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That's not what that link actually says. it doesn't say Israel as a country owns the place b/c of the (defensive) war. It argues the place has a status such that there's nothing wrong with individual israelis choosing to build homes there. it also makes some important points you left out, e.g. that trying to kick all jews out of the area would be ethnic cleansing, and that whatever you think of this issue it cannot justify terrorism.

the issue with millions of hostile persons becoming israel voters is not paralleled by any similar issue with some settlements in palestine. first, isn't the population figures of the settlements more in line with the amount of arabs already in israel than with trying to take over? second, the israel settlers are not, as a whole, hostile/violent/dangerous to have in your country, so there's no reason to mind them. palestinians, while some individuals are decent folk, as a group they are dangerous, like it or not it's simply a fact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01...



In my view there is a difference between maintaining/allowing existing settlements and constructing new ones. I agree that the issue of existing settlements has some more difficult questions, because it is, as you say, a serious thing to talk about evicting people from where they currently live.

That said, the construction of new settlements seems like a totally unnecessary provocation that undermines the prospect of a future Palestinian state. It very much gives me the impression that Israel is not serious about a two-state solution (in contrast with the withdrawal from Gaza, which very strongly had given me the opposite impression). I don't think it's appropriate to say what Palestinians should or should not "mind" having around; a major element of (future) sovereignty is a people being able to make their own decisions about immigration, as Israel does now. And while Israeli settlers may not be violent "as a whole," there is certainly a noticeable incidence of Israeli settler violence that targets Palestinians: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settler_violence

I agree that empirically, a lot of violence is waged on Israelis by Palestinians. However I think it's wrong to frame them as an inherently violent people. You might have said the same thing about Jordanians in 1967, but now Israel and Jordan are allies. Likewise the PLO, which called for the destruction of Israel in its founding charter, has since recognized Israel's right to exist and rejected violence and terrorism. I'm not denying current Palestinian violence, which is awful.




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