An Israeli historian on the settlements

An important point about Israel-Palestine:

Beyond that he had the striking observation that since Israel signed on to the "road map" and thereby committed to dismantling "unauthorized" settlement outposts (i.e., the ones that are illegal under Israeli law) only nine houses have been removed. Meanwhile, he said that while just two percent of the Occupied Territories are actually under settlement control, a much larger swathe of the West Bank is now off-limits to Arabs, either because it's been set aside for further settlement expansion or else because it's part of the network of no-Arabs-allowed roads that connect the settlements, etc.

And, if you take a look at a map of the West Bank, you'll see that Israeli control extends up and down the actual west bank of the Jordan River -- nobody expects this control to be relaxed, so even if the rest of the West Bank were released, the Palestinians would be fundamentally at Israel's mercy.

This is a pretty elemental fact, but somehow we keep expecting the Palestinians to meekly accept this without resorting to violence. I wonder if we'd be so sanguine if the Americans seized our side of the St. Lawrence.