Israel is here to stay and so are the palestinians,so,stop the buldozers,give them a country of their own and see how that works out.If they still behave warlike towards Israel you can take punitive measures.
We can do that. Actually we have done that, look at Gaza.
Is there any reason to believe that if we just withdrew from the West Bank they would stop attacking us?
Look at the views of the Palestinians on the forum, they do not believe in peace even then. Only in peace when there is no Israel left.
Check out the published beliefs of the Hamas, a faction that has
more support then any other among Palestinian Arabs, which states black on white that no long term peace is possible with Israel,
ever.
How about the other more extreme factions, like Islamic Jihad, the popular front and the Al Quida off shots in Gaza?
Hamas may rule just Gaza but it has a widespread support in the West Bank as well. The same way the Arab Palestinian attacks did not start in 67' (and were actually one of the causes of the 56' war) they will not stop if Israel withdraws to the 67 border.
If Israel indeed withdraws from the WB then advanced weapons would flow into the West bank as well as Al Quida like factions, just like it happened in Syria and Libya. But unlike those countries Israel is small which means that immediately the transportation lines between south and north, our only international airport, our business center (Tel Aviv and it's outskirts) as well as much of our population would be under fire. But I am sure that like now EU and USA would pressure us to give peace a chance and just ignore the "victims of peace". This would allow for more heavy weapons and foreign fighters to make their way into the Palestinian land, making the inevitable war much much more bloody.
Eventually this would mean we will have to move back into the West Bank (just like after the Oslo accords after which Israel practically never went into their cities, which ended after 1,500 Israeli civilians dead in the course of a few years with operation chomat magen which retook those cities)
fast and with brutal force to stop this ASAP. now Israel is not Syria or Libya, the West Bank area is relatively small, and we are much more powerful then them, as well as much more motivated in a defensive war. The West Bank would be secured within months. But the price... there would be thousands, probably tens of thousands dead. Most of which Arabs since the war would be fought in the West Bank. the Palestinian cities? Check out conquered Syrian cities.
At this point it seems like this scenario is going to happen, sadly.
I believe there is a way to reach a (relatively) sustainable peace, which includes Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank. For this to work people have to realize that there are two sides to a peace deal, and Israel's withdrawal to whatever borders is not going to fix it. Just like Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 56' never led to peace but to more bloodshed, so would an unilateral withdrawal now.
Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving advanced agricultural farms intact. Farms that were generating tens of millions in exports to Europe and much food. What did they do? dismantled them and used the parts for rockets.
Palestinian Arabs have received more aid than the whole of Western Europe did after WW2. Do you know where this money goes? to support the families of suicide bombers, to prisoners many of which were arrested for trying or kilingl civilians and to corruption. They could have been the Singapore/Hong kong of the ME.
EU Report: Palestinians ‘lost’ €1.95 billion of aid money due to corruption
********.com - EU Report: Palestinians ?lost? ?1.95 billion of aid money due to corruption
this is nothing new either:
The Palestinian Authority has yet to draft a criminal and civil code. What passes for law is brute and capricious force, imposed by 41,000 members of seven separate police forces—police forces that may arrest without warrant and detain without due process. The 41,000 are the muscle in an obesity of a bureaucracy: the Palestinian Authority boasts no fewer than 80,451 employees, spread among 24 different ministries. Salaries for these employees consume more than half of the entire Palestinian national budget, which ran to $814 million in 1997.
Where does the rest of the money go? Almost all of it is stolen or dribbled away. The Palestinian Authority's own auditors reported last year that nearly 40 percent of the annual budget—$323 million—was wasted, looted, or misused. In President Arafat's regime, bribery is endemic, services are nil, connections are everything, and might is the only right there is.
Investing in Yasser Arafat