You make a good point, Chris. I was dead set against a Palestinian state for a long time. Now it is probably inevitable, and does offer some advantages.
1. Palestine will be a nation-state and will be expected to behave like one. Legitimate governments do not sponsor terror. They can be put on the state sponsors of terror list and we can refuse to give them any aid or trade with them.
2. Once they are a country they can be invaded if clear provocation is shown.
3. It will take away a major gripe that the Arab world has against us. (In my opinion most of the leaders of Arab nations could not care less about the "Palenstinians", however they use it as an excuse to spurn us.) Al Qaeda claims to care, more or less, though I don't read about Al Qaeda activity in Palestine. SO politically it might be a good move.
I am still not comfortable with taking Israeli land, but everyone will answer to god someday.
The problem is that the Palestinians will >not< be expected to behave like a normal nation state; people will go on making excuses for them forever. I really think that anti-Semitism will be the (unspoken) factor here forever. Look at all the displacements that took place after WWII--the division of India and Pakistan, the forced marches of ethnic Germans, the "shifting" of the Polish-Ukranian border....Yet the only one that plagues us today is the simplest---600,000 Arabs who had to moved within the old Palestinian mandate. The mandate was divided 83% for the Arabs, 17% for the Israelis---even though the Arabs had been open allies of the Axis! Can you think of any other instance where Hitler's friends were rewarded?
In a politically correct world, no one seems to care that recycled Nazi propaganda is regular fare in Arab countries, and especially among the Palestinians! Mein Kamp and the Protocals of the Elders of Zion are best sellers on the West Bank. Yet no one says a word, and Israel is expected to make peace with people who are fed the most virulent propaganda against her. I'm afraid Palestinian statedhood will change none of this.
Palestine will be a nation-state and will be expected to behave like one. Legitimate governments do not sponsor terror. They can be put on the state sponsors of terror list and we can refuse to give them any aid or trade with them.
2. Once they are a country they can be invaded if clear provocation is shown.
3. It will take away a major gripe that the Arab world has against us.
___At last! An insightful understanding as to why a Palestinian state is in both Israel's and the USA's best interests.
If the new Palestinian state foments terror, it can be legitimately conquered and no one will be able to say that it didn't deserve the reprisal.
If the state is peaceful, then some sort of accommodation between Palestinian Arab and Israeli is possible and in everyone's best interest.
I believe that Sharon came into office with the belligerent attitude exhibited by so many on these Middle East threads but with the responsibility of power in his hands, he saw that a continued occupation was draining Israel and that annexation of land held by millions of Arabs was impossible.
Some sort of separate state is the solution.