Jack the Lad paints a lovely rosey picture, doesn't he? Unfortunately, that picture doesn't reflect the daily realities of Palestinians living under the IDF's boot in Ramallah, Beit Jalla, etc.

As to the international city designation SharonA, maybe if you had actually read any of the history at the websites you went shopping for to confirm your personal ignorant opinions, you would know what the UN has said about the need for making Jerusalem an international city. For decades.

It is naive and passive/aggressive in the extreme to suggest that people who are allowed to attend music festivals, who can afford cars to put peace bumperstickers on, and who have the freedom to drive those cars without fear of being shot at with Israeli rockets and IDF machine gun fire, somehow represent the "real" situation for Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation.

As I said earlier, we have no one from the Palestinian side living in the West Bank or Gaza contributing here, to share their lived experiences. That makes everything here being said very one sided. Just like the Irish question being debated here, with no one living in Ardoyne in a republican community contributing here makes the "I live here, so I know" claims spurious at best.

Wars don't get fought in middle class and wealthy neighborhoods. They get fought in poor people's neighborhoods. And that is why we keep hearing "I live here, so I know" stories on Mudcat. They are told by middle class contributors, for whom daily repression by armed soldiers is NOT the reality they live with, period. They have no right to claim that their perspective is a legitimate one for the people their government has demonized as terrorists and enemies of their state.