israelskeleton

I refer all legal questions to my lawyer, Saul Goodman. --Better Call Saul

Interesting question. I will try to do it justice in the short space we have here. I was in Israel during the 2006 war with Lebanon. It was my first exposure to the actual tensions in the region, apart from learning about them. I also took a year off in Israel prior to matriculating at MIT. I have seen and met individuals from the West Bank and Gaza, and obviously I was raised as someone who is proudly Jewish and Zionist.

That being said, I believe the situation does not revolve around settlements. Settlements are largely a modern issue, and i'll address them below, so bear with me. The region itself is a modern region, with borders and boundaries largely redrawn after the first World War and the fall of the Ottoman empire. Therefore I do not believe that settlements are the problem, or root cause of the conflict. They certainly were not behind the wars in 1948 and 1967. What I view as a major issue is that you have an entire generation of people, the Palestinians, who have been raised to believe that their birthright was stolen from them. It is taught in schools, in textbooks, and on children's television shows. At the same time you have leaders who grossly mishandle funds and resources that are meant to better the lives of their people. Yasser Arafat died with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank and those were not from book royalties. And you have as well a largely apathetic surrounding Arab population which do not want to acknowledge the problem. Jordan has many, many Palestinians who live without the rights of full citizens. So the current generation of Palestinians have immense societal pressure, which is directed at Israel (Jews), and the West. Turning down 97% of what you negotiate for (Arafat), or even more than that (Abbas) is irresponsible and fans these tensions.

At the same time you do have settlements that are built, and yes, you have soldiers in the West Bank. Both of these do not help the situation from quelling angst, yet are not the cause of the issue. There is no Israeli soldier left in Gaza. It is no-Jew land. Yet despite a complete withdrawal from this area Israel remains under threat from tunnels dug into Kibbutzim to function as a means to murder the Jewish population, and rockets, made of the same infrastructure that could instead be used to build up the area. Despite legalities, soldiers in the west bank have saved countless Israeli lives. The metrics of successful terror attacks before and after these measures were implemented are very, very clear.

Unauthorized settlements are illegal according to Israeli law. And I believe in the rule of law.

"If I am going to live, I want to live fully. Very intensely, because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially."

--Ayrton Senna

aly raisman! She's an inspiration as a Jewish medalist. She really encompasses what I'm trying to accomplish and she's inspired other athletes to strive for athletic excellence even coming from communities which do not have much of an emphasis on sports.

Jews are funny, what can I say?