Who is responsible for the financial crisis

www.mepeace.org

I would like to intriduce you to mepeace.org. It is a platform intended to help the Jewish and Palestinian people find peace with each other. Regardless of the actions of our leaders in creating a peace worth living, the people who are members of mepeace talk. They try to share their feelings and opinions about what is going on in the Middle East in an attempt to gain, in some cases create trust between the two peoples. Sometimes it gets a little rough but that is to be expected when people are trying to become friends in a time of war.

Thus if you are interested in peace I reccommend that you visit www.mepeace.org

Is the Jewish Vote Moving to the Right of Center?

History
From the moment of their arrival in New Amsterdam one can document the unfolding of this unique connection between the North American continent and the Jewish people. Peter Stuyvesant, the then-governor of New Amsterdam, petitioned the Dutch West India Company, requesting the right to bar this community of Jews from settling in the colony. The company's response laid out the first core principle that has come to define the Jewish "contract" with America, directing Stuyvesant to permit Jews to remain and in turn charged that Jews would be responsible for "caring of their own." Creating the infrastructure of communities, social and human services, and synagogues and cemeteries represented an age-old Jewish imperative, but in the American context the meaning of this event would come to symbolize more than a level of toleration. It would reflect the partnership between the public and private sectors in meeting core communal religious and social concerns (Windmeuller, 2003).
Research shows that the Jewish vote only constitutes 3% of the national electorate, and has been consistently in support of the Democratic Party. A researcher would have to go back to the Presidential election of Warren Harding to find the Jewish vote over 40% in favor of the Republican Party. However, within the American political scene a person can predict that 60-90% of the Jewish voters are going to vote for the Democratic Party, second only to the African-American voter (Lefkowitz, 2005 p. 1).
The United States of America never promoted a practice of state-sponsored or state-supported anti-Semitism as in other nations as remembered in Europe. The Virginia Declaration on Religious Freedom, crafted by Thomas Jefferson, affirmed the principle of separation of church from state, a standard embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thereby removing from the American political culture any direct alignment between the state and its religious elements (Windmeuller, 2003). The American Jewish Congress still promotes this strict separation of Church and State and cringes when an attempt is made to close that gap. Similarly, an environment of personal toleration and acceptance was established in the constitution's central text, where no religious tests were to be established, permitting the full participation of citizens in the public sector (Windmeuller, 2003). With this political culture it has allowed the Jewish people the ability to voice their opinion and make a difference in government actions.

Question
Traditionally, since 1916, the Jewish block has voted for the Democratic Party (Lefkowitz, 2005, p. 1). The question has to be asked, why is the Jewish vote so important? Have the events surrounding September 11, 2001 and the war on terror caused the Jewish vote to move to the Republican Party?
Literature Review
The first important aspect that makes the Jewish vote important is that the Jewish voter bloc participates in greater numbers (78%) as compared to their Protestant (52%) and Catholic (36%) counterparts (Windmeuller, 2003). This is primarily caused by the belief that Jews are welcome in the United States as stated above. In addition to the heavy Jewish turnout, there are nine key states with significant Jewish populations account for 212 electoral votes or 78 percent of the total needed to secure the White House (Windmeuller, 2003). In any of these battleground states the Jewish vote can make the difference in any presidential election.
The next issue of importance in the Jewish voting bloc is money. American Jews stand at the top of the “American Dream”. Jews comprise over 25% of the names on the Forbes magazine annual list of America’s richest people. Five of the eight presidents of the Ivy League universities, and ten U.S. Senators, have Jewish parents (Shapiro 1998). Historically, Jewish donors provide as much as 50% of the money that the Democratic National Committee received from individual donors in the 1998 and 2000 election cycles (Stone 2004). Research by University of Akron political scientist John Green, an expert on religion and politics, revealed that in the 2000 presidential primary, Democratic candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley raised a staggering 21 percent of their contributions from Jews. In dollar terms, that means $13 million of the $62 million raised by the two presidential contenders came from the Jewish community - a stunning revelation considering that Jewish voters accounted for just 3 percent of voters in the 2000 elections (Keller 2004). According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks the flow of money in the campaign system, pro-Israel interests has contributed $41.3 million in individual, PAC (political action committee) and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees over the past decade , most of this money going to the DNC (Keller 2003). During the 2004 election campaign President Bush courted the Jewish vote because of the wealth that is found there. An added bonus to the Republican Party is that for every dollar that is given to the Republicans is a dollar taken away from the Democrats. In affect every Jewish Dollar given to the Republican National Party is worth two. Three Jews; Michael Lebovitz, Fred Zeidman, and Sheldon Kamins assisted Bush in the raising of over $200,000.00 for his re-election campaign (Stone 2004). Between October, 2003 and May, 2004 Bush and Cheney hosted several kosher dinners across America in major Jewish population centers which brought in about $2.15 million dollars. These Jewish converts to the Republican Party are being called “Bush Rangers” (Stone 2004). George W. Bush followed the leadership of Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon in that he publicly showed his support for Israel and their right to fight terrorism especially after 9/11. This support for the State of Israel aided the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Joe Gildenhorn in raising close to $4 million for the Bush election.
Another issue that is important to the Jewish voting bloc regardless of how religious the Jewish people are is Israel and its’ security. September 11, 2001 brought terrorism home to many Americans but none as much as the Jews who have been living safe and sound in America since 1948. When the towers went down American Jews felt what Jews in Israel have felt for decades. Sixty years after the Holocaust, a new wave of anti-Semitism has swept the globe, spearheaded by radical Muslims in the Middle East and Europe but taken up with gusto in democratic Western society not only by right-wing nationalists and neo-Nazis but also by liberal and left wing "anti-Zionists." With frightening regularity, Jews have been assaulted either physically or in venomous words, synagogues and community centers have been bombed or incinerated in places as far-flung as Turkey, Tunisia, Argentina, England, and France, anti-Zionist rallies on American college campuses have deteriorated into anti-Jewish harangues, and Jews and Israelis have been blamed for everything from using the blood of Palestinian children for baking matzos to masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States (Wertheimer 2004). In the immediate postwar decades, such questions, if asked at all, were brushed aside. Just as Jewish voters overwhelmingly favored candidates fielded by the Democratic party, Jewish organizations instinctively made common cause with groups within the New Deal coalition--liberal Protestants and Catholics, labor unions, other minorities (especially black Americans), and secular liberal organizations. This was understandable enough. Evangelical Protestants were, at the time, quiescent; the Republican Party was an alien entity, still tainted by isolationism; corporate America excluded Jews from major positions; rural populations were at a far remove; and insofar as anti-Semitism was noticeable, it emanated from conservative, nationalist quarters, the traditional locus of anti-Jewish animus in the modern era. If, on the issue of Israel, Jewish groups have had a hard time coping with their abandonment by allies (real or imagined) on the Left, they have had perhaps an even harder struggle making sense of the warm support for Israel shown by the Christian Right (Wertheimer 2004). Evangelicals raise money for Israel; lobby for congressional support of Israel, and at the height of the Palestinian Intifada did not shy away from visiting the Jewish state even as American Jews kept away in droves. They have been no less forthright in their condemnation of the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric emanating from the Muslim world and from advanced sectors of Western society. Who would have imagined, as the Israeli writer Hillel Halkin has paraphrased the Jewish reaction, that "after 1,500 years of persecution by Christianity, our biggest allies are now devout Christians--and not only devout Christians but often the most unlettered, unworldly, and unsophisticated of the devout, people with whom we seem to have absolutely nothing in common" (Wertheimer 2004)? These Christians are being found in the Republican Party.
Bush's support of Israel and snubbing of Yasser Arafat endeared him to normally Democratic Jewish voters and turned what was supposed to be a desperately close fight into a comfortable win. For his part, Bush no doubt increased his standing among New Jersey and New York Jewish voters because of his steadfast support for Israel. But beyond those factors, little else--other than a "9/11 effect"--can account for the often dramatic changes in voting behavior in pockets of the country that typically are the most hostile to the Republican Party. Yet it was the Queens-and-Brooklyn-based 9th District of Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner that witnessed the wildest swing. In 2000, Gore won in a 37-point landslide, garnering 67 percent of the vote to Bush's 30 percent. But last year, the cops, firefighters, middle-class homeowners, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews of the polyglot 9th deserted the Democratic ticket in droves. Kerry won by just 12 points, 56 percent to 44 percent. That 25-percentage-point erosion in the Democratic margin of victory marked the district as the most volatile in the nation (Burka 2004).
In his 1997 book, The New War, Kerry--who has the endorsements of both the Muslim American PAC and the Arab America PAC--spoke glowingly of Arafat as a "statesman" and "role model." You bet. The PLO honcho is widely emulated in Tehran and Tora Bora. In a Nov. 17, 2003, speech to the Arab American Institute, Kerry called Israel's security barrier, "a barrier to peace." (It's a great inconvenience for suicide bombers.) When Jewish leaders complained, the senator reversed himself. Worse, from an Israeli perspective, are Kerry's Middle East advisors--veteran appeasers such as former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who: 1) Helped devise the disastrous Oslo Accords, 2) Persuaded Clinton that Arafat was big teddy bear, 3) As ambassador, called all Israeli settlements "illegal" and 4) Wants to station U.S. forces in the West Bank and Gaza to cover an Israeli withdrawal. Little wonder Israeli journalist David Bedein writes, "The very mention of Indyk's name sends shudders down the spine of senior members of the Israel defense and foreign policy establishment." Equally troubling is the senator's passion for the United Nations. If the world body were composed of imams and mullahs, it could not be more anti-Israel. And John Kerry wants to put the UN in charge of the war on terrorism. All this is one reason why Bush is getting support from some surprising quarters. In a January 9, 2004, article in The Forward former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a life-long Democrat, said he's never voted for a Republican presidential candidate before, but he was voting for Bush this year. Koch wrote, "President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve necessary to wage the war against terrorism" (Koch, 2004). On October 18, New Republic Editor Martin Peretz--a social liberal but a staunch Zionist--did a column whose title says it all--"A President Kerry Would Be a Disaster for Israel" (Feder 2004).
The last aspect of why the Jewish vote is important and how it appears to be moving right is the level of religious observance within Judaism, and if that increase in observance has caused an increase in the Jewish move to the right of center. With all of the talk of “Judeo-Christian” values and morals it could be thought that the three religions, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism would be of the same thought politically. This does not appear to be the case. Judaism is almost famous for how liberal it is while the two Christian religions are for the majority is extremely conservative. One of the many causes championed by the late Murray Friedman, whose death in May 2005 brought to a close a long and fruitful career, was the recovery of a genuine, if largely forgotten, strain of conservatism in the American Jewish past. Given the unwavering commitment to liberalism of most American Jews, a more counter-intuitive proposition would have been hard to find. But Friedman, an accomplished historian who served as mid-Atlantic director for the American Jewish Committee, vice chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and founding director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University, was a patient and a hopeful man (McClay 2006). Nor did the goal of excavating an American Jewish conservatism seem any more quixotic to Friedman than Russell Kirk's project a half-century earlier in The Conservative Mind (1953). After all, when Kirk's book was launched, conventional wisdom had it that America possessed but one intellectual tradition, namely liberalism, outside of which there was nothing but an uncharted territory of irritable mental gestures. Kirk provided a plausible historical background for a very different collection of ideas, and a very different intellectual and moral disposition--an American outlook that had been there all along but that lacked the means of identifying itself (McClay 2006).
Most accounts of neo-conservatism, particularly those that seek to distinguish it from "paleoconservatism," tend to emphasize its acceptance of certain features of liberalism, including the basic structures of the welfare state. That is fair enough; hut there is another and nearly opposite distinguishing feature. Nearly all neoconservatives, with the possible exception of the younger ones, have had a painful experience of "breaking ranks" (to borrow the title of Norman Podhoretz's 1979 book) in their intellectual development, a revolt against powerful tribal norms, so to speak, that has often proved extraordinarily costly in terms of ruptured relationships, lost professional opportunities, and personal isolation (Friedman 2005).
In 1997, running for reelection in New York City against an all-out liberal Jewish Democrat, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a law-and-order Republican, garnered some 75 percent of the Jewish vote; in his previous two races against David L. Dinkins, who served as mayor from 1990 to early 1994, Giuliani had already won two-thirds of that vote. Much the same pattern has emerged in the second largest center of American Jewry, Los Angeles, where a liberal administration heavily supported by Jews was overturned by Republican Richard J. Riordan, a Roman Catholic businessman whose trademark issues have been efficient government, jobs, and public safety. In his successful bid for reelection in 1997 against state senator and former student radical Tom Hayden, Riordan's share of the Jewish vote climbed to 71 percent. Strong Jewish backing likewise helped elect Republicans George Pataki in New York, Jeb Bush in Florida, and Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey (though Senator Alfonse D'Amato's share of the Jewish vote fell from a previous high of 40 percent to 27 percent in his unsuccessful 1998 bid for reelection in New York against Charles Schumer (Friedman, 2000).
The vocational profile of Jews has changed significantly. Civil service, once the route to upward mobility, has become less attractive. With a lowered stake in public-sector employment, Jews are commensurately less likely to favor expansionary government programs. As like all groups as the career goals of the group move from public to private, political interests also move to protect the interests of private industry. This is seen in the Republican Party. As Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York University, has put it, "Most Jews in New York are concerned with safety, quality of life, and taxes, not public schools and social services, the two largest areas of municipal expenditures" (Friedman, 2000). There are indications, too, that younger Jews are beginning to shape their political worldview along somewhat different lines from their parents or grandparents. For the current generation, which knew not JFK, let alone FDR, even the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam movements of the 60's have no real resonance. A poll taken by the Zogby organization during the New Jersey gubernatorial election in 1997 showed that Jews under sixty-five were significantly more likely to vote for the Republican Christine Todd Whitman than were those over sixty-five (Friedman 2000). In addition to the generational change, 700,000 Eastern European and Russian Jews have immigrated to the United States, have turned out to be conservative and voting for the Republican Party (McClay, 2006).
With these issues in mind this paper hopes to show without a doubt that the political culture of American Jews is moving to the right and that there exists a conservative revolution among the most reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party and liberalism.
Methodology
In this paper will use the exit polls taken by the Pew Research Center and Zogby International between World War II and the 2004 Presidential elections. The information found in these polls tracks the level of partisan support for the Republican and Democratic Parties.
Data and Analysis
A Zogby poll published in December 2003 asked the question of Jewish voters where their political ideology. Those individuals that stated that they were independents were asked which Party they lean towards Republican or Democrat. The findings in 1998 showed that 73% of the Jewish population considers themselves as liberal or moderate with left leanings, 23% claimed that they were conservative, leaving 4% that did not declare allegiance to either Party. This poll was taken post September 11, 2001, thus it can be assumed that the Jewish population as a whole has not moved to the right because of the terrorist attacks that struck America on that frightful day.
Next we are going to look at the Presidential voting record by religion between 2000 and 2004, more specifically, a look at the Jewish vote between 2000 and 2004 and the changes that were seen. The figure to the left was created by the Pew Research Center with assistance from the Voter News Service and the National Election Pool. This data shows that in the 2000 Presidential election George W. Bush received 19% support from the Jewish voting block. This is the second lowest level support for a Republican Presidential candidate, next to his father in the 1992 election. In the 2004 Presidential election George W. Bush saw a drastic increase of 6% giving him 25% of the vote. This increase raised the questions of whether or not the Jewish block is moving to the right. A 6% increase between elections is significant enough to state that the contention that the Jewish voter is moving right.

The above chart is a time series chart of Support for Republican Party in Presidential elections from 1992 to 2004. This chart looks at Republican support over the 12 years and 4 Presidential elections of Presidents Clinton and Bush. This chart shows that there has been a steady increase over the four years with a small hiccup in the 2000 election. Over the 12 years there is a total 14% increase in Republican support. With this increase many people can make the statement and be accurate that the Jewish voting bloc is moving to the right of center.
To be fair and balanced to the issue you need to look at any other previous trends in Jews voting for the Republican Party. The following chart shows several peaks and valleys in the support that the Jewish voting bloc has given to the Republican Party. Post World War II through 1956 saw some of the greatest support for the Republican Party topping out at 40%. This was the time that Israel was created and the Republican Administration gave increasing support to the fledgling nation, the Jewish Homeland, Israel (Lefkowitz 2005). The 1960’s saw a decrease in support when the America’s first Catholic President in JFK. After the Six-Day war and the Yom Kippur Wars in the late 60’s and early 70’s the Jewish vote went back to the Republican Party. It again in the 1980’s when Israel was in peril Jewish support had gone back to the Republicans.
During the 90’s Israel seemed to be safe and support returned to the Democratic Party and President Clinton. Now that it appears that Israel is in trouble, rather has been in trouble with the Second Intifada Jewish support turned to the Republicans once again. The time series shows that the Jewish voting bloc, votes Israel first. America’s Jews vote with Israel. When Israel appears to be safe and secure they vote for the Democrats that support social issues and promote domestic programs. When Israel is in trouble or it looks like Israel may go to war the Jewish vote swings to the Republican Party who seems to have a greater support for Israel.
The upcoming 2006 mid-term elections and the Presidential elections of 2008 should be able to give a better determination on whether the Jewish vote is moving to the right. However, if the nuclear threat from Iran and Hamas running the Palestinian Authority continues on its course, I can predict that the Republicans will win both of these elections.

References


Burka, P. Why Bush Won. Texas Monthly [serial online]. 2004;32(12):18-22. Available from: Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed Feb 22, 2006.
Feder, D. (2004). Will American Jews Vote With Arafat This Year?. Human Events, 60(36), 20-25. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Friedman, M. (2000). Are American Jews Moving to the Right?. Commentary, 109(4), 50. Retrieved Sunday, Feb 18, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Friedman, Murray (2005) Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and Shaping of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Keller, Amy. (Jan 17, 2003) “Chasing Jewish Dollars: Can GOP narrow money gap in 2004?” Jewish Renaissance Media; Atlanta Jewish Times [online] http://www.atljewishtimes.com/archives/ 2003/011703cs.htm
Koch, Edward, (2004) “Bolting for Bush” Forward Jan. 9, 2004.
Lefkowitz, Jay (Feb 2005), The Election and the Jewish Vote, Commentary, Vol. 119, Issue 2 retrieved from the Academic Search Premier March 21, 2006.
Mahtesian, C. (2005). The 9/11 Effect. National Journal, 37(16), 1156-1156. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
McClay, W. (2006). Right Turn. Commentary, 121(2), 71-74. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Pew Research Center, (2004) Presidential Vote by Religion 2000-2004.
Shapiro, Edward S., (Fall 1998) “Liberal Politics and American Jewish identity” Judaism Vol. 47, Issue 4
Stone, Peter H. (Jan. 24, 2004) “Bush’s Jewish Bloc” National Journal, Vol. 36, Issue 4, Retrieved from the Academic Search Premier, March 21, 2006.
Wertheimer, J. (2004) “Jewish Security & Jewish Interests”, Commentary, 118(3), 54-59. Retrieved March 21, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Windmeuller, Steven, (Dec. 15, 2003) “Are American Jews becoming More Republican? Insights into Jewish Political Behavior” Jewish Viewpoints, no 509 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem [online] http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp509.htm.
Zogby International (1998) Jewish Declaration of Political Ideology.

Scholars for Peace in teh Middle East

Governed and directed by academics, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is a grass-roots community of over 20,000 university and college professors, researchers, administrators, teachers, librarians, and students on more than 1500 campuses worldwide. All receive our SPME Faculty Forum. Nearly 30 campuses in the US and abroad now have their own chapters (see SPME Chapters ). SPME is an independent, not-for-profit organization chartered in the State of Pennsylvania under provision 501(C)3 of the US tax code.
As our name implies, we envision and strive for peace in the Middle East: a world in which Israel exists as a sovereign Jewish state within secure borders and her neighbors achieve their legitimate peaceful aspirations. As scholars, we commit ourselves to the promotion of research, education, and service to achieve this just peace. We also envision and strive for a region in which human rights, stability and economic development grow and benefit all the peoples of the area.

However, we observe that academic discourse is increasingly influenced by ideological distortions, politically biased scholarship, and agenda-driven speakers who demonize Israel and Zionism as bearing full responsibility for the Middle-East conflict. Such indoctrination violates academic traditions of scholarly integrity and degrades the academic enterprise. It poisons debate about the Middle East, inflames hatred of Israel, spreads anti-Semitism, incites anti-Israeli militancy, and serves to excuse or tolerate terrorist attacks and genocidal threats against Israel. Anti-Israel slanders exacerbate conflict and undermine prospects for peace.

Our mission is to inform, motivate, and encourage faculty to use their academic skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms, and in academic publications to develop effective responses to ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Muslim slanders, that poison debate and work against peace. SPME opposes all manifestations of anti-Semitism in academia, including calls for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In a time when faculty members sympathetic to or merely suspected of being sympathetic to Israel may be subject to hostility and intimidation, we also serve as a network for mutual support.

SPME welcomes scholars from all disciplines, faith groups, and nationalities who share our desire for peace and our commitments to academic freedom, academic integrity, and honest debate.

Revision Adopted and Approved by The SPME Board of Directors
June 5, 2008

It does not matter if you die for it

MY NEW SON

Pure Blasphemy

How do we achieve peace in the Middle East?

How do we achieve peace in the Middle East? More specifically, how do we achieve peace in Israel? Alice introduced me to mepeace.org, so I own her a debt of gratitude. Thank you Alice, it would appear that you are right and that there are bunches of people here that are looking for a way to find peace. Although, how do we as Jews and Palestinians forge a peace where everyone is happy? How do we stop a cycle of violence that has been going on since 1917? Almost 90 years we have been fighting over this peace of land. I used to live on a ranch in Texas that was bigger than Israel. 15 people and 10,000 head of cattle used to live and wander on a stretch of Texas, actually a little bigger than Israel is as a whole. Yet nations and some 10 million people are fighting over this piece of land I call Israel. The ranch is worth $20 million; can I buy Israel for the same and call it a day? No, I cannot. It is just not that simple. Can I say hey Jews, or hey, Palestinians I have access to a ranch the same size as Israel come live here? No, I cannot. First, the land cannot support that many people. Second, no one would come. Israel/Palestine is their home. It is where their families are buried. It is where they worship their particular G-d. Israel is the very holiest place for Jews and the 3rd or 4th holiest place for Muslims. It is also the holiest place for Christians. So how do we achieve a peace in the holy land where everyone is happy? I will get back to that question later.

All of us, Jew and Palestinian come to this room for the purpose of trying to find a way to make peace. I think that those of us, here in mepeace.org, have found that peace among ourselves. Everyday someone new comes into the organization. I am number 940. I see there are still factions among us, and some that just post articles about how evil the Jews are, and there are those who post articles on how evil the Palestinians are. There are a bunch of people who cannot see beyond the last bad thing that happened to our family. Except for Alice, I do not think there is a Jew or Palestinian that has not lost a family member, or property, or both because of this conflict. There is enough blame to go around for everyone. We have been fighting over control of this land since a British guy created the Balfour declaration, making a promise to the Jewish people that Israel will be a Jewish Homeland. Then another British guy came along with the White Papers, making a promise to give control of the land to the Arabs living here. The first major fight between us came in 1929, with what the Western history books call the Arab Uprising. Then there was the Jewish uprising, and back and forth and back and forth for the last 90 years. Prior to the British controlling the holy land, the Turks and Ottomans controlled the land. Therefore, the historical claim of the land, on both sides is weak, at best. Neither group of people prior to 1948 had majority control of the land for millennia.
Alice has brought us the story of Abir Aramin, and the work her father, Bassam, is doing with the combatants for peace to unite fighters from both side to try to find peace. The work they are doing is great and should be supported. Alice told me the other day of a video where it shows a Palestinian already in custody was shot dead by the IDF. People ask what Abir did to deserve such treatment by the IDF, to loose her life at 10 years old? She did nothing but walk out of a school. It is very sad that she had to give her life for this conflict. She did not even give it, it was taken from her she had no choice in the matter. Whether is was a bullet, a rubber bullet, a gas canister, or a rock thrown by a Palestinian (all the versions of how Abir died) it does not matter she was 10 years old and should not have died. If it were my daughter, I would be angry. I would demand to know why. I would want justice. Although, on the other side of the coin this happened; Three women were killed and at least 30 more people were injured when a bulldozer driven by a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem trampled over pedestrians and vehicles and plowed into two buses in downtown Jerusalem at around noon Wednesday. If any of these women were my wife or daughter, I would be angry. I would demand to know why. I would want justice. The answer I would get would be that this was Israel’s fault. Israel forced this man to take a bulldozer and kill your wife. That is not true. This man worked for the city of Jerusalem. In a way, he was the government. Israel did not make him turn his bulldozer onto a crowd of people that were doing nothing more than shopping. This finger pointing can go on all day, and all night for the rest of our lives. We as Jews and Palestinians can sit here and point to what happened yesterday forever but it does not look at what we are going to do to make tomorrow better. It is intellectual dishonesty.

Alice started another thread talking about Apartheid. Jimmy Carter compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa. Apartheid is a very strong word. The main claim to the apartheid conditions in Israel from what I can tell is the checkpoints. Israel does not let Palestinians move freely throughout Israel and in and out of Gaza and the West Bank. To hear it described in the Israeli, and Palestinian media, Israel is the only country in the world that has checkpoints. To get from the ranch I mentioned earlier to where I live now I have to go through 5 checkpoints. Even in the United States, there are checkpoints where the Border Patrol and National Guard are stationed to ensure that the people going through the checkpoints have the proper permits to move through those checkpoints. They take drug dogs and bomb dogs around your vehicle looking for drugs and bombs. You have to tell these troops what you are doing, where you are going and what your purpose is. If you do not have the proper paperwork to be in the US you are arrested and sent back to where you belong. How is this any different than what is happening in Israel? If you do not have the paperwork to leave (Palestinian) or enter (Jewish) Gaza you are not allowed into Gaza. I have friends that used to own property in Gaza. It was taken away from them and they are not allowed to freely travel in Gaza. Is that apartheid on the part of Hamas? I know that one of the readers is going to say well Palestinians cannot get jobs in Israel. To answer that, I say, what about that guy who drove his bulldozer into a group of pedestrians? He had a job. Every country in the world has requirements before you are allowed to work in their country are required to agree to obey the laws of that country and get the required paperwork/permits to work there. When I lived in Turkey, I was required to carry around this little blue book everywhere I went. This blue book showed the authorities that I was in Turkey for work purposes. I am sure that there are other complaints about why Israel is an Apartheid state but I am already at 3 pages single spaced and I am not copying and pasting like some do. To call what is going on in Israel Apartheid is intellectually dishonest.

Like you said John, this thing is already 3 pages long single spaced and you have not answered the question you posed at the top of your babbling. How do we achieve peace in the Middle East? I contend that I have answered the question several times. I guess you missed it. The answer is being intellectually honest with each other. Has both sides of this conflict done some pretty evil things? Yes, they have. Is either side of this free from blame? No they are not. For every innocent Palestinian that has been killed, there is be a Jewish person killed. We can point at these atrocities all day everyday, but where will it take us? Nowhere, we will remain right here fighting and killing each other for another 100 years. Do you think this might have been the plan of the British all along? We need to start with intellectual honesty and move from there. Here is my peace plan
1. Both sides Jewish and Palestinians need to acknowledge the right of the other to exist
2. Both sides need to forgive what happened yesterday and focus on tomorrow
3. Israel need to pull back to the ’67 green line, and the independent State of Palestine created.
4. Jerusalem will be the capital of both nations with the city ruled by a 7 person panel elected from within the city consisting of 2 Jews, 2 Muslims, 2 Christians and 1 person at large (received the most votes) these elections will occur every 2 years.
5. Jerusalem will not be divided and travel throughout will not be restricted.
6. The temple mount will be free access to all.
7. Israel is to release all funds allotted for the Palestinians.
8. Israel is to give complete independence to Palestine without condition.
9. Palestine is to take complete independence without condition.
10. Palestine will be responsible for its own infrastructure. It will receive no aid from Israel unless Israel chooses to give it.
11. Israel will stop treating Palestine like a colony and Palestine will stop act like one.
12. There will be no right of return. If you want to live in Israel or Palestine, you will apply for the proper immigration.
13. If you, personally (not a parent or grandparent), have proof that you owned property in Israel or Palestine and you lost your home due to the conflict or the peace, you will be paid $60,000.00 USD for that property by the country your land was located.

I believe that this is an intellectually honest peace plan. Until Jews and Palestinians alike can be intellectually honest with themselves and each other there will be no peace in the Holy Land