Good. This is the sole cause of the conflict. When Israel is willing to dismantle them, on that day it will end.
"Sole cause of the conflict"? Yeah, I'm sure the post-colonial clusterfuck, the Cold War, Iranian agitation, and the rise of Radical Islamism had nothing to do with it. And why were the Palestinians attacking Israel before the settlements were built?
The settlements were constructed beginning around 1967, which eventually led to widespread popular violence (ie, the First Intifada from 1987). A number of Palestinians were quite mad about being forced out of their homes in 1948, even before the Six Day War. It has since become apparent that they are not going to get the initial Mandate borders off the Israeli state - which is all that was ever asked. The PLO formally accepted a two-state solution quite recently, in 1988.
Why did Egypt and Syria fight Israel in 1967 (and a few other times as well)? Well, that's a different question.
There is a way to test your contention that the conflict is caused by more than Israeli aggression - force Israel to the negotiating table as we did South Africa. When they are willing to negotiate in good faith, the Palestinians will certainly accept. At that stage, either the conflict will largely end (barring a few radicals on both sides) or you will not be entirely wrong.
This is not actually an option available to them. Unlike the IDF, Palestinians do not have access to world arms markets. They make do with crappy second-rate bottlerockets.
And those rockets do a lot of damage. [/quote]
They have killed a grand total of one Israeli so far this conflict.
Besides, the ANC wasn't exactly well-armed either.
And they used terrorism all the time. We remember them as this great non-violent social movement because it's convenient to, but they killed loads of people, including a bunch of Africans.
Again, I strongly advise you to read literally anything on the 1948 or 1967 wars. Neither were started or substantially involved Palestinians, who were the primary victims. Indeed, even if they had been belligerents you can't acquire land through force. Nor can you justify mass rape, mass murder, threats, ect by arguing that they started the conflict. Ethnic cleansing is a strong word accurately describing Al Nakba. It was used in much less severe circumstances in Yugoslavia.
Indeed, in 1948, the Arabs didn't even start it (Egypt and Syria started the 1967 war). The Israelis had begun their ethnic cleansing campaign well before the start of the war. Deir Yassin, for instance, was April 9. The war began on May 15.
You seem to be ignoring the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The Palestinians may or may not have been the aggressors in that conflict, but they definitely drew first blood. Oh, and the Arabs did start the 1948 conflict.
You don't think the Arab invasion was a response to the civil war in Mandate Palestine?
And what about the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim nations to Israel? Are we just supposed to ignore those refugees?
So, we're going to blame Palestinians not only for the actions of Germans, but also Iraqis (and indeed, David Ben Gurion, who encouraged that exodus). We should be clear - the flight of Jews from Tripoli and Iraq was largely sincere Zionism, was partly encouraged emigration and was not at all ethnic cleansing in any sense. Nobody seriously thinks that was ethnic cleansing.
Well, that's nice of them. Not enough, of course, for the Palestinians to get enough to eat. But it's nice of them to at least make moves towards ending their permanent violations of the agreements they've made with Hamas.
Hamas violated those agreements first. I don't remember them cracking down on the rockets being fired into Israel.
Hyper-actively. The only reason bottle-rocket attacks have begun again is because Israel wants them to, in order to justify counter-attack. They have greatly increased bottle-rocket attacks from their record lows by suppressing the Hamas police units that in turn suppress them (by and large bottle-rockets are launched by non-Hamas extremist groups).
Just as the US government was overthrown by the Democratic Party.
Uh, no. Hamas seized control through military action.
Indeed. Military action at the ballot box.