Senior Israeli officials expressed support Monday for the transfer of Arab parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian control, offering a concession on one of the most contentious issues in the Mideast conflict. The offer appeared to fall short of Palestinian calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from key areas of the holy city.
Not a lot of you may know, but this is pretty significant. Israel has flatly said "no" to transferring land captured during the 1967 war for decades. Now, they appear to be willing to give land for peace. However, and this is a BIG however, the Palestinians need to reign in Hamas and stop shelling Israel. The Palestinians are at a historic juncture right now. If they get the land back, AND they stop attacks on Israel, there's no reason why they can't have their own state within a few years.
If they get the land and they don't stop the attacks, Israel will be justified in forcefully taking it back. "We gave them land for peace and they just took the land and continued to attack us" is what they'll say and they will be right.
Then, there will be continued bloodshed for generations to come simply because the Palestinians can't seem to get over their blind hatred of Israelis. The Israeli's would be completely in the right to say "look, giving them land didn't work, so why should we pander to their needs"?
So, the ball appears to be in the Palestinians court. What do they plan on doing with it? Well one would hope for them to seize the once in a lifetime opportunity and work towards peace, but then again, they did elect a known terrorist organization as their government.
Travis
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