can you think of a solution for Israel and Palestine?

[What if...?]

Right of return is a poison pill. As for water rights, that wasn’t one of the divisive issues. Water is the single most rational and practical point of any negotiation in land sharing/division. Obviously one side doesn’t get to have all the water and other gets none. That’s not what led to the collapse of the two state solution.

So I looked it up and according to Britannica both sides disagreed on the two state solution and Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist over it.

And the terms Israel demanded were much better for them than the Palestinians.

So it isn’t really fair to say “the Palestinians rejected the two state solution”. More accurately they rejected Israel’s two state solution, which would have benefitted Israel far more than it did Palestine.

When it comes to American opinion about the situation ours differs greatly from that of many Israelis. Haaretz would be condemned by Israel as terrorist sympathizers if it wasn’t an Israeli paper. Hardliners do anyway.

Two-state solution | Meaning, Map, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, & Borders | Britannica

The two-state solution is a proposed framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing two states for two peoples: Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people.

www.britannica.com

 

[Cardinal]

Yes, Arafat's mentality was completely spoiled by that point and Barak was politically weak. Arafat came to Camp David just to draw pain from the Israelis.

This is rationalization. Walking away from the deal was Ararat’s choice. And if you’re going to rebut this with the observation that Netanyahu would have nulled and voided the peace deal anyway, then that argument ignores the fact that it’s Arafat walking away from the deal that led to Netanyahu stepping into power in the first place.

Arafat’s decision that day castrated the position of moderates in Israel, and justified the hard right position that peace with Palestinians was pointless. What Arafat did was catastrophic to the lives of Palestinians, and catastrophic to the soul of moderate Israeli Jews.

Successful moderates in one camp reinforce the moderates in the other camp. Successful hardliners in one camp reinforce the hardliners in the other camp. With certain obvious exceptions*, this is the way the world works.




*cough*NevilleChamaberlain*cough*

 

[Ethel2]

Yes, that is the problem. Israeli's political right in their anti-Arab and Jewish supremacist views drive the majority of the harassment of Palestinians. Much of the Palestinian leadership don't believe and do not trust the Israeli moderates and political left to control Israeli's nut cases. What they see instead is political conservatives like Netanyahu — fighting to stay out of prison on corruption and bribery charges — using Israeli's far-right to further his ambitions and to corrupt the Israeli political process. Meanwhile any Israeli leftist who does speak out and try to make peace will just get assassinated like Rabin did in the 90s. So why try?

You misunderstood: you cannot judge a country by its nut cases. I do not judge our country by the presence of our MAGATS. There are other conservatives who are NOT MAGAT nut cases who are far more reasonable but still conservative.
In any democracy the pendulum swings from more towards the right to more towards the left. We had Obama for 8 years and we were more left. Israel has had its left leaning time as well. In time Netanyahu and his far right MAGAT policies will give way to reason. In the meanwhile the solution is not targeting babies, children, and unarmed adults for a massacre. There is absolutely no excuse for that-ever. And now the Palestinians are paying a very heavy price for allowing Hamas to live among them.

 

[Cardinal]

So I looked it up and according to Britannica both sides disagreed on the two state solution and Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist over it.

And the terms Israel demanded were much better for them than the Palestinians.

So it isn’t really fair to say “the Palestinians rejected the two state solution”. More accurately they rejected Israel’s two state solution, which would have benefitted Israel far more than it did Palestine.

When it comes to American opinion about the situation ours differs greatly from that of many Israelis. Haaretz would be condemned by Israel as terrorist sympathizers if it wasn’t an Israeli paper. Hardliners do anyway.

Two-state solution | Meaning, Map, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, & Borders | Britannica

The two-state solution is a proposed framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing two states for two peoples: Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people.

www.britannica.com

What Israel would have lost is the West Bank as an important military strategic position, and it would have ceded the religious claim that God gave Jews all of Israel. It’s incredibly inaccurate to say that Israel got everything they wanted. Arafat walking away from the deal was the best thing that could have happened to right wing Orthodox Jews, who are absolutely entrenched in the belief that….GOD…gave Jews that land. You can’t argue with that mindset.

Of course, you can’t argue with the mindset that all you have to do is wait Israel out forever on the premise they’ll collapse eventually anyway so there’s no point in peace talks.

The reason why all of this is so moot is because, as of today, right wing hardliners on both sides are firmly in control of the process. There’s no way of knowing when the next window in which moderates are in control in both camps will open again, but one thing’s for sure: that window isn’t open now. As of right today, only the worst people on both sides are driving the car, and all the moderates are in the trunk.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

TU, you are smarter than this. Unless your post is sarcastic (sometimes its hard to tell) I am going to call bullshit on it.
Here is one passage on Hamas' charter that calls for killing of Jews:

Anti-Semitic Incitement:------------------------'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews andkill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and therocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behindme, come and kill him.' (Article 7)

THE COVENANT OF THE HAMAS - MAIN POINTS

Is that crystal clear enough for you?

As far as allowing Hamas to exist you're right: its up to the Palestinian people to eliminate them. That is why the Palestinian people bear some responsibility for the massacre: they ALLOWED these pigs to live among them knowing full well that they are terrorists and are NEVER going to help their plight. Now Israel is going to go in and hopefully neutralize Hamas, significantly reducing their ability to hide and conduct terror and murder in the name of the "religion of peace", but eliminating Hamas is going to be up to the Palestinian people. And the sooner they get started the sooner their plight will improve.

And I repeat

Yes, and if it is eliminated then it is going to be the Palestinian people who eliminate it.

• Not only that, but the Palestinian people aren't going to eliminate it until such time as they see some realistic alternative to it.
  • And, the Palestinian people aren't going to see some realistic alternative to it as long as the very lifeblood of their "nation" is being used to coerce them into doing whatever the government of a different country feels like telling them to do.

 

[Paradoxical]

I think an asteroid about 20 miles in diameter will fix all the problems on the earth. Of course the same destruction can be had by reelecting Joe Biden.

Isn't it funny that all this is happening under Biden/Blinken?

 

[Ethel2]

And I repeat

Yes, and if it is eliminated then it is going to be the Palestinian people who eliminate it.

• Not only that, but the Palestinian people aren't going to eliminate it until such time as they see some realistic alternative to it.
  • And, the Palestinian people aren't going to see some realistic alternative to it as long as the very lifeblood of their "nation" is being used to coerce them into doing whatever the government of a different country feels like telling them to do.

We agreed on that. Only the Palestinian people can rid themselves of Hamas. However, Israel is, hopefully, going to largely neutralize Hamas' ability to commit acts of terror and hide in their tunnels to escape justice. Hamas would still be there, but a shadow of its evil self.
Israel is not a "foreign country". There is no "Palestine", only Israel on that piece of land. The only country telling the Palestinians what to do is Iran. Terrorism is NEVER EVER going to get this solved. I have written many times here what needs to be done, and it is quite simple: recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence. Basically agree to be a good neighbor. ONLY THEN can there ever be a Palestine.

 

[brothern]

You misunderstood: you cannot judge a country by its nut cases. I do not judge our country by the presence of our MAGATS. There are other conservatives who are NOT MAGAT nut cases who are far more reasonable but still conservative.
In any democracy the pendulum swings from more towards the right to more towards the left. We had Obama for 8 years and we were more left. Israel has had its left leaning time as well. In time Netanyahu and his far right policies will give way to reason. In the meanwhile the solution is not targeting babies, children, and unarmed adults for a massacre. There is absolutely no excuse for that-ever. And now the Palestinians are paying a very heavy price for allowing Hamas to live among them.

But, we are judged by our nut cases. You're well aware that the Freedom Caucus has shut down Congress by removing McCarthy. Just pretend we were in a war with Canada and were trying to come to a sensitive peace deal. Do you think the Canadians would trust us Americans to do the right thing when we (frequently) allow a tiny MAGA fraction to bring our government to its knees in a complete stand still? How can they make a deal with that?

And, I'm not going to even mention Netanyahu's shenanigans in — through selective ignorance and even backhand support — trying to delegitimize and undermine moderate Palestinian voices/representatives over his more favored opposition in groups like Hamas terrorists. That strategy had worked well for him and the political right until last week.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

We agreed on that. Only the Palestinian people can rid themselves of Hamas. However, Israel is, hopefully, going to largely neutralize Hamas' ability to commit acts of terror and hide in their tunnels to escape justice. Hamas would still be there, but a shadow of its evil self.
Israel is not a "foreign country". There is no "Palestine", only Israel on that piece of land.

If you drop back to my original suggestion you will see that the basis for any "solution" would be to recognize "Palestine" as an independent and sovereign nation.

The only country telling the Palestinians what to do is Iran.

And, of course, Israel.

Terrorism is NEVER EVER going to get this solved.

"Terrorism" drove the British out and created Israel. "Terrorism" drove the Americans out and "created" Vietnam. "Terrorism" drove the British out and "created" India.

I have written many times here what needs to be done, and it is quite simple: recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence.

In short, give the Israelis anything that they want FIRST and then they will think about possibly considering the potential of giving the "Palestinians" some portion of what they want.

Basically agree to be a good neighbor. ONLY THEN can there ever be a Palestine.

The Israelis never agreed to "be a good neighbor" and there is an Israel.

 

[Ethel2]

But, we are judged by our nut cases. You're well aware that the Freedom Caucus has shut down Congress by removing McCarthy. Just pretend we were in a war with Canada and were trying to come to a sensitive peace deal. Do you think the Canadians would trust us Americans to do the right thing when we (frequently) allow a tiny MAGA fraction to bring our government to its knees in a complete stand still? How can they make a deal with that?

And, I'm not going to even mention Netanyahu's shenanigans in — through selective ignorance and even backhand support — trying to delegitimize and undermine moderate Palestinian voices/representatives over his more favored opposition in groups like Hamas terrorists. That strategy had worked well for him and the political right until last week.

You are free to judge an entire country by our nut cases, but I'll pass. BTW, I am not a fan of Netanyahu, as I have written here. I think he is an Israeli version of our own jackass.
This discussion started with my statement that most ordinary Israelis just want to be left alone to live in peace, and I believe that is true. Most Israelis do not want to decimate Gaza without provocation. Most Israelis do not want for innocent Palestinians to die. I am not even sure that most Israelis support the outrageous land grabs that create new settlements illegally. I have more faith in ordinary Israelis (and ordinary NORMAL Americans) than you do it seems. MAGATS here make up roughly 30% of us. I suspect that its similar in Israel with normal people making up the majority.
Israel has got to get rid of its current government and come off the far right, but that doesn't mean that ordinary normal Israeli citizens are blood thirsty expansionists.

 

[Ethel2]

If you drop back to my original suggestion you will see that the basis for any "solution" would be to recognize "Palestine" as an independent and sovereign nation.

And, of course, Israel.

"Terrorism" drove the British out and created Israel. "Terrorism" drove the Americans out and "created" Vietnam. "Terrorism" drove the British out and "created" India.

In short, give the Israelis anything that they want FIRST and then they will think about possibly considering the potential of giving the "Palestinians" some portion of what they want.

The Israelis never agreed to "be a good neighbor" and there is an Israel.

Israel has every right to make the rules for Gaza. Gaza is part of Israel. Its not part of the fictitious state of Palestine. What we do agree on is that eventually there must be a Palestine. We are not there yet and every time Israel is terrorized by Hamas and others we get further and further away from a two state solution. Until the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence no progress will EVER be made in terms of elevating the Palestinian people from poverty and despair. Thats a fact.

Consider this scenerio:
You: "I am sworn to kill you. You have no right to exist"
Me: " Would you like pepperoni on your pizza or sausage"

You cannot negotiate with anyone who wants to kill you.

 

[bomberfox]

End the settlements and give displaced Palestinians their homes back. We’re not talking about a distant past, we’re talking very recently.

 

[What if...?]

We agreed on that. Only the Palestinian people can rid themselves of Hamas. However, Israel is, hopefully, going to largely neutralize Hamas' ability to commit acts of terror and hide in their tunnels to escape justice. Hamas would still be there, but a shadow of its evil self.
Israel is not a "foreign country". There is no "Palestine", only Israel on that piece of land. The only country telling the Palestinians what to do is Iran. Terrorism is NEVER EVER going to get this solved. I have written many times here what needs to be done, and it is quite simple: recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence. Basically agree to be a good neighbor. ONLY THEN can there ever be a Palestine.

The Israelis control virtually every aspect of Palestinian lives. Where and when they can move about. What resources they can bring in.

Where they can build a home or business.

They call it the occupied territories. No one under occupation is in control of the occupied area that’s what occupation is.

Control.

 

[bomberfox]

Israel is in a bind because in the aftermath of an attack like the one Hamas carried out, making the lot of Palestinian lives better only reinforces the impression that terrorism is an effective and legitimate means to effect social change. Of course the solution from the Israeli side is to create positive change before there’s a terrorist attack (which of course hasn’t even remotely been on the hard right government’s mind since Netanyahu came into power).

The solution from the Palestinian side is the very successful examples created by Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.: peaceful resistance. Even a maniac like Netanyahu and the Orthodox Jews who support him don’t want to look like pure evil, and in the face of continued peaceful resistance moderate voices in the Israeli government would become stronger. Peaceful resistance forced English colonialists to relent, and it forced the main powers in America to create change, however resistant the segregationists were to it right up to the end.

Of course, peaceful resistance would have to be something that Palestinians would want to do, and it’s not the sort of thing that’s ever been front and center in their strategies.

Peaceful resistance doesnt do anything to threaten power. Theres no force to bring about change and we see that even in the US with peaceful protests dont work anymore. Y’all can hamas this or hamas that whatever but theres never going to be peace with the settlers continuing to grab land.

 

[What if...?]

Israel has every right to make the rules for Gaza. Gaza is part of Israel. Its not part of the fictitious state of Palestine. What we do agree on is that eventually there must be a Palestine. We are not there yet and every time Israel is terrorized by Hamas and others we get further and further away from a two state solution. Until the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence no progress will EVER be made in terms of elevating the Palestinian people from poverty and despair. Thats a fact.

Consider this scenerio:
You: "I am sworn to kill you. You have no right to exist"
Me: " Would you like pepperoni on your pizza or sausage"

You cannot negotiate with anyone who wants to kill you.

I like how you just made all of the land in question “Israel”.

You do realize that that’s what the native Israelis have been dealing with for 75 years now, right? That Israel considers all of that land theirs because jahweh said so. It’s right in the Torah.

 

[bomberfox]

You say "no," but then go on to devalue his approach. I don't know how to interpret your argument any other way than to say that his philosophy of nonviolent resistance was meaningless.

His approach was accompanied by thousands willing to kill.

 

[bomberfox]

The problem is that the ME (e.g. Turkey, SA, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, etc), aren’t especially interested in helping the people of the West Bank or Gaza. From over here they’re all fellow Muslim Arabs, but they’re really just…different people. If the well being of the people of the West Bank and Gaza had been foremost on their minds, they simply would have taken them in as citizens of those countries.

Another issue is that groups like Hamas would see those powers as enemy occupiers too. One of the premises you can’t let yourself get drawn into is that Hamas is a representative of the Palestinian people. They aren’t.



AKA the two state solution. It was always the most realistic of all the solutions, and rejected by the Palestinian authority. The offer by the Israelis ironically led to an Intifada, which is as confusing to me today as it was then. Palestinians were *this close* to having a solution that, while imperfect, would have given them the closest thing to a normal existence they had ever known, and they revolted.

Buried in the ongoing negotiations for a two state solution were demands that were anathema to the other side, but that’s another discussion.

Who moves in afterwards? This is really nonsensical.

 

[Ethel2]

The Israelis control virtually every aspect of Palestinian lives. Where and when they can move about. What resources they can bring in.

Where they can build a home or business.

They call it the occupied territories. No one under occupation is in control of the occupied area that’s what occupation is.

Control.

Well of course Israel restricts the activities of the Palestinians in Gaza! They are run by a group that is sworn to kill Jews and drive them off the land completely. Did you think that they should allow them free passage into Israel's population centers given those facts?
I view the "occupied territories" as those territories on the West Bank where Israel has stolen land and illegally built settlements. Gaza is part of Israel. Just as our federal government can exert control of our states the government of Israel can exert control of Gaza.

 

[Felis Leo]

Nobody ever seems to wonder why their neighbors are so hostile.

We know why their Arab/Islamic neighbors are hostile. Their neighbors do not despise them because of their treatment of the Palestinians, because their neighbors treat the Palestinians living on their lands with a degree of contempt equal to that of the Israelis, if not a greater degree. They despise Jews generally and the idea that Jews would establish a state on one of their Holiest sites of their religion is an anathema. Ignoring the virulent Jew-hatred and claiming the reason the Arab states attacked Israel in 1948 was an anti-colonial intervention in a land dispute is on par with claiming that the primary reason Black Wall Street was attacked in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 was due to income inequality and ignoring virulent anti-black racism in the United States.

 

[Ethel2]

I like how you just made all of the land in question “Israel”.

You do realize that that’s what the native Israelis have been dealing with for 75 years now, right? That Israel considers all of that land theirs because jahweh said so. It’s right in the Torah.

You are ignorant of the history of the area. While there may be some small minority of orthodox Israelis who feel entitled to inhabit all of Israel because the Torah says its their land that is not why the nation was born. It was born because the Jews faced extermination and pervasive antisemitism elsewhere-especially in Eastern Europe. They had nowhere else to go. The area referred to as "Palestine" was inhabited by a variety of people who had no claim to that land (It was part of the Ottoman Empire and later was administered by the British).

 

[What if...?]

Well of course Israel restricts the activities of the Palestinians in Gaza! They are run by a group that is sworn to kill Jews and drive them off the land completely. Did you think that they should allow them free passage into Israel's population centers given those facts?
I view the "occupied territories" as those territories on the West Bank where Israel has stolen land and illegally built settlements. Gaza is part of Israel. Just as our federal government can exert control of our states the government of Israel can exert control of Gaza.

And when and how did Gaza become Israel again?

 

[rickc]

We agreed on that. Only the Palestinian people can rid themselves of Hamas. However, Israel is, hopefully, going to largely neutralize Hamas' ability to commit acts of terror and hide in their tunnels to escape justice. Hamas would still be there, but a shadow of its evil self.
Israel is not a "foreign country". There is no "Palestine", only Israel on that piece of land. The only country telling the Palestinians what to do is Iran. Terrorism is NEVER EVER going to get this solved. I have written many times here what needs to be done, and it is quite simple: recognize Israel's right to exist and denounce violence. Basically agree to be a good neighbor. ONLY THEN can there ever be a Palestine.

Just like the Americans who live in blighted inner citie neighborhoods must be the ones who eject the drug dealer/gang bangers from their midst

 

[Ethel2]

Just like the Americans who live in blighted inner citie neighborhoods must be the ones who eject the drug dealer/gang bangers from their midst

So the drug dealers are the local government?
Gosh. I had no idea. Why not vote them out then?

 

[Ethel2]

And when and how did Gaza become Israel again?

The Gaza Strip is 140 sq miles of land located in the southwest corner of Israel, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It also shares a border with Egypt to the south.

The West Bank is another area of land located within the country of Israel, but it is much larger than the Gaza Strip at 2,173 sq miles.

What are the Gaza Strip and the West Bank?

What are the Gaza Strip and the West Bank? The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are two Palestinian territories that were part of Mandate Palestine and were captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. There are over 5 million Palestinians combined living in the two territories. The West Bank...

www.pcrf.net

Its not my job to teach you a history lesson here. I proved here that Gaza IS part of Israel. You can read a history book to learn how it came to pass.

 

[What if...?]

You are ignorant of the history of the area. While there may be some small minority of orthodox Israelis who feel entitled to inhabit all of Israel because the Torah says its their land that is not why the nation was born. It was born because the Jews faced extermination and pervasive antisemitism elsewhere-especially in Eastern Europe. They had nowhere else to go. The area referred to as "Palestine" was inhabited by a variety of people who had no claim to that land (It was part of the Ottoman Empire and later was administered by the British).

So residence for long enough to tend olive trees for decades have no claim to that dirt?

When the European Jews descended on the area it was under ottoman land law. Which meant the land belonged to some noble somewhere. But the improvements belonged to the occupant as long as they payed their tribute. And if the ottoman owner took it back, they were compensated for those improvements. Jews found the owners, bought the land and evicted the residents with no compensation.

Just part of the pattern, the “facts on the ground”. Those early Jews earned the ire of the original residents in many ways.

The children of jahweh got along relatively well until the arrival of the European Jews after ww2. And we can talk about the Jewish/muslim friction but the Palestinian Christian’s weren’t treated well by the new arrivals either.