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If the average Palestinian working for a living is a nice guy and doesn't particularly want Israel's destruction (if that is indeed true), then why is it that Israel, whose leaders are just (foolishly jumping at any chance to get to negotiating table, seems to always get back to physical combat against their attackers.
The linked column explores this issue, and comes to the conclusion that when one side is seeking the annihilation of the other (as the leaders of Hamas and the PLO are seeking the destuction fo Israel) for the other side to ignore the attacks and try to negotiate is a fatal mistake.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves today. The Arabs who live in the countries that surround Israel are not bad people. They do not have horns and do not have a thirst for Jewish blood. And the Palestinians who live in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (or whatever terminology floats your boat) are not bloodthirsty killers or sub-human monsters.
Granted the cultural gulf that exists between them and us is more reminiscent of how we and the Japanese viewed one another during WWII. But even if the conflict more closely resembled the cultural fratricide that existed between the various European combatants during WWI, we would still be left to deal with the only thing that matters; the decisions and orders issued by the leaders.
You can write all the heartwarming anecdotes you want about mothers in Gaza and students in Bethlehem. Those nice people are not in a position to call the shots and are as much victims of this conflict as we are.
Until their leaders (and by this I mean the unambiguous, democratically elected leaders of the Palestinians people) unequivocally and finally denounce all armed hostilities against the people and nation of Israel, the two peoples... ALL OF THEM... will remain in a very real state of war.
(And please read the whole thing before you denounce it as the ravings of an extreme right-winger settler - an inaccurate label in this case).
