Comment by aprilthird2021
3 days ago
It's not about race, but it is about the invention of a country that relies on specific demographics to exist (majority Jewish) which necessitate keeping millions of people stateless yet under the full control of an elite ethnicity who actually have the votes and the control.
And no matter where Jewish people are from, they are that privileged ethnicity. The Arabs in Israel get token rights (but you and I both know if they were a demographic threat in Israel those rights would be revoked). And the Arabs in Palestine get no rights in Israel but are fully controlled and blockaded by Israel. That's the ultimate source of the conflict. It's not thousands of years old, and it is partly about race (if you consider Jewish a race, as the nation of Israel does).
> The Arabs in Israel get token rights.
That's just false. The Arab minority in Israel has right to vote, the right to establish political parties, freedom of expression, freedom of association, free press, religious autonomy, separate educational systems, legal rights, etc.
Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth. Of course this doesn't mean theres' no racism, but that's a different issue.
They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country. You literally have to be Jewish to buy land. Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war. They can get evicted from their houses. They are discriminated against. And I don't think you're a full citizen if you can't even buy and keep property.
> Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war.
Citation needed.
> You literally have to be Jewish to buy land
False.
> They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country.
False. It's true only to 13% of the land which is owned by JNF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel#Land_ownershi...
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> Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth
Aren't the rights only subject to them being an ethnic minority in Israel? According to nation-state law, they could not be allowed to retain those rights if they became the ethnic majority
This is well summarised. It could end very easily.
Inform us to your simple solution:
Keep things the same with Palestinians as wards of the state: Iran and others fund Hamas to continue the conflict.
Palestinians get an armed state: in 5 years Palestinians attack Israel and are utterly wiped out by complete military defeat and carpet bombing
Palestinians get an unarmed state.: lol like they have now? Smuggled arms, terrorism, eventual war, carpet bombing.
The essential geopolitical issue is that the Palestinians have never functionally accepted being defeated. So they never moved on and accepted peace in defeat like literally thousands of other ethnic groups historically in the history of ethnic conflict in the world.
Granted their only source of economic support is being funded to not accept peace by Iran and the Arab world for 70 years. That's four generations of Palestinians only existing to be thorns in the side of Israel and as useful fools.
At this point there is no good outcome for Palestinians. All roads lead to devastating military defeat politically. The economic basis of their existence (oil money) is rapidly fading. Old allies are now aligned with Israel (Sunni Arabs), impotent (Russia/Syria), or regionally deflated (Iran). Global warming is worsening. And they have increased their population 10 fold over 70 years with ZERO agricultural or economic ability to support themselves. Their political leadership is corrupt and paid to be militaristic and have authoritarian control. The West wont give them headline prominence anymore. The US is becoming insular, and we are entering an era of conflict and a fall in international diplomatic idealism
If you are a Palestinian and have any way to get out, get the effing hell out of there.
I could grant the Palestinians every moral high ground and argument. It won't change anything geopolitically and the Palestinians are utterly screwed.
Their only (impossible) chance is to reject Hamas, live in whisper quiet peace with Israel, develop tourism or some other economic basis to support their population.
And we all know reading that paragraph how impossible that is.
The best outcome would be that Israelis collectively decide that ethnic hierarchy isn't right as a state and commit to ending it. What you are saying is basically that black slaves couldn't be freed because all they'd do is try another ill-fated Nat Turner rebellion.
The Palestinians don't have to "accept defeat" if the Israelis can "accept ethnic equality". The same way the IRA and the PA (who renounced violence as an overture to Israel) never "accepted defeat" either.
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They could form a bi-ethnic country that incorporates both Jews and Palestinians with full rights. Or they could allow the Palestinians to have a state while retaining a Jewish state.
There's no reason why giving Palestinians rights and self determination would necessitate Jews to leave or even to abolish their country.
> Or they could allow the Palestinians to have a state while retaining a Jewish state.
The Palestinians won't take it because it would mean Zionism survives and they lose (sorry , that's how Palestinians and their supporters see it currently and for the last century). Bi ethnic country would work worse than it does in Lebanon (where it doesn't work at all) - it would be anarchy followed by bloodshed (of defenseless Jews) and another big wave of Jewish immigrants to countries that don't and never have particularly liked them.
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The main issue transpires in your comment.
Judaism != Israël
Judaism is a religion. Being jew is not a nationality. More than 1 out of 4 israelis aren't jews, almost 20% are muslims, 2% are christians, there are also druzes, atheists and many others.
As you said, jews have lived there for millenias in what was called until very recently Palestine. Jews were palestinian before zionism. They could still be.
"The Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group.."
From Wikipedia. You are absolutely wrong here, it is as much an ethnicity as it is a religion.
"Palestinian" didn't mean anything before, it's just the name of a land where Jews and Arabs coexisted.
One country, one man, one vote. It is the only ethical way forward. Democracy moves conflicts from the realm of violence to politics. Abandon the idea that Jews have to be the majority vote.
Would you be okay with being responsible for the never before seen bloodshed that would result in, with millions of innocent people dying as the direct result of your actions?
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> One country
What fraction of the people on the ground want this?
Would you also apply this solution to Russia-Ukraine? Create one state out of both?
Can Trump do the same to Greenland, declare it’s one country with the USA and have a democratic vote on it?
Stay in the land that was allotted in 1967 (or 1948), don’t create settlements, allow the Palestinians territories to self govern and have open borders. Obviously that won’t stop bad faith actors like Hamas but that’s not going to stop with a war either. Bibi majorly screwed up by ignoring Gaza and allocating troops to guard West Bank settlements. Not claiming this will be a panacea, but I don’t see how Israel’s current plan will accomplish anything more than perpetual conflict and an increasingly radicalized population on both sides. Oh and kick out Itamar Ben-Gvir and the rest of the ultra right wing.
These are debatable arguments but at least fair and in good faith. I'm not at all saying that Israel is without fault in the current conflict or the decades worth of conflict going back to the formation of the state in 1948. However, I do argue that it has a right to exist, and by virtue of the settlement and development its millions of residents have invested in across the decades, that right is further fortified into the present day. Anyone simply rejecting this seems to ignore explaining what would be done to the millions of Jews living there.
I also argue that the political organizations representing the Palestinians (Hamas definitely included here) and several neighboring governments that have supported these organizations also have their own fault in not only prolonging conflict with unreasonable demands of their own against Israel, but also have fault in mistreating their own people in brutally cynical ways.
Israel was accused when it build a wall towards Gaza, but in the end it protected from suicide attacks of brainwashed children that were instrumentalized by a fundamentalist genocidal cult.
A lot of Palestinians did work in Israel, given that is over for quite some time now for Gazans at least.
I can agree on Ben-Gvir being a moron, but Israel justifiably demands security guarantees.
> blame upon a society largely built and carved out of barren land over decades of great difficulty
First, not all of it was "barren land": Not the places that were ethnically cleansed in 48 and 67. Second, you think any of it gives any society the license to do whatever they please?
> most bloodthirsty genocidal persecutions
Zionists back then didn't really care about those being persecuted in the diaspora [0], though they do find it fit to use it to justify their adventures in colonialism.
> having built a real country
The problem is, it is a phantom country for ~50% of the inhabitants under occupation.
> their desire for the total elimination of the Jewish nation of millions
Speaking of desires, one side is already acting on theirs to eliminate another peoples [1].
[0] https://jewishjournal.com/news/worldwide/151463/the-diaspora...
[1] https://www.mekomit.co.il/ps/134005/
> Zionists back then didn't really care about those being persecuted in the diaspora
Zionists themselves were mostly victims . My grandfather and grandmother fled from Germany to Palestine in the 30s , a bit after Hitler got into power. I guess technically they were Zionists because they fled to Palestine as Jews, and took part in the state, but I don't think they particularly cared about Jewish statehood - they just wanted to live. All their family left behind in Europe was wiped out - this is the story of many of the so called colonialist Zionists.
They came with nothing, lost everything and then had to endure all the wars in Israel as well. There's nothing particularly special about the story of my grandfather and grandmother, it's the story of most Ashkenazi Jews in Israel.
You can call it "adventures in colonialism" and link to some bullshit articles all you want, but history is history.
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