Why should Israel feel any motivation to withdraw to pre-1967 borders. Those borders were determined by war and defensive positions from the 1948 cease fire. The taking of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights were also acts of war precipitated by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, aided and abetted by Iraq and other states. The U.N. under U. Thant also helped instigate the war by withdrawing their peacekeeping troops when directed to do so by Gamal Abdul Nasser.

What is in the long term interest of Israel AND the Palestinians is to have well defined and defensible borders, and viable economic systems, which will not come out of a West Bank State with current borders. Pre-1967 borders are not particularly 'lawful'. On the other hand, if the Palestinians were to adopt borders with the full knowledge that there was a substantial Jewish minority therein, it would make an equivalence with an Israel that has long had Muslim and Christian inhabitants. The two states could judge each other by how each treated its minorities.

There is nothing pre-destined about the sufferings of the Palestinian people to necessitate them being driven to suicide bombing. The Kurds, Armenians, Bosnians, and Jews have all suffered far more horrendous fates at the hands of organized governments. Suicide bombing is a conscious policy by well organized and well financed bodies outside of Israel proper. You can call it terror, you can call it war. But the Arab-financed media of the Middle East have fanned flames of anti-semitic hysteria over a wide region, and it has found a resonance in Europe. Israel has done nothing more than defend herself, and has shown quite a lot of forbearance in so doing. Frontline (American Public Broadcasting) did a special on the recent hold-off around the Church of the Nativity. The Israelis brought in a negotiating team, and even after the exit of the Palestinians who were to be deported, they had to use negotiating skills to control the three main Christian groups, each of which wanted to be first back into the structure.

McGrath, I've tried to make the digging a hole analogy work for me, but it hasn't. I see a lot of wall building going on by both sides (and in this thread). To me the greatest tragedy is these two groups which are at loggerheads could potentially be of great benefit to each other, if they weren't ideologically bound. And of the two, I think the Palestinians are by far the greater slaves of their preconceptions.