There has been violence in Palestine virtually non-stop for the past one hundred years. People never fight harder than they do defending their homes, and both sides believe their home is in danger of being taken away (or has been taken away) by the opposing side. The Israelis and Palestinians have both committed atrocities against each other, which are to numerous to list, that have been a source of hatred for generations. There have been thousands attempts at peace, most of which never got anywhere before the negotiations crumbled. Because of the enormous complexity of the situation, and in light of the limited length of this paper, not ever subject can be dealt with comprehensively or at length. Although there are thousands of components that will be needed to get worked out in any formal and final peace agreement, I will examine four major issues that need to be settled before any other agreements would take place, which are the Israeli settlements, the borders, the refugee crisis, and the Jerusalem question. The first thing the representatives need to do from either side is not to worry about any past agreements that have or have not been implemented. Both sides have reneged and twisted past agreements, and nothing good could possibly come from either side pointing fingers now. .
The refugee crisis started on April 9th at the Arab village of Dayr Yasin, which overlooked the Jerusalem road. The village had entered into a non aggression pact with the Hagana, but a joint Irgun and LEHI attacked the village, and, according to Charles Smith "took it (the village) after quelling resistance, and slaughtered about 250 men, women, and children whose mutilated bodies were stuffed down wells." Arabs retaliated a few days later by killing doctors and nurses in a medical convoy. The stunning new tactics deployed by Jewish fighters had huge repercussions for the rest of the war. Jewish military units used mobile loudspeakers to flaunt the news to heavily populated Arab areas, threatening the same massacres if the Arabs didn't leave.
