TOWARDS A 'JEWISH' SPRING...YES, I'M A DREAMER

This is getting uncomfortable: I find myself once again agreeing with Benjamin Netanyanu, Israel's Ian Paisley. Mr Netanyahu has said that a 'peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality'. Yes, Mr Netanyahu, it will.

So perhaps a tiny state surrounded by at best truculent, at worst hostile countries, supported by the USA to the tune of billions of dollars a year and with equivalent areas of someone else's land under occupation by Israeli troops and heavily armed and zealous 'settlers', to use the term preferred over 'occupiers' holding the high ground might consider its long term situation illusional.

Israel needs a 'Jewish Spring' of youth like in so many of the Arab neighbours it likes to dismiss as undemocratic, with younger, less dogmatic people who can see the future and can spot an opportunity for a real lasting peace with countries like Egypt, which has started along what will be a rocky path towards genuine freedom and which could probably do without the aggravation of continued Palestinian oppression on its doorstep to give Egyptian hardliners and (the minority of) religious nutters in Egypt that we in the 'West' are so scared of something to latch on to as they oppose democracy.

But sadly, we can expect old timers like the brilliant Israeli government storyteller, Mark Regev, not to mention Mr Netanyahu, to explain how Israel is striving for peace with its oppression, its denial of human, economic and water rights to Palestinians, its continued colonisation of Palestine etc etc ad nauseaum for decades to come. Barack Obama will face AIPAC this weekend and he will backtrack in the face of the most efficient lobbying machine in the world. And we will be back to square one.

Come on Israelis: wake up and smell the coffee. If you try hard enough, it smells of peace - real peace, not armed, oppressive peace. The ludicrous Yasser Arafat talked of a 'peace of the brave'. What about a 'peace of the sensible democrats' instead?

PALESTINE-ISRAEL: STILL THE SHOUTING GOES ON

With apologies for the move away from political navel gazing, I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with arch schemer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the speech by US President Obama. Mr Netanyahu has said that the 1967 ceasefire borders between Israel and Palestinian territories then controlled by Egypt and Jordan are indefensible and that a peace agreement made on this basis is unworkable.

Well, if he thinks this, he must come up with a viable alternative which recognises all the grievances of the Palestinians, such as the status of Jerusalem, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the issue of illegal settlements across the West Bank and the intolerable treatment by Israel of over 1m people in Gaza.

He won't because it is not possible for an Israeli Politician to address these issues under current circumstances. Israel feels embattled and under threat and the policy of the Israeli government for decades to hit them before they hit us has patently failed.

There is a solution, which will be achieved at some time in the future, although it is almost certain that it will be many years - and thousands of lives wasted - down the line. In 1947 a plan was proposed by the new - and still idealistic - United Nations for a single state shared between Arabs and Jews, with Jerusalem as an 'international' city, with a shared country and demilitarisation. Most Israelis would howl in horror at the suggestion that this could work as it would mean the end of a state built on a religion - itself an ugly concept in a plural world. (I can think of only Pakistan as another state based on faith - and look how successful that has been)

What it could mean is a unique opportunity to get the fulsome support of the Arab regimes which are undergoing their own massive upheavals, the opportunity for Israelis to enjoy peace for the first time ever, the complete neutering of Hezbollah in Lebanon if it does not have a cause to fight for and the gratitude of millions of people around the world as a major cause for the artificial divide between the invented camps of 'The West' and 'Islam' is removed.

That's my problem: I'm a dreamer. Perhaps my grandchildren will be able to travel in peace around the eastern Mediterranean to view the sites: the old crusader castles, the great mosques, the eternal city of Jerusalem, the absurd wall which divided people for no reason.

Perhaps.