I've been reading your stuff at Salon for a while, and I agree with a lot of what you say. When I saw this column today I wanted to comment on it, but I didn't want to join the chorus of freaks so I came over here.

You said something that seems to require more support. I think I would agree with this if I just had a good argument to back it up. Here's what you said:

There isn't any "blood" or "pure" "races," and human groups have no special relationship to territory.

This is one of those statements that sounds sensible, but there are a lot of objections that could be made, and they are hard to explain away. For example, if I live at a place for 50 years, and I own it, and my great-grandfather owned it, and I want my grandkids to own it, isn't that a special relationship? How is it different for any group, large or small, that claims ownership of a place?

Isn't the whole Palestine conflict rooted in the fact that many or maybe even most people disagree with that statement? If you could get everyone to agree on that, wouldn't the whole problem be solved?

First, Israel pulls back to the pre-1967 borders.

Second, Jerusalem becomes an International City and the Israeli capital is re-acknowledged as Tel-Aviv. The Palestinians name their own capital.

Thirdly, the City-State of Jerusalem is physically defined to form many functions :

- The city will become host to most large-scale UN functions.
- Jerusalem will have a local security force AND a small supervising UN security force.
- The borders will be maintained by Israel and Palestine, either in tandem or separately.
- There will be an International airport.

- The area will be large enough to be physically defended and observe adjacent areas.
- The area will control the major local highland aquifers, and oversee per capita national allocations.
- The area will allow a transnational journey by either nationality. By passing through Jerusalem, an Israeli transits N/S, and a Palestinian travels E/W. This allows Palestine to have international borders with Jordan and Egypt, but not Syria or Lebanon, respecting current treaties and civilities.

Jerusalem will be a service, marketing, light manufacturing,and tourism zone. The UN will demand a large service economy. Each family unit will be prorated by size, then entered into a lottery for both a plot of residential land and a plot of commercial value. The allocations will be random to negate ghettos and insularity. The residential and UN infrastructure will be internationally funded and built immediately. The residents will have startup funding of some sort. The residents of Jerusalem will have ownership, equity, involvement, and potential.

The area will be a duty/tax free area, and the allocated ownership will be dispersed to the “right to return” Palestinians, the displaced Israeli colonists,
and all who have lost their homes for any reason attributed to the strife. ( This could include the nomadic Bedouin.) Internal agriculture (because of crowded conditions) will also be “eminent domain-ed”, the owners compensated, and they and the land are then included in the allocation.

There will be a local autonomous elected government, perhaps patterned after an American city's structure, with a taxing and spending power.

The Jerusalem area should be as small as possible, hence the agricultural exclusion. The land should be locally Israeli or Palestinian owned and occupied, as much as possible. The UN will have a large campus. Land will be allocated to public use, such as future parks, libraries, and infrastructure. A commercial sector will evolve from the segmented and populist ownerships.

The interwoven residential and commercial ownerships will not abide terrorism; neither will the UN functionaries. The key to controlling terrorism is to remove the cause and the base. This will do both. If the Israeli/Palestinian situation was settled to both their satisfactions, then the world, in full clarity, could neuter a main talking point of both Al-Queda and Iran. This would be a huge step towards World Peace.

I have spent five years on the Internet saying over and over again that Israel's leaders have always intended to do unto the Palestinians what America's leaders intended to do to its Native peoples. We are simply repeating the lies and evasions of 140 years ago, while the process of elimination continues. The thing that has changed is that rich white people no longer reproduce faster than their victims. So our secret expectations that the victims will soon disappear and let us off the hook are frustrated, and increasingly so are we.

I am an optimist: History, in the long run, always corrects itself. Justice for the Palestinians will come, one day or another, one way or another.