They mean well, but it is too late. Forward thinking Palestinians and Israelis are working on the one country solution. Accept Israel control over the West Bank and Gaza, work for enfranchisement of Palestinians and the right of all to live anywhere between the river and the sea according to universally applied standards of property rights. Overcome Israeli apartheid, and let's not waste time working for independence of Palestinian bantustans.

This is an interesting community. As Alawis, they are physically cut off and far from the demographic center of other Syrian Alawis. The rest of the Golan residents remaining from the pre-67 era are Druse. Through most of modern history their village has been too remote for either Syria or Lebanon to care precisely where the border line went. Apparently the French colonial officers marking the border in the '20s had had enough for the day and drew a line on their own charts without hiking through the terrain and correlating the line to the facts on the ground, hence the confusion as to whether they are part of the Syrian occupied Golan heights, to be returned to Syria someday, or part of Southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, they are reputed to be the main hashish smugglers for the area, keeping the Israelis supplied with good stuff from Lebanon.

There was the court jester who pinched the King on the butt. He then apologized to the shocked king by saying that he made a mistake and had thought he was pinching the Queen's butt.

Sometimes the excuse is worse than the original misdeed.

Whenever a new war appears on the horizon there are peace oriented people who are tempted to support it because they have been convinced that it will solve some humanitarian crisis, end a dictatorship, or liberate women. They must remember that any support of any military action abroad amounts to retroactive endorsement of the displacement of the Diego Garcians, the theft of their property, the shooting of their dogs, as well as any number of weapons programs and military boondoggles of the previous three or four decades which they had likely opposed at the time. This war apparatus cannot be created on short notice for transient whims.

Palestinians didn't want foreign immigrants to set up a state and displace them. In the last two centuries Palestinians accepted settlers and/or refugees who were Armenian, Circassian, Bukhari, Bosnian, Assyrian,German, and American, among others. None of these claimed ancestral ownership of the land on the basis of being distantly related to the religion of one of several civilizations that resided in the land millenia previously or tried to set up their own state at the expense of the people already there. If Druids had immigrated and then tried to set up their own state at the expense of everyone else there the Druids would have been opposed too.

OK, there's some interesting buzz out of Israel regarding disgruntlement in the Negev over groups of resettled Arab collaborators, African refugees, and black American syncretic "Hebrews" who are becoming prominent in their numbers. Jewish Israelis are not amused by these people. If these odd new settlers started publicly claiming the land for their own future state with plans for displacement of the Jews, - well, the reaction of the Israelis might give a clue as to how it was that Palestinians objected to immigrants claiming the land for their own state.

Why of course Israelis should be able to live anywhere in Jerusalem they want. And being reasonable they will allow Palestinians to live anywhere in Jerusalem they want, starting with the ones ethnically cleansed from the West side in '48. And if Israelis want to live in a house in East Jerusalem owned by someone, they will purchase it if the owner is willing to sell. In fact if the owner happens to be a family who was cleansed in '48 and is allowed to go back, that owner might actually be willing to sell. And it would help if the Israelis attended a charm school to learn how to be good neighbors, not throw loud parties all night to celebrate a takeover, not throw garbage on Palestinian neighbors, not have the army impose curfews on the neighbors for every Jewish holiday or whim, etc.

Seham Habibti, you can stop voting for Democrats now. Libertarians are the only ones who will unconditionally put a stop to this foreign aid boondoggle, the bulk of which is the welfare check for Israel.

I have heard of one righteous settler, the rabbi Froman, who has respectful relationships with Palestinians. He proposed the "one country" solution to Faisal Husseini in '91. I wish I knew more about him and how many others there might be with his thinking.

Whatever else the pigeon thinks of Goldberg, calling a settlement "Neve Manyak" is clever.

Discussion of the two state solution is a distraction to avoid meaningfully wrestling with the issues. The one state solution is the intellectually honest one. The pigeon is delighted to see more discussion in this direction.

It is a chance for extremists to make peace. When I read the justifications of the West Bank settlers they list the Palestinian villages that were destroyed to make the well known cities and parks of pre-'67 Israel and wonder why they should be singled out for having established their communities nineteen years later. In fact though the settlers tend to be more fanatic, and for all their faults, and for all the private property they have confiscated, they actually displaced less people from their homes than the residents of pre-67 Israel who have managed to acquire an unwarranted legitimacy for their actions. The settler advocates make an excellent point and here is common ground to begin a dialogue with Palestinians who wish to return to the areas they lost in '48. The '67 borders are not a sound way to discuss which settlements are legitimate and which are not. There is a spectrum of modalities involved in the establishment of settlements wherever they are between the river and the sea, ranging from using empty state land, to purchasing land, to blatant theft of land and displacement of indigenous inhabitants. This is what must be examined.

I once met with the late Faisal Husseini who said that Rabbi Froman of the settlement Efrat came to him and said, "I have an idea, how about if both peoples share all the land as equal partners and have one state?" Husseini said that that's what had been the Palestinian position but they had abandoned it in favor of the two state solution as an effort towards compromise and moderation. The dear Rabbi got himself in deep trouble with his fellow settlers for suggesting this, but it was indeed a spark of light. Are there forty righteous West Bank settlers with whom we can begin this dialogue?