Wall Street Journal: Palestinians make surprisingly large land offer to Israel

I am in favor of monetary compensation to all those who lost their homes in the M. E. This includes the 800,000 Jews from Arab countries whose properties were seized by they were forced to flee or chose to flee. The Arab nations who attacked Israel in 1948 must pay compensation to those Arabs who lost their homes in what is Israel today.

If you did you would have never made a statement like this one . As for Palestinian land , Arabs have more then a thousand times the territory of Israel , there is plenty of land for them . They really already have enough .

The opposite is true. Jordan was supposed to be part of the Jewish state and the British illegally gave it to Arabs. Jordan is the bulk of the original mandate so your point is a lie.

and the ultra right Yeshivas, too. A Palastinain state is certain to have a pool of crazies, but there may not be diversity amongst them. If a Palastinain State keeps Israeli crazies, it's pool of crazies will achieve diversity. Maybe Joseph can join them and add his own special touch to the stew. Personally, I just want to see a territorial compromise that will be stable and get a critical mass of support on both sides despite the fact that the ultras on both sides will claim that they've stabbed in the back. Actually, stabbing them in the back is a great idea. As the ultras face in opposite directions, they leave no one covering their backs, and that's exactly what the sane majority in the center should do to them. Hope the centrists are sharpening their knives..

But read the text. Abbas is agreeing to swaps, not giveaways. And trading 1.9% of West Bank for 1.9% of Israeli land, of comparable value without compromising contiguity or population demographics (i.e. keep my people on my side of the border), should be a net gain for the Palestinians. I know, it is actually dunam for dunam, not % of me for % of you, but one can wish given the historic misappropriations. This was not a concession or a surrender from Abbas, it was an offer to be more flexible, and should be considered as such. Jehuda - even victor who take land as spoils have to absorb the long-term inhabitants, too. I think WWII showed mass deportations and cleansings was wrong, wouldn't you agree?

Israeli Arabs and many other Arabs want to belong to Israel , of course only if you ask them privately .

given the respective prosperity of the two potential nations, I'm sure most Israeli-Arabs would prefer to live in a Palestine where funds are embezzled and used to fuel terror instead of building infrastructure for the people's future.

Israel cannot be responsible for Arab refugees.

How nice and how pleasant it is to sit with brothers, but not if you're going to see your house price plummet and lose access to health care and education. Not so sure Israeli Arabs would be so happy to change countries.

They attack from our land, attack our families, they lose several wars and still make demands. We should no longer even entertain the insanity of a Palestinian state on Israeli land.

Arabs still owns 1.6 million square miles of land while you conquered only 22 thousand square miles. he makes it sound like Israelis conquered more of the world than the arabs. You should be embarrassed talking historical conquests in front of the arabs.

And it was specifically because of the mistreatment and despair, inflicted on the German population at the end of the first World War, that the seed that gave birth to Hitler existed. Israel perhaps believes that the war is over, bit it never has been. Just like Europe 1935, choices need to be made now. Make peace, make more war, or simply wait for war to erupt. But to state that the war is over and settled, is very naive.

You really need an education Jehuda. When Israel declared independence, she agreed to abide by the rules, this includes the agreement that territory cannot be gained via war ...for any reason. Israel also agreed to respect the right of the indigenous population and then in its now familiar show of good spirit, went about ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population. What do you know of rights or 'who gets to make offers'? The sheer arrogance displayed in your post provides ample evidence of where the problem lies in this dispute.

Already in the Jewish Primary School in Berlin they have told us, that Israel has won all wars against the Arabs. However in the last time I get more and more the feeling that Israel has not won any war, but rather had times with good performance... in exactly 1 war, that lasts almost 100 years. People should start to understand that israel has not won the 6-days war, it was a kind of draw. With a status quo, the Arabs will defeat israel with demography and isolation. Israel has exactly no chance to survive 100 years more of war. The 6-days-war and the other ones will only come out as victories, if Israel succeeds in turning their results into comprehensive peace agreements. Otherwise the Israeli parents should organize for their children foreign passports.

the clear view the world had of the horrors of 'conquest' during and after WWII had a big effect on how most, but not all, nations viewed it. Previously, similar to your view, people felt that conquest was bad if they were conquered but OK if they were the conquerors. There has been an effort in the past 65 years to modify this harsh, ancient belief. The UN, which, among other things, established the State of Israel, spends a great deal of time trying to provide peaceful alternatives to blood vendettas, inequitable racial policies, unforgiving aggression and ethnic cleansing. Such efforts do not always succeed, but, on the other hand, military conquest, occupation and suppression never succeed. People who wish to be free sooner or later will be free - sort of like the Hebrews under pharaoh, which was a great example to the world. Of course, sadly, years later, the liberation of the Hebrews was followed by the near extermination of Canaanites by the invading Hebrew armies, as described in detail in Davarim.

Abbas bluffs by offering larger land concessions thinking that Israel will never follow through, and it will impress the Americans. Netenyahu bluffs by accepting thinking that the PA will never follow through and it will impress the Americans. And the parties mutually consent by mistake and in bad faith under the assumption that the other one will say no at the final moment. Sort of like a car race among teenagers in which the first to swerve before going over the cliff loses. Here, both cars refuse to swerve, and they both go over the cliff, and there is an agreement on borders because they can't resist the momentum they've created. The cars are heading over the cliff, and they're both going too quickly to swerve. Will they the leaders of Israel or the PA let matters let matters get out of hand so that they actually agree on borders and they can't back down? Unlikely since they are both old and wise in the ways of bad faith and manipulation. But they are only human, and they could make a mistake. If they are too clever by half and they fail in their objectives, they could end up with a deal on borders much to their surprise.

The PA terrorist have no authority, Hamas terrorist speak for the Palestinian aggression.

The land in question, Jewish Biblical Judea and Samaria, on the west bank of the river Jordan, was not part of a "Palestine", to beguin with. It was conquered from Jordan in a defensive war and should not be returned to the Arab invaders. Only if Portugal, Spain and the UK (Gibraltar, an Arabic name, unlike Palestine) give them their Al - Andaluz (Iberia) back.

The land in question, Jewish Biblical Judea and Samaria, on the west bank of the river Jordan, was not part of a "Palestine", to beguin with. It was conquered from Jordan in a defensive war and should not be returned to the Arab invaders. Only if Portugal, Spain and the UK (Gibraltar, an Arabic name, unlike Palestine) give them their Al - Andaluz (Iberia) back.

Pals can offer us land that they do not own too.

which means to have the intention to reach an agreement. Being militarily occupied and suppressed by a foreign power makes people eager to cast off their oppressors. What would you do?

And I have just as much right to give that away as the arabs have to give away parts of ISrael.

If you can't understand something that is worded as clearly as this resolution you should not try to interpret the resolution for others. It will be far better for them if they give it a shot instead, you are clearly not qualified. There is no mention of withdrawal to secure and recognized borders, there is a statement that states have the right to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries". This does not mean that states get to redraw their borders, it means that states have the right to territorial sovereignty respected. BTW your notion that the sentence "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" gives Israel the right to choose not to withdraw from certain areas is completely wrong. The wording is as clear as it could be, Israel is to withdraw from territories occupied, period.

They want Israel destroyed.

For someone who has "known George Mitchell for nearly 50 years," you have a significant gap in the details of his ethnic origins. C'est connu comme le loup blanc--his father was Joseph Kilroy, an Irishman, his mother Mary Saad, from Bkassine, Lebanon. As he was orphaned at an early age, George was adopted by a Lebanese American family. Just Eire and Lebanon, no Falasteen.

Netanyahu is the idiot who gave, under American and European (so called Christians) pressure Bethlehem to Muslim Arab terrorist Arafat. Bethlehem, capital of Judea, city of King David and his descendant Jesus. As for the necessity of land swap, Mr. American, you first... Give back all the territory you stole from Mexico for a start.

Arabs must recognize that Judea-Samaria, the Golan are all part of Israel and this will lead the way to peace.

THey're the ones who mandated it and drove everyone off for all those Aliyahs. I don't quite see how it's "yours," either.

The pals are offering to "give" back Israel land that already belongs to Israel....shake your head Erekat,see if it rattles...

It's not theirs.

A one-state solution destroys Israel. Turns it into a state where Jews are no longer safe. But I guess that's what you want with a name like "Sami Abu Ismail." The Palestinians will have their state in the West Bank. They will not have their state in Israel. They will have their self-determination so long as they are able to show they can recognize Israel's right to exist.

Everything, everyone is hated and demonized in the Arab and Muslim world. Bloody dictatorships, medieval kingdoms, civil wars, honour killings...

If Israel would like to return the West Bank to arabs,then it is better to return land to Jordan and let them to create the Pal State.

Arabs want to destroy Israel %1.9 at a time.

The West bank is their land under the 1948 UN plan. The fact that Israel has occupied it, won't get out and has started stealing large swathes of it just means Israel is there illegally and plundering things illegally. Why should the Pals give their land away to a greedy nation next door? No other country in the world would do so. The problem is that the Jewish nation just never stops taking.

Thats what we call "Greediness"

If Hamas is your choice, don't waste anyone's time. The Western nations and most of the Arab world will not deal with them in their present form.

"Psych!"

launching 4 wars on the Jewish State and loosing them all. Where is a problem here that is not of their own creation ?

Fatah has nothing to offer Israel, not land, not peace, not security, not friendship.