The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict : Guilt on Both Sides

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We should not argue about who is to blame [for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict].There is enough guilt on both sides. / Uri AvneriSmoldering since the late 1920s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reached its first climax immediately after the State of Israel was founded on May 15, 1948. Devised by European nations as the``perfect solution'', the new state received a large number of displaced Jews who were unwelcome in their countries of origin.We can only answer a few of the myriad yet unasked questions. What we know for sure is that more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or escaped from Israel/Palestine after 1948. About 470,000 of them fled to refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The rest scattered all over the world. Deprived of citizenship and human rights, Palestinians have remained refugees in most of the Arab world until this day. Why?By 2013, more than 150 settlements and towns populated by more than half a million Jews had been built on confiscated land on the West Bank. Even moderate Palestinian leaders consider these confiscations a provocation. Israel is increasingly turning into an apartheid state and its political standing is constantly deteriorating. The Israeli intellectual elite has always raised its voice against the occupation and the settlements, arguing that human rights and equality--two pillars of Zionism--are being violated.Time has come for the voice of reason, which calls for a two-state solution, to be heard.