Originally Posted by ZFBoxcar

Wrong order of events I believe. Israel made segregated highways when the main conflict was between Israel and the PLO outside the territories (aka terrorist attacks by the PLO on airliners etc). The Palestinian population, while no doubt hating Israel, was not in active conflict with Israel in any serious way. Its possible I'm mistaken on that, but if you think so, please provide a source. I'll try to find a source. In the meanwhile, I'd like to see some sources that prove you right as well on the order of events.

Also, I suppose you are somehow going to argue that the Palestinians FORCED Israel to take the lion's share of their water leaving them with almost nothing for their own agriculture?

I don't know why you suppose that, since I never made anything like the above argument.

So for the sake of revenge, you demand that the population exchange has to go both ways, even when there is no need for it? Israeli Arabs have done nothing to deserve expulsion, while Israeli settlers DO cause hardships for Palestinians both through their own actions and by the required IDF presence to protect them.Depends on which settlers. The border settlements that are fully fledged cities do not cause much hardships for the Palestinians. Sure there are some people who have been cut off from plots of land by the security fence, otherwise not really. Israeli Arabs do not contribute to society the same way Jews do, they don't do national service. If they act like its not their country, then maybe it shouldn't be. I'm sure you'll retort with the fact that many ultra-orthodox Jews also don't serve. And I think they should do their duty or get out as well.

I used to share your view of ethnic conflictAs do a lot of political science scholars who have degrees with more letters than mine., and if Israeli Arabs are willing to go for it or be bought out or whatever, fine. But I care about Israel maintaining its democracy, and one thing a democracy doesn't do is strip 20% of its inhabitants of citizenship and kick them out of the country.

I can see some justification for maintaining border settlements that can be easily geographically integrated into Israel (in exchange for a bit of Israeli territory), but look at Ariel on a map! It's location is ridiculous unless you want to prevent a Palestinian state from emerging at all. Maaleh Adumim prejudices negotiations on Jerusalem, essentially trying to establish before negotiations what should be determined during it. There is no sense in arguing that the settlements are simply neighbourhoods that just magically appeared out of nowhere. Many of the inhabitants are religious, but the tax breaks, cheap land deals, cheap water supplies, etc, are evidence that it was a political program from the beginning to make the West Bank Israeli forever. If you want to say it SHOULD be Israeli forever, fine, we've got a whole other argument. But if not, then any settlement that makes a Palestinian state impossible needs to go.I wonder what your definition of making such a state impossible is?