We indeed seem closer on Sharon, tough we may differ on the quality or quantity of his changed position. The Wall (with its bare territorial and broader economic effects), the extrajudicial executions (called 'targeted assassination'), especially those that seemingly came as 'answer' to any progress on the Palestinian side, the deliberate targeting of civilians as collateral damage (f.e. the case of the second missile in Nuseirat), the attacks on Palestinian and international non-violent activists, the constant lies about the previous and the cover given to soldiers being cruel on their own until evidence was leaked, the large-scale destruction of homes and agricultural lands with phony security arguments are still war crimes and the mark of a cruel unilateralist.

As for borders, Palestinians were no party to said international agreements. I brought up border changes in the context of a fair peace and a solution to the refugee issue (more on it below). Given that those international agreements didn't cover the denial of the right of return, they are irrelevant to my argument. (As for 1948, I was not referring to the proposed partition, but the ethnic cleansing.)

On the refugee issue, we indeed appear to disagree completely. For you, the consensus of Israeli politicians is a constraint setting the framework of a possible agreement, for me it is a central problem that has to be solved for a true agreement. (This is connected to the Israeli side of what I said elsewhere, the problem of history - things like that in 1968 Israel was the attacker not attacked, and that the Yom Kippur war was not without justification given the occupied Syrian and Egyptian territories.)

The Palestinian refuge problem cannot be compared to the case of post-WWII Germany, where there were interstate agreements, a large home country to absorb refugees, and the backdrop of a genocidal war that made many Germans accept/believe that this is the price to pay as a guilty nation. Nor to Poland, which was shifted to the East, nor to other post-WWII ethnic cleansings that were more of a reciprocal nature.

Israel doesn't want the refugees (and descendants) to move back for fear of upsetting the ethnic balance - but just that is the problem of Jordan and Lebanon too, which would cease to exist if Palestinian refugees were granted citizenship, while Gaza became an overcrowded megaslum with no room to expand ('internal' 1948 refugees are somehow always forgotten).

If Israel wants to limit the number of those moving back, it has to give some compensation, and the best would be territorial - especially given the situation of Gaza. I note that a large inflow of Palestinian refugees was always a spin of the Barak camp: the Palestinian negotiators did contemplate Israel's point of view, and always said that the right of return is more symbolic than practical: they didn't expect the overwhelming majority of refugees to move into Israel anyway, and had compensation schemes in mind (and ones less bold than mine, BTW).

(Side note: I am not sure that that many German expellees think about collective, rather than individual rights to property - but I submit you being the professional, you must know them better.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}