Adolf Hitler was famously voted into power and then appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933. There would not be another German election for more than a dozen years. We all know how this went: Germany started a war in 1939 which the Allies eventually won, killing about 3% of Germany's civilian population in the process.
Hamas was famously voted into power and then took control of Gaza in 2007. There would not be another election in Gaza for more dozen years. Once again, we all know how this went: Hamas started a war two months ago which Israel is in the process of winning, so far killing about 0.5% of Gaza's civilian population in the process.
But wait. Am I really comparing Hamas to Nazi Germany? Yes, I pretty much am. Their leaders have given repeated public interviews in which they clearly state their intentions: They will continue attacking Israel forever; they are proud to be martyrs; and they won't stop until Israel is destroyed. Unlike Nazi Germany, Hamas has nowhere near the power to carry out their version of Jewish genocide, but their ambitions are about the same.
Given this, is it surprising that after Hamas's ruthless attack on October 7 Israel will stop at nothing short of their complete destruction, just as we once stopped at nothing short of the complete destruction of Nazi power? It shouldn't be.
That said, there's a big difference between World War II and the Israel-Hamas war. We were not historically bitter enemies with Germany, and thanks to our obsession with Soviet power in Europe we quickly concluded real peace after our victory. Just the opposite is the case in the Middle East. Israel may "win" their war, but only at the cost of an ongoing slaughter that will generate even greater hatred among Palestinians and make genuine peace even less likely than it is now.
As I've said before, I envy people who have total certainty in their views of Israel and Gaza. I have nothing close. Israel has endured decades of various Arab coalitions trying to destroy them, and it's hard to understand how anyone can blame them for their deep and abiding desire for self defense and retaliation. At the same time, their treatment of Palestinians over the past couple of decades has been so gratuitously revolting that it's hard to understand how anyone can blame them for cheering on even a grotesque terrorist group like Hamas.
Both sides have an endless and frequently legitimate list of grievances. How can anyone not see that? And how do you get past it? Both sides really and truly want to destroy the other at this point. It's not a facade or false consciousness or anything like that. It's how they really feel.
Even in theory, is there any answer?
That sounds like a pretty big difference to me. Also, Hamas has a legitimate grievance against Israel (not that it justifies what they're doing) and the Nazis had no such grievance against the Jews.
There may not be an answer, but it has to end sometime, and probably very badly.
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K.D. : "As I've said before, I envy people who have total certainty in their views of Israel and Gaza."
So, you envy B. Netanyahu, Kevin? He is so certain of his views that he supported financial aid to Hamas so that they would prevent the formation of a Palestinian State.
You can't get much more evil than that, can you?
The legitimacy of Hamas's grievance against Israel is dubious: they claim that the existence of an Israeli state in the mideast is unlawful and unethical. They want land that was never theirs, and they are unwilling to compromise, as are the expansionist Israelis.
The root of the problem is religion. Two opposing sides believe fervently that they have God on their side, and are therefore willing to kill and die to defend their positions. You can't negotiate with people like that.
Except that the problem goes back to a time when the Israelis were largely secular and the Palestinians largely nationalist. Hamas was encouraged by Israel (at least before they became a militant group) because a religious faction would take away support from the PLO, while Israel has become more religious because of birthrate reasons.
There are certainly two religious groups in conflict in the Muslim Palestinians and the Jewish Israelis, but religion here is more an ethnic signifier than deep religious motivations.
It's more than a signifier, but it's not deep religious motivation. It's powerful religious conviction that their cause is righteous, that any act in furtherance of that cause - no matter how evil and inhumane - is also righteous.
Their religion isn't why they are at war, but it gives them permission to conduct - maybe even requires them to conduct - a war of annihilation.
This is not true at all. The Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes by the Israelis. The battle is over land, not religion.
The answer remains what it has been for decades and decades now: a two-state solution. I blame the US for not insisting on that as a condition for the kind of aid we throw at Israel.
Israel has spent nearly 50 years making a two state solution impossible by building settlements in the West Bank. A one state solution is impossible because it would destroy Israel to incorporate all the Palestinians into their society. So both solutions are impossible. Clearly the answer is to have either fewer than one or more than two states.
Why do settlers in the West Bank prevent a two-state solution? Say a two-state solution is imminent. Meaning potentially some peace between the two states. Israelis in the West Bank would have to decide to stay within a friendly Arab majority country or move back to Israel. What is the problem with that?
Even if the Palestinians don't want to govern over a single Israeli, Israel has shown they are willing to remove their own citizens from land before.
The problem with Israelis staying in a "friendly" Palestinian state is that the Israelis that would stay would be ones who believe they are entitled to live as Israelis on Palestinian lands. Predictably if the Palestinians apply the law to them they will scream for Israel (which would have the only army of the two countries) to protect them from abuse, and there would be great political pressure on the government in Israel to step in.
Effectively that is what happened in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldava, and possibly other of the old Soviet States.
Israel removed a small number of settlers from Gaza, but pacified them by assuring them that it was part of a strategy to build a greater number of settlements in the West Bank to make the Israeli grip on it firmer. That option would not be available if the goal is to get settlers out of the West Bank.
It is physically possible to remove the settlements, but it is silly to take the historic example as giving a likelihood that it is politically possible.
"Why do settlers in the West Bank prevent a two-state solution?"
Because they are politically powerful and passionately believe in their project, often for religious reasons.
Why do MAGA voters prevent a responsible Republican Pqarty?
"Say a two-state solution is imminent."
It is imminent right now. Israel can grant full sovereignty of the 1967 border West Bank to the Palestinian Authority at any time.
I suppose Israeli settlers would have a choice. A tiny majority might stay on. I don't know what you mean by "friendly". A neighbor who dislikes you but accepts your rights... Is that "friendly"?
I'm sorry this is just factually misleading. Not only was the region originally envisioned as a 2-state solution (Israel and Jordan) but Israel has agreed to this over and over and over again, only to have the Arabs say no in each iteration of so-called Palestine. The Arabs want Israel destroyed, plain and simple. No 2-state solution will work in the face of such extremism. What you're all seeing is Israel coming to terms with the realization that 'oh, they really DO want us dead' and accepting that inevitable conclusion. If the Arabs really want Israel to die, then someone has to die, and it ain't Israel.
Ok, if Israel was always in favour of a 2-state solution, why was Yitzchak Rabin assassinated ?
"Twenty-five years after the death of the Israeli prime minister, those who were there recall the night two bullets altered the destiny of two nations."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/assassination-yitzhak-rabin-never-knew-his-people-shot-him-in-back
Correct me if I'm wrong: Fatah does recognize Israel. But of course Israel does not recognize Palestine, as you know. You iterate the very cynical logic that the anti-peace faction in Israel always employs -- first they treat the subjugated with contempt, and when this makes them crazy, you say, look, they're crazy. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there just a whole slew of Arabs nations eager to make peace with Israel and get in on the trade and prosperity? All I'm saying is that if the Palestinians had a state, and with some outside support, peace and prosperity might have a chance of assuaging the old wounds and making a future possible. But the Jewish right wants the West Bank, so no solution is possible. What makes me angry is that the US gov't has known this for decades, and failed to convey to the Israelis that it must happen.
Other Arab nations' interest in peace with Israel has no bearing on the Palestinian people.
Palestinians haven't show any interest in a Palestinian state that co-exists with Israel since 2000. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 could be considered a "test run" for Palestinian independence, and the result was a Hamas-run klepocratic statelet.
If Palestinians want to convince Israelis that they can be trusted with a state, they need to start acting like it.
Unfortunately this is just nonsense. Israel has not actually offered the Palestinians a state. Abbas has shown more eagerness for a two state solution than anyone on the Israeli side, and was at best offered a weaker occupation with Israeli settlements cutting off East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Amazingly the evidence is that he would have jumped at the less than a state status if Israel had just accepted that it would only get 78% of the territory for its 50% of the population.
Gaza was never a test run, and was not sold as such. The first thing Israel did after pulling its settlements out of Gaza was to punish Gaza by leaving its exports to rot on the Israeli border. If that was a test run for peace Israel failed the test.
Palestinians have rejected generous offers for a 2-state solution in 1947, 1949, 1967, 1978, 1994, 2000 (Camp David), 2001, 2005, 2009, 2014, and 2018.
How many more chances do you think they should get?
There are legitimate criticisms about each of those offers. Do you think the Palestinians' current situation is better than what they would have had they accepted literally any of those deals?
It is not helpful to conflate all these dates together because the dynamic was very different. Going back to the past just makes the balance sheet of grievances longer--on both sides. We have to see the problem of now and try to find a path forward now.
I don't know what you mean by offers in 2005, 2009, 2014. There were real negotiations in 2000 (Camp David), but the horrible non-sensical offer from Israel would have cut the West Bank into an ineffective Swiss cheese cut in pieces by for-Jews-only highways (even Jimmy Carter said that the offer was not worth accepting). Unfortunately, Arafat and the Palestine leaders were too weak, and not particularly savvy to exploit the timing of the negotiations to build public support for a better solution. So there was no counteroffer, a real waste of an opportunity.
The only weakness on Israel side is world opinion. They know it and they are very careful to maintain enough support despite the brutality of Israel. The only strength on the Palestine side, their only hope, is world opinion. Yet, they don't seem to understand this, and about 50% stupidly believe that terrorism is the only path forward.
Saying the "vibe was different" is a silly attempt to brush aside the horrible choices made by Palestinian leadership that leads directly to the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people. As tragic as that is, the Palestinian people are not without blame, as they elected the horrible leaders who have rejected deals for a 2-state solution. It's ridiculous to blame the failure of a 2-state solution solely on Israel. You may not like the offer, but it's definitely better than what the Palestinians have now. If the Palestinians care about peace, rather than revenge, they need to act like it.
I'd say the Palestinians have been very effective in exploiting world opinion. They have legitimate complaints about their treatment at the hands of the Israelis, none of which justify their support of terrorism or their rejection of perfectly reasonable peace plans.
"The only weakness on Israel side is world opinion. They know it and they are very careful to maintain enough support despite the brutality of Israel. The only strength on the Palestine side, their only hope, is world opinion. Yet, they don't seem to understand this, and about 50% stupidly believe that terrorism is the only path forward."
+1. A quibble, I would change "only" to "biggest".
The biggest world opinion challenge for the Palestinians is the US. Younger Americans are showing more ability to see both sides of the story and Christian fundamentalists are demographically shrinking. The trends do not favor Israel. Netanyahu's embrace of the Republican Party and repeated insults to Democrats were foolish. I'm not sure how much longer the Democrats will favor unconditional aid, Biden's bear hug has a last gasp feel to it.
Do you actually know anything about those offers, or are you just repeating something you read somewhere. I described the 2008 offer, which is certainly the best offer Israel has made in the last 50 years, and it was crap. I assume that is what you are talking about with 2009.
Most of the years you refer to did not have peace offers at all. They had negotiations, many of which the Palestinians accepted. Some they refused to engage with because the history has been of Israel to use fruitless negotiations as cover to changing facts on the ground to make peace impossible.
The answer to your question is that they should be offered at least one peace offer which if offered to Jews as peace would not mark someone as an anti-Semite. But certainly in my lifetime that would be the first such offer. The fact that you can name years in which they were actually offered peace does not change that.
Apparently I know more about the offers than you do. I'm sorry you didn't like the 2008 offer, but I hope you'd agree that it's better than getting bombed, which is what the Palestinians have gotten instead.
The fact is that the various peace offers fell through because Palestinian leadership was never seriously interested in a 2-state solution. Arafat walked away in 2000, didn't even make a counter offer. It's hard to believe that the negotiation was ever in good faith. Instead, Palestinian propaganda has used the failure of peace talks as an excuse to inflame public opinion, hoping to destroy Israel rather than settle for peace. Apparently that's a solution that you support.
I described the 2008 offer. You claim to know more about it, but said absolutely nothing about it except that it is better than getting killed. That is usually the argument that an abuser makes to the abused, doing what I say is better than getting killed.
Your history of 2000 is poor as well. Arafat said that negotiations were not ripe for an agreement. Barak offered something that only an anti-Muslim bigot could call a serious peace offer (of someone ignorant of what it contained). The US was of the belief that if the Palestinians gave away the right of return Israel would respond with an actual peace offer. The Palestinians were not convinced.
Either way Arafat did not walk away from the negotiations. Barak got voted out of office. And Sharon had no interest in negotiations.
But you knew that being an expert, right?
Arafat absolutely walked away. Sorry you didn't like Barak's offer, but I think it was extremely generous under the conditions.
> That is usually the argument that an abuser makes to the abused
Welcome to the world of Realpolitik. If you think the Palestinians can or should succeed in evicting Jews from the middle east, you're being silly. The alternative is to accept compromise. I see Israelis offering compromise and Palestinians roundly rejecting it.
We actually know quite a bit about the specifics of the Palestinian offer in 2008 and what they understood the Israeli offer to be.
Olmert said that they were two months away from an agreement but he lost his job and Netanyahu told the Palestinians that he would not honor any treaty that his predecessor signed.
I would say that you know almost nothing about the 2008 negotiations.
bananaevangelion, do you listen to yourself?
"but I hope you'd agree that it's better than getting bombed, which is what the Palestinians have gotten instead"
This is the logic of a shakedown.
I'm sorry you didn't like the 2008 offer, but I hope you'd agree that it's better than getting bombed, which is what the Palestinians have gotten instead.
I think that is something for the Palestinians to decide for themselves.
There is this tiresome switch from they were offered peace to they don't deserve peace. You do a good job of illustrating that move. As I note, anyone who suggested Jews should accept the Barak offer would be an anti-Semite. Your response is basically that it is good enough for Palestinians. That says a lot about you, and nothing about Palestinians.
Then you fall back on the idea that if they do not accept deals that do not treat them like humans, you can accuse them of not being willing to accept any deal. I imagine even you have to know that is dishonest.
Yep, still wrong. Palestine proposed a two-state solution in 2008: It was rejected and Israel abandoned the talks. The Arab Peace Initiative has been pushed for some twenty years: Israel refuses to touch it.
Failed to? Or just not listened to?
Actually, Fatah recognizes Israel but not its right to be a Jewish state. Specifically, Fatah has never agreed to limit the right of return of Palestinian refugees to the Palestinian state, but insists that they be able to return to Israel proper.
If the 4-5 million descendents of the Palestinian refugees returned to Israel proper, there will simply be two Palestinian states.
This is not true. The "right of return" is no longer an absolute. In the Camp David negotiations in 2000, the "right of return" was enormously mitigated by Arafat to accept putting a cap on people per year (a few thousands) mainly motivated by family reunification. They also accepted the principle of monetary compensation for the loss of property. But Arafat was an ineffective negotiator and did not make counteroffer that kept the ball rolling. And Israel was completely inflexible on how to cutout the West Bank into Swiss Cheese with for-Jews-only highways. It would have been unworkable.
Yeah, the current solution is so much more workable.
"Perfect is the enemy of good."
The Palestinians have repeatedly offered to limit the right of return to about 15k to 25k a year. Israel made only a tepid counter-offer of 1k per year.
I think the question of other states is complicated. As late as 2000 the Saudis were putting pressure on the Palestinians not to make a peace that offered Israel control over Islamic holy sites. In 2002 the Saudis turned around and put forward a peace plan, albeit not one that the Israelis could accept. But Israel, then under Sharon, chose not to engage.
Jordan has been pushing for peace since the 90s and Egypt has had a kind of cold peace since the 70s. It is more recent that the gulf states have been interested in peace without regard for the Palestinians.
Correct. Israel has agreement many times to a two state solution. Each time the Arabs reject the offer because it means Israel will exist.
Incorrect. Israel has never offered a clear and complete two-state proposal.
If you think they have, tell me:
What were the water rights?
What was the Israeli offer on refugees?
What was the Israeli offer on the Jordan Valley?
Not only was the region originally envisioned as a 2-state solution (Israel and Jordan)
This is false, in multiple ways. For one, Jordan was never envisioned as being a part of the question surrounding Palestine. They had never been a part of the same provinces under Ottoman rule. While the British received a Mandate for Transjordan as well as Palestine, they were not connected. In fact, Transjordan was explicitly to have a Hashemite monarch.
Second, neither the Balfour Declaration nor the Palestinian Mandate envisioned a specifically Jewish state at all. The phrase used in both is "Jewish national home," and the word "state" was deliberately avoided. If you read the Mandate, it pretty clearly intends for there to be a single, multiethnic state. This is why Article 7 says that the British are to ensure that Jewish immigrants receive "Palestinian citizenship." This is why Article 28 explicitly says that "the Government of Palestine will fully honour the financial obligations legitimately incurred by the Administration of Palestine during the period of the mandate . . ." Government, singular, not plural.
Israel has agreed to this over and over and over again
Israel has never offered an actual state for the Palestinians. Every proposal they have made would create a Palestinian entity that falls far short of being a sovereign state. It would not control its own borders. It would not be allowed to make its own foreign or security policies. It would be required to host Israeli military facilities. The Israelis would be free to enter the Palestinian entity any time it declared an emergency, without defining what would constitute an emergency. Israel would continue to control all of the water in the aquifers underneath the Palestinian entity.
That's not a state. It's a bantustan.
There are many Arabs living in Israel. There are no jews living in Palestine, or Jordan, or in any other Arab state. Only one side of this conflict has proposed either a one-state or two-state solution. The other side has only suggested the destruction of Israel. And a two-state solution has for many years been on the table; it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-state-solution
Each and every time, the Arabs have killed civilians with their bombs and guns to scuttle the process. They simply do not want Israel to exist. You'd have to be some crazy idealist to think otherwise.
If this were the US instead of Israel in the same situation, and the Mexicans were attempting to take back California, do I need to mention the smoking hole that would be left of Mexico? And if the US were deciding how to react instead of Israel, the US would likely attack Iran to prevent the inevitable nuclear device to be used on Tel Aviv.
The Mexico analogy is pointless, since the United States hasn't had Mexico under a military occupation for a half century, and hasn't annexed any Mexican territory since the James K Polk administration.
Interestingly your link is rather balanced, which is to say it does not support the historical nonsense that you push here. As your source notes, the Oslo process was initiated because violence made Israel feel that doing nothing was not an option. The process was first slowed by the assassination of the Israeli prime minister and then by a serious of Hamas attacks designed to get Netanyahu elected. That only stalled negotiations. The peace process ended with the election of Ariel Sharon, which was followed by another round of violence. But it was the death of the peace process that led to violence not violence that led to the death of the peace process.
The other serious negotiations were between Olmert and Abbas and they ended because of the unfortunate corruption of Olmert. (This had nothing to do with the Palestinians, but it forced Olmert to resign thereby ending the negotiations).
By all accounts Abbas was incredibly eager for a two state solution. There is a good reason to insist otherwise, if you want to justify killing a lot of Palestinians it is better to portray them as comic book villains. But there is no historic reason to do so.
But then you seem to be unaware that people of Mexican descent who live in California are US citizens while Israel is keeping millions of Palestinians perpetually stateless.
Notice too, that Jordan was split away as a separate country (by the League of Nations) a year before the Mandate went into effect.
Even this isn't really true. Jordan wasn't "split away" as a separate country. It would have been impossible to do so, since there had never been any union to separate. The existence of Palestine and Transjordan as a single entity lasted for less than a single week in March, 1921, as the British briefly joined them as a legal fig leaf for unilaterally expanding their holdings, and then immediately created the Emirate of Transjordan.
"Not only was the region originally envisioned as a 2-state solution (Israel and Jordan)"
"Envisioned" by who?
"Originally" is an interesting word choice.
It was so envisioned by the Zionists, as well as a bunch of Europeans who really wanted all of their Jewish citizens to go away.
Apparently, the universe originally came into being in the late 19th century. The fundamentalist Young Earthers put their estimations of its creation far too long ago.
Still not true. Jordan was separated out before the Mandate went into effect. Look it up, I'll wait.
Israel has constantly rejected a two-state solution. Not only did they walk out of the last few negotiations, but the current Israeli government has called for the conquest of Palestine for the last year (with Likud calling for it for more than thirty years.)
Israel has made a two state solution impossible. IMO, the only feasible solution is a "right of return" for any Palestinian that is willing to swear off terrorism and become an Israeli citizen with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. It would still be a predominately Jewish state, they would just have to give up on the idea that everybody has to be a Jew. It would help if Jordan and Egypt would also pitch in to accept some Palestinians on similar terms and if the US, Europe, and wealthy Arab countries would pitch in to help absorbed some of the costs of integration. Those Palestinians that won't accept anything other than the destruction of Israel can dig their own graves. Of course none of the aforementioned parties will go for this.
Israel already has many non-Jew Arabs living in Israel. How many Jews live in Arab countries?
C'mon. Israel opened its arms to the Jewish diaspora, the Jews living in Arab countries had an attractive place to go where people wanted them.
After the Nakba Israel allowed Arabs who never left to stay. Unlike overseas Jews they had no decent place to go.
The historical context explains it. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish homeland, and the needed people. The Arab world did not want a Jewish homeland, they did not think native Arabs should be displaced. From their perspective Arab war refugees already had a homeland, they weren't being allowed to live there.
In kindergarten we all learn a version of the founding of America. It is not a good idea to make policy based on that understanding. Drum seems to have embibed this kindergarten version of the Israeli conflict and manages to describe everything on its basis, while stating that he has no certainty. Although given the simplemindedness of his premises one wonders why he lacks certainty.
The answer is probably that there is a conflict between the story of Israel as he understands it, and the reality of the situation there. After all the main reason that Israel cannot come to peace with the Palestinians is that it has purposely moved its civilians into the territory that would have to go to the Palestinians. At some point I assume Drum realized that the US did not have to take the land of the Native Americans, we chose to because we wanted to.
But he is still having problems with why Israel and the Palestinians could not reach a peace based on the Palestinians getting 22% of the territory they both want, because the Israelis think that 78% is not enough for them.
Now we have Drum comparing the threat of the Nazis, the most powerful force of its day against a stateless people, and Hamas, which formed as a stateless people against the strongest force in its area. It is not just hard to imagine Drum making such a silly comparison with any other situation. It is hard to see him not being disgusted by people who make such a silly comparison.
Thank you. I was disappointed to see Mr Drum's "analysis" of the situation to be on a par with those Americans insist "Moslems and Jews have been fighting there for thousands of years! Thousands!"
And comparing Hamas with Nazi Germany is just insane. Godwin's Law suggests he should have stopped as soon as that thought occured to him.
Did you even read Kevin’s article? Although your insults are extensive, you’ve added nothing to the discussion.
Right on, weolmstead
I'm sorry you did not see the relevance of the points I made. Other people seem to have.
You've been more than patient with these bad-faith commentors and recited actural historical events instead of self-serving fables.
"After all the main reason that Israel cannot come to peace with the Palestinians is that it has purposely moved its civilians into the territory that would have to go to the Palestinians."
I wonder what territory you speak off? Are you talking about settlements or like Tel Aviv?
And what is the portion of land that they both want? I wonder what is an acceptable two state solution for you? Where do you draw the line(s)?
There are entire towns owned by Palestinians yet occupied, by force, by Israelis.
I was thinking of the Geneva Accords, or basically equivalently what Abbas was trying to get to in his negotiations with Abbas. That would leave the Palestinians with 22% of the territory. But Barak never made a serious peace offer because he insisted that Israel was entitled to some of the Palestinians 22%. Olmert wanted a smaller peace of that 22% and was willing to give the Palestinians uninhabited desert land in return (but could not quite find enough to match what he wanted to take).
And the situation is worse than I just suggested. When the idea of land swaps was bruted about, the argument was usually that Israel is only about 10 miles across at its smallest point, so of course they want to expand there. But that is not the territory Israel has insisted on. Israel has insisted on territory within the West Bank that far from making Israel more cohesive would serve to make Palestine less cohesive.
The question of whether giving what may be 2/3s of the population (when one counts the refugees who would return to a Palestinian state) 22% of the territory is fair is a different question. But it doesn't appear that that question has actually sabotaged the actual peace talks.
I think both sides could live with 78% / 22%. The deeper issues were full sovereignty. Israel never offered & Palestinians could never accept partial control, and contiguity. Israel wanted to maintain settlers that made their proposals look like swiss cheese. Palestinians wanted something that more closely resembled the 1967 borders. This difference was never resolved in Jerusalem.
But 78%/22%? The Palestinians and Israeli accepted land swaps (there was a defining UN resolution), and the land swaps were about getting to 78%/22%.
It's misleading to say that Israel occupies Palestine: there has never been a Palestinian state by Palestinian people, and in fact the idea of a Palestinian people distinct from other Arabs is entirely a creation of the 20th century, largely devised by other Arab nations as a tool against the Israel. Before Israel, the land was occupied by the Brits, and before that the Ottomans, and before that, the Caliphate: at no point did the Palestinians rise up and demand self-government or even a national identity until Jews dared to move in.
Arabs have been trying to kill Jews in the middle east well before 1948. The distrust on both sides is well-deserved.
You're quite right that there is a massive power imbalance between the Israeli state and the Palestinian people; and after all, everyone loves an underdog. But being an underdog doesn't make you right. After all, Al-Qaeda was an underdog in their fight against US imperialism, and few rise to defend bin Laden.
OK I give. Israel is an apartheid state, not an occupying power.
But I will say this, trying to defend keeping millions of people stateless on the grounds that they have a history of being kept stateless is an awful argument that deserves no respect.
They are stateless not because they've always been stateless. In fact, the Palestinians had many chances to have their own state, and rejected it every time. The Palestinians are stateless because they cannot accept an Israeli state, and would prefer to kill Jews rather than compromise.
Your credibility score is quite low. I suspect even you don't believe yourself. Why don't you read up on actual historial events and give details? 'Palestinians have been offered statehood many times' just doesn't cut it for those of us who know the particulars.
Your comment is very ad hominem without any concrete argument.
Here's a brief list of some of the times Palestinians have rejected peace: https://besacenter.org/palestinian-rejectionism/
Please enlighten about the alleged particulars.
You've just proven my point, and on two counts at that. First, your cite, such as it is, is from an Israeli-based 'think tank', furthermore, one which is know to be both pro-Israel and pro-military. Second -- and this is what I pranged you for -- your cite gives no details. Example:
Wow. Not only are there no details about this 'enormous concession' (which you've since been educated about but which you in very bad faith refuse to concede), it contradicts itself!
No, you don't really believe the bilge you're spewing, and no, you have no intention of changing your tack.
Prove me wrong: admit this is a hack piece from a hack organization. My educated guess is that you will refuse to do so.
It's ridiculous that you're trying to paint me as some Zionist hack. I've been very critical of Israel's policy in many regards. Your condescending tone just makes you appear petty, like a teenager in his first internet debate.
If you some some factual opposition to the article that I posted, let me know. Saying, without evidence, that the source is "biased" is not an argument. Even if the source is biased doesn't mean that the facts presented are wrong. Your non-argument here reminds me of a Republican who refuses to believe any negative coverage about Trump because "MSM is biased."
Your source is biased according to wikipedia, you idiot. Vet your sources before making a fool of yourself.
And as I will say for the fourth? fifth? time, your source does not provide _details_. You know, like the detail I gave up above to prove my point, wherin the bullet point contradicted itself.
Moreover, you've been told not once, but many times why 'total withdrawal was not, in point of fact, total withdrawal'. Now read up on real history instead of spouting bullet points from a dicey source. No one is going to take your opinion seriously until you do.
On Edit: I wonder, can you even tell me how what I quoted contradicts itself? I'm guessing you can't.
When have Israelis offered the Palestinians a sovereign state? When you look at the details the Palestinians were never offered more than a Bantustan. A Bantustan is not "their own state".
Read the NYT recent 'Why the Oslo Accord Between Israelis and Palestinians Failed'. Terrific panel discussion between three Israeli and three Palestinian scholars.
That's the whole problem, 'innit? 'When you look at the details' is nothing any of this crowd has any intention of doing ... ever. They are arguing in tremenously bad faith, as I noted several weeks ago and which subsequent events have confirmed in spades.
Camp David remains the best chance at peace we've had in the middle east. Arafat walked away because he cared more about his own influence than about the well-being of the Palestinian people. Like anything, it represented a compromise. I hope the Palestinian people, as they are getting alternatively oppressed and bombed, remember Arafat's craven selfishness and assign appropriate blame.
Give details. This is not "If you can't make me say I'm wrong I win". Why was it the best chance? What, precisely, was offered? Why, precisely, was it turned down? You give every indication of being in past your depth.
I honestly don't know what kind of game you're trying to play here. I can give you lots of details but there's no point, since you've raised no objections to my argument.
It's clear your mind is already made up, so you're just trying to score "points" against an internet stranger, which is a silly hobby.
Anyway, I'm done entertaining your chicanery. Please jump in the nearest lake.
If you can give me 'lots of details', why haven't you? That'd sure put me in my place, right? For that matter, you haven't given anyone 'lots of details'. Because. You. Have. No. Details.
Prove me wrong.
Pick which offer you mean and look at the terms of it. If you are making a good faith response you will see that you are talking nonsense. Do you mean the Barak offer? Do you mean the Olmert offer? Or maybe you have the Trump offer in mind? Or the Clinton Parameters (which as the name suggests was not actually a peace offer, but the parameters for negotiations).
I can see why you want what you say to be true. It is very hard to defend Israeli behavior otherwise. But then it is hard to defend Israeli behavior anyway. And the idea that the Palestinians have been offered a real state and turned it down is nonsense. (If you go back to 1948 you might have an example where the 2/3s of the population that was Palestinian was offered a disjointed less than 40% of the territory which was quickly swallowed up by other Arab states. But that clearly does not count as many times they have been offered a state and turned it down. It doesn't even really count as one.
No, they're not going to do that. Surely you know this by now.
As I said above, Camp David, while not technically a sovereign state, would have given Palestinians peace and self-determination. Today they have neither, and it seems to me they prefer it this way: Palestinians continue to believe nonsense martyr doctrine that means they would rather kill and die than live alongside Jews. Israel has been given no choice but to indulge them.
So they were not, in fact, offered statehood? Like what we've been telling you all along (and which you doubtless just googled.) What, precisely, _were_ they offered? And what, precisely, did that offer not include? Should be a piece of cake for you to rap out a couple of hundred words on this one, given as you carefully researched the issue before voicing some rather strong opinions, amirite 😉
It is hard to think of much that is more disgusting than taking people who were not offered peace and then pointing to their not accepting a kinder occupation as showing they don't want peace. This was the trick that Colonial powers have always used to defend abusing captive populations.
If you want to understand whether the Palestinians want peace you have to offer actual peace. If someone offered Jews perpetual occupation of the sort that the Palestinians were offered in 2000 and wanted to call it peace we would agree that person was an anti-Semite. It does not become less disgusting when done by Jews rather than being done to Jews.
So do you think the Cherokee would be justified in using terrorist tactics against the US government?
So do you think the Cherokee would be justified in using terrorist tactics against the US government?
There was certainly a point where they would have. The thing about a conquest like that of North America by Europeans is that there aren't really any noncombatants. The people actively dividing up the land and making it unusable by those who already lived there are the aggressors, whether they wear civilian clothes or uniforms.
That point is past, though, because the United States has made the Cherokee full citizens with all of the rights thereof. You may notice that this is a difference that torpedoes another one of your dumb analogies.
On top of which, you continue to make false insinuations about those who disagree with you. No one in this thread has said that the Palestinians are justified in using terrorist tactics. This is, again, the voices in your head talking to you. I recommend not listening to them.
If the Cherokee nation was treated the way the people of Gaza are it would be hard to argue against their use of violence. Of course in the real world the members of the Cherokee nation have citizenship in the US and a measure of sovereignty on their territory (the former being the more important since it does more to protect their basic rights).
Historically the US did treat the Cherokee nation similarly to how Israel treats Gaza, and they did respond with terrorism, and we did claim that made them savages, and now those claims look like the bigoted nonsense that they were.
So that is not the best example for you to use.
It's misleading to say that Israel occupies Palestine: there has never been a Palestinian state by Palestinian people . . .
This is false. The Palestinian Mandate very explicitly created a Palestinian state. That's why Article 7 talks about "Palestinian citizenship." It also very clearly envisions a Palestinian state of the Palestinian people. It, rather racistly, declares that those who lived in Palestine at the time, who were about 92% Arab, were not capable of governing themselves, and so the British were installed as the temporary administrators of the Palestinian state. But it is clear in the text that the country belongs to those who live there.
. . . in fact the idea of a Palestinian people distinct from other Arabs is entirely a creation of the 20th century . . .
That's how nationalities get created. There was no such thing as a nation of "Americans" until it was politically useful for it to exist. There was no such thing as an "Ecuadorian" until it was a political necessity. Whether you like it or not, a national identity of "Palestinian" came into being.
Before Israel, the land was occupied by the Brits . . .
Legally speaking, this is not true. As I said above, the Palestinian Mandate did not establish the British as colonial rulers in anything like the sense of the actual British Empire.
. . . and before that the Ottomans, and before that, the Caliphate: at no point did the Palestinians rise up and demand self-government or even a national identity until Jews dared to move in.
Again, this is what happens. At no point prior to Napoleon did Germans rise up and demand a unified government. Countries spend long periods ruled by outsiders. It does not mean that they do not have the right t self-government, merely that they are being denied that right.
Arabs have been trying to kill Jews in the middle east well before 1948. The distrust on both sides is well-deserved.
Yes, this is why telling the Arabs that they had no choice but to accept large scale immigration by a group committed to the creation of a state that definitionally excluded more than 90% of the population from full citizenship was a terrible idea.
> The Palestinian Mandate very explicitly created a Palestinian state.
The mandate created a state Palestine that was in no way a nation of (what we would now call) Palestinians. Golda Meier famously pointed out that she had a Palestinians passport. A Palestinian, back then, was literally anyone who happened to be living in the region named Palestine, and in what is no way an ethnicity. Furthermore, the mandate reached deeped into Jordan, thus including people who today would definitely not consider themselves Palestinian. So the modern understanding of "Palestinian" has nothing to do with the Palestinian mandate.
> That's how nationalities get created.
Sure. I'm not denying that the Palestinan people exist as an identity today. I do, however, reject the notion that the rights of Palestinians today should be based on historical nationhood that didn't exist 100 years ago. The phrase "free Palestine" is propagranda intended to imply the lie that there, at some point, WAS a free Palestinian nation.
> It does not mean that they do not have the right t self-government, merely that they are being denied that right.
You're right, which is why I support the idea of Palestinian self-governance. I do not, however, support the myth that Palestinians' right to self-governance requires destroying Israel.
> that definitionally excluded more than 90% of the population from full citizenship was a terrible idea.
Again, you're right. The question is, what are you going to do about it now?
Okay, bananaevangelion, if that's your /real/ name...
I won't argue your main point directly, that the Palastinians have no right to complain about the current state of affairs, because it is totally lacking in empathy and seems founded mostly in racism. But I would like to point out that you are making some totally illogical statements in support of it. This is often a sign that you have lost your way and should reevaluate your position.
For example, you say "A Palestinian, back then, was literally anyone who happened to be living in the region named Palestine" as if this proves something, when in fact it simply describes how nations all over the world are routinely defined. Isreal is largely exceptional in trying to create its nationality from a religious ethnicity rather than a residential and generational reality.
Another example, you say "at no point did the Palestinians rise up and demand self-government or even a national identity until Jews dared to move in." But this is really a laughable bit of lipstick to put on the violent expulsion of some 700,000 people. Do you really think that is a remotely fair summary of what happened?
"being an underdog doesn't make you right. After all, Al-Qaeda was an underdog in their fight against US imperialism" and here you don't even try any literary sleight of hand, you just outright equate Hamas and the entire population of Gaza and the West bank, and the refugees in other places. They are all Bin Laden and of course deserve a bullet between the eyes.
> your main point directly, that the Palastinians have no right to complain about the current state of affairs
I don't know how you got this interpretation, because I said nothing of the kind. The Palestinians have been regularly shafted by just about everyone, including their own leadership, other Arab states, and of course the Israelis. They have every right to complain. They don't have every right to claim to want peace while attacking innocent people and elected terrorists as a government.
> when in fact it simply describes how nations all over the world are routinely defined.
Palestinians themselves are defining Palestinians that way. The Palestinians want to remove all Jews (meaning, non-ethnic-Palestinians) from the land they consider to be Palestine. The Palestinians absolutely don't care about who carried a Palestinian passport in 1948, because that would include lots of Jews. So why are Palestinians allowed to be racist in the definition of their ethno-state but Jews aren't? It sounds like, at best, they just want a different kind of apartheid, and at worst another Jewish genocide.
> Do you really think that is a remotely fair summary of what happened?
Some of them were violently expelled. Some others voluntarily left in 1948 at the behest of their Arab friends in Jordan and Egypt who were attempting to destroy Israel and nearly succeeded, which understandably soured Israel on the notion of giving them back their land.
> you just outright equate Hamas and the entire population of Gaza and the West bank
Well, yeah. Hamas was elected. Fatah was elected. Both support the destruction if Israel and the murder of Jews. Both parties remind widely supported by Palestinians. Although there are plenty of Jews who oppose Israel's policies, we don't see a lot of Palestinians in anti-Hamas rallies. I wonder why that is? If Palestinians don't want to be associated with terrorists, they need to start acting like it. I would go father and say that the destruction of Hamas REQUIRES Palestinian help, and I see none forthcoming.
I opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I opposed the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Nevertheless, I don't see that there is a realistic option at the moment.
Jeez, do you get your history from an Isreali Propaganda comic book?
The Palestinians identified themselves as a Palestinian state back in the 1920s. At that time, they explicitly included Jews in the state (the Zionists, did not return the favor). Even when the Arab League intervened in 1948, they called for a unitary state with representation for Jews.
The myth that Palestinians fled because they were told to has been exploded years ago: as early as 1949 the IDF itself studied the matter and said that perhaps 5% left because of calls from Arab leaders, and that the rest were from attacks and threats of attacks by israeli.
"...I support the idea of Palestinian self-governance. I do not, however, support the myth that Palestinians' right to self-governance requires destroying Israel."
OK you don't support the Hamas position, does anyone in these comments?
I can't speak for anyone else in the comments here. But I can tell you this:
1. Gazans elected Hamas, and so a majority likely support Hamas' position.
2. West Bankers elected the Palestinian Authority, which similarly supports the eradication of Israel.
3. The left in the US and Europe, under influence of Palestinian propaganda, largely consider Israel's existence illegitimate. That's what "from the river to the sea" means.
He asked you a question: Who in these comments supports Hamas? Now be so good as to answer it, please.
1) This is a fantastic way to demonstrate that you don't understand the 2006 elections. A majority never supported Hamas's positions. They won with 44% of the vote, only getting to a majority of seats once some small parties that didn't meet the threshold for representation were eliminated.
On top of that, polling both before and after the election made it clear that a majority even of those who voted for Hamas both accepted Israel's existence and wanted Hamas to negotiate with the Israelis. They didn't vote for Hamas because of its position on Israel. They voted for Hamas because they loathed Fatah for its corruption, brutality, and general uselessness, and Hamas was the only viable alternative for them to vote for.
2) Again, you have no idea what you are talking about, in so many ways. Palestinians in the West Bank also voted for Hamas. What happened is that, after losing the election, Fatah, with intelligence and logistical support from the Israelis and Americans, launched a coup to prevent Hamas from taking over the government. This coup was successful in the West Bank, but not in Gaza.
Further, Fatah does not support the eradication of Israel. You have been told this, with citations, numerous times, but you continue to spread it. This is textbook bad faith argumentation.
3) So, what does "from the river to the sea" mean when Likud puts it in their manifesto, and Netanyahu uses it?
Your arguments consist almost entirely of bad history and false insinuations about others in this thread.
Hamas stated years ago that they would accept an Israel on the 1967 borders. They do not call for destroying Israel.
A Palestinian, back then, was literally anyone who happened to be living in the region named Palestine, and in what is no way an ethnicity.
Yes, that is exactly my point. The Palestinian Mandate explicitly envisioned a single state in Palestine, in which both Jews and Arabs were citizens. It was the Jews that rejected this, and insisted that they were not Palestinians. This is how the nationality of "Palestinian" as it i currently understood was created. It is the nationality of those who considered themselves Palestinian.
Furthermore, the mandate reached deeped into Jordan . . .
You keep asserting this, despite the fact that it is not true. Jordan and Palestine have never been a unified region. They were divided among different provinces during the Ottoman period. Britain received a separate Mandate for Transjordan, that explicitly declared it to be a Hashemite monarchy.
This claim that Jordan was broken off and should be considered the Palestinian state is entirely bullshit. It is nothing more than propaganda intended to deflect from the real issues.
You're right, which is why I support the idea of Palestinian self-governance. I do not, however, support the myth that Palestinians' right to self-governance requires destroying Israel.
Oh, look! A strawman! Please quote me ever saying that Palestinians' rights require destroying Israel. This is the epitome of bad faith arguments.
Between the fact that you continue to mindlessly repeat things whose falsehood has been repeatedly pointed out and that you persist in making false claims about what others have said, please explain why you have any credibility.
> in which both Jews and Arabs were citizens. It was the Jews that rejected this,
There are plenty of Arabs who are Israeli citizens. 20% of the Israeli population is Arab, and they can vote and do everything. The Arabs who don't get citizenship are the ones who left in 1948 as part of the Arab plot to destroy Israel; and those in the territories occupied as part of another war to destroy Israel.
In other words, Israel is a multiethnic state. Do you think the region would still be multiethnic if Hamas had their way?
> Jordan and Palestine have never been a unified
Please look at a map of the Mandate. It clearly include geography that is currently claimed by Jordan. e.g. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/images/mandate1.gif
> Please quote me ever saying that Palestinians' rights require destroying Israel.
The world does not revolve around you. This is a discussion forum: I am discusing with a diverse audience. My argument is NOT a strawman, as destroying Israel is the stated goal of all currently elected Palestinian governments and many pro-Palestinian movements in the US and Europe.
> please explain why you have any credibility.
Yawn. Please use more lame ad hominem attacks.
There are plenty of Arabs who are Israeli citizens. 20% of the Israeli population is Arab, and they can vote and do everything.
No, they cannot "do everything." They cannot bring their families into Israel, something that every Jewish citizen can do. They cannot lease land from the 3 quasi-governmental organizations that own 80% of Israel.
Israelis loudly proclaim that theirs is a Jewish state. They are definitionally excluding 20% of their own population from full citizenship. If you define your country by ethnicity, you are necessarily excluding the rest.
Please look at a map of the Mandate.
Yes, I am aware that the Jewish Virtual Library likes to publish things that are not accurate in support of their mythology. Just because they can print something doesn't mean that it is true.
The Palestinian Mandate was hammered out at the San Remo conference in April, 1920. That agreement did not involve Transjordan. Shortly thereafter, due to a revolt against the French in Syria, the British found themselves in possession of Transjordan as well. In order to claim it, they had to unilaterally attach it to either their Mandate for Palestine, or their Mandate for Iraq, despite the fact that it had never been connected with either. At the Cairo Conference on 21 March, 1921, they chose Palestine, but this was not a part of the Palestinian Mandate other than in the most technical sense.
Transjordan remained connected to the Palestinian Mandate for less than a week. Further proceedings of the Cairo Conference declared an Emirate of Transjordan, with a Hashemite monarch. It remained a "part" of the Palestinian Mandate on paper, but was never governed together with it.
The union of Palestine and Jordan didn't exist prior to or during the negotiations for the Palestinian Mandate. It was nothing but a legal fiction the British engaged in to justify taking over Transjordan.
The world does not revolve around you. This is a discussion forum: I am discusing with a diverse audience. My argument is NOT a strawman, as destroying Israel is the stated goal of all currently elected Palestinian governments and many pro-Palestinian movements in the US and Europe.
This is both false and evasive. You also don't understand what an "ad hominem" is.
Saying the majority of the audience is with you despite every appearance to the contrary was immortalized in the filk song They Agree With Me in Email. That was back in the 80's.
More wrong. Palestine is occupied. That is the legal reality according to even Israel.
"After all the main reason that Israel cannot come to peace with the Palestinians is that it has purposely moved its civilians into the territory that would have to go to the Palestinians."
+1. Nicely written. I am perpetually frustrated by smart people who cannot see that ongoing settlements make a peaceful solution impossible.
I'd modify that slightly to say that I am perpetually frustrated by smart people who cannot see that ongoing settlement is a deliberate policy implemented with the intention of making peaceful solution impossible.
I reckon it to be something akin to cop bros covering up if not outright condoning spousal abuse by one of their own.
i'm not sure a two state 'solution' actually solves anything
hamas is backed by iran, and it's not obvious to me that creating a sovereign state of palestine prevents iranian proxies from setting up shop and launching attacks from there
it's pretty far fetched to believe that israel would fail to retaliate just because of a change in palestine's territorial status, and nothing in the historical record provides much support for optimism in that regard
Argument from incredulity is a poor rhetorical strategy, son.
whoops, looks like your cortex terminated with a sigsegv
You don't know what an argument from incredulity is, gotcha. I'll treat your words with the consideration they deserve, son.
this is you implemented in c++
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It's also not a given that the Settler movement in Israel would be content to just give up their ambitions because a border was drawn. Seems more likely they would bide their time and make a land grab as soon as they could justify it. There would also be the constant fear in Israel that a Palestinian state would be preparing for invasion, so they might just set off periodic conflicts so they could limit Palestine's capacity to fight. Any economic development in an independent Palestine would make it easier for them to build an army, even if they had to do so secretly. That won't make anyone comfortable in Israel.
So you end up with cycles of violence just like you have now.
Declaring a Palestinian state that consists of a Gaza under blockade from Israel and a West Bank composed of isolated cantons subject to military control does not accomplish anything. Agreeing to a two state solution along the lines that Abbas was proposing in his discussions with Olmert accomplishes two things, one it gives the Palestinians a sense that negotiations with Israel can improve their lives. Currently they have the well supported belief that negotiations with Israel lead to settlement expansions while only violence gets anything from Israel. And it gives the Palestinians something to lose, which they currently do not have.
Iran's natural ally in the area is Hezbollah (Hezbollah and Iran are Shiite, while Hamas is Sunni) and while Hezbollah is not a great neighbor, Israel has no interest in reoccupying Southern Lebanon, which is what brought Hezbollah into existence in the first place).
Even Iran's interest in Israel is driven primarily by the regional advantage it gets from standing up for the Palestinians while the Sunni states make the unpopular (with their people) decision to cozy up to Israel. Take away the legitimate Palestinian grievance and it is unlikely that Iran would gain anything by its focus on Israel.
Of course this assumes that the Palestinians are human beings and not cartoon villains. But there is a lot of evidence that they actually are human.
You make a good and important point about Iran's regional influence. The disjunct between Arab governments and people over Palestine is a major source of instability in the Middle East; a settlement that dealt fairly with Palestinian interests would reduce that tension, and deprive Iran of that bond with the Arab street.
A two-state solution gives Palestinians their own sovereign state. That solves a lot. The Palestinian Authority governs more Palestinians than Hamas. It is not committed to destroying Israel, it wants a sovereign state.
As far as Iran, there is no guarantee what foreign policy a sovereign Palestinian state will adopt. It seems you want some sort of guarantee. The closest we have to that is the UN and international law.
"Adolf Hitler was famously voted into power and then appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933. "
Hitler was not voted into power. He lost the election, and then was appointed Chancellor by von Hindenberg.
The voters gave Hitler's party more seats in the Reichstag than any other party for two elections in a row, so von Hindenberg didn't make the appointment without input from the voters.
And yet, Hitler was not elected, famously, infamously, or factually.
You're drawing a meaningless distinction between "being elected" and "being appointed on the basis of popular vote" that does not advance the present discussion.
Hitler was not voted into power.
You're letting pedantry get in the way of factual information. It's not uncommon in parliamentary systems for the premiership to go to the head of a minority party, especially if that party is the largest one in parliament. Look at Canada: Trudeau's Liberals are ten seats shy of a majority. Was he, too, not voted into power by voters?
Obviously political parties and their leaders cannot accomplish winning power without success at electoral politics, aka winning large numbers of votes. It's just that this process is often not pristinely majoritarian.
Pull all support, stop protecting them at the UN and instead get the Kurds a state and make them our new stick. Let Israel and Palestine kill each other forever.
I have no idea what the solution is, but slaughtering civilians with 2000 lb bombs is most definitely not it.
Unfortunately, it’s a necessity as long as the Hamas animals choose to sacrifice them in an attempt to shield themselves. After 10/7, Israel must exterminate Hamas. Any civilian deaths are on the heads of Hamas.
Especially if you don't have any strategy for what you're going to do with Gaza once you stop dropping 2,000 lb bombs.
The problem is, everybody involved in the conflict (meaning, Hamas and the Israeli government) is not acting in the interest of the greater good or even their own good.
The Israeli government, for silly demographic reasons, is captured by hardline Manifest Destiny orthodox weirdos. Hamas are part of the Muslim Brotherhood and want to bring back the Caliphate. Everyone believes with religious certainty that God owes them that land, without compromise, and any means is justified in fulfilling God's will. Hamas are happy to become martyrs, and Israelis are happy to murder them. Everyone gets what they want and nobody wins.
Without religion, there would still be conflict in the world, but finding a compromise would be a lot easier.
It almost kinda sorta makes you want to bring back the Ottoman Empire (although definitely not the Turkish ethno-state Erdogan would want to run).
Let them destroy each other. Why is this a problem for you? We don’t live there. No one I care about lives there. If it were an earthquake in Morocco or a flood in Libya, we’d forget about it after a couple of days.
That’s all this is… an earthquake, a tsunami, a wildfire. Nothing to be done.
When your enemies are fighting each other, they say we should let them. In this case, the religious fanatics are killing each other. The so called innocent people who put up with this are just really enablers of all the violence. They ought to turn against the fanatics in their midst. But they never do... and they raise their children in this cesspool of hatred. It's disgusting.
Well, which is it, Justin? Are the "innocent people" being hurt and killed "disgusting" and "your enemies" or merely "No one [you] care about"?
I mean, either way, you're a monster, but at least try for consistency.
If I had some ability to change the situation and chose not to, then I might be a “monster” but I don’t have any such capability. I live half a world away, and if not for the magic of modern media, I wouldn’t even know shit was happening. Anyway there are no innocent people anywhere. If I’m a monster, I can’t be innocent. So there you go. Violent people like those in that part of the world are a threat to all of us. We would do well to avoid them and their enablers… Like you!
They are all fucking nuts.
A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.
The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, the Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.
Your ignorance is showing.
And my contempt.
What really amazes me is how many people feel so certain about one side or another and are willing to state strong and uncompromising positions on this endless and intractable conflict which has so few good guys and so many bad guys.
How can you not consider Hamas the “bad guy”? Seriously.
I can certainly consider Hamas a bad guy, but they are very clearly not the bad guy in a conflict that also involves Otzma Yehudit.
Agreed, Hamas is a bad guy (I use Hamas as a shorthand for the militant portion, but not unlike Sadam Hussein's Baath Party, it is a large organization with many different roles). Netanyahu is also a bad guy and his far right coalition. I'd say both governments must change before any peace can be had.
Israel decides to bolt the lid on a pressure cooker and keep the heat on for decades.
When, inevitably, it blows up, it has nothing to do with Israel.
Two things can be true at once.
1. Hamas terrorists are responsible for their inhuman actions.
2. Israel sustains an oppressive regime that will predictably breed terrorists.
This goes to strategy. Israeli bombing has killed about one in 200 Gazans and it isn't over (for perspective 1 in 5000 Israelis died on 10/7). After Israel finishes bombing what will they do? Do they expect the surviving Gazan society to be pacified? Less likely to produce terrorists? They say they won't occupy Gaza.
Speaking cynically Israel is playing into Hamas' hands. Hamas does unspeakable acts and provokes a brutal Israeli over-reaction. That over-reaction in turn advances Hamas' goals.
Yeah, this is my problem too. Everyone sucks here. But as soon as you point out that side A sucks, you get accused of supporting side B. So everyone gets locked very earlier into a position and leaves no chance for productive discussion.
I cannot support either side in this conflict, partly because neither side has shown a good-faith effort in achieving peace.
It would help if your arguments that one side sucks were historically accurate.
If you're trying to imply that there is a side in this conflict that doesn't suck, I'd love to see your evidence.
Again, making an insinuation as to what the people disagreeing with you believe that doesn't have any basis in reality. For someone who whines a lot when someone makes an assumption about what you think, you sure do the exact same thing an awful lot.
I think a lot of people are having a hard time separating what Israel is doing on the West Bank and what they are doing in Gaza. What they are doing on the West Bank is awful, unnecessarily so. While the Palestinian Authority is a bunch of corrupt old men who probably would slaughter the economy of an independent West Bank state, they are reasonable for the most part and worthy of heading their own state.
Hamas, on the other hand, is essentially evil and irreconcilable and the more Israel can beat it down, the better for everyone, including the Gazans themselves. While there are those who see the civilian casualty count as too high, we must also remember that it is Hamas' INTENTION that it be high to earn public sympathy. And we really do not know for sure how the Israelis are making targeting decisions. I'd like to know more before I join the ISRAEL IS A WAR CRIMINAL brigade.
It's weird (or maybe not) how those on the left seem to give Hamas a bye while those on the right seem to give Israel a bye on their West Bank policies. Both are kinda wrong!
The Israeli Government has accused Hamas of sheltering in their tunnels while leaving civilians unprotected above. If that is so, why is the IDF conducting airstrikes which cause destruction and casualties above ground, but reach very little of the tunnel complex? Israel has known about the tunnels for years, but seems unprepared for engaging Hamas in them. Even in the case of the alleged command center, weeks have elapsed with very little penetration. If that center actually existed, Hamas have had plenty of time to evacuate personnel and equipment.
See: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/10/world/europe/hamas-gaza-tunnels.html
"I'd like to know more before I join the ISRAEL IS A WAR CRIMINAL brigade"
Well, we can't see what we do not want to see, as you clearly demonstrate. Kind of like Trump's criminal activity, the Isreali government is point blank declaring their intentions before committing their war crimes. It is a war crime to shut off food or water or fuel or electricty to a civilian population. Isreal shut off all of those essentials after declaring they would do so. It is a war crime to knowingly allow disproportionate civilian casualties even when a military target is justifiable. Isreal has openly said that killing a hundred civilians to hopefully take out a single Hamas commander is fine with them. They have said they want to punish the Gazans for what Hamas did. Collective punishment is a war crime.
Again, all of this is completely out in the open. They have taken the only lesson that could have been expected from the near total impunity with which the world has allowed them to act.
I watched the videos of Palestinians, including kids, spitting on grotesquely mangled bodies, pulling on arms and legs as if to tear them off, pulling heads by the hair. I can't imagine people participating and cheering on inhumanity, but it happens all the time, throughout history, and even in this country. Think about the history of forced sterilization in America, the lynching, the witch burning, etc.
And I just watched a video of Israeli schoolgirls singing about Gaza, their innocent little faces asking IDF to "annihilate" (yes, that word, literally) everybody there. Kevin is right that the horror is pretty much ingrained on both sides. But that's hardly new in the world and people have gotten over it pretty fast at times. How are Americans treated in Vietnam today? From what I hear, wonderfully. France-Germany. How Hutus and Tutsis get along I don't know but it's not with machetes. Tamils and Singhalese in Sri Lanka - very recent too.
This. It's very easy to assume that this is an irreconcilable clash of two inimicable (if extremely tiny) civilizations; in reality, the two groups in question are basically modern peoples with nearly identical religions.
I by no means intend that to minimize the hurts and harms and roots of the conflict, but to instead point out that hope is far from pointless here.
As I frequently say, the evil we see on TV/online exists in our own hearts and the only issue is, can we recognize it and prevent it from coming out?
“Both sides have an endless and frequently legitimate list of grievances. How can anyone not see that?”
Rather than asking how anyone can miss such an obvious truth, I would skip over that question and just accept the undeniable fact that many people (including some commenters here) cannot see that obvious truth.
Then we can go from trying to understand an inscrutable mystery to, instead, attempting to navigate our observed reality.
So, how do we navigate our current reality in which so many people on the Left (though not necessarily a majority of the country) will not or cannot process the complexity of the Israel/Hamas war?
Well, in many ways that’s the same problem that’s been haunting the Left for years now. Anti-racism, after all, is absurdly simplistic (you’re racist or antiracist, all solutions are yes/no, and all situations are black and white without any shades of grey).
But here’s the thing: reductive theologies like Leftism/anti-racism catch on BECAUSE they are simplistic. The childish lack of nuance is a feature, not a bug.
Whether it’s the well-educated simpletons out in the streets chanting their support for Hamas to exterminate the Jews, or the intelligent fools who get conned into supporting an obvious agenda of reverse racism, it often seems to be the most simplistic formula that attracts the most fervent support.
The Left has legitimately wondered for years how so many people could be shallow enough to vote for Trump. But the same shallowness exists in all people. On the right it may manifest in chants of “Lock her up,” but on the left it can now be heard in chants of “from the river to the sea.”
And all of this leads to age old questions regarding the viability of democracy. How can any nation so conceived and so dedicated long endure? I guess we still don’t know.
"On the right it may manifest in chants of 'Lock her up,' but on the left it can now be heard in chants of 'from the river to the sea.'"
Um, sure. Get back to me when the left's candidate for president holds campaign rallies chanting "from the river to the sea" and continues to do so _for years_. Until then, kindly please remove your asinine chin stroking about American politics from this discussion of Israel-Palestine.
@aldoushickman:
The idiots on the Left protesting in support of terrorists and calling for the destruction of Israel are obviously an influential faction. How many news updates or columns have appeared in the last month wondering what will happen in 2024 if Biden continues to behave in an intelligent manner and thereby loses the fools to his Left? A lot.
Nevertheless, your response is beyond common. Someone always jumps in to vociferously deny and/or whatabout away the obvious lunacy on the Left.
I think his correct and salient point is that the "lunacy" on the left is fringe whereas the "lunacy" on the right is in control of the political aparatus.
Also, I would respectfully suggest that "support for Hamas to exterminate the Jews" is an odious slur of a strawman. There clearly are some who feel that way, but in the groundswelling of protest against Isreal's unfolding crime against humanity, it is a tiny minority and you do yourself a disservice to ignore a great injustice because of a tribalist reaction.
"Um, sure. Get back to me when the left's candidate for president holds campaign rallies chanting "from the river to the sea" and continues to do so _for years_"
+1
LEO1008 actually thought that was a good argument! I see it pretty often. Take a fringe left position and a mainstream right position and voila, both sides do it.
"So, how do we navigate our current reality in which so many people on the Left (though not necessarily a majority of the country) will not or cannot process the complexity of the Israel/Hamas war?"
Wait, you're not implying that the Right processes said complexity?
@pflash:
Actually, I think this is a good question:
“[Y]ou’re not implying that the Right processes said complexity?”
What I have read is that Democrats/Leftists are major outliers on the current Israel/Hamas war.
I can’t remember the exact wording of the polls that I read about (and the wording of course is important), but the basic idea is that support for Israel to respond to the 10/7 terrorist attacks from Hamas is much stronger in just about every political/demographic group other than DEMs/Leftists.
A majority of Americans generally don’t have a problem wrapping their heads around the idea that a terrorist organization that just killed 1200 Israelis (and has explicitly promised to do so again) needs to be destroyed. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re happy about what’s going on in Gaza. What does it mean? Not sure. They may simply not see any better alternatives.
So, you tell me: what do these polling results indicate? Are Republicans better equipped than DEMs/Leftists to process, understand, and/or accept the trade-offs and compromises inherent in the current Israel/Hamas war?
Personally, I’d say that the polling I’ve read about so far indicates that it’s a possibility.
You do realize that "from the river to the sea" is also used by Likud and Netanyahu, right?
And that is relevant to this present discussion how?
That said, there's a big difference between World War II and the Israel-Hamas war.
There's a bigger difference. During WWII, the Allies had a strategy for how they would convert the slaughter into an end to the war. It turned out that the assumptions made for how the British area bombing campaign would contribute were wrong, but the data for that wasn't available until survey work after the war. But there was a strategy.
Israel hasn't had a strategy since they occupied Gaza and the West Bank. The closest they've come is hoping that the Palestinians would disappear if Israel just ignored them. Meanwhile, they illegally annexed land.
I'd be a lot more supportive of Israel's current campaign against Hamas if they were able to point to a strategy for achieving peace, but it's clear that they don't have one. They cannot articulate any plan for what is going to happen in Gaza after they declare the invasion over. They've said that they won't occupy it. They've said that they won't allow Fatah to take over (though Fatah wouldn't accept that poisoned chalice if they asked). Beyond that . . . crickets. One is left with the impression that they are going to do what they always do: withdraw back to the borders of Gaza, maintain their punishing blockade, and go back to hoping that the Palestinians go away. Hamas, or something a lot like it, will reconstitute itself and everything will be just like it was three months ago.
They're killing tens of thousands of civilians in order to accomplish nothing.
Totally agree. Israel tried to manage the conflict and that failed.
Personal note: I visited Israel and spoke with some educated secular Israelis. They could not understand why in the world I visited Hebron. They were "so done" with Palestinians. These were nice people, the sort of people who might read Kevin Drum. They thought they could safely maintain the status quo indefinitely.
Their status quo was pretty nice. The status quo in Hebron seemed pretty sucky, and Gaza is a worse place to live.
This is exactly true. The current attacks by Israel will accomplish nothing but providing Hamas with a new generation of recruits.
Israel has really screwed up: with Israel's prisoner releases and refusal to work with the PA to make the West Bank a better place for Palestinians to live, they've essentially shown the Palestinians that only violence will get *anything* from Israel. That can't be a good message to deliver.
Angry people often have no endgame.
"Even in theory, is there any answer?"
Free Marwan Barghouti. I keep saying that but jeez, if Palestinians are given only the choice between an Israeli-boot-licking and corrupt PLO and Hamas - and they haven't been given even that for 16 years - how can you expect them to create the legitimate institutions necessary to engage constructively. And Israel needs to stop thinking that as long as it prevents any partner for peace arising, it can profit from that.
The Palestinian Authority is a quisling government. Quisling governments are corrupt almost by definition. It will remain a quisling government as long as there is no peace process, and that requires Israel.
Changing the PA leader doesn't change these fundamentals.
Fun fact: Israel is the #1 recipient of US foreign aid.
We all have blood on our hands.
We should give more. Everything we can afford to give to make sure Israel is protected and Hamas is eradicated.
You seem to think the US giving more and "eradicating" (what does that even mean?) Hamas protects Israel.
It does the opposite. 10/7 killed 1:5000 Israelis. Israeli bombing since has killed 1:200 Gazans. You are completely ignoring human psychology, how people become radicalized. You imagine there is a military solution. If thinking like yours was correct 10/7 would not have happened. That strategy failed. It will, given time, always fail.
Yes.
Why have the Gazans not risen up and kicked out Hamas? They could be living in peace and have their own land if it wasn't for Hamas.
In my opinion, the answer is because there's really not that much daylight between Hamas and the average Gazan. How many Gazans spoke out against the animalistic terror attacks on 10/7? On the contrary, many applauded the animals. Even Palestinians in the US and UK either outright celebrated the terrorists attack or were silent and offered no condemnation. Their hatred of Jews and Israel outweigh their objections to Hamas.
Kevin says both sides, but there are three, what about the Palestinian Authority? Israel actually has a good path here, although they will not take it.
Negotiate a West Bank-only settlement with the Palestinian Authority. Similar land swaps to 2000 proposals. Palestinians get full sovereignty but give up right of return. (This is about what was offered in 2000, except Israel never offered full sovereignty.)
Gaza will not stick with Hamas.
Of course this cannot happen because West Bank settlers (Israeli MAGA equivalent) are too powerful, and Israelis are too pissed off. But Israel could do it. That they don't is their choice.
Israel also never offered land swaps that were conducive to peace. Barak's plan was to hold onto 7% of the West Bank with settlements scattered so they gave Israel control of the whole West Bank, and to give back a smaller amount of worthless territory in return.
It would make more sense to go back to the Olmert-Abbas negotiations (something that it seems Olmert suggested not too long ago) if they wanted peace, and then to just drop the idea of land swaps. One could picture a deal in which Israel received land to make its territory wider, and traded, say, part of Northern Israel to give the Palestinians a more defensible state as well. That would explain why land has to be swapped. But that has not been what land swaps have meant for Israel. After all, a lot of Palestinians live in the territory Israel would need, while a lot of Israelis (including some of my relatives) live in the territory the Palestinians would get. And Israel has no interest in uprooting more Israelis.
The swaps has always been a way to minimize the number of settlers that have to be uprooted from settlements that never should have been created in the first place.
... As absolutely everyone should know as a matter of fact before engaging in discussion.
I don't think we are far apart. A sovereign Palestinian state, and Israel, should have defensible borders. That means compact and contiguous. Which offer in the past best meets that criteria I don't know.
The main point is that Israel as the powerful player also has the broadest scope of action. They could offer full sovereignty. They could remove settlements from the West Bank. They can choose peace and take a path that is not a total humifaction for the other side. The PA is weak. About all they can do is try to play a weak hand as well as they can.
No you are right that we seem to agree much more than we disagree. I was reacting to the fact that the idea of land swaps is taken for granted even in your reasonable comment when really it is just a nod to how much Israel wants to "gain" rather than reach peace.
But in fact peace, if it is achieved, will come about largely like you suggest. Or resuming the Olmert-Abbas negotiations with the US explaining to the Israelis that their insistence on keeping settlements between East Jerusalem and the West Bank makes them look ridiculous. (There was an additional issue of Ariel, but I suspect that would be more bridgeable. But again why should the Palesitinians have to give up some of their 22% for land so bad that nobody has settled in it yet.)
I take your point on land swaps.
The US needs to do more than explain to Israelis that settlements make them look bad, we need to make US aid conditional on peeling back settlements.
+1
Israel had Hamas' plan for a year and discounted it: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
I can't imagine Netanyahu surviving this. One can hope that this might cause Israelis to rethink the policies of past decades, which have brought neither peace nor security.
It’s unforgivable, if true. Sooner, rather than later, they need to get rid of Netanyahu and anyone else responsible for the inaction.
Trying to figure it out ourselves is pointless. Better to listen to and support the voices on the ground who have the expertise and relationships to come up with something we would never think of.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-standing-together.html
Even in theory, is there any answer?
Yes, unless Israelis no longer deem a Jewish national homeland to be a vital necessity (in which case Israel cold change from being an ethnostate), the answer is what it has always been: the two state solution. By many estimates, Jews are now a minority in Greater Israel. Such a status quo isn't tenable long term.
No, a two state solution hardly guarantees a pristine peace between Israel and the Palestinians—especially in the early going—but its absence guarantees lack of peace.
"a two state solution hardly guarantees a pristine peace between Israel and the Palestinians—especially in the early going—but its absence guarantees lack of peace"
Yes to that.
What's frustrating is that it is obvious, through the process of elimination, what the final settlement will be:
- Israel goes back to its 1967 borders.
- Demilitarized Palestinian state on the West Bank, or maybe West Bank goes back to Jordan.
- Right of return of descendants of Palestinians displaced in 1948 to new Palestinian state, not Israel proper.
- Land connection between Gaza and WB.
- F**k Jerusalem -- leave it to the religious nut cases on both sides to figure out.
The demilitarized part isn't obvious.
Why has there never been a Palestinian peace movement?
Until maybe now,
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/mansour-abbas-calls-on-armed-palestinian-factions-to-throw-down-their-weapons-work-with-pa-to-establish-state/
Or at least until Hamas shoots him.
It's important to point out that it's not that there haven't been moderate Palestinians prior to this. It's that Fatah, Hamas, and the Israelis all have worked very hard to make sure that they are marginalized.
But it's more important to point out it's Fatah and Hamas who have a lot more at stake in preventing a serious peace movement for Palestinians, and a lot more capacity to do it.
You just made two assertions for which there is a distinct lack of evidence. Israel has every bit as much interest in preventing a serious peace movement among Palestinians, as the emergence of one would either lay bare their total lack of interest in peace or would force them to stop behaving illegally.
The Israelis also have vastly more capacity to prevent such an emergence. This is one of the ways they use administrative detention of Palestinians without charges.
That is simply absurd.
Palestinians actually live among one another.
The proximity of Hamas and Fatah to every other Palestinian is, oh, what is the English, they are just fucking right there.
There has never been a serious appearance of a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, an advocate of non-violence and civil rights, among Palestinians, at any point in any era. If you ask Palestinians why that is they are simply contemptuous of the idea. Peace is beneath them.
Yet another low-info, low-rez idiot who doesn't give a damn whether or not what they say is true or even informed. Do you even know what a cite is?
Like your last parade of stupid.
So tell us, precisely, what you think my cite below gets wrong? What facts do you dispute, precisely, as elaborated on by TheMelancholyDonkey, tomtom502, Lon Becker, et al?
Facts count for something, after all, and in my world at least, they trump feelings. You, OTOH, don't seem to particularly care about the actual historical events, preferring instead, to imbibe the propaganda I Israel has manufactured around them. Don't bother to deny it if you refuse to dispute any facts listed by those worthies I mentioned above.
There is no Scent of Violets. You're just imagining it.
There's nothing there.
Chuckle. Can I call 'em folks or can I call em? Commentors may recall a moment three weeks ago when I was chastised for being a little quick on the draw for observing the cld was a dishonest bullshitter operating in extreme bad faith. Turns out I wasn't after all, was I. Thanks for showing your true colors, cld, and affirming every observation I made about you in spades 😉
Palestinians actually live among one another.
And? Israel has vastly more power and ability to engage in detention. You are making an argument from incredulity, and it falls flat.
Aside from which, even accepting your assertion, it doesn't refute anything I said. Even if Fatah has more power to prevent moderate Palestinian leadership arising, that does not change the very obvious fact that Israel is using what capacity it does have to do exactly that. They are doing whatever they can to prevent such an event. Indeed, they provide significant support to Fatah to help prevent it. If the Israelis wanted there to be free elections in the West Bank, providing an opportunity for that to happen, they could actually work towards that end. But they don't.
There has never been a serious appearance of a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, an advocate of non-violence and civil rights among Palestinians, at any point in any era. If you ask Palestinians why that is they are simply contemptuous of the idea. Peace is beneath them.
How does this differentiate them from the Israelis? What figure has risen up among them demanding nonviolence? If you let Israelis vote, for more than a half century, they always elect a government that engages in illegal annexations, arbitrary detention, and economic blockades.
I think you're projecting. Anyone who lives in my house has infinitely more access to me than anyone who does not. Is this different for you?
It's as if you're trying to say that Israel bought them all those rockets and cultivated violent antagonism among them just so they could kill them all while looking terrible doing it, yet that's what the gangsters and death cultists who actually control the Palestinian lives have actually done, bought the rockets and thrown their own children at an army more than happy to bomb them.
But that's too complicate and horrible an impression and nobody wants to think about it so Israel are the real bad guys here. That and the Jews won a war so that's obviously wrong.
It's a reach to claim for Hamas or Fatah or the PA some kind of moral standing or presumptive virtue they themselves have never demonstrated.
What figure has risen up among them [Israelis] demanding nonviolence?
Around half the population of Israel has continually voiced advocacy for non-violent solutions but they manage to be overwhelmed by the motivated social conservatives of the settler movement and the reactionary Russian emigres who vote for Likud. This is not a mystery.
But if a peace movement should ever threaten to emerge among Palestinians how do you think the gangsters and death cultists who actually control Palestinian lives would react? It seems unlikely it would go far, and there has never been anything you could point to that would suggest otherwise.
Now you're just flat-out trolling. Again.
I think you're projecting. Anyone who lives in my house has infinitely more access to me than anyone who does not. Is this different for you?
If we were discussing individuals within a household, rather than state or quasi-state actors, this would even be relevant.
It's as if you're trying to say that Israel bought them all those rockets and cultivated violent antagonism among them just so they could kill them all while looking terrible doing it, yet that's what the gangsters and death cultists who actually control the Palestinian lives have actually done, bought the rockets and thrown their own children at an army more than happy to bomb them.
This has precisely nothing to do with any statement made. It is 100% an attempt to poison the dialogue.
But that's too complicate and horrible an impression and nobody wants to think about it so Israel are the real bad guys here. That and the Jews won a war so that's obviously wrong.
This is just you responding to imaginary voices in your head.
It's a reach to claim for Hamas or Fatah or the PA some kind of moral standing or presumptive virtue they themselves have never demonstrated.
Which, again, has exactly nothing to do with anything I said.
Around half the population of Israel has continually voiced advocacy for non-violent solutions but they manage to be overwhelmed by the motivated social conservatives of the settler movement and the reactionary Russian emigres who vote for Likud. This is not a mystery.
Given that Israel's pursuit of illegal, violent policies predates Likud being in the government, this is clearly wrong. I suspect that you sincerely believe that illegally annexing land and tossing out those who lived there previously constitutes non-violent actions, but this serves only to demonstrate that you are profoundly unmoored from morality.
But if a peace movement should ever threaten to emerge among Palestinians how do you think the gangsters and death cultists who actually control Palestinian lives would react? It seems unlikely it would go far, and there has never been anything you could point to that would suggest otherwise.
Keep in mind, I've never denied that Hamas would, indeed, react this way. My point has been that Israel also has a long history of doing everything it can to prevent such a movement among the Palestinians. You persist in refusing to engage with this point like it's a rabid chipmunk. You won't even deny it. You simply pretend that I never said it, and endlessly repeat something I've already agreed with.
It's like you think your position is extremely weak, but that no one will notice if you keep churning out rote responses that avoid all substance.
All parts of your statement here are wrong, so wrong it's hard to know how to address it.
This is the problem with the topic is that it becomes easy for one party to hide in the weeds and where all they know is weeds, so to them the weeds are the point.
The Jews resisted an ethnic cleansing and won the conflict decidedly, the only minority population to have done so, during a period of the dissolution of the hegemonic empire of Ottomans,
and this is the key point so much of Middle Eastern popular opinion cannot live with. Everything else depends from that.
Pro Tip: By the time you've reached the point where you're calling facts 'weeds' everyone knows you've lost. Also, that you're a terrible person. Sorry, cld, it's not your ears I'm pinning back; that business has already been successfully concluded. No, my comment is addressed to those who three weeks ago said I was being too hard on you with too little evidence.
You were doing that better in the last shot of the first Twin Peaks series when you smashed your head into the mirror. Younger, fresher.
"There has never been a serious appearance of a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, an advocate of non-violence and civil rights, among Palestinians, at any point in any era."
There has never been a Palestinian Napolean, Churchill, or Joan of Arc either. Are you serious?
BDS is dedicated to non-violence. A secular one-state solution with equal rights for all has many Palestinian and Jewish advocates.
If by "serious appearance" you mean the emergence of an amazing charismatic figure who captures the imagination of the people and makes the seemingly impossible possible you are right. Neither Palestine or Israel has produced one of those.
A 'secular on-state solution' is like the secular on-state solution of Mentos and Diet Coke.
Israel has produced a number of impressive public figures, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by a social conservative, come to mind, none of whom rise to the level of a Gandhi, but still the Palestinian equivalent to them is who? Abbas, the guy who claims to have a PhD acquired by defending holocaust denial?
"There has never been a serious appearance of a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, an advocate of non-violence and civil rights, among Palestinians, at any point in any era." has now morphed to calling David Ben-Gurion 'a notable public figure'. Uh, you did know Ben-Gurion was a terrorist, didn't you? Yes, I'll agree he was a public figure. But he was no Ghandi. You've been spending the last twelve hours day-drinkning AICMFP.
Attempts to compare Hamas to 1930s Nazis are counter-productive, inviting pointless arguments about all the ways in which they are different. I agree with Kevin's overall point however, that neither Israel nor Palestine deserves to be hailed as having an undisputed moral superiority in their perennial conflicts. That's one of the reasons I don't understand why so many Americans get almost hysterical in their denunciations of one side or the other.
I also don't understand why, after decades of almost constant failure, America still feels obliged to "find a solution" to a conflict for which it was no more responsible than many other nations, and devotes extraordinary resources and political capital to the task, despite it being guaranteed that whatever happens it will not please everyone, and could well please nobody.
I also don't understand why, after decades of almost constant failure, America still feels obliged to "find a solution" to a conflict for which it was no more responsible than many other nations
1) Domestic politics: there was similarly no reason for US politicians to be so invested in what was going on in Northern Ireland.
2) Imperialist path dependency. America's elites like running an empire. It's the only reality they've ever known. The last US political leaders who remember the pre-imperial past left office 30-40 years ago. Anyway, telling other people in far-flung corners of the world what they must do is the prerogative of empire:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/30/americas-undying-empire-why-the-decline-of-us-power-has-been-greatly-exaggerated
However, it is not beyond the pale to compare Jewish terrorist groups with Nazi's; they were allied with them for some time, after all.
Everyone has a strong opinion supported by the facts and history they've chosen to invest in, and few agree on anything. I see a lot of sloppiness about names: Israel, Netanyahu, Zionists and Jews are no more a monolithic block than America, Trump, Whites and Americans are. Or Hamas, Palestine (if it exists or doesn't), Arabs, Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Arabs, and Muslims are. "Elites" are not monolithic - plenty of elites are Soros fans, plenty more are Koch people, and others spend half their time creating non-profits to benefit the world. The entire horrible mid-east mess is so tangled that that a noisy unknown percentage, perhaps afflicted with short attention spans and an inability to think about complex problems, want simple solutions. One-message protestors and politicians on various sides are just making things worse. Progressives may become unwitting tools of Hamas and of anti-Semites. Pro-Israel people might, through simplistic messaging, strengthen Netanyahu's policies. My simple solution is this: Let's give Israel Florida. The Israelis have worked technological wonders with their tiny slice of land. If you've ever been there, you'd know what a friendly, warm, welcoming country it is. Scene at a restaurant: "Still hungry? You want more? Did you try the blintzes? I'm bringing you another plate of food. Shhh. It's on the house." The Israelis could turn Florida, which is sinking below sea level anyway, into a paradise. We don't really need Florida, it's of no use except for Disneyland. I supposed we could keep half of Orlando, because we know from history how well dividing cities works. In seriousness, I just don't see how, after so many hostile invasions by its neighbors, with a current regime that's only stoked fires on every front, in a future that doesn't promise an easier life in hot, water-starved lands, a future in which Israel will more and more resemble a succulent baby tuna surrounded by starving great whites, how a small, wealthy, high-tech, innovative country that will inevitably be seen as juicy flesh desperately in need of being eaten, will ever find peace. ---- May I be mistaken, amen.
Did Irgun, Haganah, and the Stern Gang hold elections? Compare them to the Gestapo and the SS now that they are state institutions.
See my cite below.
thanks
While all you religious fanatics cry about shit half way around the world…
We are closer to that point today than we have ever been, yet we continue to drift toward dictatorship, still hoping for some intervention that will allow us to escape the consequences of our collective cowardice, our complacent, willful ignorance and, above all, our lack of any deep commitment to liberal democracy. As the man said, we are going out not with a bang but a whimper. - Robert Kagan.
I recommend those picking sides in Gaza follow the actions of that guy in Atlanta who set himself on fire in protest. Here’s a match!
‘We now just wish to be killed’: the Palestinians under fire in southern Gaza…
Perhaps they could go after the Hamas militants who thought it was a good idea to attack Israel on 10/7.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/02/we-now-just-wish-to-be-killed-the-palestinians-under-fire-in-southern-gaza
Hilarious.
Everyone has a strong opinion supported by the facts and history they've chosen to invest in, and few agree on anything.
Unfortunately, one side has _not_ chosen to invest in facts and history, but rather foundational myths and an extremely blinkered reading of events and propaganda. Why not read up on, say JEWISH-ZIONIST TERRORISM AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ISRAEL (apologies for the all-caps; that's directly copied from the source):
And so on and so forth. I suspect that a lot of the low-rez types spouting the 'Israel offered the Palestinian statehood many times' disinfo they were so eager to lap up don't even know the Lehi (AKA the Stern Gang) were down with Hitler as late as 1941. These are not serious persons, much as they obviously -- desperately -- want to be taken for one.
Bottome line: It is facts, not feelings (however strong they are professed to be) that count. Those who argue otherwise are merely disingenously advancing a might makes right argument.
My parents lived in Jordan in the mid-1950s while my father worked in the old Point Four aid program, so I have learned about the plight of the Palestinians literally since birth. Despite my empathy for their cause, it seems clear that a two-state solution is no longer possible, and probably hasn't been since roughly 1967. That is certainly the case in the current climate.The most realistic solution -- and it has immense hurdles as well -- is to return as much of the West Bank as possible to Jordan, which controlled the area prior to June 1967, and to return Gaza to Egypt, which is also its pre-1967 status. I recognize neither nation is keen to reassume control over these areas, so considerable incentives are required. Given that Israel has diplomatic relations with Jordan and Egypt, this would end settler expansion on the West Bank. In turn, Jordan and Egypt have the means to control the borders to limit attacks on Israel from Palestinian militants. For Palestinians, they would be freed from the concentration camp that is Gaza, free of settler violence on the West Bank and free to live a relatively normal life without constant harassmen from the Israeli government. It is hardly ideal and far short of what both sides want, but there is no "win-win" possible in current circumstances, only solutions that are less crappy than others.
Those territories were indeed Jordanian and Egyptian prior to 1967, but I suspect you're right that neither country is interested in absorbing a failed mini-state into their respective countries.
I don't see Israel's right wing governments turning the West Bank over to Jordan, however, and there will only be right wing governments in Israel for the foreseeable future. The peace camp was destroyed politically by the Second Intifada.
"return as much of the West Bank as possible"
Anything is possible, why not the Green line?
Your plan effectively ends the settlements, why is it more doable than a sovereign state run by the PA?
Why would Egypt and Jordan agree to this?
cuz we give them unspecified "considerable incentives"
Must be pretty considerable considering Jordan and Egypt extricated themselves from this mess and haven't looked back since.
It is hard to imagine that Jordan wants a West Bank full of settlers anymore than the Palestinians do. And if you got the settlers out of the West Bank there would be no reason why the two sides couldn't move towards peace. So it is hard to see what such a solution would solve.
Any peace deal is likely to involve some (likely temporary) security arrangements. But there is no advantage to the endstate not being a Palestinian state.
That's why I qualify it with "as much as possible," meaning the reality is that Israel will never cede back more than about 80 percent of the West Bank and will retain control over the rest where Israeli settlements are most numerous. A few settlements will be dismantled but not all. For Jordan to accept, the area would have to be contiguious.
And why not just move to a Palestinian state? Because even if Israel would agree to a Palestinian "state," it would be nothing of the kind. Even the so-called generous offer by Barak in 2000 had provisions where Israel still controlled all borders and most internal security, so it was hardly independent. Israel could not dictate such terms to already sovereign nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, but, in my theory, Israel is more comfortable handing this problem off to the Egyptians and Jordanians.
Let me repeat, this is not an ideal solution. But just chanting "two-state solution" like a mantra isn't going to get us there. Israel holds almost all the power here. They don't want a Palestinian state. They are willing to live with what that means, apparently, so those who keep talking about a two-state solution, explain how and why Israel suddenly agrees to it?
I realized after making my comment that there is one virtue for Israel namely in claiming settlements close to Israel. One of the settlement blocks that doomed the Olmert negotiations was Ariel, which is contiguous to Israel but eats up a lot of the West Bank. I expect Israel would argue that matters less if the West Bank is thought of as being added on to Jordan.
On the other hand, the fact that Israel was offering less than sovereignty is less of a big deal as long as the territory is contiguous enough that it could evolve into a real state. I assume that is why that was not the sticking point for Abbas. It is true that what Abbas was after was really an occupation that accorded with international law. But the reason that international law has such rules for occupation is that they are the rules that are conducive to eventually ending occupation.
Short answer is, they don't: I'll restarte my prediction of three weeks (four years, ten years) ago: Israel slow-walks, perseverates, makes up imaginary slights, and is otherwise stubbornly intransigent until they have all the marbles, which is what they came for in the first place. Fifty years later Israel will say that what they did was very, very bad and they are very, very sorry (like we did with our native popultion) and award the remnants some token concessions.
This was always the plan and Zionists have been given no reason to think they won't be ultimately successful.
How do you get past it? Time.
The path out is years of trust building. It has to start with Israel granting real autonomy to increasingly large sections of the West Bank, stopping building settlements and eventually shutting down some of them. The intention has to be a real independent demilitarized state. And the Palestinians have to recognize the right of return will only be to the new Palestinian state, not Israel.
Both sides have waste 30 years post-Oslo positioning themselves for victory over the other -- Israel never stopped building settlements, and the Palestinians only occasionally stop trying to kill Israeli civilians.
It will probably take a generation of both sides actually trying to find a peaceful solution before there'll be anything close to a peaceful Palestine and Israel living side by side. And right now, neither side is even moving in the right direction.
There are no shortcuts. Right now there is only stupidity.
Why demilitarized? Doesn't a "real independent" state get to defend itself?
Hell, does a 'real independent' state get to control it's own water? It's own electricity?
Actually the Palestinians had controlled violence so effectively since the second intifada that Netanyahu was able to go to France after a single deadly anti-Semitic attack and say that French Jews should move to Israel where it is safer. That is, of course, even truer with regard to the West Bank which the PA controls. But of course it is the West Bank which has seen the settlement build up that has killed the two state solution.
The point is that it is just bothsiderism to miss that the reason peace seemed possible in the 90s and seems doomed now is that Israel has worked to make it so, while Abbas has worked hard to keep the possibility of peace alive.
Similarly, Abbas and Olmert worked out a deal on the right of return. It is only Israel's need to actually give the Palestinians something that could be a state eventually that has been a perpetual sticking point.
Pretending that both sides have been working against peace for the last 30 years just gets Israel off the hook for its actually working against peace. The point is not that Hamas has been working towards peace, obviously they haven't. But none of what has to be done to prepare for peace turns on Gaza, which Hamas controls. Israel has just used them as an excuse to avoid peace. And why not since at least until October 7th Israel has been thriving over the last 30 years. Why did they need peace.
Agreed.
As the strong party Israel has so many options, the Palestinians so few.
The option Israel took: Manage the conflict ("mow the lawn", "control the height of the flames") while inexorably taking over the West Bank with settlements.
Unconditional pro-Israel commenters: C-mon, show your stuff. Explain Israeli policy and enlighten us about their endgame. Tell us how settlements are actually OK or don't matter. Do better than regurgitating the unconditional pro-Israel line.
No both sides here. There is also a simplistic and ahistorical unconditional pro-Palestinian line, but no one is advocating it in these comments.
One person has been killed and two others injured after an assailant attacked passersby in central Paris (https://www.theguardian.com/world/paris) near the Eiffel Tower, the French interior minister said on Saturday night.
Gérald Darmanin wrote on X: “The police have just courageously arrested an assailant attacking passersby in Paris, around the Quai de Grenelle … Please avoid the area.”
The man who died has been identified as a German national.
The interior minister said that the assailant had been arrested and the injured were being treated by emergency services. Darmanin said the alleged attacker had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, Arabic for “God is greatest”, and told police he was upset about the situation in Gaza.
To hell with all of them. Pick a side? I pick the one which lets them kill each other so we don’t have to listen to their BS anymore.
You are right Kevin.
The problem is that neither side has acted as if a two state solution was acceptable. Until that changes there will be continuing murder and mayhem. Neither side wins in the short term.