OK, Scott...I didn't mean to be insulting. Your comment about "the way things are going" has some merit, but currently the only side with warheads are the Israelis. And the only time they have been even slightly inclined to use them was in '73 when Syria came close to breaking out from the Golan Heights. Israel keeps them as a political tool. Nukes in the immediate area of contention is not really realistic no matter how rabid or obtuse either side becomes. The reason is distance. There isn't enough of it. Blowing up Tel Aviv directly contaminates the entire region, for example. No point in doing that if your avowed objective is to push the Isrealis into the sea to get the land they are sitting on. Perhaps a couple of really extreme guys might accept that, but your average Palestinian would not. I totally agree that it is out of hand over there, but since only one side has nukes I think the threat of warheads being used in that region is far lower than in Kashmir right now.
Greg

I must say that DJ you start the best posts on the News. We must help the Israelis in this. Cause who helps the Arab side on this Syria is this the one who sends the weapons to the Palestinians. How can a country that has really nothing get all these weapons and bombs from. But we cannot use force to do it either.

I see this conflict between suicide bombers on one side and tanks on the other as the embodiment of asymmetrical warfare. I mean by that what are you going to do to convince someone not to strap explosive around themselves and set it off? Rolling a tank brigade into a town and scaring the crap out of innocent folks does not help your cause. I am afraid I return to my original post and say that the conflict is a dilemna...one which we must live with, there is no solution or mediation that is going to break down the real and imaginary barriers these folks built and reinforce daily.
DJ

You got that right, DJ...there's enough ammo floating around the West Bank to light up everybody from Cairo to Damascus. And you touched on the real travesty here, something i have discussed with wargaming buddies: Arab government policy.
When partition was announced, every Arab state in the region opposed it and swore to destroy Israel. Once Israel declared itself a state, Arab armies rolled in. In time, they were tossed out. Five armies bloodied and sent scurrying. Israel grabbed some territory given to the un-formed Palestine in this exchange, and refugees were created. Repeat this verse louder in 1967, when Israel trounced them again. More refugees. But Arab government policy has NEVER been to resettle these people in other states nor to build prosperous cities in the West Bank. By deliberate policy these people have been crowded into "camps", actually cinder block slums. They are still considered refugees, even the 16-year-olds born there! The objective has never changed: use these people as pawns, keep them angry and in poverty, blame Israel for their plight, and encourage depserate acts of explosive suicide. The Palestinians have been cynically manipulated for political ends for fifty years by Arab governments unwilling to accept Israel's right to exist but congenitally unable to muster the military means to make their genocidal policy happen. That this manipulation has gone on so long, and that the Palestinians themselves fall for it so easily, is the real tragedy here.
Greg

Well, Scott, taking away the boom boom toys can't hurt. Where DJ and I were going with this bit of analysis is that the guns are a symptom of something more heinous; that is the deliberate policy decisions by states in the region to create endless generations of suicide bombers. These kids would not feel so happy about blowing themselves up if they felt that they had a future worth living for. They obviously don't feel that way, and it isn't Israel's fault in the final analysis. They live in poverty and desperation not because Israel is a vicious occupying force, but because their own leaders have made a calculated decision to cynically waste their lives in pursuit of an impossible goal: The destruction of Israel. They gave up on conventional military force because five wars proved it couldn't be done that way. This isn't about giving Palestinians a nation-state of their own; they could have had that two years ago with Clinton's plan but rejected it. Why? Two reasons. First, and the cover for everything else, was compensation and right of return. Palestinian leaders derailed the whole train over a demand that people forced from their homes as a result of the past wars be allowed to reclaim land. That demand is a non-starter, those people lost thteir homes as a result of being on the losing side of a war begun by their own governments. And their grandchildren alive today are not refugees--they were born where they now live. Compensation is another thing, and if money were really the issue we'd be done with this. Money is easy to find. But the real reason is the second: Israel still exists and is still able to defend itself and its national identity as a Jewish state. That is still unacceptable in Arab circles. That is why "right of return" is a huge issue: Their long-term goal is to force the Jewish state to accept millions of non-Jews within its borders, and then use the very democratic practices that govern it to destroy it from within. Israel will never let that happen.
Greg

Sorry, Scott, I forgot to address that issue you raised. I agree that over the long term that will help change hearts and minds. But I am talking something like four or five generations from now. Current attitudes are far too polarized for educational changes to have much effect. Recall too that everywhere in the region except Israel the schools are run by the state or by the mosques and the curriculum is determined by the dogma of the current party in power or the religious faction in charge. In short, the curriculum is biased to say the least. Schools in Arab states and the West Bank do not even show a state of Israel--they show a notional place called Zionist Occupied Palestine. Do you begin to see the enormous nature of the problem here? Generations of propaganda and vitriol fuel these kids and they are allowed no information that runs contrary to what they have been fed. Indeed, like most adolescents they recoil when confronted with inconvenient facts and become less receptive to outside ideas. Now then...

Here is where we get back to my wall idea. If there is physical separation, and a Palestinian nation declared in the West Bank, then education and dogma come right to the fore. Without an "occupying force" to blame, the inadequacies and venal policy decisions of the Plaestinian leadership and their patrons would eventually have to be exposed. After all, if the Israeli army is gone for good from Jenin how can it be argued that they are to blame for squalid conditions there? Logically it can't. And Palestinian leaders would have to deal with the very real problems of leadership and governance, and not just play a game of denial and blame. Proposing a wall monitored by UN troops would ostensibly give the Palestinians what they want, a state that is secure from Israeli incursion. Not everything they want, but a secure place to live and with disputed areas under UN control until such time as negotiation can resolve status. Israel would be secure from baby bombers. And both sides would have to live with the shame that their own shortsightedness created the blight on the landscape,and think it over for a while.
Greg

Interesting, DJ...your comments about the destruction of the educational arm of the Palestinian Authority lend credence to my arguments that there is a much bigger problem here than most folks realize. The cycle of propaganda has to be interrupted before anything else gains traction. And your commentary on the cowardice of the baby bombers is absolutely corect. You ask if they will go chem/bio/nuke... I doubt it, at least not with any kind of persistent agent. Goes back to the maps not showing Israel and the reason for that. The handlers of these kids want the place for themselves, and are smart enough not to want to utterly destroy it or render it uninhabitable. The just want to make life in Israel untenable for the Jewish people so that they emigrate elsewhere in search of a peaceful life. Now, you and I may think (correctly) that such a goal is a total freakin' pipe dream and totally outside the realm of reality. The sad fact is, the handlers of the baby bombers believe that it IS an achievable goal.
Greg

i agree with you shiryon,but what can be done about it?and is there an end in sight?

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i agree with you shiryon,but what can be done about it?and is there an end in sight?

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Scott--I think there are several practical things that can be done. First, there should be a world wide sustained outcry against the "thugocracy" that is perpetrating this madness. They should see every decent law abiding nation un the world sever diplomatic relations with them. The UN should withhold funds from Palestine. If you combine the public relations offensive with a curtailment of funds, you will make even the weakest minded person realize "this ain't gettin us anywhere." Once we have some degree of sanity, then let's move to binding arbitration. They sit down explain their cases and are bound by the decision of a neutral arbitrator. I wonder how we would feel if someone got on a bus in Washington during rush hour and blew all the passengers to kingdom come. I think we would be pretty ticked and want to settle scores. Emotion and passion have there place, but this particular situation needs to have sanity lid put on it. Where are the CNNs of the world in condemning these acts of madness?
DJ