2010 study published by Freedom House, freedom of religion is respected.[citation needed]
Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (November 2010)
See also: Palestinian right of return, Palestinian refugee, and 1948 Palestinian exodus
Palestinian refugees are people who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.[51] The number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel following its creation was estimated at 711,000 in 1949.[52] Descendants of these original Palestinian Refugees are also eligible for registration and services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and as of 2010 number 4.7 million people.[53] A third of the refugees live in recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The remainder live in and around the cities and towns of these host countries.[51]
Most of these people were born outside of Israel, but are descendants of original Palestinian refugees.[51] Palestinian negotiators, most notably Yasser Arafat,[54] have so far insisted that refugees have a right to return to the places where they lived before 1948 and 1967, including those within the 1949 Armistice lines, citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 as evidence, although they have privately countenanced the return of only 10,000 refugees and their families to Israel as part of a peace settlement. Mahmoud Abbas, the current Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization accepts that it is "illogical to ask Israel to take 5 million, or indeed 1 million. That would mean the end of Israel." [55]
The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 declared that it proposed the compromise of a "just resolution" of the refugee problem.[56]
Palestinian and international authors have justified the right of return of the Palestinian refugees on several grounds:[57][58][59]
A few authors included in the broader New Historians assert that the Palestinian refugees were chased out or expelled by the actions of the Haganah, Lehi and Irgun.[60] Prominent historians such as Professor Avi Shlaim have argued otherwise. Shlaim (2000) has given documented accounts of how the Palestinians lost their homes and land. He argues that from April 1948 the military forces of what was to become Israel had embarked on a new offensive strategy which involved destroying Arab villages and the forced removal of civilians.
The traditional Israeli point of view arguing that Arab leaders encouraged Palestinian Arabs to flee has also been disputed by the New Historians, which instead have shown evidence indicating Arab leaders' will for the Palestinian Arab population to stay put.[61]
The Israeli Law of Return that grants citizenship to any Jew from anywhere in the world is viewed by some as discrimination against non-Jews, especially Palestinians that cannot apply for such citizenship or return to the territory which they left.[citation needed]


Home in Balata refugee camp demolished during the second Intifada, 2002
According to the UN Resolution 194[dead link], adopted in 1948, "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." UN Resolution 3236[dead link] "reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return". Resolution 242 from the UN affirms the necessity for "achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem"; however, Resolution 242 does not specify that the "just settlement" must or should be in the form of a literal Palestinian right of return.[62]
The most common arguments for opposition are:
The Israeli government asserts that the Arab refugee problem is largely caused by the refusal of all Arab governments except Jordan to grant citizenship to Palestinian Arabs who reside within those countries' borders. This has produced much of the poverty and economic problems of the refugees, according to MFA documents.[63]
The Palestinian refugee issue is handled by a separate authority from that handling other refugees, that is, by UNRWA and not the UNHCR. Most of the people recognizing themselves as Palestinian refugees would have otherwise been assimilated into their country of current residency, and would not maintain their refugee state if not for the separate entities.
Concerning the origin of the Palestinian refugees, the official version of the Israeli government is that during the 1948 War the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab states encouraged Palestinians to flee in order to make it easier to rout the Jewish state or that they did so to escape the fights by fear.[63] The Palestinian narrative is that refugees were expelled and dispossessed by Jewish militias and by the Israeli army, following a plan established even before the war.[citation needed] Historians still debate the causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
Since none of the 900,000 Jewish refugees who fled anti-Semitic violence in the Arab world was ever compensated or repatriated by their former countries of residence—to no objection on the part of Arab leaders—a precedent has been set whereby it is the responsibility of the nation which accepts the refugees to assimilate them.[64][65][66]
Although Israel accepts the right of the Palestinian Diaspora to return into a new Palestinian state, Israel insists that their return into the current state of Israel would be a great danger for the stability of the Jewish state; an influx of Palestinian refugees would lead to the destruction of the state of Israel.[67][68]
Israeli security concerns
See also: United States security assistance to the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian political violence, and 2010 Palestinian militancy campaign


Sbarro pizza restaurant bombing in Jerusalem, in which 15 Israeli civilians were killed and 130 wounded.


Remains of an Egged bus hit by suicide bomber in the aftermath of the 2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks. Eight people were killed, about 40 were injured.
Throughout the conflict, Palestinian violence has been a concern for Israelis. Israel,[69] along with the United States[70] and the European Union, refer to the violence against Israeli civilians and military forces by Palestinian militants as terrorism. The motivations behind Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians are multiplex, and not all violent Palestinian groups agree with each other on specifics, however a common motive is to eliminate the Jewish state and replace it with a Palestinian Arab state.[71] The most prominent Islamist groups, such as Hamas, view the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a religious jihad.[72]
Suicide bombing is used as a tactic among Palestinian organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and is supported by as much as 68% of the Palestinian people.[73] In Israel, Palestinian suicide bombers have targeted civilian buses, restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and marketplaces.[74] From 1993–2003, 303 Palestinian suicide bombers attacked Israel.[75]
The Israeli government initiated the construction of a security barrier following scores of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in July 2003. Israel's coalition government approved the security barrier in the northern part of the green-line between Israel and the West Bank. Since the erection of the fence, terrorist acts have declined by more than 90%.[76]
Since 2001, the threat of Qassam rockets fired from the Palestinian Territories into Israel is also of great concern for Israeli defense officials.[77] In 2006—the year following Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip—the Israeli government recorded 1,726 such launches, more than four times the total rockets fired in 2005.[69] As of January 2009, over 8,600 rockets had been launched,[78][79] causing widespread psychological trauma and disruption of daily life.[80] Over 500 rockets and mortars hit Israel between January–September 2010.


An Israeli child wounded by a Hamas Grad rocket fired on the city of Beer Sheva is taken to a hospital
According to a study conducted by University of Haifa, one in five Israelis have lost a relative or friend in a Palestinian terrorist attack.[81]
There is significant debate within Israel about how to deal with the country's security concerns. Options have included military action (including targeted killings and house demolitions of terrorist operatives), diplomacy, unilateral gestures toward peace, and increased security measures such as checkpoints, roadblocks and security barriers. The legality and the wisdom of all of the above tactics have been called into question by various commentators.[6]
Since mid-June 2007, Israel's primary means of dealing with security concerns in the West Bank has been to cooperate with and permit United States-sponsored training, equipping, and funding of the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which with Israeli help have largely succeeded in quelling West Bank supporters of Hamas.[82]
Palestinian violence outside of Israel
Some Palestinians have committed violent acts over the globe on the pretext of a struggle against Israel. Many foreigners, including Americans[83] and Europeans,[84] have been killed and injured by Palestinian militants. At least 53 Americans have been killed and 83 injured by Palestinian violence since the signing of the Oslo Accords.[85]
During the late 1960s, the PLO became increasingly infamous for its use of international terror. In 1969 alone, the PLO was responsible for hijacking 82 planes. El Al Airlines became a regular hijacking target.[86][87] The hijacking of Air France Flight 139 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine culminated during a hostage-rescue mission, where Israeli special forces successfully rescued the majority of the hostages.
However, one of the most well-known and notorious terrorist acts was the capture and eventual murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games.[88]
Attacks on diplomatic missions and Israelis abroad
Numerous embassies and Israeli travelers have been attacked by Palestinian militant groups during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
26 December 1968: Two Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militants attacked an El Al plane about to depart, killing one Israeli and injuring two others.[89]
18 February 1969: Three Israeli El Al Boeing 707 crew members, including the pilot, were killed by three PFLP terrorists in Zurich.[90]
10 February 1970: 12 Israeli El Al passengers were killed and wounded by Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists at a Munich airport.[89]
4 May 1970: An employee at the Israeli consulate in Paraguay was killed by two armed Palestinians.[91]
8 May 1972: Four Black September terrorists hijacked a Belgian airliner at Lod Airport.[90] During the rescue operation, five Israeli soldiers and one passenger were killed.
17 May 1972: Three members of the Turkish Liberation Army, a militant organization linked to the PLO, kidnapped and executed Israeli consul-general Efraim Elrom in Istanbul.[90]
30 May 1972: The Japanese Red Army killed eight Israelis and 17 United States citizen and injured 80 others at Lod airport on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[92]
10 September 1972: An Israeli official at the Israeli Embassy in Brussels was wounded by Fatah militants.[93]
19 September 1972: Ami Shachori, an agriculture counselor at the Israeli embassy in England, was assassinated by Black September militants.[94][95]
1 July 1973: Yosef Alon, air force attaché in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, was shot to death outside his home by Black September.[89][90]
17 December 1973: Five Palestinian terrorists shot at passengers waiting in an El Al Israel Airlines lounge at a Rome airport, killing two civilians. Then they hurled incendiary grenades at a Pan-Am Boeing 707 waiting to take off, killing 29 passengers.[96]
8 September 1974: TWA jet with 88 passengers traveling from Tel Aviv to Athens crashed into the Ionian Sea after PFLP terrorists detonated a bomb hidden in the baggage compartment, killing all on board. The dead included 17 Americans and two Israelis.[97]
13 November 1979: Israeli Ambassador to Portugal Ephraim Eldar was wounded by Palestinian militants. A security guard was killed and an embassy chauffeur and local policeman were injured.[93]
10 August 1981: Palestinian terrorists threw two bombs at an Israeli embassy in Vienna, wounding a 75-year old woman.[93]
29 August 1981: Palestinian terrorists killed two people and wounded 30 attending a Bar Mitzvah in Vienna.[98]
4 June 1982: Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom Shlomo Argov was wounded in an assassination attempt by Palestinian militants, setting off the 1982 Lebanon War. Argov later died of his injuries in 2003.[93]
23 September 1982: Israeli Chargé d'Affaires in Malta Esther Milo was wounded in an attempted kidnapping by Palestinian militants.[93]
23 December 1982: Palestinian militants detonated a bomb at the Israeli Consulate in Sydney, wounding two Israelis officials.[93]
27 December 1985: Fatah militants attacked El Al counters at Rome and Vienna airports, killing 19 people.[90]
2 April 1986: Palestinian militants detonated a bomb on an Trans World Airlines 727, killing four Americans including a nine-month old infant.
6 September 1986: 22 Turkish Jews were killed by Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Abu Nidal Organization while attending service at the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul.[99]
26 July 1994: A vehicle packed with 30 pounds of explosives at the Israeli Embassy in London exploded, wounding 20.[93]
28 November 2002: Suicide bombers attacked the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Kenya. 13 civilians, including 3 Israelis, were killed in the attack. At the same time, two surface-to-air missiles were fired at a civilian Boeing 757 airliner owned by Israel-based Arkia Airlines as it took off from Moi International Airport.[100]
Palestinian violence against Palestinians


Suspected Palestinian collaborator killed during the First Intifada
Fighting among rival Palestinian and Arab movements has played a crucial role in shaping Israel's security policy towards Palestinian militants, as well as in the Palestinian leadership's own policies.[citation needed] As early as the 1930s revolts in Palestine, Arab forces fought each other while also skirmishing with Zionist and British forces, and internal conflicts continue to the present day. During the Lebanese Civil War, Palestinian baathists broke from the Palestine Liberation Organization and allied with the Shia Amal Movement, fighting a bloody civil war that killed thousands of Palestinians.[101][102]
In the First Intifada, more than a thousand Palestinians were killed in a campaign initiated by the Palestine Liberation Organization to crack down on suspected Israeli security service informers and collaborators. The Palestinian Authority was strongly criticized for its treatment of alleged collaborators, rights groups complaining that those labeled collaborators were denied fair trials. According to a report released by the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, less than 45 percent of those killed were actually guilty of informing for Israel.[103]
The policies towards suspected collaborators contravene agreements signed by the Palestinian leadership. Article XVI(2) of the Oslo II Agreement states:[104]
"Palestinians who have maintained contact with the Israeli authorities will not be subjected to acts of harassment, violence, retribution, or prosecution."
The provision was designed to prevent Palestinian leaders from imposing retribution on fellow Palestinians who had worked on behalf of Israel during the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[105]
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas officials have killed and tortured thousands of Fatah members and other Palestinians who oppose their rule. During the Battle of Gaza, more than 150 Palestinians died over a four day period. The violence among Palestinians was described as a civil war by some commentators.[106] By 2007, more than 600 Palestinian people had died during the struggle between Hamas and Fatah.[107]
International status
In the past, Israel has demanded control over border crossings between the Palestinian territories and Jordan and Egypt, and the right to set the import and export controls, asserting that Israel and the Palestinian territories are a single economic space.
In the interim agreements reached as part of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority has received control over cities (Area A) while the surrounding countryside has been placed under Israeli security and Palestinian civil administration (Area B) or complete Israeli control (Area C). Israel has built additional highways to allow Israelis to traverse the area without entering Palestinian cities. The initial areas under Palestinian Authority control are diverse and non-contiguous. The areas have changed over time because of subsequent negotiations, including Oslo II, Wye River and Sharm el-Sheik. According to Palestinians, the separated areas make it impossible to create a viable nation and fails to address Palestinian security needs; Israel has expressed no agreement to withdrawal from some Areas B, resulting in no reduction in the division of the Palestinian areas, and the institution of a safe pass system, without Israeli checkpoints, between these parts. Because of increased Palestinian violence[citation needed] to occupation this plan is in abeyance.
Water resources
Further information: Water politics in the Jordan River basin and Water politics in the Middle East
In the Middle East, water resources are of great political concern. Since Israel receives much of its water from two large underground aquifers which continue under the Green Line, the use of this water has been contentious in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Critics of this argument say that even though Israel withdraws most water from these areas, it also supplies the West Bank with approximately 40 million cubic metres annually, contributing to 77% of Palestinians' water supply in the West Bank, which is to be shared for a population of about 2.3 million.[108]
While Israel's consumption of this water has decreased since it began its occupation of the West Bank, it still consumes the majority of it: in the 1950s, Israel consumed 95% of the water output of the Western Aquifer, and 82% of that produced by the Northeastern Aquifer. Although this water was drawn entirely on Israel's own side of the pre-1967 border, the sources of the water are nevertheless from the shared groundwater basins located under both West Bank and Israel.[109]
In the treaty of the Oslo II Accord, both sides agreed to maintain "existing quantities of utilization from the resources." In so doing, the Palestinian Authority established the legality of Israeli water production in the West Bank. Moreover, Israel obligated itself in this agreement to provide water to supplement Palestinian production, and further agreed to allow additional Palestinian drilling in the Eastern Aquifer. Many Palestinians counter that the Oslo II agreement was intended to be a temporary resolution and that it was not intended to remain in effect more than a decade later. Indeed its name is "The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement."[110]
This agreement also established the right of the Palestinian Authority to explore and drill for natural gas, fuel and petroleum within its territory and territorial waters. It also delineated the major terms of conduct regarding regulations on the parties' facilities.[110]
In 1999, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it continued to honor its obligations under the Interim Agreement.[111] The water that Israel receives comes mainly from the Jordan River system, the Sea of Galilee and two underground sources. According to a 2003 BBC article the Palestinians lack access to the Jordan River system.[112]
Future and financing
Numerous foreign nations and international organizations have established bilateral agreements with the Palestinian and Israeli water authorities. It is estimated that a future investment of about US$1.1bn for the West Bank and $0.8bn[clarification needed] is needed for the planning period from 2003 to 2015.[113]
In order to support and improve the water sector in the Palestinian territories, a number of bilateral and multilateral agencies have been supporting many different water and sanitation programs.
There are three large seawater desalination plants in Israel and two more scheduled to open before 2014. When the fourth plant becomes operational, 65% of Israel's water will come from desalination plants, according to Minister of Finance Dr. Yuval Steinitz.[114]
Israeli military occupation of the West Bank
See also: Israeli-occupied territories, West Bank#Status, Positions on Jerusalem, and Status of territories captured by Israel
Occupied Palestinian Territory is the term used by the United Nations to refer to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,[115] and the Gaza Strip—territories which were captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, having formerly been controlled by Egypt and Jordan.[116] The Israeli government uses the term Disputed Territories, to argue that some territories cannot be called occupied as no nation had clear rights to them and there was no operative diplomatic arrangement when Israel acquired them in June 1967.[117][118] The area is still referred to as Judea and Samaria by some Israeli groups, based on the historical regional names from ancient times.
In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem.[119] Israel has never annexed the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and the United Nations has demanded the "[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" and that Israeli forces withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict" – the meaning and intent of the latter phrase is disputed. See Interpretations.
It has been the position of Israel that the most Arab-populated parts of West Bank (without major Jewish settlements), and the entire Gaza Strip must eventually be part of an independent Palestinian State. However, the precise borders of this state are in question. At Camp David, for example, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat an opportunity to establish an independent Palestinian State composed of 92% of the West Bank, Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and the entire Gaza Strip and dismantling of most settlements. Yasser Arafat rejected the proposal without providing a counter-offer.[120]
Some Palestinians claim they are entitled to all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Israel says it is justified in not ceding all this land, because of security concerns, and also because the lack of any valid diplomatic agreement at the time means that ownership and boundaries of this land is open for discussion.[54] Palestinians claim any reduction of this claim is a severe deprivation of their rights. In negotiations, they claim that any moves to reduce the boundaries of this land is a hostile move against their key interests. Israel considers this land to be in dispute, and feels the purpose of negotiations is to define what the final borders will be.
Other Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, have in the past insisted that Palestinians must control not only the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, but also all of Israel proper. For this reason, Hamas has viewed the peace process "as religiously forbidden and politically inconceivable".[72]
Israeli settlements in the West Bank
Main article: Israeli settlement


A neighbourhood in Ariel, home to the Ariel University Center of Samaria, the largest Israeli public college
According to DEMA, "In the years following the Six-Day War, and especially in the 1990s during the peace process, Israel re-established communities destroyed in 1929 and 1948 as well as established numerous new settlements in the West Bank."[121] These settlements are, as of 2009, home to about 301,000 people.[122] DEMA added, "Most of the settlements are in the western parts of the West Bank, while others are deep into Palestinian territory, overlooking Palestinian cities. These settlements have been the site of much inter-communal conflict."[121] The issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, until 2005, the Gaza Strip, have been described by the UK[123] and the WEU[124] as an obstacle to the peace process. The United Nations and the European Union have also called the settlements "illegal under international law."[125][126]
However, Israel disputes this;[127] several scholars and commentators disagree with the assessment that settlements are illegal, citing in 2005 recent historical trends to back up their argument.[128][129][130] Those who justify the legality of the settlements use arguments based upon Articles 2 and 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 242.[131] On a practical level, some objections voiced by Palestinians are that settlements divert resources needed by Palestinian towns, such as arable land, water, and other resources; and, that settlements reduce Palestinians' ability to travel freely via local roads, owing to security considerations.
In 2005, Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, a proposal put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was enacted. All residents of Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip were evacuated, and all residential buildings were demolished.[132]
Various mediators and various proposed agreements have shown some degree of openness to Israel retaining some fraction of the settlements which currently exist in the West Bank; this openness is based on a variety of considerations, such as, the desire to find real compromise between Israeli and Palestinian territorial claims.[133][134]
Israel's position that it needs to retain some West Bank land and settlements as a buffer in case of future aggression,[135] and Israel's position that some settlements are legitimate, as they took shape when there was no operative diplomatic arrangement, and thus they did not violate any agreement.[117][118]
Former US President George W. Bush has stated that he does not expect Israel to return entirely to the 1949 armistice lines because of "new realities on the ground."[136] One of the main compromise plans put forth by the Clinton Administration would have allowed Israel to keep some settlements in the West Bank, especially those which were in large blocs near the pre-1967 borders of Israel. In return, Palestinians would have received some concessions of land in other parts of the country.[133] The current US administration views a complete freeze of construction in settlements on the West Bank as a critical step toward peace. In May and June 2009, President Barack Obama said, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,"[137] and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stated that the President "wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.”[138] However, Obama has since declared that the United States will no longer press Israel to stop West Bank settlement construction as a precondition for continued peace-process negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.[139]
Actions toward stabilizing the conflict

In response to a weakening trend in Palestinian violence and growing economic and security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli military has removed over 120 check points in 2010 and plans on disengaging from major Palestinian population areas. According to the IDF, terrorist activity in the West Bank decreased by 97% compared to violence in 2002.[140]
PA-Israel efforts in the West Bank have "significantly increased investor confidence", and the Palestinian economy grew 6.8% in 2009.[141][142][143][144][145]


Bank of Palestine
Since the Second Intifada, Jewish Israelis have been banned from entering Palestinian cities. However, Israeli Arabs are allowed to enter West Bank cities on weekends.
The Palestinian Authority has petitioned the Israeli military to allow Jewish tourists to visit West Bank cities as "part of an effort" to improve the Palestinian economy. Israeli general Avi Mizrahi spoke with Palestinian security officers while touring malls and soccer fields in the West Bank. Mizrahi gave permission to allow Israeli tour guides into Bethlehem, a move intended to "contribute to the Palestinian and Israeli economies."[146]
Mutual recognition
The Oslo peace process was based upon Israel ceding authority to the Palestinians to run their own political and economic affairs. In return, it was agreed that Palestinians would promote peaceful co-existence, renounce violence and promote recognition of Israel among their own people. Despite Yasser Arafat's official renunciation of terrorism and recognition of Israel, some Palestinian groups continue to practice and advocate violence against civilians and do not recognize Israel as a legitimate political entity.[147] Palestinians state that their ability to spread acceptance of Israel was greatly hampered by Israeli restrictions on Palestinian political freedoms, economic freedoms, civil liberties, and quality of life.
It is widely felt among Israelis that Palestinians did not in fact promote acceptance of Israel's right to exist.[148][149] One of Israel's major reservations in regards to granting Palestinian sovereignty is its concern that there is not genuine public support by Palestinians for co-existence and elimination of terrorism and incitement.[148][149][150] Some Palestinian groups, notably Fatah, the political party founded by PLO leaders, initially claimed they were willing to foster co-existence depending on the Palestinians being steadily given more political rights and autonomy. However, in 2010, even Fatah leaders such as Mahmoud Abbas refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,[151] while the leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is the official Fatah's military wing, publicly disclosed Fatah's "ultimate goal" to be the destruction of the Jewish state, and that Abbas would lie about recognition of Israel following "Zionist and American pressure" for "political calculations" as one of the means to achieve the aforementioned goal.[152] In 2006, Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, where it remains the majority party. Hamas has openly stated in the past that it completely opposed Israel's right to exist, and its charter states this.[147][153] Following the release of Gilad Shalit in 2011, Abbas praised his capturing by Hamas and reassured the Arab public he would "never recognize a Jewish state".[154]
Israel cites past concessions—such as Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, which did not lead to a reduction of attacks and rocket fire against Israel—as an example of the Palestinian people not accepting Israel as a state. Palestinian groups and Israeli Human Rights organizations (namely B'Tselem) have pointed out that while the military occupation in Gaza was ended, the Israeli government still retained control of Gaza's airspace, territorial water, and borders, legally making it still under Israeli control. They also say that mainly thanks to these restrictions, the Palestinian quality of life in the Gaza Strip has not improved since the Israeli withdrawal.
Government
The Palestinian Authority is considered corrupt by a wide variety of sources, including some Palestinians.[155][156][157] Some Israelis argue that it provides tacit support for militants via its relationship with Hamas and other Islamic militant movements, and that therefore it is unsuitable for governing any putative Palestinian state or (especially according to the right wing of Israeli politics), even negotiating about the character of such a state.[54] Because of that, a number of organizations, including the previously ruling Likud party, declared they would not accept a Palestinian state based on the current PA.
Societal attitudes
Societal attitudes in both Israel and Palestine are a source of concern to those promoting dispute resolution.
According to a May 2011 poll carried out by the Palestinian Center For Public Opinion that asked Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, "which of the following means is the best to end the occupation and lead to the establishing of an independent Palestinian state", 5.0% supported "military operations", 25.0% supported non-violent popular resistance, 32.1% favored negotiations until an agreement could be reached, 23.1% preferred holding an international conference that would impose a solution on all parties, 12.4% supported seeking a solution through the United Nations, and 2.4% otherwise. Approximately three quarters of Palestinians surveyed believed that a military escalation in the Gaza Strip would be in Israel’s interest and 18.9% said it would be in Hamas’s interest. Regarding the resumption of launching Al-Qassam missiles from Gaza into Israel, 42.5% said "strongly oppose", 27.1% "somewhat oppose", 16.0% "somewhat support", 13.8% "strongly support", and 0.2% expressed no opinion.[158]
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed concerns that Hamas promote incitement against and overall non-acceptance of Israel, including promotion of violence against Israel.[148][149]
Gaza blockade
Main article: 2007–present blockade of the Gaza Strip
According to Oxfam, because of an import-export ban imposed on Gaza in 2007, 95% of Gaza’s industrial operations were suspended. Out of 35,000 people employed by 3,900 factories in June 2005, only 1,750 people remained employed by 195 factories in June 2007.[159] By 2010, Gaza's unemployment rate had risen to 40% with 80% of the population living on less than 2 dollars a day.[160] The Israeli Government's cut in the flow of fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip has also been called collective punishment. Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, called on Israel “immediately [to] lift its inhumane and illegal siege.”[161]
The Israeli governments argues it is justified under international law to impose a blockade on an enemy for security reasons. The power to impose a naval blockade is established under customary international law and Laws of armed conflict.[162] The Military Advocate General of Israel has provided numerous reasonings for the policy:
"The State of Israel has been engaged in an ongoing armed conflict with terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza strip. This armed conflict has intensified after Hamas violently took over Gaza, in June 2007, and turned the territory under its de-facto control into a launching pad of mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages in southern Israel."[163]
Starting 7 February 2008, the Israeli Government reduced the electricity it sells directly to Gaza. This follows the ruling of Israel’s High Court of Justice’s decision, which held, with respect to the amount of industrial fuel supplied to Gaza, that, “The clarification that we made indicates that the supply of industrial diesel fuel to the Gaza Strip in the winter months of last year was comparable to the amount that the Respondents now undertake to allow into the Gaza Strip. This fact also indicates that the amount is reasonable and sufficient to meet the vital humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip.” Palestinian militants killed two Israelis in the process of delivering fuel to the Nahal Oz fuel depot.[164]
With regard to Israel’s plan, the Court stated that, “calls for a reduction of five percent of the power supply in three of the ten power lines that supply electricity from Israel to the Gaza Strip, to a level of 13.5 megawatts in two of the lines and 12.5 megawatts in the third line, we [the Court] were convinced that this reduction does not breach the humanitarian obligations imposed on the State of Israel in the framework of the armed conflict being waged between it and the Hamas organization that controls the Gaza Strip. Our conclusion is based, in part, on the affidavit of the Respondents indicating that the relevant Palestinian officials stated that they can reduce the load in the event limitations are placed on the power lines, and that they had used this capability in the past."
On 20 June 2010, Israel's Security Cabinet approved a new system governing the blockade that would allow practically all non-military or dual-use items to enter the Gaza strip. According to a cabinet statement, Israel would "expand the transfer of construction materials designated for projects that have been approved by the Palestinian Authority, including schools, health institutions, water, sanitation and more – as well as (projects) that are under international supervision."[165] Despite the easing of the land blockade, Israel will continue to inspect all goods bound for Gaza by sea at the port of Ashdod.[166]
Palestinian army
The Israeli Cabinet issued a statement[167] expressing that it does not wish the Palestinians to build up an army capable of offensive operations, considering that the only party against which such an army could be turned in the near future is Israel itself. However, Israel has already allowed for the creation of a Palestinian police that can conduct police operations and also carry out limited-scale warfare. Palestinians[vague] have argued that the Israel Defense Forces, a large and modern armed force, poses a direct and pressing threat to the sovereignty of any future Palestinian state, making a defensive force for a Palestinian state a matter of necessity. To this, Israelis claim that signing a treaty while building an army is a show of bad intentions.
Since 2006, the United States has been training, equipping, and funding the Palestinian Authority's security forces, which have been cooperating with Israel at unprecedented levels in the West Bank to quell supporters of Hamas, the main Palestinian Islamist group that opposes direct negotiations with Israel.[82] The United States government has spent over 500 million building and training the Palestinian National Security Forces and Presidential Guard.[82] The IDF believes the US-trained forces will soon be capable of "overrunning small IDF outposts and isolated Israeli communities" in the event of a conflict.[168]
Fatalities 1948–present

See also: Israeli casualties of war and Palestinian casualties of war
A variety of studies provide differing casualty data for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 13,000 Israelis and Palestinians were killed in conflict with each other between 1948 and 1997.[169] Other estimations give 14,500 killed between 1948–2009.[169][170] Palestinian fatalities during the 1982 Lebanon War were 2,000 PLO combatants killed in armed conflict with Israel.[171]
Civilian casualty figures for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from B'tselem and Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 1987 and 2010[172][173][174][175]
(numbers in parentheses represent casualties under age 18)
Year Deaths
Palestinians Israelis
2011 20 (4) 16 (4)
2010 81 (9) 8 (0)
2009 1034 (314) 9 (1)
2008 887 (128) 35 (4)
2007 385 (52) 13 (0)
2006 665 (140) 23 (1)
2005 190 (49) 51 (6)
2004 832 (181) 108 (8)
2003 588 (119) 185 (21)
2002 1032 (160) 419 (47)
2001 469 (80) 192 (36)
2000 282 (86) 41 (0)
1999 9 (0) 4 (0)
1998 28 (3) 12 (0)
1997 21 (5) 29 (3)
1996 74 (11) 75 (8)
1995 45 (5) 46 (0)
1994 152 (24) 74 (2)
1993 180 (41) 61 (0)
1992 138 (23) 34 (1)
1991 104 (27) 19 (0)
1990 145 (25) 22 (0)
1989 305 (83) 31 (1)
1988 310 (50) 12 (3)
1987 22 (5) 0 (0)
Total 7978 (1620) 1503 (142)
Note: Figures includes 1,593 Palestinian fatalities attributed to intra-Palestinian violence. Figures do not include the 600 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 2006.[107]
Demographic percentages for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict according to Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs from September 2000 until the end of July 2007.[176]
Belligerent Combatant Civilian Male Female Children Children Male Children Female
Palestinian 41% 59% 94% 6% 20% 87% 13%
Israeli 31% 69% 69% 31% 12% Not available Not available
Note: It is considerably more difficult to distinguish precisely who amongst those Palestinians killed were civilians. Numerous pro-Israel organizations as well as the Israeli army claim the majority of Palestinians killed in armed conflict were combat-age males.[177]
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian territory (OCHAoPt) "was established in late 2000" by the United Nations.[178] The office monitors the conflict and presents figures relating to both internal-violence and direct conflict clashes.
Partial casualty figures for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from the OCHAoPt[179]
(numbers in parentheses represent casualties under age 18)
Year Deaths Injuries
Palestinians Israelis Palestinians Israelis
2008–26.12.08[180] 464 (87) 31 (4)
2007 396 (43) 13 (0) 1843 (265) 322 (3)
2006 678 (127) 25 (2) 3194 (470) 377 (7)
2005 216 (52) 48 (6) 1260 (129) 484 (4)
Total 1754 (309) 117 (12) 6297 (864) 1183 (14)
All numbers refer to casualties of direct conflict between Israelis and Palestinians including in IDF military operations, artillery shelling, search and arrest campaigns, Barrier demonstrations, targeted killings, settler violence etc. The figures do not include events indirectly related to the conflict such as casualties from unexploded ordnance, etc., or events when the circumstances remain unclear or are in dispute. The figures include all reported casualties of all ages and both genders.[179]
Figures include both Israeli civilians and security forces casualties in West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Criticism of casualty statistics in the Second Intifada
As reported by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, since 29 September 2000 a total of 7,454 Palestinian and Israeli individuals were killed due to the conflict. According to the report, 1,317 of the 6,371 Palestinians were minors, and at least 2,996 did not participate in fighting at time of death. Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis, including 741 civilians. 124 of those killed were minors.[181]
The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism criticized the methodology of Palestinian-based rights groups, including B'tselem, and questioned their accuracy in classifying civilian/combatant ratios.[182][183][184]
In a study published by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Elihu D. Richter and Dr. Yael Stein examined B'tselem methods in calculating casualties during Operation Cast Lead. They argue that B'tselem's report contains "errors of omission, commission and classification bias which result in overestimates of the ratio of non-combatants to combatants."[185]
Stein and Richter claim the high male/female ratios among Palestinians, including those in their mid- to late- teens, "suggests that the IDF classifications are combatant and non-combatant status are probably far more accurate than those of B’Tselem."[185]
Casualty figures for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the 1936–1939 Great Arab Revolt
Source Cited by Deaths
Palestinian Arabs Palestinian Jews
Arnon-Ohana, 1982, 140 Morris, Righteous Victims p 159. 4,500
Various Morris, Righteous Victims p 159. 3,000 to 6,000 several hundred
These figures represent deaths caused by the Palestinian uprising against the British mandatory government in Palestine, and include those killed by the British.
Land mine and explosive remnants of war casualties
A comprehensive collection mechanism to gather land mine and explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualty data does not exist for the Palestinian territories.[186] In 2009, the United Nations Mine Action Centre reported that more than 2,500 mine and explosive remnants of war casualties occurred between 1967 and 1998, at least 794 casualties (127 killed, 654 injured and 13 unknown) occurred between 1999 to 2008 and that 12 people have been killed and 27 injured since the Gaza War.[186] The UN Mine Action Centre identified the main risks as coming from "ERW left behind by Israeli aerial and artillery weapon systems, or from militant caches targeted by the Israeli forces."[186] There are at least 15 confirmed minefields in the West Bank on the border with Jordan. The Palestinian National Security Forces do not have maps or records of the minefields.[186]
See also

At the beginning of your justification for historical revisionism, you say the Six Day War was in 1976!

It all goes downhill from there as far as the facts are concerned.

Now, back to EDO.

probably a mis-type. Got the 6 and 7 the wrong way around.
Easy mistake to make using a keyboard