Ladies and gentelmen, let us not kid ourselves and follow a historical sequence of events, to the best of my recollection:

The UN votes for the division of then Palestine about half to Jews and half to local Arabs

Local Arabs reject the vote and violently protest

Clashes continue until May 15 1948 with a support of neighbouring Arab countries to their fellow locals

On May 15 1948 the British officially leave and the State of Israel is declared.

The following day the armies and orgenized gangs of surrounding countries invade Israel.

During the war many thousands of local Arabs flee their homes some by will and some by force - I find it as a direct effect of war and I for one am not going to appologize for it. There was an option as written above. Those who act on all or nothing always take a risk

So stop arguing about the essence of the establishment of the state. Indeed it was not founded ideally, lots of blood was shed and lives lost. On the other hand that was the price we were forced to pay. So be it
The fact is that those local Arab who stayed were allowed to live their lives
Again I do think that they also suffered an injustice as second degree citizens but that is outside the scope of our argument
The bottom line is that they were not killed or transferred

For all those that now philosophy on the justification in the establishment of the state and Zionism in general I really suggest that if they feel so bad they can go away and stop letting the concious hurt so much. This is insane

The second point is about Terror
By Terror I categorize all harmful activities aimed at innocent civilian population that does not support or is involved in terror actions
Terror is never legitimate
Not when Palastenians do it
Not when Lechi members did it
Not when the Settlers Jewish underground did it

And just to be absolutely clear, I am strongly for the evacuation of the settlements and going back to the green line - That is outside the issue though

Yuval

I can assume you mean the evacuation of the Jewish settlers or else I did not understand you correctly.

That is actually an interesting point since it does apply
However let us consider the collective benefit of the nation overall vs the suffering of 50000 people

That is why it is still the right thing to do not to mention that it is a matter of time until such action will be performed anyhow
At least we can minimize the effort of defending those areas and saving lives of some of these citizens and soldiers not to mention the financial implications even after paying the evacuated families for their damages

First, I meant that after the evacuation the cost of defense will be saved

Second, try to be pragmatic - If for the sake of "suffering" of 50000 or even more a whole nation is better off that we owe it to ourselves otherwise it is stupidity
Now as for the argument whether we are better off or not this is according to one's political views. I think we are

Transferring the west bank Arabs to Jordan is not only impractical but will bring Israel to a level of the lowest of the low in world's eyes - I hope you were sarcastic here as well as the conversion to Islam

Yuval

You are taking this argument too low for me to reply

Dear Easy

Entering the ultra religious and Israeli Arabs to the equation is simply out of context and adds nothing to the discussion

My only point is that the Israelies in the territiries are located in a disputed place that sooner or later will either be fully or partially evacuated

That is why I believe that we will all do ourselves a great favor if we proactively evacuate at least partially

A great example would be the Katif area

If you have ever been there you know that it just does not make sense to keep several army battalions for few thousands people that mostly work outside the area anyhow
Most agricultural attemts there did not work and so was the result with tourism
So it is not that we losing a gold mine here
When Israel evacuated Sinai we did indeed lose a lot - Tourism and even oil at Abu Rodes and we still did that because it was good for our sake as a whole

The reasons for a proactive evacuation are streched from defense efforts to finincial issues to foreign relations and our worldwide image as the side who is serious on seeking a solution - don't discount that aspect

I have nothing against the settlers or the fact that they followed governments authorizations to settle in the places they are at

Nor do I think that they are the cause to what we are experiencing these days with the Palestinians

That view has nothing to do with fascism or any other such attribute you are labeling me with but a simple view of a very complex conflict that one day will have to get solved

With that, if you look above at my original reply to Eli you could see that I strongly beleive that we should fight about what we as a nation collectively know is ours - i.e all that is within June 4 1967 area

Fine - so be it
Have a great weekend