You're eating the cottage cheese, right?

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Let me be the first in the lengthy department, with the following as my bona fides: I'm an American-Israeli Jew who has studied and written about the contemporary Middle East since the early 1990s. The following is a very short version of the facts leading up to today...!

So, in my view, here's the story: Nationalism was conceived of in the late 19th century. The Jewish people, long without a home, having been thrown out of the one they once had 2,000 years previous, developed Zionism, a national liberation movement. At roughly the same time, other ethnic groups were coming to similar understandings of themselves, including the Palestinians.

In 1948, decades of violent conflict between two utterly irreconcilable visions peaked in war, and the Jewish nationalists won the war. Some 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. It was a war, and when at war, people do awful things. Awful, terrible things were done on all sides.

1967 - with the understanding that the Arab nations surrounding them were planning a war of annihilation (which they were), Israel launched a preemptive strike, and won that war in 6 days. In the course of it, they gained control of Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank was particularly important to the Jewish population, because most of Judaism's holiest sites are on the West Bank, including the 1/2 of Jerusalem that was (at the time) under Jordanian control.

In the intervening more than 40 years, Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has gotten more and more draconian. Palestinians have often responded with terrorism, but it has been clear for at least twenty years that the threat that such violence offers is not existential, but rather individual. As someone who lived in Tel Aviv and worked in Jerusalem during a couple of the biggest suicide bombing waves, I can attest to how truly terrifying they are, but they do not threaten the state.

Various attempts at peace were made most notably the Oslo Accords, but Israel -- the party with the most power -- continually stonewalled and failed to follow through on commitments. The Palestinian side did too, but I reiterate: They were not the side with the power. It's important to note that during these same years, Israel did negotiate peace with Egypt and Jordan, and both peace treaties stand.

In 2002, the Arab League offers peace in exchange for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel ignores the offer.

In 2005, Israel decides to retreat from Gaza, but refuses repeated appeals by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate, and leaves without either giving him anything to show his people for 10 years of negotiations, or security arrangements to meet its own needs. Hamas claims credit for terrorism.

In 2006, the Palestinian people narrowly elect Hamas, out of frustration with Abbas and his party's corruption. Israel, the US and the international community blockade the Palestinian National Authority.

In 2007, the Arab League again makes its offer. Again Israel ignores it.

A couple months later, a civil war breaks out between Hamas and Fatah (Abbas's party) and the territories are split in two. Gaza is now run by Hamas, and the borders are closed ever more tightly. Food, medical supplies, you name it - it can't get in, more than a day or two a month.

Hamas does in fact frequently launch rockets and mortar rounds at Israel. Israel frequently retaliates (such as in 2006, when they retaliated for the capture of one of their soldiers with a six week long bombing campaign that killed hundreds and left bridges, roads, and the Strip's one power plant destroyed).

The last six months saw a ceasefire. Hamas stopped firing rockets and in exchange, Israel was supposed to significantly ease the blockade. It didn't. The ceasefire was broken by both sides, and then Israel launched its attacks.

As long as this is, I've skipped a lot. But I hope it's helpful. Feel free to PM if you want me to go on (...!). Re: Palestinian history, I highly recommend a book by Israel scholar Baruch Kimmerling and American scholar Joel S. Migdal, "The Palestinian People: A History." Re: the conflict, I highly recommend "City of Oranges" by Adam LeBor.

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Wow, speaking of tangled, that's a tangled sentence. Me wordy tonight.

Anyhoo... so, um, thanks.

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I remember the conflict in Lebanon in 2006; I was wondering about this specifically because of Bush's defunct "road map to peace". And I remember the election of Hamas...so much for Mahmoud Abbas and a progressive/Western-friendly PM.

What does this mean for Obama and U.S.-Israel relations?

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The 2006 war was actually a great/horrifying example of what happens when Israel does everything wrong. It occupied southern Lebanon off and on for 18 years (leading directly to the establishment of Hezbollah in 1982), then it pulled out pell mell without security arrangements in 2000 (but only after temporarily deporting, in 1996, about 400 members of Hamas to an area of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah, who gladly took them in, fed them, and taught them methods of suicide bombing), then in 2006, it responded to an entirely actionable attack on its sovereignty not by going in hot pursuit of the soldiers that had been captured and focusing on their lives, but by strafing most of the country, destroying roads and bridges and homes and so on, and killing about 1,000 people -- and strengthening Hezbollah, while gaining nothing for itself.

The interesting thing about the Hamas election was that everyone in Israel and in Fatah (Abbas's party) was telling the Americans that the elections shouldn't be held, because Hamas would win, but GWB wanted a show-case election, so the Administration insisted. And then didn't get what it liked, so it responded by punishing an entire people. (And Rice had the gall to say the next day that they "certainly" hadn't expected that! [Did they know ANYthing?])

And of course, the US government allowed the Sharon government to treat the Road Map as a Door Mat, ignoring everything it said in pursuit of re-shaping Palestinian politics and, oh yeah, grabbing as much land as it could with settlement expansion on the West Bank.

Were the Palestinians angels? Hardly. Not Fatah, not Abbas, not Hamas, not whoever else. But again, they're not the ones with power. They're the ones trying to negotiate an historic capitulation whereby an occupying power and the world's one Superpower allow them to make a home in about 20% of their homeland. I don't doubt that it's the Jews' (my!) homeland too, and I think that the two-state solution is the best either side could hope for at this point. But it is a capitulation, and Israel refuses to see it that way.

Here's the funny thing: Having said ALL that, I really don't know what it means for Obama and US-Israel relations. He gives every impression of favoring negotiation over violent conflict, and he has said quite clearly that for Israel to have peace and security, there will have to be a Palestinian state. I think it's no mistake that Israel launched this offensive during Bush's final weeks. I don't doubt they intend to wrap it up by January 19. But will Obama make a stand that no President before him has ever been willing to make? One that would serve not only the Palestinians, but also Israel, and (let's not forget, people) American interests by taking away the excuse of Palestine from Muslim extremists across the globe?

Who can say. Not I. I can just go on and bloody on about what's happened up until now.

Thank you for encouraging me to get my geek on.

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this is my area of expertise, and my one passion

And it shows, in both cases.

I like to think I'm fairly well informed, but living in the States one often feels one's information on the Middle East is filtered through either special interest groups with a particular agenda to push or media outlets who are very intent on tiptoeing around the admittedly difficult issues of partisanship, so that an alert consumer sometimes senses an unwillingness to say aloud the facts on the ground that everyone who is in the know might already be aware of.

Even our language is affected; I find myself bending over backwards to speak carefully so as not to offend or enrage partisans on either side, because once the conversation turns hot, there's very little anyone can learn. I was curious to see this thread develop, so often this topic devolves into shouting matches and finger-pointing. That it mostly didn't this time I have to think is mostly due to a certain exhaustion with the whole mess, something I've certainly felt from an admittedly safe distance. It's like the situation in Northern Ireland in years past, eventually you just want to yell "You idiots, stop blowing each other up, you live next door to each other!" and throw in the towel, emotionally speaking. Which, a sensible approach like yours reminds me, is a simplistic reaction born out of frustration and unfamiliarity with the deep roots of the issues here.

Eventually both sides are going to have to figure out a way to live together, I only hope it doesn't take another hundred years.

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To quote Uri Savir, one of the lead negotiators of the Oslo Accords, Israelis "may have been the first conquerers in history who felt themselves conquered."

If Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones to the violence [www.theparentscircle.org] and former combatants from both sides [www.combatantsforpeace.org] can find a way to work toward peace, surely it's not impossible.

Or, in the words of a Palestinian peace activist whose 10 year old daughter was killed by Israeli soldiers: [www.forward.com]

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::clap clap::

The photos and first-person stories are all coming from Gaza. Where was everyone when Hamas was raining missles into Israel on a continuing basis?

No one's hands are clean here.

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But there is no moral equivalence.

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Israel has a right to exist. Gaza has a right to peace. Why those two facts can't coexist, the rest of the world will never know.

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Those who say that Israel is "occupying" Palestinian lands just deny the fact that the Jews have a very long and deep-rooted history in Jerusalem and Israel.

If you look at the Middle East as a whole, Israel is proportionately smaller than the finger nail on one's little finger. All the Israeli's ask is to be able to live there without the constant threats of Hamas and Hezbollah over their heads.

Those who say we have no right to respond militarily don't understand that you can't negotiate with terrorists or with those whose goal is your complete and total annihilation.

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They are just pawns used to demonstrate the immorality and hatefulness of the imperialistic Israelis against Palestine and the Muslims on one side, and just casualties of defending Israel's borders against terrorists on the other.

Where can I surrender my humanity card? I'm thinking of emigrating into Mars.

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But they're not, and that's part of the horror. For the voices of Israeli soldiers who have chosen to call bullshit, go to Breaking the Silence: [www.shovrimshtika.org]

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By which I mean that your family can very well be filled by good, humane soldiers that have to follow orders to accomplish a mission and ensure the safety of their people. It does not put the Israeli government above criticism of how they are handling what is basically urban warfare.

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I've been angry for a very, very long time

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"Inherited and manipulated fear, the perception of oneself as the perennial victim, and the primordial Jewish dread of the gentile are projected on [the Palestinians].... In this light, all Palestinian behavior is explained in terms of past Jewish experience."

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*sigh* If only it worked like that.

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And by religion, I mean fanatical religion used by those in power as a weapon of fear and control, not any belief system or practice. Sadly, the thought of anyone ever bridging the divide with such irrational beings in (or seeking) power is more than likely beyond recourse.

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Today, as a result of negotiations, those two countries serve as mediators between Israel and her enemies.

Also, you have forgotten/ignored the twice-offered Arab League Peace Plan, in which the League and all its member states, led by Saudi Arabia, offered a comprehensive peace and normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the 1967 border. In neither 2002 nor 2006 did Israel so much as respond.

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And it's not like those other countries up and surrounded Israel one day. Israel chose its borders when it decided to up and move a diaspora to a land where other people already lived, and to kill and displace those people if they got in the way. And obviously Israel exists there now and there's no point in saying it shouldn't have existed, because it does, and people live there and have the right to live in peace. But denial of the horrific nature of how it got to exist, of how fucked up it is to send Palestinians through checkpoints to get back to the land where their ancestral homes were bulldozed while people born in privilege in other countries are told Israeli citizenship is their birthright, on a discriminatory religious basis, is not going to get anybody anywhere. If you can say that everyone in Gaza deserves to die for the sins of Hamas, what's to stop someone else from saying everyone in Israel deserves to die fro the sins of sabra and shatila? Someone has to step up and defend defend human life-- on the basis of life itself, not color or religion or citizenship.

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How exactly do you think Israel ended up where it was, and the Palestinians got where they did?

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Speaking of which, once again, here's the link to Khalidi's very important op/ed in the Times the other day: [www.nytimes.com]

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"Now THIS is the strength of AM YISRAEL! THIS is why we are the eternal people. This is why we will win."

I am very tempted to defriend the lot of them.

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Here's a great Orthodox, Israeli, peace-loving blog: [southjerusalem.com]

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I'm always happy for other people to prove me wrong, though!

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And: I just PM-ed you.

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