The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were resettled in 722 B.C. in Iran. Assyria, the nation that is now Iraq, took the 10 tribes captive and relocated them in Iran (historic Persia). Iranian Jews are descendent of these exiled tribes. Their exile is a historical fact. Often, the people defeated were scattered and exiled. Judah and Benjamin, two tribes later known as the Jews, claim Israel as their as their ancient homeland.

Jews and the Palestinians, whatever they were called then, were both in Middle East at the same time. Both Arabs and Jews have historical claims to the land.

I suggest a Federal States of Israel-Palestine as one nation should be a considertion for creating a lasting peace.

The Persian people have not been the enemies of the Jewish people historically but the capture of Jerusalem changed the calculus somewhat but the Shia are a different breed of cat from the Sunnis.Iran still views itself as the proud successors to the Persian empire but they are a bunch of heretics to the rest of the Moslem majority. A point somewhat lost on our esteemed Condi-Rubberstamp

The time for negotiations is in limbo because of the following; the weakness of the Olmert administration,the total ineffectiveness of the Bush administration,the weakness of the Abbas regime, and an inability to accept the fact that the real players are Hamas and Ahmadinejad. Yes these folks say they don’t recognize Israel;so what! Every country that was lined up against Israel in 1948 said that originally. Ahmadinejad just likes to pull Israel’s chain by denying the Holocaust (he can’t be that dumb) and there even those in this country who have made that statement including Mel Gibson’s father(big surprise after you see the Passion)and Pat Buchanen. I’m sure that Barak wouldn’t have given Iran the gift of not having to now worry about a militant Sunni-secular Iraq to worry about. So parsing about what “Pro-Israel” means and who is and who isn’t is just mindless rhetoric and it concerns any of the presidential candidates

Given that I am not that pessimistic about finding something less dysfunctional, we should recognise that actually all of the Arab states have long accepted the existence of Israel, and indeed are dependent upon Israel for their stability. Israel faces no existential threat (as I think we have been reminded recently on this blog).

It is a matter of finding a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and that is not going to be helped by further integrating the US into the management. Americans don’t have to live here and recently have started to act like a corrupting sugar-daddy, making it too easy to pursue the short term at the expense of long-term solutions.

I have written an article On Zionism: why those that really want to help the Palestinians should become Zionists and those that really want to help Israel should support Barack Obama’s policy of engaging Iran. It draws together observations on the writings of Gershom, Jeffery Goldberg and the other Atlantic bloggers, Jimmy Carter, Seth Freedman to try and make sense of why discussion surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy by so many highly intelligent people can be so often confused and polarised.

I will be grateful for any feedback.

I presume you are referring to when Obama said “to be pro-Israel is not necessarily pro-Likud”, and that being “pro-Israel” to many “Progressives” and “J-Street Lobby” types means pressing Israel to make unilateral concessions, pressing Israel to take moves that endanger its security, giving weapons and money to a Palestinian Authority that has never tried to stop terrorism and steals aid that is given to it.

Obama might not be aware of it, but the Likud has been in power in the past and may come to power again. So what he is saying is that he will put himself at odds with an elected Israel government, in addition to majority opinion of Jews in the United States. I don’t see how you can call this “pro-Israel”. He has the right to do this because his job as President would be to look out for American interests, and if he thinks Israel’s interests conflict with this, he should ooenly say so, but not claim it is “being pro-Israel”. (Shmuel Rosner recently wrote in Ha’aretz about how the term “pro-Israel” has come to be applied to everyone who thinks the Jews shouldn’t be summarily thrown into the sea and has lost all meaning). Of course one can claim “Only I know the truth and what I define as good for Israel even if everyone else opposes it”, but then those who oppose these views have every right to deny that this is really being “pro-Israel”.

We have had 60 years of experimenting about the Israeli- Palestinian struggle. The region would need help before we will be dragged into a World War III.

No one can reject the fact that creation of Israel on the land of Arabic nations has created tremendous political and economical problems for the United States. We may have to look outside of the box to diffuse the problems. One solution would be for Israel joining us as a member of the Unites States’ Common Wealth.

Would Israel consider joining us as a member of the Unites States’ Common Wealth?
What are costs and benefits for US?

We are already supporting Israel economically, politically and by sharing intelligence and military hardware. In addition, some Israeli Americans with both Israeli and American citizenships serve in the Israeli Armed Forces. Israel never would have to be fearful of any other nation; our great American Armed Forces will protect the common wealth as they would the homeland.

Would it be politically more advantages for the United States to manage the Jewish state as a member of our Common Wealth?

Would it be economically more advantages for Israeli people to be a member of our nation?

The Israeli Common Wealth will be free to exercise the religious freedom that our great nation would offer without being isolated among the hostile Arabs.

Should the Common Wealth include the Arabs who were forced to leave the land when Zionist invaded the land?

Should the area of the Common Wealth include all of the Palestinian Land?

Would really two nation model for Palestinian and Israeli work in the future?

Should we be looking at the region as a Federal States with one government elected by all of the people?

We have been forced in one box by the Israeli Lobby; we need to look outside of this box. What do you think?