> I don't think what people are asking Israel to do here is to let the Palestinians have elections while being occupied?
It's incredible how persistently you miss the point.
What people are asking Israel to do is let Palestinians have a say in their own affairs. That can be done _either_ by letting the Palestinian government meaningfully control Palestine (as the West German government did relatively soon after the war ended), _or_ by letting Palestinians have a say in the Israeli government that rules over them (one state solution).
Israel is rich. Palestine is poor. It would be on par with a German or Korean reünification in terms of cost.
Also, Israel has a relatively-liberal voting population. Palestine does not. One could have reasonable concerns around losing valued freedoms if a single Palestinian state drifts towards regional norms.
> I wonder why this olive branch of “right to exist” doesn’t also extend to the Palestinian government?
The right of a homeland for the Palestinians has been recognized since before Israel was even granted statehood by the U.N as part of the two-state solution.
> I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?
In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an army, have control over borders, or even control of travel around the West Bank. So they are made to nit have their own country (which Israel opposes) but to be part of Israel. So can they vote for Knesset candidates? No. (Yet an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has never been to the Middle East can make aliyah to a West Bank settlement and vote for Knesset candidates immediately).
> You're asking israelis to take a huge risk and with minimal ROI - why should they?
It's not Israel's choice or business, effectively. Every Palestinian person has the same right to self-determination as every Israeli/Jewish person. It's also international law about occupied territory seized in war, etc. Israel relies on those rights and laws too.
The ROI is the end of endless warfare, which is Israel's current situation (as is very evident). War is politics by other means; without a political solution, wars continue indefinitely.
> I believe we should start with 2 states, and maybe after trust is rebuilt we can look into unionizing them.
Do you mean a separate Gaza country and West Bank country, along side an Israel country - a three state solution? Again, it's really up to the Palestinians how they want to organize themselves. Who are you to tell them otherwise? Could they tell you what you do in your country?
> The important issue here is the obviously shrinking pseudo-state of Palestine.
Yes, the Arab states started wars to conquer the holy land from the Jews, and lost. Do you really think that if they had won anybody would be talking about how the Jewish state is shrinking? Losing territory in a war that they started in order to gain territory is somehow controversial?
> Israel continues to send settlers to the West Bank.
Israel has never sent a single citizen to settle the West Bank. People have moved to the West Bank of their own accord, which by the way is legal and encouraged under the legal frameworks applicable to the area (Ottoman law actually, because everything since had been mandate or occupation). But the state has not and does not move people.
> Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything.
Establishment of a Palestinian State with a stake in peace and stability would win you something.
> Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
One of the things this would win you is someone with interest and capacity to respond to this where the occupation/colonialism/ethnic-/religious-conflict narrative would not be applicable.
>>There are a lot of attempts to conflate "Palestinian === Hamas"
if they did not want to be conflated than perhaps they should have accepted one of the 5 2 state solutions proposed by mutiple parties over the decades.
Contrary to your claims I do not believe Palestinian's desire a 2 state solution in any form, instead they rejected every attempt by the UN, Britain, even the Saudi's then elected Hamas to be their official government when Israel pulled out of Gaza and allowed them to self govern...
Sorry if I press F for Doubt that they want a peaceful co-existence with Israel
It is also telling that no other Muslim nation will accept Palestinian refugees, Not Jordan, not Egypt, not even Iran...
>>Maybe, but it's certainly a call for an un-free Palestine.
Correct, it is signalling that after decades of attempted compromise that maybe a 2 state solution is not really possible. This is setting aside the fact that in reality there was already a 2 state solution where by British Mandate "Palestine" was split in 2, Jordan and Israel. However in the old adage of given in inch take a mile more was demanded...
All offers for peace have been rejected by Palestine not Israel..
Even right now, a cease fire can be easily achieved if Hamas Surrenders Unconditionally, and Free's all hostages... Hell I bet a 2 state solution would even be on the table even after all of that
I bet it would Palestine not Israel that would reject said 2 state solution.
>You aren't equal (as in indistinguishably, truly equal) without both.
If you live in the country the law is the same for everyone. No? Don't know what the obligations are. I'm not the "you" , clearly you're super knowledgable, go for it.
> But a nice attempt to frame the conversation. [Do they send you on courses?]
Errr thanks?
Humanity has tried the whole "jews living under arab rule" before and it sucked. You can bash the israelis all you want but they're doing a much better job than anything a palestinian/arab rule would do to jews.
>You are mistaken, Israel is not an occupying power within Gaza.
well, technically you're right. Since the withdrawal, Israel is the occupying power _around_ Gaza as it controls all access to the Gaza - by land, sea and air.
While i'm completely pro-Israel, in the sense that i fully support right of Jewish people for their state (where it is now, whatever way it happened, it has already happened), i can't understand while the same standard - the right for their own state - isn't applied to Palestinians, nor by Israel (themselves being huge beneficiary of such a right) nor by the rest of the world. Palestinians' hate toward Israel can't be a valid reason to deny their own state to Palestinians as for example nobody denies the right of statehood to Iran who officially hates Israel, nor such right was denied to Egypt back when Egypt waged a war against Israel.
That's not what I'm asking for. In the US, Native Americans and descendants of slaves have full legal and political rights (in fact, Native Americans have extra political rights not granted to other citizens). Israel also can give Palestinians full legal and political rights, either in a separate state or as part of a one-state solution, without compromising its continued existence.
> not a single country will accept a soverein Palestenian state, because they're ruled by terrorists.
You yourself say that Palestinians can live completely peacefully, why can't they have a sovereign state with a better government? I hope that after years of Israeli government / Netanyahu supporting Hamas [1], they will change the strategy.
> allow all Palestinians to become citizens, with full rights, stop being an ethnostate for Jews
If that happened, then Palestinians would outnumber Jews and could dominate the country democratically. I can understand the potential for discrimination.
That's why the two state solution is often considered the only just solution: Both groups each have a country in which they are the majority.
The Israeli right rejects the two state solution, and clearly they reject being a minority, so that only leaves oppression of Palestinians (which is awful and unjust, to avoid any doubt).
> the progressive country they pretend to be
Israel hasn't pretended to be progressive in awhile. Netanyahu and some of his predecessors made no pretenses about it.
> And what should the 12 million people living there now do?
Accept the idea of a single state where Palestinians and Israelis have true equal rights and live together as the best solution. The opponents to this are the religious fundamentalists on both sides, especially the Israeli-right. Or, alternatively, accept the two-state solution by creating a State for Palestinians.
> Israel is a Jewish state - it was determined long ago the Jews should get a nation state along side a Palestinian nation state.
It was also determined long ago that all ethnostates are stupid and dangerous and should not exist.
Fpr that matter, it was determined long ago that I should be king of the world.
It's just a question of whose determinations you happen to decide to accept...
> Considering Jews' unique history of persecution it would be pretty crazy to argue they are not a people, so they are not like white South Africans.
Wait, Jews are "a people" and Boers aren't? How did that happen?
The Boers are "a people" by any reasonably principled definition, and nonetheless South African apartheid was unacceptable. Representing "a people" does not give you a license to treat other people like shit.
... and you say "a people" like that's a good thing. In fact, the concept of "peoples" (nations, whatever you want to call them) is dangerous and destructive, and the (unfortunately natural and built in) human tendency to form attachments to arbitrary abstract groups is one of the top contenders for what's going to destroy the whole goddamned species.
> Creating "one democratic state" will rob both the Jews and the Palestinians of their right for self determination.
Only individual human beings have rights, not "peoples". Especially self determination.
The idea of group "self determination" is self-evidently moronic. To have self determination, you have to have a reasonably unified will and probably a reasonably unified mind. "Peoples" have neither.
> It will also in all likelihood create chaos,
Probably true. There is no good answer at this point. Things were already bad, and the foolish decision to create Israel really locked in the doom.
> Unless you can explain further how the right of return is somehow a political party, or a "stigma" that people are trying to "disentangle" themselves from?
I guess I assumed you had some basic knowledge of the situation there.
Explaining properly would take too long, but in short part of the reason there is no political solution to the conflict, is that the Palestinians insist on the right of return to decedents of former Palestinians into Israel proper. Israel would obviously never agree to that. (They could return to the newly created Palestine, but apparently that's not an option for them - they only want Israel.)
So that's your political party connection. And as for stigma anyone who is listed on that register is basically permanently excluded from citizenship in their country of birth.
Former Palestinians who were born in Lebanon would prefer to be Lebanese citizens and work there, but they can't, because of that registry. etc, etc, etc, for all the other Arab countries in the area (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc). No one wants Palestinians, so I'm sure a ton of them would prefer to shed that label and live like other Arabs in those states, but they can't.
Why not? Isn't that an universal right? How are Sudanese or Lebanese better than Palestineans in that regard?
Your attention is worthless because it did not led Israel to implement two-state solution. What would you want? Retirement benefits?
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