Is Israel a terrorist state?

[RozzySean]

Israel has never tried to find a peaceful solution to the problem, quite the opposite in fact. No Israeli government is capable of making any kind of good-faith peace offer as the balance of power in Israel is always held by extremist religious parties who have the power to collapse any government at any time. Currently Netanyahu can't even order a freeze on settlement building on Palestinian land because if he does it's the end of his government.

Wrong. Barak and Rabin both tried to find peaceful solutions. Labour governments have be formed without getting in bed with Shas or the other right wing parties. Both of those PMs have supported two state solutions. The other side doesn't believe Israel should exist as a a state at all. Yes, Bibi is dependent on far right to keep his government together, but a signficant reason why Bibi was able to draw together a coalition is that so many Israeli peaceniks jumped ship because it became clear that the other side wasn't interested in peace.

I've lived there. I've broken bread with both ultra-orthodox Jews and ordinary Palestinians. The settlements are not the real issue. It's all about Jerusalem's sovereignty, "the right of return", and both indirectly and directly, the right of Israel to exist at all. I have a good friend who is an Israeli-Arab. Israel could dismantle every settlement, even the ones that are Jerusalem suburbs at this point. Without giving back full sovereignty of the entire old city of Jersusalem and giving "right of return" the Palestinians have no interest in a peaceful solution. The things Israel would have to give the Palestinians at this point would be the first step of the end of Israel.

Barak couldn't even make a public offer at Camp David because his government would have collapsed overnight back in Israel if he had done. After the talks collapsed he claimed he'd made a peace offer but in reality he didn't, and that's according to the Clinton officials who were there at the time. Rabin was shot by a Jewish extremist before he could make any peace offer but any offer would have collapsed his government too. The people who hold the balance of power in Israeli politics are people who believe the whole of the West Bank is Israeli and their holy book gives them the right to take it back and drive the Palestinians into Jordan. Add on guys like Lieberman who are outright fascists and you have a bloc that can veto any kind of peace move. If you honestly beleive the settlemets -- Israel building on the 22% of historic Palestine that they etnically cleansed the Palestinians into -- aren't an obstacle to any settlement then there's nothing I can say. Israel have done everything they can to block any kind of peaceful settlement over the years.

In the long run unless Israel can make a viable good-faith peace offer they're fucked, as some of their politicians are now realising. But because the nutjobs have a veto over any peace plan they're destined to face a South Africa-like situation and eventually be subsumed in a one-state solution which will be majority Palestinian.

No. There will be no peace until we all bow down and say "allah akbar" or we do some things that most westerners can't justify in their soft, progressive minds. Your post is factually incorrect. There is no point going on with this. You have no idea what you are talking about, even more than usual.