JERUSALEM: Let’s face it. Viewed from North America, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a dismal read. Seen in full context, the confrontation is suffocatingly complex. As literature, it is paralytic, sullenly wordy. The plot, for all its spasms and blood, goes nowhere. As drama, the Israel-Palestine morass is the geopolitical equivalent of James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanicâ€: interminable, exorbitant, unwieldy, dumb without just cause. Titanic-like, it tempts the observer to bail out in mid-course, seething under the breath “Sink, already! Just #*%&-ing sink!†This may explain why it often seems that the only participants left standing—that is to say, still interested—in the debate over the future of Israel and Palestine, are extremists. These are the evangelists of the zero-sum. They are the activists for the One State Solution, that is, One State for My Side Alone. They are the misers of spirit who believe that this land cannot be big enough for the both of us. The full text of this article can be found at: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150311.html ### * Bradley Burnston writes for Ha’aretz. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Ha’aretz. Source: Ha’artz, 17 February 2010, www.haaretz.com