As for the gaza strip. You know full well that most of that population is concentrated in the towns and cities, with lots of rural "wasteland". Or is this where you are going to tell me that those people are spread out evenly 3300 people per square km?
The Gaza Strip is 3 - 5 miles wide. It contains about a dozen Palestinian towns and refugee camps, 25 Israeli settlements and several militay bases.
If you look at a detailed map, you'll see it's impossible to get more than 1.5 miles from any built up area. You can't set up a guerilla camp 1.5 miles away from a town, it's too easily spotted.
Take a look at the 9-11 hijackers. Lots of family fathers, with good education, good work, good living in western-oriented countries. These people do not think the same way we do. It is wrong to assume that. Naive. Dangerous.
Look at Timothy McVeigh. These people do not think the way we do.
There are nutters eveywhere. Remove the support fom the nutters, and they are less effective.
Take a look at the latest wave of suicide bombers. Family fathers, people with high education, with jobs, with "good" family ties.
The vast majoity of the Palestinian suicide bombers have been young men, in their teens or twenties.
Suicide bombing has now become a way to povide fo a family in the territoies, with Saudi Arabia and Iraq giving money to the families of the attacker.
It's one of the few ways to get money. Unemployment is ove 50%, and a US government aid agency repot says 50% of Palestinian children are suffering fom malnutrition, with 20% suffering acute malnutition, stunted growth and health problems.
People act out of self interest most of the time. But you forget to add into that equation, that some peoples self interest involves killing others.
Everyone's self interest involves killing others. Mankind's history is a long tale of killing other people to get their land/cattle/money/possesions.
What stops people from doing it all the time is fear of losing what they've got. The more they've got, the less they want to risk it.
It's no coincidence that as countries become richer, they're less likely to go to war. (not one they can lose, anyway)
Nashwan is trying to say that if we give them a country they will stop murdering innocent Israeli civilians. I'm just saying that we have no reason to believe that, and you cannot make comparrisons to us in the western civilization, because just because we think in one way, that doesnt mean that everyone does.
We have no reason not to believe it.
The Egyptians signed a deal with Israel, and have kept to it.
The Jordanians signed a deal with Israel, and have kept to it.
Every Arab country Israel has done a land fo peace deal with has kept it. The Palestinians who are fotunate enough to find themselves with Israeli citizenship have not tried to attack Israel.
The only Arabs Israel has a problem with ae those it's siezed land from.
It seems rather twisted logic to say holding on to that land is the best path to peace, when history has shown otherwise.
This isn't about security for Israel, it's about Greater Israel, achieved by taking land from the Palestinians.
There's never been a peacefull ethnic cleansing. It's silly to expect the Palestinians to go quietly, when no other group ever has.
