<This site gives you some idea of what a dog's breakfast the British administration of the Palestine area was before the creation of Israel. I'm not sure if there is any plausible way to sort this out anymore. The Arabs want every last Jew dead or gone, and the Jews decline this proposal.

This entire section of the Middle East is a goat-filled, sun-scorched hellhole. Without the industry and inventiveness of the Israelis to make the desert green, or the oil under the Arab lands to pump wealth to the Arab world, this planetary armpit would contain little except tents and people eating sheep eyeballs, with a global significance equivalent to that of Mongolia.

The Palestinian problem could have been solved instantly years ago, by absorbing Palestinians into other Arab countries, or by forming a Palestinian state from some small chunk of the vast millions of square miles of the Arab nations. It's not like Palestine itself is particularly attractive, or has gold, or oil, or anything else to recommend it.

But then, with the camps gone, where would they get the cannon fodder to try and kill off the Jews?

As long as religious fanatics see one set of sun-bleached rocks as more holy than any other set of sun-bleached rocks, this is going to continue.

In my more cynical moments, I figure the best bet is to back off entirely, let the Palestinians and Israelis kill each other off down to the last man, then we can go in, grab the real estate, build some nice casinos and a few McDonalds, and make souvenir chia planters out of all the smoking skulls laying around. Ah, well. Back to reality.

What's actually going to happen is that the Palestinian terrorists (which, as Frank has theorized, may be beyond Arafat's control) are going to push Israel too far, and Israel is going to shove the Palestinians into the sea, much as we are doing to the Taliban (except without the sea.) Our country, of course, will be "shocked" at this, which won't look very consistent given our current response to terrorist attacks.

The other Arab countries may decide to jump in, or, with Israel's nukes firmly in mind, may decide that staying home and driving their limos around may be a better use of their time. They may decide to shut off our oil if we don't bring Israel under control, using our financial support as leverage. Who knows? If I was any good at this sort of thing I'd be playing the stock market.

All I do know is that this is not going to be pretty.