Donnie - I'm still waiting for evidence of starvation among Palestinians which you've promised. Actually you'll find that Israel was very careful and calculating that there wouldn't be starvation in gaza. There's plenty you can criticize Israel for but to make things up for propaganda always backfires.
Israelis (there wasnt such a thing prior to 1948 anyway) didn't invade and steal their land. No land was stolen prior to 1948 yet the Arabs just couldn't live with Jews in Israel, no compromise. Yes, Arabs who fled in 1947/48 did lose their property. That was a historical injustice (although not the worst by the standards of the time) and there should certainly be compensation as part of a peace deal (maybe the Arab countries will also compensate the million Jewish refugees from arab countie who also Lost their property and land?). But why are Palestinians still refugees nearly 70 years later? Why did the Arabs turn down the UN partition plan in 1947? The whole nakba could have been avoided. Why did they announce the three nos of Khartoum in 1967?
Israel isnt preventing freedom of movement within gaza, it doesn't control gaza. It doesn't want the gazans in Israel, understandably, since a very small minority kept on blowing themselves up. Gaza has a border with Egypt. Why cant they go to Egypt? Same langauage, same religion, dont blow egyptians up. Israel evacuated every last settlement in gaza. It got rockets in return, talk about playing into the hands of the israeli right wing! now the settlers say 'you think evacuating the settlements will lead to peace, look at gaza you naive fools' and the left wing are then left going 'but, but, but' and not very convincing.
The settlements shouldn't be there and they're certainly a major obstacle but they didn't exist until the early 1970s so let's not pretend its the only issue. And Israel has offered the Palestinians peace deals which included evacuating the majority of the settlements (land wise) and land exchanges for the big blocs close to the border. But the Palestinians chose to start the second intifada. It's so sad.
And while I opposed the wall initially, the simple fact is that it has worked. Since Palestinians have been stopped entering Israel easily, the number of terrorist attacks and Israeli civilians killed has dropped dramatically. In 2002/3/4 it was terrifying in Israel, almost every day there was an attack. Of course it's not a permanent solution and it should have been built on Israeli land but I do feel conflicted about it - despicable it may be but it did the job it was meant to do. It was a direct result of constant Palestinian terror attacks against civilians.