I offer these thoughts on the eve of elections in Israel.
I have a colleague who is Israeli, a university professor and, like most Israeli men, a veteran of the IDF. He once said to me that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was not only the biggest mistake Israel ever made, but also, he continued, the biggest mistake that any country made in the entire 20th century. I played Devil's Advocate and stated that, for what it was worth, Jordan did, in that particular part of the 1967 conflict, fire on Israel first. They shelled West Jerusalem, I said. Yes, my colleague countered. And they shelled Netanya also. I'm not saying we shouldn't have hit them back and him them hard, he said. All I'm saying is that once the last Jordanian soldier had retreated over the Jordan River, we should have withdrawn to the 1949 border.
I mention this because that conversation, which took place perhaps five years ago, has informed my view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since.
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