For god’s sake I am sick to death of Israel’s whining. They knew in 1948 that they had to give back the conquered land and allow the Palestinians to return and they refused – everything flows from that and to say otherwise 59 years on is to compound the original sin.

531 villages, 13 large urban centres, 3 million acres of land and the lives of over 1 million people were destroyed in Ben Gurion’s ethnic cleansing called Plan Dalet.

Israel simply has not right to exist on Palestinian land. Full stop.

I want to point out to you that Israel is able to “soldier on” because it has to. It has been doing so for more than 6 decades because it actually began building the underlying political infrastructure of a state before 1948. They don’t just soldier on, by the way, they run the country – with all its many flaws as we’ve catalogued here – very well. They’ve gone from no state to a democratic state that has survived a PM’s assassination. They have a strong and independent media and judiciary. Culturally the country is thriving and the economy is robust and growing to the point where even last year’s war had a minor impact. We are so used to hearing about the evils of Israel and Zionism that all of these achievements tend to be forgotten.

That being said, I hope for Israel’s sake that some alternative to a perpetuation of the status quo emerges, whether it’s a two-state settlement (perhaps a utopian dream at this point) or something else. I wonder at Israel’s ability to soldier on with this sort of insanity right at its borders.

The Palestinians do not want a state, they want to destroy Israel. Well-meaning people think that if Israel makes enough concessions the Palestinians will somehow “come to their senses” and make peace. This is only because they think this is a simple territotial dispute. But it isn’t.

In short, the people who support Hamas militancy don’t think that militancy has set them back, but rather the opposite. They have gotten exactly what they wanted: Israeli territorial concessions for which the Palestinians have had to give up absolutely nothing. They have their base for attack which they are using to great effect; money is still pouring in in spite of a supposed international boycott; they are supported by Syria and Iran; and they can count on absolute international support if Israel responds “disporportionately”. Everything is going their way.

The fact that we think Gaza is a cesspool and tha the Palestinians are suffering doesn’t mean anything to them. Amerliorating the physical situation of the Palestinians has never been the goal of groups like Hamas. Palestinian suffering is absolutley necessary for their strategy. Without it, no one will want to fight and the international community will not support them.

It may be that Palestinian bloody-mindedness and just general savagery will finally convince the world to wash their hands of them. I hope so, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Israel should do whatever it can to increase the infighting bewtween Hamas and Fatah so that more terrorists are killed. If necessary, the “Palestinian Authority” should be allowed to collapse like the rottenn structure it is. If Israel plays its cards right, perhaps this Fatah-Hamas tiff can be fanned into an all-out Palestinian civil war. If past experience (Black September, the Lebanese Civil War) the Palestinians will be much more effective at killing each other than the Israelis have been at killing them.

Once they have finished killing each other, Israel can finish off whoever is left. Then there might be a chance for peace.

Isn’t part of the problem that Israel’s tried occupying Gaza, and that occupation exacted costs that made withdrawal, however painful, strategically worthwhile? There may be no good solutions here, short of hoping that the Palestinians come to their senses and acknowledge that Hamas militancy has gotten them nowhere– instead, set them back.

What I’m saying is different. Those people who advocate for a two state solution and for a negotiated peace, particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum, have to recognize that Sderot and the western Negev represent an urgent warning and in fact a red line for any such hopes.

The Disengagement from Gaza was a crucial event on the path to a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian component of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel took active steps to remove itself and its authority from Gaza. This put control in the hands of the Palestinans. Their response has been a simple one: to move the front line into Israel proper, into the part of Israel that should not be under dispute at all. In fact, as Shavit points out, this is considered a frontier. People like me, who want many of the settlements shut down (despite a strong sense that Israelis have a historic and moral right to be present in some of those areas), have often said, “Leave the West Bank or Gaza and invest the same time, money and energy building up areas inside the Green Line such as the Negev and Galillee.” Why? Because there is consensus about the Green Line across the board.

Well, except, it seems, among the Palestinians. They are now violating the Green Line after the Disengagement and cannot use the excuse of “occupation” any longer. They are challenging the very essence of any future compromise. They are also undermining trust that they will ever abide by a peace deal.

If they seek war, then they deserve war. Israel isn’t being anywhere as aggressive as it needs to be in Gaza, but that’s because the lesson of how to manipulate the media has been internalized effectively by some of Israel’s enemies: use civilians as cover and shield.

More important, however, is that many people who support peace, a two state solution and the suffering of the Palestinians should be streaming to Sderot or at least screaming about what is happening there to anybody who can hear or read. While there is one aspect of this war that uses rockets, bombs and guns, there is another aspect of this war which is no less critical: the absolute right of Sderot to exist in peace and security. Those who wish to entrust the Palestinians with a state must take steps to make it clear that Sderot is a red line. Sderot is Israel.

I’m not sure if you’re backing away from support for a two-state approach, but I don’t see the Hamas attacks as somehow vitiating that solution. If you are backing away from it, I’d be curious to know why (stipulating that it’s self-evident Hamas isn’t a viable negotiating partner).