As far as I can see we all want a safe, peaceful, inspiring and prosperous Israel. We all accept history in the region has been tough and that Israel has needed a strong military response to secure its existence to date. We are all confused about where a workable/peaceful border is in the WB. And therefore we can’t determine if the IDF is attacking or defending right now.

Whatever all our motivations might be, Israel is a Jewish State that has taken generations of effort and commitment to build, and we want what’s best for it. My left wing friends from my kibbutz days (unhappily, but acceptingly) sent their sons and daughters to defend settlements in the WB becuase that is what the democratically elected government required of them.

The occupation will not last forever and nor can Israel remove its palastinian population. And TG we should have the confidence that Israel is now sufficiently established that the Palastinians can’t remove Israel. And we hope they will eventually find leadership in their ranks to enable peace. It would be great if these things could be accelerated but you tend to need to wander 40 years in the desert for generational and transformative change. Hopefully our 40 years is almost up… depending on the start date of the WB conflict.

Irrespective of the Palestinian position or pace of change, I have hope that the Israeli Government knows ultimately where and when settlements will stop in order to self-proclaim Israel’s borders in the WB. And that the current strategy is working ultimately to that goal of initiating a situation where the IDF can withdraw to defending “our country”.

I don’t really know if the PA has the where-with-all to build a stable State next door. It would be great if they could, but I don’t know. I just hope that a strong clear border will prevent whatever is going on on their side from hurting the lives of those who choose to be peaceful and democratic citizens of the State of Israel (Jew, Muslim, Christian, Bahai, Other). Peace All.

There are Palestinians who are civilians and Palestinians who are combatants regardless of which term used to define a specific incident or the overall situation. In any armed conflict in which one side fights out of uniform and among the civilian population without regard to conventions about the sanctity of medical and religious buildings and vehicles there are moral and legal ambiguities. This is not unique to this situation, Hezbollah too created this difficulty, and the same applies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Vietnam etc. I really do think that Israel has been among the best at dealing with these new forms of warfare (new in the sense that the modern rules of warfare and conventions were not set up with this in mind) both from a legal and moral perspective. Certainly Israel has been trending positively towards better dealing with this issue than the negative trend of “signature” drone strikes that America is now doing. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/drones-yemen_b_1458668.html)
There is much work that still needs to be done and there is resistance from parts of the military to dealing with these issues publicly as they will make the army look soft and weak or that this criticism is being used as a tool to undermine the army.
That is why I think it is important for people who very much support the IDF to bring up the issue of humane treatment of the Palestinians as a broader moral issue. Despite how these discussions can lead to politics which is an absolute no-go zone for the army there needs to be better education for enlisted soldiers. There is quite impressive ethical training seminars for higher ranks of officers but abuses in the system don’t get reported because of the code of silence that I mentioned in a previous comment. The punishments can be quite severe for mistreating Palestinians which actually makes soldiers afraid to dob on their mates and certainly a CO because of how a whistle-blower would be treated. It is a complex issue that exists in all military and police forces.

Occupation should be as temporary as possible. It is also clear that Israel can not annex the West Bank and remain both Jewish and democratic.

I think it is important that we keep the religious and cultural ties in mind when understanding the settler movements zeal, just like we try to understand the rage that many Palestinians feel at being under 40 years of occupation. We won’t understand the conflict until we understand the way that the groups and subgroups in this conflict understand themselves.

More importantly those ties are important for creating a peace where Jews and Israelis have access to the holy and historic sites, including Bethlehem for the Christians and Palestinians and Muslims have access to Jerusalem.

While the expulsion of Jews from Arab nations might be a nice rhetorical point to counter the fact that many of Israel’s Arab population were relocated, it is just as irrelevant as the grandchildren of refugees holding “keys” to houses. We have to move on beyond the history of this conflict and not get bogged down in narratives of what happened 65 years ago.

All the more so we should stop looking to racial lines of 2000 years ago as proof for the validity of our claims. Both sides feel like they have some connection to this land and we can’t expect the relative “truthiness” of one side or the others story to matter.

I also don’t really know what those who were against the policy in 1948 of depopulating hostile villages that were in strategic points would have had the fighters do. They were fighting with very limited resources in the fashion that wars were fought. They weren’t forced out of Israel/Palestine, they were simply forced out of villages that could or were already be used to harass or block access, which lead to things such as the creation of the Burma road for the resupply of Jerusalem around Latrun. Yes, I am being an apologist about this, but when the Jordanian legion slaughters those who surrendered at kfar etzion you have to look at it in perspective. While it was clear that Jews would not be allowed to live in territory captured by the Arab forces, eg the old city of Jerusalem, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Arabs remained in Israel is alone enough to show that no such blanket policy existed on the Israeli side. It is a tragedy of war that people become IDPs and refugees. In this case, wherever the arbitrary ceasefire line of the greenline was, that’s where you were stuck. It would have been great if those who had run with or without some prodding could have come back at the time, but they couldn’t. That just wasn’t the political reality of the relations that the Arab world had with Israel. There could be orderly return of refugees when no one would acknowledge the existence of Israel.

Why should the Palestinians now suffer for the failures of their grandparents generations failures on both the Palestinian, Arab and Israel sides? They shouldn’t. But that just isn’t the way things work. People get moved and displaced all the time but after 65 years you move on. Sure there should be some sort of reparations or something, but even if you feel justified in the maximal demand of rights, you have to look to compromise. Should we give almost every penny in America to Blacks in compensation for slavery? On some levels, yes. But really, how do we determine who is eligible, just because you have dark skin or what threshold of proof do we need. Even if that was easy it would destabilize the country both those receiving the money and those giving. More relevant, here in Australia, it is quite clear that this wasn’t a terra nullius, but does this mean we all just pick up and leave? No, we have to right historic wrongs, but in some sensible way that will take much planning. It may be helpful to separate this healing step from a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, but I understand that the Palestinians would feel that they would rather include it while they still have a position of power to force Israel to the table.

I just think that it it time to compromise and not be so harsh with our rhetoric. It is hard to soften your words because that will be seen as a unilateral disarmament, but it is in everyone’s long-term best interest.