This is an interesting double standard. Israel needs to learn to co-exist with its neighbors. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Israel needs to stop over-reacting to extremists? How ought Israel to react to extremists. And are they extremists if they are in the majority? Remember, it was the arabs not the Jews who refused to co-exist in 1947. It was Israel's neighbors who attacked in '48. Hamas, an organization with the fundamental objective of driving the Jews into the sea, was elected by a clear majority of Palestinians.
I'm not trying to shift the blame here, nor to be hostile and inflamatory, just to broaden the picture. It would of course be ideal if Israelis and Arabs could live together in peace, but at what point to we give that up as a bad job?

And Rico,
Since when is bombing a dairy plant an atrocity? And what do you suppose Israel has to gain by declairing war on the United Nations?

And as an historical aside, "Israel" got the name Palestine in 132 CE when the Romans defeated a Jewish revolt, slaughtered half a million Jews (in 132 CE mind you) and expelled those lucky enough to be left alive. That's the origin of your word, Palestine. Tell me your uncomfortable with the name Israel.

Uh, he didn't say he was uncomfortable calling it Israel. He said he wasn't happy with calling it the "Jewish homeland".

I took the use of quotation marks arond the name Israel, particularly when compared to the quotation marks around Jewish homeland, to be indicative of disapproval or at the very least skepticism. Context man, context.
But by all means, avoid confronting the meat of the issue by adressing an aside. Smooth rhetoric.

I didn't make any of the points you're disputing, and I'm not really inclined to get into the argument myself. I just prefer it when people address what other people have actually said. Perhaps he does feel the way you think he does. But he didn't say so, and that means anything you care to read into what he did say is the product of your mind, not his.

A product of my mind and of gramatical custom. But I apologize if my reply to your comment was overly acrimonious. My point was simply that I was replying to what he was implying. I was also trying to make a broader theoretical point about the use of the name Palestine to refer to Israel. People ought to know the implications of the names they choose to apply.

I'm not clear where your double standard is.

And, you know, if you give up the possibility of living together in peace as a bad job, there is only one remaining option, isn't there? Personally, I'm not looking forward to a genuine war of extermination.

Thank you.

It kind of is the Jewish homeland though, whether anyone who doesn't like it is confortable about it or not, that is the way it is.

How can Israel co-exist with its neighbors when its neighbors refus to co-exist with it (electing, for example, a goverment with the destruction of Israel as its main object. Hamas, just incase you need that spelled out.) It's a double standard to expect it to.

And, the point of my original post was that the Jewish evacuation of Israel is starting to seem like a plausible alternative to me at least. In no way do I now or have I ever advocated a war of extermination and neither has any other Jew that I've ever spoken with. So no, I don't concede that a war of extermination is the only alternative to peaceful co-existance and as I stated originally I think that it may be time for the Jewish community to start discussing other options, if only in a theoretical way at this point.

It has become abundantly cleat to me, however, that this is not the place to have any discussion motivated by anything other than deeply entrenched preconceptions (one way or the other) about who's the agressor and who's the victim and I withdraw my original request for such a discussion. I really should have known better. As far as I'm concerned, there's no need for this to go any farther conversation-wise.

Israel doesn't accept the existence of a Palestinian state either, by the way. Israeli zionists are at this very moment, annexing more of the West bank and Gaza, and systematically starving the people of Gaza to death and forcing them to live in conditions similar in nature to those that were found in the notorious Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi Occupation in Poland.

The Zionists have never made a single concession to peace in the middle east. At every prospect of talks, they move the goalposts and demand more for themselves all in the name of 'self defence'.

How can you possibly expect the Palestinians to respect Israel's right to exist, when that 'right' means that more and more palestinian land is being taken from them.

Israel claims the Palestinians want to 'push Israel into the sea' when they are literally doing this exact thing to more than a million people forced to live in death-camp conditions on a tiny strip of land, one tiny fraction of what used to be their home.
(and i'm not talking about historical home going back 2000 years)

I think you missed my point. I've had this discussion before and I didn't come here to have it again. You make some very good points for which there are very good counterarguments, none of which I came here to make. It's been done and it's largely a useless gesture on both sides. So, if I'm silent please don't take that as consent or defeat. I'm leaving now and will not returen, so please, the soap box is yours and you're welcome to it. But as I go I ask you this, have you ever seen anyone change their mind on either side as the result of this sort of dicussion?

One could make the same argument for the Palestinians...

The Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, indeed.