I am not an apologist for Arafat or his henchmen. I would love to see them removed from society..house imprisonment with no communication at all..And I do think that the suicide bombers forced a military response, but I don't know if that means bulldozing people alive in their homes....you can tell people to come out while you search their homes for weapons...and I read on a message from Christians in Palestine that children were screaming for water and being forced to drink sewage water...

I heard a Palestinian man on the radio say something I think was profound..he wasn't speaking for the whole lot of them..but he said he didn't care if he lived in Israel's land..he wanted his old home and orchards back. I think we are not realizing the attachment to the physical land that was taken, liberated, however you want to call it. It comes through loud and clear in everything you read. I think the desire for a state is secondary..I don't think I realized that until recently. I also read or heard somewhere, and maybe I bookmarked it, that 86% of the villages that were "liberated" were empty. That stunned me. It means at least some could return..maybe as serfs..who knows....I know all the arguments..but encouraging millions more people to activate their "right of return" or the similar phrase that is used..I forget what it is..to Israel, and at the same time denying it to Palestinians..is nuts...maybe they should be allowed ...some of them..to return on a migrant basis but not really live there..just to farm it...I don't know...I also wonder if the Gaza strip could be exchanged for land in the north and more of a north/south split could happen..with the Palestine land adjoining Syria rather than Israel..and Israel sharing borders with the more moderate countries of Egypt and Jordan, with an occupied area in Palestine..not occupied solely by Israeli troops. International. With Jerusalem heavily international..probably not a capitol of either country but a religious capitol for the world..with tons of tourist s bringing in money...geographers and economists...can better lines be drawn than have been suggested by all the powers?

mg