One of the things I can't understand is how people can still say things like "The Israelis should give them back their land." They've tried! A few years ago they were ready to sign an agreement that gave Arafat everything he demanded, including a divided city of Jerusalem. Arafat refused to sign. Israel concluded from this that the Palestinian leadership is NOT interested in living peacefully on the West Bank in a separate state. They still want to eliminate Israel and take over. This hardassed right-wing Israeli government is one result of that conclusion.

Arafat is a huge stumbling-block, because in free and fair elections he probably wouldn't win. So he's personally worried about what would happen to him if Palestine became a democratic state. Every bit of power he has is vested in Palestinian non-statehood. I think the palestinian people will ultimately have to get rid of him for any change to occur.

Another thing that angers me is how other Arab nations pay huge lip service to Palestinian suffering, but won't let the Palestinians immigrate into their countries. The utter transparency of this hypocrisy is laughable. They are heartbroken and appalled at 50 years of this refugee situation, but they know perfectly well if they sat down and said, "Let's divide up the Palestinian population and offer them citizenship" there would be no more refugee problem. The worst culprit, of course, is Jordan, which is a nation of Palestinians who won't let the other Palestinians in, but prefer to squeal about the evils of Israel.

I think Israel is far from blameless in all this. But I think the Palestinian situation is too often treated as an "Israeli problem." It is in fact a problem created by other Arab countries' reaction to the formation of the state of Israel. It remains an Arab situation, a problem of Arabs who will not help each other, but instead use each other as weapons in a war to eliminate Israel.