Bubba
I don't think you really understand what you are talking about.
The violence started for a number of reasons. Success of the Jews was perhaps a small part of it, but there were many Jewish settlers before WWII who were not successful and who were involved in acts of violence against the largely Arab community in Palestine. Even today there are non-Arab beggars in both West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I tried to be balanced and emphasised that the initial settlements were arranged by negotiation and many Arabs welcomed the new trading opportunities afforded.
The Palestinian Arabs are not clamouring to work in Israel any more than the other countries you mention. Over half of the current population of Jordan comes from Palestine, there are large numbers of Palestinians working in Lebanon and Syria and to a lesser extent in Egypt. The Palestinian diaspora, about two thirds of the total Palestinian population is scattered throughout the ME and exists also in the US and UK. Those Palestinians seeking to work in Israel are doing so because it is the closest place. The Arab population of East Jerusalem lives in close proximity to West Jerusalem (yards not miles) - why look for work in Jordan (30 miles), Egypt, Syria and Lebanon (no borders and no transit passes allowed by Israel). The population of Gaza can work nowhere else. The small industries that Arabs favour have been smashed by Israel - jewellery shops are called 'bomb making' factories because of the chemicals used, metal workshops are bulldozed for the same reason.
Yasser Arafat's wife Sonia is a Christian and there are Christians in the PA (most famously Hanan Ashrawi has been involved in diplomatic negotiations on the part of Palestine). The Christian community is indeed in meltdown - when I was in Palestine Hamas planted a particularly bad bomb and the Israelis went ploughing into Bethlehem. What would you do if you were blamed for the work of your enemies?
Nobody lives under the PA. Israel occupies towns and villages at will. At the time of the Jenin punch up last year Israel had invaded all the major Palestinian towns bar Jericho and smashed the hospitals, schools and public buildings and burnt all the records. The Muqatta, Arafat's HQ, is reduced to rubble. How can you run an authority when your Parliament is not allowed to meet unless Israel allows Gaza representatives to cross its territory? Frequently PA meetings are cancelled because MPs are detained. E-mail doesn't work - Israel confiscated the Palnet servers for 4 days last year (I had a Palnet account so was considerably p*ssed off).
Arafat was democratically elected. The UN declared the results of the PA elections as free and fair. There has not been a repeat election and Arafat should have stood down some years ago (hence 'one man, one vote, one time'). The UN will not allow fresh PA elections to take place because the conditions are not right and Israel will not allow campaigning by those political groups of which it disapproves. The election of George Bush was less fair than the election of Yasser Arafat.
You refer to 'poll after poll' - polling by whom of whom? The Palestinians are understandably unwilling to participate in such things.
Yes, some Arabs who have traded with Israelis have been murdered. I didn't say they hadn't and I didn't suggest that they hadn't. The PM of Israel was assassinated by an Israeli for deakling with the PA.
Re international law - I refer you to the Fourth Protocol to the Geneva Convention. The demolition of Palestinian homes is illegal, the settlement of Palestinian land is illegal and the failure to provide for the welfare of the Palestinians is illegal.
The biblical Philistines did not become extinct, but like most of the Jews in Palestine during the Islamic conquest they were assimilated into the population and learnt Arabic. The Palestinian Arabs are not from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a twentieth century creation. The tribes and peoples that populated the provinces of the Ottoman empire moved freely within its loose boundaries, but the idea that Hejaz Arabs have moved into Palestine in modern times is absurd. The present Palestinians have lived in the area for centuries. The idea that some resettled Europeans have the right to dispossess them is absurd. The removal of a people is ethnic cleansing. The Arabs have a right to be where they are. I do not subscribe to the idea that the Jews from northern Europe have any prior right based on a book that is disputed. Palestine was not empty when the European settlers arrived and they had no right to take the land.
Sadly Bubba, unlike you, I have been there seen it done it. My post is based on fact, you are the one who lowers the tone of the debate by not accepting the Balfour Declaration is fact, Herzl's writings are fact (have you read them), the Geneva Convention and UN resolutions are international law and what I saw with my own eyes is fact.