Is the situation in the Middle East hopeless?

I'm pretty pessimistic about the situation: what it seems to boil down to is both sides want more than what the other side is willing to give, and compromise appears impossible.

As far as I can tell, neither side has anything approaching the moral high ground--they're both horrible, and if one is more horrible than the other on a given day, so what, they've both burned off whatever good will they've ever deserved.

The two horrible old men must both go away before anything good can happen, I suspect.

I'm curiously optimistic about the longer term out there. But I reckon Sabra & Chatilla II is on its way in the short term.

I agree that both sides are guilty of atrocities and war crimes. But even if they were not commiting war crimes Israel would still be WRONG to maintain its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

While I too proclaim 'a pox on both your houses,' I just can't leave it at that -- I *want* to see a solution. But for the life of me, it isn't there.

Suicide bombings vs. camp occupations and shutdowns -- arguing one or the other is somehow worse descends into a sick game I'm not about to play.

A friend lived in Israel, said people there think there must be a Palestinian state. But also upset at constant suicide bombings and combined with the hatred of Arafat you can see why the Israelis are doing what they are doing. However. The Israelis are illegally occupying Palestinian land. This is wrong, clearly.
I am concerned that this really could spill into all of the middle east this time - last time I saw the news there was no sign of it stopping.

Whoa, I never said that I approve of the suicide bombings, far from it, in fact it behooves me that civil disobedience is never used as a tactic of resistence which would be more rational than blowing oneself into pieces. The abhorrent nature of suicide bombing makes it difficult to sympathize with the Palestinians and their cause but we should also realize that the Palestinians and the Israelis are not on a equal level playing field.

It will get worse before it gets better. There was a well written ediorial in the NY Times a couple days ago entitled The Boomerang Syndrome, that did well to sum up the situation I thought. Since the site requires a free but annoying registration, I thought I'd paste a couple quotes.

"It is the impatient young Palestinians who in effect turned Ariel Sharon into the prime minister of Israel. And with each additional suicide bombing, they increase the prospect that Mr. Sharon will be succeeded by the only person who could make him look like a pacifist wimp: Benjamin Netanyahu. "

"Yet the same boomerang effect applies to Mr. Sharon's policies as well. Each time he bulldozes more Arab homes, each time he kills Palestinians and their hopes, he creates more terrorists."

"Still, the symmetry goes only so far. In the end, Palestinian terrorism may be succeeding in some twisted, shortsighted way, while Mr. Sharon's incursions into the occupied territories are probably doomed to failure."

"Avraham Burg, speaker of the Knesset, was quoted as saying in Haaretz: "Just because the position of the Palestinians is a stupid one, just because they cannot overcome terrorism and they fled the peace process in a violent manner, does that require us to enter this insane cycle?"

"The answer is no. Let's hope that Mr. Sharon realizes this soon, because the air will be thick for years with returning boomerangs."

both are fucked up, and the more it goes on, the more it looks like sharon and arafat have had a hard on for each otehr since the 70s - they should take off their yamulks and thier whatsits and get it on...

god, heterosexual mean are always fighting each other when all they need to do is suck some more cock...i mean how can you invade an occupied territory with 9 inches down yr throat? How can you order suicide bombings when yr beusy getting yrass rimmed?

Satan and Saddam seem to manage.

I wonder if the same writer would apply the Boomerang effect to the bombing of Afghanistan? Has the bombing with the intended aim of routing al-qaida actually led to more hatred of US/west and the fostering of more militant terrorist thought. I for one am not convinced that the world's any safer for it.

I was reading the Sun's comment page over the shoulder of someone on the train today and it totally flabbergasted me. The main gist of the leader article was that Bush was giving into the terrorists by telling Israel to comply with UN resolutions 242 and 338.

Best speakers on issue that I've heard: former US Defence Secretary Zbignew Brzezinski (sp?) and former Israeli Foreign Minister Schlomo Ben Ami. The former was more critical of Israel and the latter more sympathetic (duh) but both essentially argued that intervention by an international committee (inc. US) + peacekeeping forces was URGENT and KEY, as Israel and Palestine had both demonstrated an inability to make any sort of decision whatsoever.

Arguing *just* for a ceasefire with negotiations to follow is misguided and insufficient (from Palestinian perspective violence is ongoing as long as any Palestian areas are under Israeli control) - the procedure must be dual tract.

I wonder if the same writer would apply the Boomerang effect to the bombing of Afghanistan?

I'd say an Afghanistan that is less welcome to terrorists makes the world a bit safer. And there's a reason the U.S. isn't keen on the idea of American troops hanging around.

I won't pretend I fully understand the situation in the middle east. All i know that this is not a religious war anymore. What it boils down to is some serious male egos getting bruised, tit for tat retaliations don't work. Werent we all told when we were kids that if some one bullies you the best way to comabt it is to ignore them? Israel or Palestine needs to back down. Make a stand and say no to this violence- that is the only way. However its pretty much impossible to do that because when it comes down to it all people - regardless of religion/creed - are pigheaded and refuse to backdown. it saddens me.