Read an article in NY Times, but the link is not posting correctly
This article talks about Israeli hopes on swaying the Obama administration towards more favorable terms on the 120 extra settlements along the wall being constructed between Palestine and Israel. The Obama administration and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas have called for an immediate halt on all settlement and wall construction. There are now more than 300,000 Israelis living on these settlements. Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu has said he will halt all settlement expansion, but I think the key to this article is where Netanyahu talks about being allowed to build based on "natural growth" in the settlements. This is quite a loophole that can justify extending settlements based on growing or projected growth of populations. Another big problem has been Netanyahu's refusal to talk about a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The entire point of these talks are based upon this eventual idea. These factors unfortunately make any progress seem out of reach, and a stalemate might be the only consensus. I think part of the difficulty is the sheer number of Israelis in these settlements. 300,ooo people is a very large voting block, and many of these settlers have turned militant in the past when settlements have been closed. Many settlers see it as religious destiny and a fulfillment of Zionism. This view can make negotiations almost impossible.
ok it's Iraq but it's interesting
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Here is a link to a blog put up by Morgan on a different Blog. There are a
number of entries that tie more to your topic than theirs. Enjoy.
16 years ago
Is there really a solution to this conflict?There are millions of suggested solutions and mediations, but if applied will they really work? Even if there were to be put in place a perfect regional divide or Arab/ Palestine land there would still be a conflict.I think the bigger issue here is peace relations. How do you mend the relationship between two peoples who have historically hated each other for years? I honestly feel like there is no solution accept co -habitation. Were all human, and we all have to live and work together; Palestines and Arabs are no different.
ReplyDeleteI keep wondering where the tolerance and acceptance is. How can people learn to respect others right to be in a space that each feel such a belonging to. I keep going back to the picture we saw of the Israeli and Arab girls at the summer camp hugging. They learned to respect each other's rights as a person and moved on from there. Like most things in life, as the old saying goes, we learned the golden rule to treat others as we want to be treated in kindergarten and seemed to have forgetten it along the way.
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