It should be noted as per the rather comical video on page 10 that no one ever really claimed the land as their home except the Jews. The Romans regarded it as a backwater province of the Empire that they hated being sent to and considered it a punishment if they were. The Muslim empires, Arab and Turkish, felt likewise. The Crusaders regarded the land as holy because Jesus came from there, but no one in their right mind wanted to stay. They all wanted to conquer it, and then return to Europe and let some other poor bastard have the job of governing the place. Only the Jews have EVER wanted the land as uniquely their own, until VERY recently, when the Arabs living there suddenly, without notice or historical precedent, started calling themselves "Palestinians". This term did not even exist until after the nationality was made up for it. Previously, the Arabs had been Egyptians in the Gaza Strip and Jordanians in the West Bank. It was only when Israel conquered these territories in the Six Day War, and even later, when both Egypt and Jordan gave up claims to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that the term "Palestinian" began to be bandied about. Yassir Arafat was born in Cairo, served in the Egyptian Armed Forces, and went to college in Cairo. That makes him, by pretty much every definition of the word, an Egyptian citizen. Inventing a new nationality, no matter how nice it sounds, simply doesn't work.
And let's be honest enough to admit it. Arabs and Jews don't fucking like each other. All this shit about sitting around a campfire holding hands and singing "Cumbaya" might work fine in fairy tales, but they don't work in the hard core reality of real life. Netanyahu said it correctly, whether you love him or hate him. "We (the Israelis) live in a tough neighbourhood." We can prattle on about whether Israel should or should not exist, and whether Arabs should or should not be in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and yada, yada, yada. But the FACTS, my friends, are as follows:
1. Israel DOES exist. There is nothing that is going to occur that will stop it from existing. (a), it has the support of the United States, which it will always have, because there are enough Jews here to influence the government through AIPAC and so-forth. (b), there are enough Christian Zionists who also, for their own weird reasons, support Israel and also influence the government. (c) Israel has what is pretty much the best trained functional military in the world. Anyone who fucks with it ends up being turned into dogmeat. (d) Israel's continued existence will be guaranteed by the more moderate regimes of the Middle East, such as Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and even Saudi Arabia, because, as much as these countries despise Jews, they know that the so-called "Palestinians" under Hamas or even under the PA are a bunch of pond scum that can't govern themselves. They know that "Palestinians" are all, for the most part, wannabe terrorists in training to blow shit up. Anybody who dresses up their baby in suicide bomber gear is fucked up, and these nations know that.
2. There is no possibility of a "Palestinian" State alongside Israel. Egypt doesn't trust it to exist in the Gaza Strip, Jordan doesn't want it in the West Bank, and Israel doesn't want it anywhere. No other part of the world wants it either, for the above reasons.
I would continue, but I have to run. An important phone call just came in. Chat with you all later.