From Sign & Sight:

If the ceasefire between the Israelis and Palestinians actually holds, "it could put us on the road to a new start," author Amos Oz writes hopefully, and finally get a comprehensive bilateral agreement on the table. "What measures would such an agreement entail? Herein lies the hope. Because both the Israelis and the Palestinians know, deep in their hearts, what this agreement would look like and what it would not look like. ... Even those on both sides who would view such an agreement as a catastrophic betrayal know that on the cards are two separate states, Israel and Palestine, divided by the pre-1967 boundary, with a few changes that would have to be agreed on. And there would be two capitals in Jerusalem. And there would be no "right to return" for the Palestinians, and the majority of Israeli settlements would also have to be cleared."

I would add, since there is no "right to return" for Palestinians, there should be no "right to return" for Jews. And all the Israeli settlements would have to be cleared, every single one, since they are all illegal to begin with.

But this is all wishful thinking, from the ceasefire onwards. It is foolish to imagine that Israel wants the Palestinians to have a true state. Otherwise it would not have spent all its energy building settlements, filling them, and creating highways to connect them and disconnect the very state it pretends the Palestinians should have. And it's also foolish to pretend that the Palestinians are truly able to adhere to a ceasefire, when Israel has not adhered to one in almost 40 years. Until Palestinian land is vacated of checkpoints and occupation, one can be sure there will always be someone fighting back, or someone fighting for power among those who are powerless.



See Also: "An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians." (NYT, 11/20/06)

And on You Tube: Peace, Propoganda, and the Promised Land: A documentary about how the media skews our vision of what's really happening in Palestine

Image at left ("Settlements on Privately Owned Palestinian Land) from NYT. Click to Enlarge.