Israel and her Neighbors

After centuries of persecution, pogroms and discrimination culminating with the Nazi holocaust, I can completely understand the bunker mentality that still prevails in Israel to this day.

Finally after so many centuries, the Jews can have thier own state... And people can say whatever they want about the Jews and money... the truth is they all seem to know what to do with it when they have it and have built themselves a gem of a homeland. I do not begrudge them this.

My problem is thier attitude towards thier neighbors. Now, I acknowledge that there are many in the region who would like to "wipe Israel off the map" as the saying goes. I do believe however that there are moderates all around, even within the groups dimissed as terrorists who accept the reality that Israel is going nowhere and cannot be forced into any action it does not wish to take. The assertion that Israel will not talk till thier right to exist is recognised to me seems ridiculous. Any challenge to Israels' right to exist in reality can only be rhetorical, a starting point for negotiations from which compromise can be reached and I am certain that the every Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese thinking person knows this to be true. For Israel to set a precondition for final status negotiations is, in my view, just plain stupid as it leaves the agenda at the mercy of the rejectionists and extremists on both sides.

There is no shooting solution to Israels final status, no great victory to be had. In the end, as history has taught us, the only solution to these issues is dialogue and compromise. If Israel continues to refuse to talk more Israeli's and Palestinians will die.

One more thing why does the settlement building policy of Israel seem so much like the Nazi policy of Lebensraum?