A Slow, Steady Genocide: "Elmer: To close, Professor Reinhart, how do we end the war of 1948?

"Reinhart: The most obvious way is the one that somehow no one happens to think about: the only way to end an occupation is to get out of the Occupied Territories. In fact, this can be done immediately, within a month or two. The majority of Israeli settlers are concentrated in relatively small settlement blocks. The forty Israeli settlements that are scattered within the Palestinian Territories have very few residents. Despite controlling the land, Israel hasn't actually managed to settle large areas of the West Bank. The majority of these settlers are willing - even begging - to get out and back into Israel, with compensation for what they invested.

"If you ask Israelis, if you pose the idea of immediate unilateral withdraw in polls - and this is not often done - the answer you get is up to 60% support, so it is very easy to convince the Israelis to do this. The only problem is that the Israeli elite, the government and the army, are still motivated by greed of land. They want the Palestinian land, and so they have to invent ways of postponing the idea of withdrawal by either the Oslo model - endless negotiations - or by keeping Israeli fears alive, and provoking terror."

A Slow, Steady Genocide: "Elmer: To close, Professor Reinhart, how do we end the war of 1948?

"Reinhart: The most obvious way is the one that somehow no one happens to think about: the only way to end an occupation is to get out of the Occupied Territories. In fact, this can be done immediately, within a month or two. The majority of Israeli settlers are concentrated in relatively small settlement blocks. The forty Israeli settlements that are scattered within the Palestinian Territories have very few residents. Despite controlling the land, Israel hasn't actually managed to settle large areas of the West Bank. The majority of these settlers are willing - even begging - to get out and back into Israel, with compensation for what they invested.

"If you ask Israelis, if you pose the idea of immediate unilateral withdraw in polls - and this is not often done - the answer you get is up to 60% support, so it is very easy to convince the Israelis to do this. The only problem is that the Israeli elite, the government and the army, are still motivated by greed of land. They want the Palestinian land, and so they have to invent ways of postponing the idea of withdrawal by either the Oslo model - endless negotiations - or by keeping Israeli fears alive, and provoking terror."