Silverlight on a mac dmg from ITV.com

So I thought, why not lets give it a go.

2005 the pope's wine.

My minimalist desk.

New wireless keyboard.

A two state solution is the only way forwards. Israel and Palestine.

This is in response to a recent article on Digg that featured some old maps that allegedly showed the loss of Palestinian land to Israel and attempted to justify the actions of the rocketing terrorists based on these - actually in accurate maps. After reading through the hundreds of comments on the article I threw in my thoughts, which actually turned in to much longer than a normal comment length essay.

Here is what I believe to be a pretty well balanced, pro two state solution, anti terrorism, pro political solution and mildly sympathetic towards Israel but accepting that their actions are not as pure as the driven snow either.

To my mind far too many people took the maps as accurate, and without context or in some cases any understanding of the back story or history of the region.

You can read the rest of the discussion here. Some of the comments are of note. Many are plainly ignorant or narrow minded, that's of both sides some anti Semitic and some anti Aram.

I can't actually find where I first found these maps some years back (It's now all over the place), but needless to say it was pro Palestinian anti Israeli website. I'll update when I can. As I always like to tell people, don't accept my thinking on these matters, look the stuff up yourself - use Wikipedia if you must but get books on the British Mandate, read the UN resolution and the actions of other nations immediately following them - then decide. Please don't look at the image and think... "Yeah that does explain a lot, the thieving Jews deserve all the rockets they get." - do some research.

Palestine isn't a state. They don't have a seat at the UN, they have observer status. Since it's not a state they do not have an army, they employ terrorists to persistently and unswervingly rocket indiscriminate targets in Isreal, cafes, bus stops etc. Whilst some civilians, many if you like, as numerically I'll grant that Israel has killed more Palestinians since 1960 than Jews have been killed, are killed by Israel's action. These are always unintentional casualties of attacks targeted at terrorists (who don't live in fortified bases away from civilians but in amongst civilian areas regularly hiding weapons and themselves in schools etc. ) attacks conducted by a states defensive force. That state that has been under constant bombardment from umpteen (many unprovoked) conflicts since 1948

Israel had to create a buffering zone to try and push back the threat and quite rightly. Considering that Israel is the only state (and yes an actual state with a seat in the UN) I know of that has been constantly under open and real threat of complete destruction and it's people told they will be eradicated since it's inception. 

However Israel made the mistake by, wrongly and illegally, building settlements in that "buffer zone" effectively increasing their land mass. Don't believe this is simple a one side is right one is wrong... my word if it was even close to being that simple the international community wouldn't have had to divert so much energy into this problem.

I'm not a massive fan of the League of Nations Mark II but their plan of a two state solution was and is the only way forwards to protect a group whom a second group openly admit to wanting to ethnically cleanse. This is why the "integrated and diverse" solution that someone so simply suggested further up, like it was some divine revelation, will never work. 

It is of note to consider that the site these maps came from, which I have seen many times before, is overtly pro Palestine and Anti Israel. One may not laud the UN on one hand and lambast the US for selling arms to another nation, then forget that the state of Israel was created by international agreement and a fair vote (then promptly invaded by Egypt) Of course the Jews had a claim to that land, as do the Palestinians, and coming forwards a few thousand year the Christian can claim it's pretty dash important to them. Unfortunately the UN isn't here to arbiter which of the Abrahamic religions has the best estate agent - it's job at the time was to home 7.2 million Jews displaced by the atrocities of WWII.

Isreal under UN, and US (so can we stop vilifying them completely) has ceeded much of the 1967 gains and dismantled many illegal settlements back to Arab control (Maybe not enough, maybe not quickly enough, but it's progress), and then consider what has happened since - in this year alone 4000+ rockets have been fired over that frontiers into civilian areas. It is merely because the Israeli populous is so well versed in this routine now that more have not died. There is only one reason to fire rockets into civilian areas, death, destruction, fear and panic. It does not further a political message, it does not engender one to the international community, it does not induce your arguably far better armed enemy to negotiate further it's simply undermining the good will shown and making it harder and harder for political powers in Israel to make further moves towards a two state solution since the people won't tolerate it and will remove the government.

The final point is on that last word I used Government, we forgive the Palestinians a lot because they're so poorly done to by the West. Their abysmal human rights records, their subjugation of women, homosexual etc. Lack of public service infrastructure despite billions of international aid to buy food, and power etc. that is spent on Iranian rockets. We forgive Israel a fair ole bit too, because they're always good to knock out a nuclear installation if we need them too.

I hate juvenile and ignorant comparisons between any border conflicts around the world, Ireland, Balkans, West Bank etc. However the one lesson various UK administrations have learnt from the Irish problem was that eventually you must sit down and talk. Maybe not with the terrorists themselves but at least with political componants who want to talk and negotiate the way through the conflict. Israel now negotiates and supports Fat-ah since one of their aims is NOT the destruction of the state of Israel unlike their Hamas counter parts that exude constant and unending anti Semitic rhetoric and continue to deny the holocaust as a concoction. 

There have been rights and wrongs on both sides, these maps show nothing. Talking is the only way forwards. Unfortunately at the moment the voices can't be heard above the noise of the falling Arab rocket and the sound of the whistling Israeli bombs and the cacophony of wailing death rites on both sides.

I became further enraged this morning when listening to Broadcasting House on the wireless when Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) decided to comment on the number of civilians, women, children and babies had been killed in the Israeli raids - neglecting to mention that the reason these people were killed wasn't merely that the Israeli fired munitions ended their lives but the context of why Israel were firing in their direction was that terrorist routinely hide in the civilian population and strike out from those locations.

Whilst this is dreadful these civilians are dead one must recognise the bind the IDF is in, with everyday of inaction come more rockets. Whilst the civilian population succumb to the terrorists too in not exposing them to the appropriate forces. Everyone has their part to play.