Bill Maher: "People Die in Wars"

[JDPriestly]

32. If you are right, then all the countries in the Middle East have to do is

stop destroying themselves and their economies.

Personally, I don't have any sympathy with all the killing, but at least Israel is run as a democracy and grants a voice to minority Palestinians who live in Israel.

The Palestinians did not have to build the tunnels. They could have negotiated in good faith and established peace by now. The Palestinians could prove that they are capable of keeping their extremists, their terrorists under control.

You cannot have peace unless you give peace to your neighbors. That is a common sense rule that every country has to abide by.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_attacks_attributed_to_Palestinian_militant_groups

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence

The history is horrible. Every time Palestine picks a war with Israel, Palestine loses land and people. Still the population of Palestine is greater than that of Israel.

The State of Israel has a population of approximately 8,134,100 inhabitants as of the end of 2013.[2] 75% percent of them are Jewish (about 6,102,900 individuals), 20.7% are Arabs (about 1,683,200 individuals), while the remaining 4.3% (about 348,100 individuals) are defined as "others" (family members of Jewish immigrants who are not registered at the Ministry of Interior as Jews, non-Arab Christians, non-Arab Muslims and residents who do not have an ethnic or religious classification).

Israel's annual population growth rate stood at 1.9% in 2013, three times faster than the OECD average of around 0.6%.[3] With an average of 3 children per woman, Israel also has the highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin, and much higher than the OECD average of 1.7[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) estimated Palestinians at mid year 2009 as 10.7 million persons as follows: 3.9 million in the Palestinian Territory (36.6%), 1.2 million (11.5%) in Israel; 5.0 million in Arab countries (46.2%), 0.6 million in foreign countries (5.7%).[6]

According to an article in Guardian (2008) using PCBS census figures, the Palestinian territories have one of the fastest growing populations in the world, with numbers surging 30% in the past decade (2008). There were 3.76 million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, up from 2.89 million 10 years earlier.[7]

According to the U.S. Census population growth mid-1990-2008 in Gaza and West Bank was 106% from 1.9 million (1990) to 3.9 million persons.[8]

According to UN (2010) Palestinian population is 4.4 million.[9] According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) population density in 2009 was 654 capita/km2, of which 433 capita/km2 in the West Bank including Jerusalem and 4,073 capita/km2 in Gaza Strip.[10] In the mid-2009 the share of population less than 15 years was 41.9% and above 65 years 3%.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories

Israel needs peace more than more land. The Palestinians need land. Seems to me a bargain can be made provided both sides enforce the peace.

They have to make peace. They are one family living separated as if divorced. But they still have to live in peace with each other. Neither side has any other choice. Each has to recognize the right of the other to exist and live in peace.

Can you think of any other solution?

And if they are to live in peace then they have to negotiate in good faith. That means Palestinians don't build tunnels under Israel, and Israel gives back land to Palestinians. But first Palestinians have to prove they can keep the peace. By that I mean that they have to prove that they have enough control over the fanatics among them to keep the peace. We will know whether Israel is willing to keep the peace and whether Israelis feel safe enough to live in peace by the government, by the party they elect. It's more complicated, more difficult to discern the intentions of the Palestinians by their elections, etc.

Above all, on both sides the war propaganda has to stop. I don't know whether that is possible.