Comment by hypeit
1 year ago
Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.
Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.
It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.
No. The Israeli right wing is trying (and succeeding at) making all of the land between the river and the sea exclusive property of the Jewish people. A quick glance at how the borders have evolved since 1948 makes this evident.
Most Palestinians (and thankfully also a good number of Israeli citizens) want a pluralistic solution, without checkpoints and borders, with equal rights and equal representation for all.
A two-state solution was possible 20 years ago, but with the current settlements in the West Bank with 450k or so Settlers and Gaza's total dependence on Israel for water, internet, electricity and many other of life's necessities, all paths towards a two-state solution have been severed.
Now that Gaza has been bombed and bulldozed what possibility is there for a Palestinian state? All records have been destroyed. The courts are gone. The universities are gone. It's all gone.
Israel will accept neither a one-state or two-state solution. By systematically destroying everything Palestinian the question resolves itself. That seems to be the strategy. And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.
While I mostly agree with you, your point does not seem to contradict at all the point of the comment you are responding to
2 replies →
A two state solution is still possible. Why do people assume Palestinians want a state of only Palestinians. Palestine had Jews living in it before and a hypothetical future state of Palestine can too. They are not committed to an ethnostate they just want freedom.
9 replies →
> And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.
Do you also take Palestinian leaders at their word? Because if so their strategy is to drive out Jews by whatever means necessary. None of them are talking about equal rights and representations, that's just not how their society works and they definitely don't want that together with Jews.
8 replies →
You're correct that the Israeli right wing would really like the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people. Their "success" since 1967 has really been driven by the Arab countries and the Palestinians. The political violence and the wars they waged pushed the Israeli public to become more extreme and unable to imagine a future where it's possible for everyone to live in peace on the same land. I think this is pretty much fact. Rabin who was trying to make peace was assassinated as a direct result of the heated atmosphere in the wake of Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israel, which had the goal of sabotaging the peace process.
I don't think it's correct that most Palestinians want what you say they want (surveys?). And even if it's true, the majority of Palestinians has no means of getting what they want. In areas under their control it's certainly hasn't been "pluralistic with equal rights and representation", it's been more like "I have a gun do what I say or else".
I think the two state solution is impossible but not for the reasons you mention. I don't think we need Gaza's courts or universities. It's also not the dependency on electricity etc. It's impossible for other reasons. On the Israeli side nobody is willing to live with an aggressive entity that wants to destroy it having their own state 5 minute driving distance from all their major cities. Gaza (the withdrawal of Israel and the rise of Hamas and their militarization) to them is proof there's no way that can work. There is no trust that the Palestinians will respect any agreement. On the Palestinian side there's no body that actually represents the Palestinians and there are armed factions that have already said they'll reject any agreement and keep on fighting.
Israel has dismantled settlements in Sinai and in Gaza. I don't think the settlements are the problem. If there was a viable option for real peace Israel would dismantle the settlements (+/- maybe some land exchange around major blocks). Ofcourse the settlements don't help because their existence creates friction and hate and they're sort of illegal.
Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution. It's kind of hard to see now. Maybe we need enough time to pass so we get social processes that take us somewhere better. Also kind of hard to see right now. Maybe Israel will expel all Arabs from the region eventually (or enough of them that they can annex the occupied territories). Also hard to see. Maybe the Palestinians will unite and reject violence as means of making political progress and that will convince Israelis to let them in as equal citizens. Also hard to see. I.e. no solution. Partly has to do with broader geo-political processes, namely China and Russia's conflict with the west. If that's resolved (also hard to see) maybe progress can be made in the middle east as well.
6 replies →
[flagged]
> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea
This is presumably a one-state solution?
The problem here being the Jews would be a minority in this state. Which leads to existential concerns regarding their survival. That can’t be easily brushed aside. Particularly when members of Iran’s Axis sport “death to Israel, a curse upon Jews” [1]. (Hamas and the Houthis sharing a backer isn’t insignificant.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movemen...
The charter of Hamas explicitly calls for the eradication of the state of Israel, the death of presumably all Jews, Muslim rule of all of Palestine, the explicit rejection of peace or any negotiated settlement (with explicit condemnation of the Camp David Accords), and Jihad as individual duty in order to achieve the aforementioned goals.
6 replies →
> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights
Hamas certainly doesn't want Palestinians to have full human rights. Regardless of how unjustifiable some Israel's actions are or what one might think about them Hamas is a fundamentalist terrorist organization and they certainly were/are/would be unwilling to extend "full human rights" to Palestinians or anyone living in Gaza or anywhere else.
I feel that's an extremely naive view. How many Jews live peacefully and enjoy human rights under Arab rule in the middle east? Zero. How many in Gaza under Hamas? Zero. How many live in the west bank in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Zero.
So "Hamas" only wants Tel-Aviv "returned", Jersualem "returned", Haifa "returned", from the river to the sea, but somehow in that vision all the Jewish population lives peacefully and enjoys human rights that don't exist anywhere in the middle east?
17 replies →
That's certainly what you (and me) would very much like Hamas to want but it is certainly not what Hamas actually wants
You can only ignore who they are if you don't listen to what they say
>They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.
What about the rights to elections? Free speech? To be gay and not be thrown off a building? They don't even support these basic human rights in the land they rule, for the people they claim as their own.
> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.
What's the word for word translation of the original slogan again? "From the river to the sea, all land shall be Arab" if my dictionary doesn't fail me...
Read Hamas' charter, they are open about their goals: to kill or expel Jews from the river to the sea.
4 replies →
This is a good summary of Islamic radicalization propaganda that seeks to use Palestinian civilians as pawns, with no regard for them. It is this narrative that keeps the Palestinains in prison.
The counterpoint is that you "must" face the reality that this is never going to happen, and that asserting that it will or should is equivalent to damning the Palestinians to the existence that they currently occupy.
Greater Islam does not have an army that can stand against the West, let alone do the Palestinians. All that they have are manipulated terrorists whose actions always cause much more destruction on their side than the inverse.
So I say again, the only realistic and humane view is to take your oppopsite position, recognize the immovable force, and actually attempt to save Palestinian lives via deradicalization and a relocation campaign.
> that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land
I’ve heard this line from people who say the West Bank and Gaza are the occupied land, to those who say all of Israel is occupied land. The former makes sense. The latter is extreme.
> like apartheid South Africa was dismantled
South Africa wasn’t as militarised as the Levant has become, unfortunately. As long as Iran seeks the destruction of Israel, itself and through its proxies, any Mandela-type accounting is probably fruitless. (I am open to being convinced otherwise.)
I specifically think the mixed use of the word "occupation" to imply that the state of Palestine should include all of the current state of Israel one of the largest trust busting tricks in the modern discourse. I think it is natural to think that the Gaza and West Bank situation is bad and I suspect the majority of even slightly western views would agree.
What shocked me, is that there are some on the far left that fully think all of Israel is an occupation of Palestine. More, they got rather upset when I pointed out that that line of thinking is, ironically, in support of people that have shown genocidal intent.
Curious if you have numbers on how many intentionally refer to all of Israel in this way? (Also curious if my take on that is unfair to folks?)
> to those who say all of Israel is occupied land. The former makes sense. The latter is extreme.
In what way is it not? The state was created by western powers less than 100 years ago and has aggressively pursued European and US immigration since then.
The current state of things is an entirely manufactured situation and it's becoming more and more farcical. There's only so many times you can interview a guy with a British or New York accent talking about his ancestral right to the desert before things start looking a little bit weird.
> The state was created by western powers less than 100 years ago
That's not entirely accurate at all. There was indeed a UN decision to partition the land and to acknowledge Israel, but no one was enforcing it. The Arabs and Jews were left to battle it out in a horrible war. Jews were facing the real possibility of a second extermination only 3 years after the holocaust (I don't think I'm exaggerating the consequences of what defeat would have looked like had the Jews lost that war).
The British policy towards Jews in Palestine was not consistent at all, and at a certain point they sided with the Arabs and banned Jewish immigration to Palestine - even at the height of the holocaust.
6 replies →
Anyone can go on Google Earth, look at the official UN borders of Israel, then do a search in Hebrew or "synagogue" (obviously not every synagogue is Israeli) or "checkpoint" and very clearly see the Israeli settlements outside Israel's legal borders. Search "Hizma" for a good example [1].
To make it even more obvious, toggle the "street view" layer over one of these areas and see what gets highlighted.
There is a clear apartness between the neatly-planned Israeli settlements, often built on demolished Palestinian villages, and the organic scattering of indigenous, primarily Arab Palestinian villages. With militarized checkpoints in between. Anyone can see it, if they have the will and a web browser.
[1] - https://earth.google.com/web/search/Hizma+checkpoint,+Sderot...
I'm not sure what point are you trying to make here.
Nobody, including Israelis, will argue about the status of Palestinians living outside of Israel's border, in areas that are occupied (a terminology of international law that Israel also agrees to, https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation ) do not enjoy equal rights to Israelis (Arabs, Jews, Christians and other) living within Israel's borders. During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections? It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).
"often built on demolished Palestinian villages" - I think this isn't generally true in the west bank, if that was what this statement was about. There are certainly demolished villages within Israel's borders (going back to the 1948 war).
8 replies →
apartheid is a loaded term of opinion, not of fact. comparing israel to other true apartheid regimes, such as south africa, is hyperbolic. there exist discriminatory policies that ought to be reformed but i do not believe that word is appropriate.
israel does, in fact, exist on some occupied land that she should return, including many west bank settlements. however, there is something to be said for keeping parts as a bargaining chip against those motivated largely by religious and nationalistic fervor mixed with some basic hatred. other parts of her land were obtained legitimately, going all the way back to the first aliyah after the kiev pogroms in which tens of thousands of jews were massacred. many immigrated legally, though the ottoman empire later threw up some barriers to immigration with hopes to limit their numbers. many were later moved legitimately under the authority of the british in mandatory palestine.
legal immigrants are not necessarily "occupiers". there is also a period past which land becomes naturalized, just like most of the world has been taken and settled by force at some point or another. most of the people who are descendants of those ancient conquerors are just as indigenous as those who were there before. i'd venture to say much of israel, while it ought to be shared better, is populated with naturalized inhabitants.
All metaphors are wrong, some metaphors are useful. The word "burn" applies to both first and third degree burns.
Characteristics of apartheid can exist even if it is not at the severity experienced by black south Africans. The analogy here has utility, and racism towards Palestinians is unfortunately a huge problem in Israeli society.
"burn" is commonly applied to a range of conditions. "apartheid" is applied with exceptional rarity, and in common parlance, people associate it with the south african regime. in your analogy, this is equivalent to calling a first-degree burn third-degree
[flagged]
It's not "hate speech" to call to the end of an apartheid government.
[flagged]
11 replies →
[flagged]
"Everybody else in the region" is mostly descendants of various Semitic peoples who lived in that area for just as long. Palestinians in particular seem to be related to Canaanites, which - if you take the Torah at face value - would actually make them the indigenous people that were a target of genocidal conquest by the original Jewish settlers in the area (although archeologists say that this was more likely intra-ethnic warfare between different groups, and the whole notion of Canaanites as distinct peoples was created to justify the conquest of neighbors).
Actually, if you believe that the bible is true, they killed the indigenous people there first
More historically certain is that there was a stream of people living and moving through that area during waves of human immigration outside of Africa (look up the Sahara pump theory).
Well they are not not indigenous.
But calling them "the indigenous" is not correct. DNA studies done by Israeli scientists on Palestinian subjects show that they descend from indigenous groups including Judea.
So are there 6 million Stateside Puerto Ricans living in one of the 50 United States who have equal rights to other US citizens. Puerto Rico is still a colony of the United States. Mind you that the Puerto Ricans living on the island of Puerto Rico have infinitely more rights then Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank or occupied East Jerusalem.
[flagged]
[flagged]
Hamas controls Gaza, where Israel withdrew nearly 20 years ago. First thing Hamas did: destroy all the infrastructure set up by Israelis. Or maybe Hamas murdered the Fatah officials first. In any case, there was little Israeli left in all that time, and there's a border with a supposedly friendly neighbor, tons of money and expertise by the global community invested in that area, and they squandered it all in favor of raping and pillaging the hippie communities of the Israeli peace movement.
2 replies →