Comment by lacker
1 year ago
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
I don't think it makes sense to talk about what the extremists in a conflict want when one side is a regional superpower and the other side has no army to speak of (that's why Hamas hides in tunnels).
It's about what the parties can actually accomplish. Hamas gambles on international sympathy because they cannot do anything militarily. They have no bargaining leverage either during possible peace talks. I don't approve of antisemitic slogans wishing for the destruction of Israel but the world will never allow it to happen. Never. Zero chance of that happening.
So while extremists on both sides are the same in the abstract, only one side is facing possible extermination.
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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.
I feel like you’re assuming that everyone thinks the same way you do. I don’t really think the evidence or history bears out “they just want freedom”. There were many obvious opportunities for this in the past.
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Where is Palestine state proposal from Palestinians so I can read it? Or is this just fantasy made up by outsiders?
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Israel has a fairly large Palestinians population and most of them want to stay under Israeli control so maybe they know something that you don't?
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> 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.
Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.
Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks. Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements. And this is exactly what you would expect. After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does. The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians. When actions, words, and incentives all point in the same direction I'm inclined to believe the words. Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state with state rights nor does it want millions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable. But none of this matters because Israel has refused to engage in peace talks ever since Hamas got elected.
History teaches us that peace is possible between bitter enemies when both parties want peace and stand to gain by it. When one party desperately needs peace and the other party doesn't, there won't be peace.
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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.
I should point out to people who might not be as familiar with Israeli history that Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.
As for the rest, while I appreciate the civil response I don't think we agree enough on the facts to have a fruitful discussion.
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> Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution.
IMO, this should've always been the solution. What has happened is akin to parents letting teenage brothers bloodily beat each other up for many many decades without properly dictating a peaceful intervention assured by a much more powerful force. The world needs to acknowledge that these two parties have shown they are unable to form a peaceful equilibrium, and it's just enabling killing to continually be hands off. Get all the world powers positions on the floor, split the difference, tell Israel and Palestine these are the borders and security arrangement, guaranteed for X decades. No more lives will be lost as long as support for upsetting that agreement (intifada/nakba/etc.) is severed. Letting two extremist right wing sides religiously duke it out over "the holy land" isn't acceptable in the 21st century.
> the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people
Not Jewish people, a very select subset of that group: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784649
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> 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.
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> 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?
This just isn't true. There are even (a few thousand) Jews living in Iran, and the Ayatollahs have come out in defence of Judaism proper.
The main problem for Jews in the region is the fact that the certain Israeli factions aggressively conflates Judaism with Israeli nationalism/Zionism, sacrificing the former to protect the latter. Above all else, that makes it dangerous to be Jewish outside Israel or one of its Western sponsors. And even inside. Because uninformed people, and actual antisemites, buy into that cynical framing.
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The West Bank holds the forth largest Jewish population in the world, after France. Now the West Bank is occupied territory, controlled by Israel, so perhaps that doesn’t count.
According to this Wikipedia article[1] there are around 2-3000 jewish people living in Morocco, 1-2000 in Tunisia, and about 100 in Syria and Lebanon (not including the Golan Heights).
I am aware that there were persecutions in the past in many Arabic countries, but the same is true of Europe. Beirut even restored one of their last Synagogues in 2010 after it was damaged, ironically, in an Israeli airstrike.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
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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.
This is also in the Likud(Israeli far-right party charter) and actually denotes even more land in the region(Jordan) as property of Israel.
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Bingo