(September 5, 2016 at 4:07 pm)RobertE Wrote: I don't think anyone was actually moving in an opposite direction here. Perhaps I am just hoping that in the long run, one day Israel will slowly open up to the Palestinian people and embrace them, just as they would their own families.
That's one thing many powers in Israel don't want to do. I keep saying that for decades. Either make them full citizens enjoying the same rights or withdraw to allow for their own state. Both won't happen in the foreseeable future.
Israel isn't as secular as some may believe. Far as I know they still haven't got the instrument of secular marriages. Maybe they have by now, but I don't know. Many secular young people go to Cyprus to get married because they don't want a rabbi at their weddings. And mixed marriages are as accepted as interracial ones in the USA of the 50ies.