>Brad asks where the people of Israel should go?
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>As Justin remarked, you don't raise this question about the people of Palestine...75% of whom had to go somewhere.....
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>....I would support the U.S. offering citizenship to any Israeli citizen who wished to leave Palestine. The usual 4 billion/year the U.S. gives Israel could be used to repatriate Israelis wishing to come to the U.S. and to pay some reparations to the Palestinians. All Israeli "settlements" should be given to the Palestinians. If there were Israelis who wished to remain in Palestine (other than in the settlements), they should be able to remain, enjoying the same political and economic rights as the Palestinian citizens of Palestine.
Certainly Israeli Jews who want to leave a post apartheid Israel/Palestine should be given the opportunity, but I don't think it is reasonable to divert aid from the needs of those who stay in order to fund those who want to leave. The first priority would be to ensure that the human rights of all the ethnic groups were adequately safeguarded, so that Jews would have a real choice.
It is all very well to talk about democracy, but the human rights of minorities have to be protected. This means that the democratic rights of the majority doesn't extend to the right to oppress a minority. I don't see that a blanket policy of ethnic cleansing of Jews from settlements on the west bank is consistent with equal rights. The people they have displaced need to have legal recourse to negotiate either compensation recovery of their property. But simply insisting that all the settlers be repatriated is over the top.
It appears to be ethnic discrimination. I see no need for the different ethnic groups to all be required to live in separate ghettos. Part of Jews having the same political and economic rights as Palestinians is being free to live in the same neighborhoods, on both sides of the Green line. And vice-versa.
This all seems hopelessly optimistic at the moment though. A bloodbath still seems the most likely outcome to me.
>(By the way, in case anyone wonders, my father was Jewish (now dead) and all his family currently lives in Israel.)
Why would anyone have been wondering?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas