by Ed Dugan

Created on: December 23, 2008

The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is really a war but no one wants to use that word. It really is a war since thousands of people, on both sides, have been killed and whenever the slaughter stops it's called a cease-fire. One has to wonder why, since this situation has gone on for centuries, not years, that no one on either side has had the wisdom to put an end to it. If it really is a war, why doesn't Israel simply overwhelm the Palestinians with their military might and get it over with? One obvious reason is, if they won, and they surely would, what would the Israelis do with all those conquered Palestinians?

In 1948, the State of Israel was founded, and the promise of peace for beleaguered Jews the world over was in the air. The celebrations were short-lived and the land of Israel has seen precious little peace since. The Palestinians can rightly claim the same misfortune, and there appears to be little chance that a lasting peace will happen during our lifetimes. Whether the Jewish claim to Israel lies in biblical history or not makes little difference to anyone but the parties involved and a few Christian fundamentailists. Muslims also have a long history in the area but not as long as the Jews.

What is also history is the fact that the Palestinians were evicted from what they can also rightly claim as their homeland, not as a result of losing a war but by the act of a political body, the United Nations. What was then Palestine was arbitrarily partioned by an organization that had absolutely no authority in law for doing so, but acted from a world guilt complex brought on by the horrors of the Holocaust. One has to wonder why, in 1948, the Arab states did not offer to re-settle the Palestinians somewhere else. The truth is that no Arab nation wanted them or the offer would have been made.

Palestinians are the Gypsie of the Arab world and they exhibit many of the characteristics of their European counterparts. Although many of the negatives attributed to the Palestinians may not be true, what is true is that they took Gaza, once a beautiful place and turned it into a garbage pit. Many people, Arab and non-Arab, feel that they would be quick to trash any homeland they were given as well. You could make the argument that you need a government to keep the streets clean and to pick up garbage, but they have shown little or no interest in self-governence except where it allows them to make war on Israel. When they got the chance to elect a

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