[Chris Alger]

"What, pray tell, is the guarantee that if Israel withdraws from the occupied terrirtories, it won't continue to be attacked from a closer vantage point (as before)?"

This is an example of the racist double standard I keep referring to. The problem is Israel attacking the occupied territories and the Palestinians attacking Israel. The only issue you see, however, is Israel's right to security, which you apparently believe takes precendence over the Palestinian right to security. I could argue that Israel is less secure as a result of the occupation, but I'm not going to accept your premise that the rights of one side of the dispute are the fundmantal issue, although this is the ubiquitous way of addressing it in the U.S.

Furthermore, if the only real issue is Israel's unlimited right to "security," then we have decided by the very terms of the debate that it cannot be resolved except on whatever terms Israel wants. It makes no difference what the Palestinians do or say, as long as they exist anywhere Israel will be able to justify anything it does in the name of self-defense. For example, let's say the Israelis transfer the Palestinians to Jordan. It could then claim the right to occupy Jordan if the Palestinians resist and attack Israel in the West Bank. And so on across the fertile crescent. If most Palestinians refrain from terror, it makes no difference because not all of them do. If all Palestinians refrain form terror, it makes no difference because, as Pipes contends, at least some of them will deny Isreal's right to do what it has done to them, thus denying Israel's "legitimacy," and being a threat for that reason. And on ad on, without end.

I think what's driving your bias is the assumption that Israel is the victim of Palestinian aggression. Let's recap some basic facts. Zionism amounted to the foreign conquest and expropriation of most of the Palestinian homeland. The Palestinians understandably rejected this, and took up arms to prevent it. When they lost -- in 1947 and prior to the 1948 creation of Israel and invasion by other Arab states -- Israel refused to entertain peace terms but continued with a policy of grabbing land from the area designated as "Palestine" and colluded with King Abdullah of Jordan to prevent a Palestinian state from coming into existence. The result was the forced creation of 700,000 - 800,000 Palestinian refugees and their loss of livelihoods and property in what is now Israel. Afterward, in the 1950's, Israel embarked on a campaign of terror (duly labeled as such by the U.S. and other countries) to keep the refugees from returning to claim their land, their houses, their crops. The Palestinians also engaged in piecemeal terror, but with less loss of lives and property as the destruction inflicted by Israel (some 500 Israeli civilians were killed by terror raids from 1949 through 1956. Israel killed some 2,700 -- 5,000 Palestinians during the same period, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, based on a detailed examination of the archival data). Since then, Israel has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of any Palestinian right to sovereignty in their former homeland, has created yet more refugees and acquired more Palestinian territory, over which it exerts more and more control every day. Israel is therefore in no position to claim that Palestinian attacks on Israel are unprovoked to the point where Israel's "security" warrants exclusive or even primary consideration.

Of course, if we accept the racist premise that Israel has a superior claim to the former Palestine because of the religous, national or cultural superiority of Israelis, as the Hamas counterparts in Israel and the U.S. believe, then your position makes perfect sense.