It isn't so much that either side squandered opportunities like Oslo, rather that each side played such opportunities for international support while staying to their uncompromising positions. There are simply more worthwhile preoccupations for the activist world than fretting over the Palestinians. and Israel.

It never seems to matter how often the ineffectiveness of their tin-pot terrorism has been proven, it is never discontinued. Even if the better-off sponsors of such primitive actions back away, meaning the PLO, others step forward to insist on staying the course of that barbaric and insane path, meaning Hamas.

That doesn't excuse the settlements, war-mongering or the more effective violent replies from Israel. Each side counts on an international group of enablers. Isolationism for western societies is not always the right approach but it is for this area of the world. Leave them both out of the world's focus for that decade when demography overtakes and see what happens.

In the meantime, the Arab Spring could result in a federation of democratic nations that answers to the Arab person-in-the-street to provide Israel the strong partner it needs to negotiate with rather than, as now, it's beaten down and occupied one.

I agree that the World and the USA should let the Israel's and the Palestinians deal with each other, ON EQUAL TERMS.

So 150,000 US soldiers hit the beaches of Israel, just like D-Day and remove every weapon that has been either supplied or paid for by US Citizens ($1.3 Trillion at last count). And don't forget Israels Nuclear Weapons either.

Then stop at a nice Jewish Deli and order take out before you leave.

The Arab response will be about a year of partying and I bet not one shot would be fired by either side.

Then Israel can move every Israeli well Armed Colonial Occupier back behind the 1967 borders and then decide how much compensation should be paid to the Palestinians pushed off their lands by Israeli Terrorists.

By the way, there are have been many efforts to repatriate or compensate People of the Jewish Faith, who had their money and possessions stolen by the Nazis

So we set up an International Court to compensate all Palestinians for their losses to Israel.

And if Israel does not want to pay, Yah just freeze Israels Bank Accounts, just like the USA does to Governments it doesn't like.

Sounds fair doesn't it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to Gwynne Dyer for his usual very realistic if a bit sardonic take on the politics, unspun.

For your and my perspective on things (at least by our elected representative) see the following completely over-the-top support for Israel from our Prime Minister, especially the bit about how university students in Canada threaten the security of Jews by opposing apartheid:

http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=4766

I haven't seen any media coverage of these remarks.

Victoria

I read Haaretz, an Israeli On Line News Paper everyday.

I find it close to Absolute Censorship that Canadians, attending Canadian Universities, will be shouted down for saying what Israelis say every day.

By decree of PM Stephen Harper, Canadian Foreign Minister Baird and Arch Zionists like Ezra Levant in Calgary, to repeat what the former Chiefs of the Mosaad and IDF say, is an act of Anti - Semitism.

Paul Godfrey who took over the Newspapers in the wake for the Asper Financial Meltdown, has said on Canadian National TV, the he can see no reason to change the papers 100% support for Ultra Right Wing Zionism.

In Canada we need to wake up to the fact that we do not have a Free Press as far all Major and National News Organizations are concerned.

God Bless the Georgia Straight and I hope we all remember when BC Premier Gordon Campbell tried to shut down this FREE PRESS GEORGIA STRAIGHT.

As the Jewish people and the Palestinians fail to bring about a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been using rhetoric that has not helped the peace process. Recently, Palestinian President Abbas made the announcement that in a Palestinian state there would not be any Jewish people. That's in contradiction to the efforts to bring peace to the area by stating that some Jewish settlements and settlers could choose to live where they are living today which is in an area within the borders of what could be the Palestinian state. It is interesting to note there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians today who are living in the Jewish state. The Bible has insight into the future as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a conflict that has been going on for some 4000 years.

The Israelis and the Palestinians both have ancestors and a history as recorded in the Bible and this record starts in Genesis 25 with the birth of twin boys, Jacob and Esau. A study of Bible history brings us to the facts, Jacob's descendants are the Jewish people of today and Esau's heritage would be the Palestinians of today. The ancient Jewish prophet Ezekiel reveals that in the last days the Israelis will be killed by the Palestinians who will then take the land that God has given the Jewish people, Ezekiel 35.

The Palestinians can say that there will be no Jewish people in a Palestinian state but remember, Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

and to keep things fair, all the Jews that were expelled by force or coersion (sp?) from the Arab countries will also be compensated for their losses!

While I can't condone any restrictions on free speech, I do find some rhetoric over the top. Apartheid was unique to South Africa and repeating this accusation against present-day Israel is problematic in two ways. First, the very use of the word is an attempt to bring into line all those international voices that condemned apartheid in South Africa to also condemn Israel. It's an obvious ploy rather than a legitimate charge. Second, what happens if Israel in future adopts further measures that begin to resemble that remark, such as loyalty oaths required of Palestinians to Israel as a Jewish state? What term will then be hurled, super-apartheid?

Settler state is another gem. Where do all of us think we are ourselves living in Canada? Have we forgotten First Nations entirely? If we are to begin a hate-fest against settlers world wide, better not let on to North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and yes the Falklands that we have unilaterally set a theoretical end date on when settling territory became criminalized.

Israel has no right to exist as a Nation? Get over it. Israel's creation had United Nations sanction and has armed itself pretty well. It doesn't matter much if the minnow thinks the whale has no right to exist since it does exist. The most pointless and intransigent back-and-forth in modern diplomacy is also the most irrelevant.

I highly doubt that even if the United States could now muster 150,000 soldiers for yet another conflict that the internal workings of American politics would allow them to be used to disarm Israel. How does anyone disarm a state armed to the teeth and possessing nuclear weapons? So much of the international support for Israel controls the politics of the United States that Binyamin Netanyahu marched into Washington, D.C. pretending to be Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. It did not entirely work since the Israeli Prime Minister is thin on accomplishments of his own and leads that coalition relying on support of the most psychotic characters in their modern body politic. Yet some of those financiers of Israel who argue that maintaining the Jewish state is their "insurance policy" against pogroms elsewhere are also giving money to political figures trying to build more ever less tolerant and less democratic governments both in the U.S. and Canada.

On the other side of this we see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who had to play up his role in terror as "Abu Mazen" in order to head off the claim to Yassir Arafat's succession by a figure even more committed to terror, Marwan Barghouti. When he prevailed in the succession, we see the split in ranks as some unhappy with this Holocaust denier and mere financier of terror as insufficiently thuggish. Funding the Munich Olympic Games massacre didn't quite make the mark for some!

To Israel: If you start a war against Iran, we're not coming. If in ten years you find yourselves containing a Palestinian majority and surrounded by a united Arab state or confederation of states demanding actual change on the Palestinian question, we're not coming.

To Palestine: Nothing in your history confirms for you that the path of terror works. Continuing to admire and push forward it's proponents as your leaders impresses as much as your cheering of the 9-11 debacle. If you are simply committed to a long game of waiting for demographics to make change, why the Hell are you willing to waste lives on both sides in the interim?

And to activists ...

Take up the cause for statehood of the Kurds or the Taureg or Tibet or Kashmir or any where that injustices can be rectified and both sides are not thoroughly bloodstained, intransigent and playing you all for suckers.

One state solution for all, is the only solution. The zionists will just have to get used to living with Palestinians.

Until the repression of Palestinians ends and Palestinians are allowed to return to their homes, all pressure must be brought to bear on the zionist entity.

To this end support the BDS movement. Boycott, Divest and Sanction "Israel".

@Canada...

Thankfully, your anti-semitism isn't part of the Real Canada.

Apartheid is a completely legitimate term. I can not see any qualitative difference between what is happening in Israel and what happened in South Africa. Both sides have done bad things. But the Israelis are more in the wrong way more then the Palestinians.