Middle East conflicts

I think there won't be peace till both sides recognise that you have to sit down and negotiate. You can't unilaterally declare peace any more than you can unilaterally declare you are a winner in a war (the other side has to formally surrender in a treaty - i.e. both sides need to agree the war has ended) or go for unilateral nuclear disarmanent. I'm always surprised when the unilateralists are surprised that the other party has carried on - of course they have, there was no agreement to stop. Agreement only comes with negotiation. Sadly, I don't think either party is ready to negotiate yet - both entertain fantasies that they can impose their will by force. But at some point people will get tired, and then they will talk. In Northern Ireland, the point came when the IRA found that the Republic of Ireland was getting fed-up of them and didn't want to anything to do with their cause. The IRA's whole aim was to unify Ireland, but impossible to do it if the Republic was not interested. The reason the Republic was not interested was because they joined the euro and started making serious money and fighting about the past seemed a distraction. At the same time the Americans, who had financed IRA terrorism, stopped doing so, so the IRA had nowhere else to go except the discussion table. The Unionists also recognised that they couldn't continue to discriminate against the Catholics -that way just led to protest, because no one lies down and just accepts discrimination. Something similar will happen in Israel/Palestine. The Americans will stop aiding Israel. Israel will recognise that discriminating and being cruel to Palestinians is wrong. The Palestinians will recognise that they can't reclaim the whole of israel and will settle for the west bank and gaza, and will recognise Israel. And finally you will have peace. But to get there, you all need to get sick of war first, and you are not there yet.

I think that there is a lot to the issue that we do not see if we just go by what is on the media. I think that this will be an ongoing issue until the end of time unless one side or the other decides to change something. Do you think that the media portrays the conflict correctly so that we get the full effect of it?