I found the above map in an old world atlas I have from 1949. The then newly created state of Israel was mentioned in the current events section of the atlas and as one of the countries mentioned in the name of this map. And yet, on the map there is only one state where Israel should be and it is called Palestine (which is also one of the countries mentioned in the map’s name).
In the 60 years since this map was published the default position to end the generational conflict has been a Two-State Solution–somehow dividing the land that the map marks as “Palestine” into Israel and Palestine. The borders for Israel were firmly established in 1949 and have been expanding ever since. OTOH, the borders for Palestine are still in flux and everyday the possible size of a future Palestinian state shrinks and becomes more fragmented by design.
Last week President Obama gave two speeches with a focus on the conflict (here and here). In both, he focused on the need to get to a Two-State Solution. His call to save the notion of a two states living side by side was basically rejected out of hand by Bibi Netanyahu, who has been fighting the concept of a Palestinian state all of his life. Now Netanyahu does make word strings in favor of peace, a Two-State Solution, and other nice sounding things, but his actions have always shown that these are just word salads. Josh Marshall cut through Netanyahu’s endless bullshit with this observation:
Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn’t want a two state solution. Period. End of story. Whether this is a principle of deeply held belief (probably) or just a desire not to see his coalition government fall (certainly) doesn’t really matter. His clear aim is to perpetuate the status quo indefinitely — something that is simply not compatible with Israel’s security, America’s security or the Palestinians need for a state.
I think it is pretty clear that delaying any negotiations towards a Two-State solution is the policy of Netanyahu’s coalition. That is why he had to pretend that President Obama said something he didn’t say to create a distraction–without the manufactured dust up talks might get underway and that must be avoided.
It was a bit of a spectacle to see Netanyahu speak to Congress this week and to hear the bi-partisan support for inaction. Bibi strung a lot of words together, but most were meaningless–especially if you held out any hope for peace or a future for the state of Israel. Time and time again his calls to protect the status quo and his commitments to block any solutions were met with applause. It was a bit embarrassing to see so many put the political desires of the extreme elements of the Likud Party ahead of the future of Israel and the security of the United States, but so it goes.
It is all magical thinking and that is the rage in wingnutopia. Bibi is a long-time believer in wishful thinking and so he fits right in. He is yet another one of these folks who believes that time, science, reality and everybody else in the world will stand still while their fantasies plays out as imagined. The notion that it might be crazy to think that the entire world revolves around your narrow delusions and petty framing never seems to occur to these folks. This pattern repeats over and over again whether you are talking about increasing the debt ceiling, cutting the budget, jobs, taxes, climate change, Israel, and a host of other issues.
This belief that your fantasy will trump reality reminds me of that final scene in Aguirre: The Wrath of God where Aguirre ignores reality to plot with the monkeys for world conquest. It shows a commitment to a rich and active fantasy life regardless of real consequences and lasting harm. In this Aguirre, Netanyahu and the wingnuts are soulmates.
The Two-State Solution is a policy idea way past its expiration date. It is on life support. The Netanyahu government rejects a Two-State Solution unless pre-conditions that would make a future Palestinian State a group of unconnected and powerless bantustans are guaranteed. The result has been that–for the last decade–Palestinian negotiators have not had partners in Israel. They have given up. Any effort to negotiate with Netanyahu is hopeless because Bibi does not believe in a Two-State solution. So instead the Palestinians have decided to focus inward–and work on resolving internal conflicts between various factions. And of course this feeds the loop and gives Bibi and his allies yet another fresh excuse to delay and kill any possible Two-State Solution. The spiral continues to spin into the ground. And yet, the death of the Two-State Solution is what Congress celebrated when they honored Netenyahu. Go figure.
While I hope that President Obama can somehow save the concepts of two states living side by side from doom, I am pretty doubtful that it can be done. Time is running out out and when the point of no return is crossed, the State of Israel will be on a glide path to extinction–a glide path greased and prepared by Netanyahu and his wingnut minions. As Peter Beinart noted the other day Obama has thrown Netanyahu a lifeline and it has been rejected.
Now I get the sense that Bibi and his pals imagine that the next 60 years will be like the last 60 years. They imagine that running out the clock will resolve the issue. In a few more decades (or years) settlement expansion will make make the creation of a Palestinian State impossible and that the lack of freedom and rights will inspire more and more Palestinians to just leave. They imagine that the rest of the world will watch the process without comment and that America will always be there to protect them if anybody ever does object. It is all a fantasy.
The reality is that the default has been set to a One State Solution a long time ago. Without action there will be only one State occupying the land between the sea and the Jordan river. The old map above will be correct if you cross out “Palestine” and write in “Israel”. It will be one state, but it will also be a state where the majority of the population is Palestinian. This demographic time bomb spells doom for Israel. Jeffery Goldberg broke it down in a new column for Bloomberg:
If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning. [snip]
My goal: To hopelessly, ineradicably, entangle the two peoples wedged between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Then I would wait as the Israeli population on the West Bank grew, and grew some more. I would wait until 2017, 50 years after the Six Day War, which ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I would go before the UN and say the following:
“We, the Palestinians, no longer seek a homeland of our own. We recognize the permanence of Israeli occupation, the dominion of the Israeli military and the power of the Israeli economy. So we would like to join them. In the 50 years since the beginning of the ’temporary’ occupation, we have seen hundreds of thousands of Israelis build communities near our own communities. We admire what they have built, and the system of laws that governs their lives. Unlike them, many of us live under Israeli military law but have no say in choosing the Israelis who rule us. So we no longer want statehood. We simply want the vote.”
And this, of course, would bring about the end of Israel.
All the Palestinians have to do is wait and they will win. Time and history is on their side. The default to a One-State solution means that eventually the land will be controlled by the Palestinians or that the Israelis will have to create an Apartheid state base on denying an ethnic majority any rights to maintain an identity as a Jewish nation. Either way, will mean the destruction of Israel in the next fifty years.
This pathway to the destruction of Israel as a Democratic state is what Netanyahu is advocating. It was embarrassing to see Congress endorse his glide path to doom. A Two-State solution is almost completely dead. Coming up with a map that can deal with the ever expanding settlements grows more impossible with each new building. And yet, President Obama tried to save the concept of two states last week as he pointed out that time was just about up:
Here are the facts we all must confront. First, the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian Territories. This will make it harder and harder — without a peace deal — to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state.
Second, technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of a genuine peace.
Third, a new generation of Arabs is reshaping the region. A just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders. Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.
And just as the context has changed in the Middle East, so too has it been changing in the international community over the last several years. There’s a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the United Nations. They recognize that there is an impatience with the peace process, or the absence of one, not just in the Arab World — in Latin America, in Asia, and in Europe. And that impatience is growing, and it’s already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.
And those are the facts.
And for this effort he has been attack for saying things he did not say, but so it goes–making up shit is what wingnuts do whether they are here or in Tel Aviv. I wish the President luck, but I expect that Netanyahu’s dedication to inaction guarantees a One-State solution. It is the default position and the outcome most likely to happen. The world is moving and the wingnut idea that reality will stand still with them is alway wrong. And yet that never stops them from trying to force reality into their fantasy.
It would be almost funny if they weren’t causing so much harm.
Cheers
Martin
We’ll veto it. Much of Congress has given up on the US and declared Israel the real country worth saving.
Dollared
They have socialized medecine and a decent climate. They all want to retire there.
mb
The more I think about the “2 State Solution”, the more despicable it seems that partitioning is required. If I were in charge I’d pull the plug on all non-humanitarian assistance to any country that did not have, or be on track to have, a pluralistic democracy in which all inhabitants had civil rights and refugees had right to return. I’m sick of subsidizing racists and bigots on either side. And I’m sick to death of the interminable dance between Israel and the Palestinians. Seems like it’s past time for Jubilee.
cbear
Nice title but I would have gone with Death Race 2000.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing is, Israel was carved out of the territory that was previously “Palestine”, and the locals basically exiled from their own land in 1948. The first Arab-Israeli war was precipitated by Israel declaring its statehood and claiming land that was part of the British mandate called “Palestine”.
The problem is essentially impossible to resolve to the total satisfaction of all parties. There are some Israelis who insist that what is now called “Jordan” is the Palestinian state, even though it wasn’t part of Palestine…it was Transjordan as a British mandate, a totally separate entity, and set up as a separate state. Basically, these Israelis want to deport all Arabs from the territory that was Palestine to Jordan, and they keep all the territory of Palestine.
Naturally, the Palestinians do not like this…Jordan is not their homeland, Palestine is.
General Stuck
I’ve said for a long time, that the Palestinians are winning the long war, which is fairly classic insurgency methods to turn the stronger side in this conflict into something so ugly that the spirit can no longer summon the needed violence to maintain it’s will.
The very fact that the Jewish state elects such a hideous leader like Bibi Netanyahoo, is a testament to Hamas success in the long war they are fighting. And I agree that the two state solution is dead as Caesar because for that to work, all sides have to want to quit fighting. And that is never going to happen, unfortunately. What happens when the Jewish people can no longer look at themselves in the mirror toward maintaining something not entirely unlike the ghettos of Warsaw, remains to be seen. I don’t think the status quo can be maintained indefinitely as something has to give with Gaza and the squalor hell that place has become.
Jeebus, what a mess.
rob!
I remember being a kid when I finally learned just what this whole “Israel/Palestine” thing even was, and was just so shocked–let me get this straight, these people are fighting a war that’s been going on for GENERATIONS? That’s crazy!
Thirty some odd years later, its still going.
Cat Lady
Fixt for likuditude.
Interesting how far right parties are all the same.
PeakVT
This latest kerfuffle is basically a repeat of what happened in 2009, when Netanyahu pantsed the POTUS the first time. The other Cole wrote this shortly afterward:
Fred
The worst thing is that the US won’t have a choice but to be dragged into a war that could end all wars…if you know what I mean (III)
Mark S.
Why do conservatives love Israel soooooo much? I could see them liking Israel, like how some people really like Ireland or Sweden, but they really act like Israel’s interests are much more important than our own goddamn country’s interests. It’s the damnedest thing.
Personally, I think it’s racism. Jews are honorary white people fighting back the dark hordes of Muslims. Kind of like how conservatives to this day bemoan decolonization.
And Bibi will never accept any lifeline. He’s probably signing an order to demolish more Palestinian houses as we speak.
Villago Delenda Est
By an amazing coincidence, I’m sure, some of the ads on this page for me now are from something called the “International Fellowship of Christians and Jews” that shows a map of Israel marked “Israel (surrounded by enemies)”.
Duh. That’s the situation the Israelis created FOR THEMSELVES in 1948. For some reason, people who have lived on that land for generations are supposed to just pack up and leave so that Israel can exist.
Joe Stalin, of all people, epitomized this mentality of “we don’t care if you’ve lived in Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia for generations, Germans…you lost the war, and now we’re taking your land and you’re being expelled from it, and we’re taking some for ourselves and giving some to Poland, because we’re stealing THEIR land, too…”
The Israelis have been following this basic concept from the getgo.
Steeplejack
Dennis G.:
Fix’d.
Turbulence
I don’t see why Israel can’t keep this up indefinitely. Even if Palestinians eventually decide they want the vote, Israel can just keep saying “no”. What’s going to stop them? We’ll keep giving them cash and weapons no matter what. Other countries might complain, but they’re not going to stop trading with Israel; if they start making noises, Uncle Sam can encourage them to keep up trade. So there will be no sanction, so why should they stop?
Walker
@Villago Delenda Est:
Neither does Jordan, and they have some say in the matter.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: I think I have my timeline screwed up. Anyway, I think Juan Cole was and is right about the situation.
Hill Dweller
FWIW, the stenographers over at the Post have a story up pointing out the Israeli public see Netanyahu’s trip as a diplomatic failure; and they are very nervous about being isolated.
Lawrence O’Donnell also had a good segment hammering Netanyahu and Congress on his show tonight.
aisce
@Mark S.:
what’s it about? oh, just the end of the world and jerusalem and the return of jesus and all that good shit. more than a bit of a fixation, really, to the conservative christian mind.
religion sure is fun.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hmmm. It’s not like this happened in any other lands formerly controlled by the British, you know, like India and East and West Pakistan.
Of course, the difference here is that India ultimately agreed to Muslim demands for a separate homeland. They didn’t have to, but the result might have been even bloodier than it turned out.
Still, in the case of Pakistan, Muslims were satisfied with the results of partition, but somehow the partition of Palestine is intolerable.
Church Lady
I’m shocked. There was no Confederate reference in this post.
Dick Dastardly
I pointed this out the other day and the only reaction was that it was a joke. It’s demofraphic reality though. Aslo, too; it’s not just Netanyahu’s coalition that would collapse if any serious peace offer was made. Any Israeli government (always a coalition) contains parties that would collapse the government should a serious offer be made. Ehud barak, leader of Israel’s (leftist) Labour party (supposedly the pro-peace party, now with the advent of Lieberman etc. an irrelevance) couldn’t make a serious offer at Camp David because he was facing an election and it would destroy him at home. From a Clinton admin official who was there :
Determined to preserve Israel’s position in the event of failure, and resolved not to let the Palestinians take advantage of one-sided compromises, the Israelis always stopped one, if not several, steps short of a proposal. The ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing, but orally conveyed. They generally were presented as US concepts, not Israeli ones; indeed, despite having demanded the opportunity to negotiate face to face with Arafat, Barak refused to hold any substantive meeting with him at Camp David out of fear that the Palestinian leader would seek to put Israeli concessions on the record. Nor were the proposals detailed.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/aug/09/camp-david-the-tragedy-of-errors/?pagination=false
Hill Dweller
Juan Cole: For the rest of us in the US, being yoked to Netanyahu’s angry expansionism is like being forced to date Charlie Sheen. It won’t do our own reputation any good, and it won’t rescue him from his self-destructiveness.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Brachiator:
Well, Israel has defeated its enemies to a much greater extent than India ever defeated Pakistan in conventional warfare. Surely that has generated lots of resentment.
And yeah, India existed continuously a lot longer than Israel has, so the Pakistanis couldn’t play the colonialism card against them. Of course, it was the Arab Muslims who originally invaded and colonized the subcontinent in the early Middle Ages…
Scott P.
I agree an apartheid state could not be maintained indefinitely. However, there is a third possibility: ethnic cleansing/genocide.
Amanda in the South Bay
ISTM that the only reason (and I appreciate more scholarly insight into this) that there’s so much pro-Palestinian sentiment in certain quarters is that Israel’s neighbors continually failed at wiping them out militarily. Better to win the sentiment of Western liberals with charges of colonialism, and play the long game against Israel.
Blah, I’m sounding like some sorta 2002 era warblogger. I swear, on liberal blogs I take a more anti-Palestinian approach, and conservative fora drive to me a more anti-Israeli stance.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Not a very precise analogy, as the Hindus and Muslims had been living in the same basic area for centuries…and fighting with each other for centuries. Gandhi didn’t want partition, but it seemed to be the only way to resolve the issue, because the Brits would no longer be around to referee.
The Jews were relative newcomers to lands that had been Muslim (and even Christian!) for centuries, sparked by the Zionism movement of the 19th century, and further expanded by the Balfour Declaration, which created the notion of a “Jewish Homeland” in Palestine…right on top of the locals. Then Jewish settlers slowly started buying up land as the prelude to creating a state.
Martin
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I reject the idea that you can conflate all of Israels neighbors into a single entity. Further, only two outcomes are presented from this argument:
1) A two state solution and the eventual destruction of Israel
2) A one state solution and the eventual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
Further, assuming that Israel claims all of Gaza and the West Bank, what makes those resulting borders any more defensible than the 1967 borders? If Israels neighbors are a homogeneous mass, then they’re still there on Israel’s border.
Finally, the argument assumes that the military calculus in the region hasn’t changed in the last 50 years, which is most assuredly not true. Israel is unquestionably the dominant military power in the region, by far. This is a nation now testing the ability to launch nukes from subs. With that capacity, even if Iran acquired nukes, they’d be powerless to use them. There’s a reason that terrorism is the only strategy being used against Israel – it’s the only one left that has any impact. Same as with the US.
FlipYrWhig
@Amanda in the South Bay: I dunno, it seems to me that there is pro-Palestinian sentiment because Israel tends to be run by thugs and bullies, and because their fable of being the one oasis of reason and sanity in the region was long ago shattered by their track record of swagger and general unbridled assholery.
And re: why there’s such conservative support for Israel, I’m with Mark S.:
Furthermore, when I was in high school in the ’80s, Israel had the reputation of being bad-ass: commandos, not negotiating with terrorists, all that stuff. That’s like pr0n for wingnuts.
Viva BrisVegas
@General Stuck:
I’d have to go Godwin to point out the obvious counter example, so I won’t.
The Israeli right wants what it wants. The US Congress wants to give them whatever they want. Given that, I can see no reason whatsoever that in 50 years from now the only difference in the situation will be that there will be lots more settlements and lots more graves.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Villago Delenda Est:
Palestine was one of those names applied to the area since the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire controlled the area. It isn’t named for the Arabs who have been there for a long time, and of course not for the Jews, who have been there longer, but for the short lived Philistine Kingdom. Before the Jewish revolts and the Diaspora, it was known as the Roman province of Judea, but in a fit of cultural imperialism and spite, the Romans changed the name of the province to Palestine, and it stuck through the Byzantines, Crusaders, Mamluks and Ottomans as they all controlled it.
The first Arabs to move into the area were known as the Nabateans, who lived on either side of the Jordan River, the ancestors of those who still live on either side of the Jordan.
Ironically, the two-state solution was on the table in 1947, accepted by the Zionists, but rejected by the Arabs. After the 1948, instead of ceding the land proposed as Palestine back to the Palestinian Arabs, Egypt, Israel and Jordan kept it. Jordan kept the most of it- the West Bank.
So the two-state solution was there for the making. It wasn’t Israel who fucked that up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Oh, and you’ve got a very valid point: British colonialism has messed up more than a few places, over the last 300 odd years. The India situation was one where they came in, starting taking things over, and gradually, over decades and centuries, set up a very artificial state, and when they left, it fell apart. The partition was a very rough thing, and even the Pakistan part of it was fully artificial, what with “West” and “East” that resulted in the events of the 70’s that led to the birth of Bangladesh.
All the territories taken over from the Ottomans suffered this to some extent (Iraq is a synthetic creation of Versailles) and Africa has all sorts of problems created by the Europeans imposing borders with little regard to centuries of local precedent.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Villago Delenda Est:
There have been Jews there since the foundation of Judaism. The Romans didn’t completely empty the area. Those Jews who remaine after the Diaspora were stripped of any power, the Temple, etc., but they were still there, worshiping silently.
It’s sort of like my Odawa ancestors here in Michigan. The vast majority of the people were removed to Oklahoma, but those in my family never left, and were viewed as some sort of freakish occurrence amongst the white people.
Carl Nyberg
The precedent of Zionism is that if your people were wrongfully expelled by the authorities, your descendants get to return up to 2000 years later (at least) and oust the people living there.
Villago Delenda Est
As I’ve pointed out in previous threads, Israel’s neighbors have their own reasons for the Palestinians (that is, the Arabs who lived in lands that became Israel in 1948) to remain stateless. It gives their own huddled masses a cause that diverts them from the perpetual misrule of the various states surrounding Israel/Palestine. “Look what the Jews are doing to our brothers!” is a handy thing, even though they won’t give the brothers the time of day as refugees, mind you.
In some ways, the two state solution is as much a problem for the Arabs as it is for the Israelis, as Max suggests above. He’s right that the Arabs originally rejected the two state solution…they thought they could force the issue militarily, and of course, they failed in the first war.
Still doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got the Brits to thank for this entire mess, what with the Balfour Declaration setting the stage for a tragedy in multiple acts.
Yutsano
@Carl Nyberg: It was also a very convenient excuse for Europe to permanently rid itself of its Jewish problem. The fact that not all of them went was one flaw there.
@Villago Delenda Est: Only one country in the Middle East will give Palestinians passports: Jordan. That’s it. I find that rather telling about how Arabs regard the Palestinian situation. Otherwise they’re just a cheap labor source with no governmental authority to assist them in times of trouble.
gex
@Mark S.: It’s Christian theology. Isreal plays a role in their prophecies. The end-of-timers in particular.
Martin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
So, once that rubicon was crossed, there’s no going back? Swell. Perpetual war with credit to people that are now dead and unable to change their mind.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Villago Delenda Est:
.
The entire mess? I think there’s some blame that can be spread to the Romans/Byzantines who kept the Jews down or out of the area for the first 400 years after the Diaspora. And making Jerusalem the third holiest site in Islam didn’t help either. Talk about your cultural imperialism….
Phoenician in a time of Romans
All the Palestinians have to do is wait and they will win. Time and history is on their side. The default to a One-State solution means that eventually the land will be controlled by the Palestinians or that the Israelis will have to create an Apartheid state base on denying an ethnic majority any rights to maintain an identity as a Jewish nation. Either way, will mean the destruction of Israel in the next fifty years.
This won’t happen. Israel will ethnically cleanse itself from all but a token, docile Palestinian population, and will continue to expand in search of “security”.
gex
@Carl Nyberg: Which is why the smart ones (settlers of the US) just go with genocide.
Villago Delenda Est
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Yeah, but here’s the thing:
After the Diaspora, there were a few Jews still there in what had once been the Kingdom of David and Solomon, but they didn’t have their own state. Mind you, the “Palestinians” didn’t have one, either. They were just subjects of whatever empire happened to control that piece of real estate, be it Romans, or Eastern Romans, or various flavors of Persians, or various Caliphs, Sultans, Crusaders, Ottomans, or Brits.
It wasn’t until first, the Zionism movement started, and second, the Brits got control of the “Holy Land” after WWI that the ball started rolling on the current magilla. It was a non issue before those events, as far as world stability was concerned.
The bottom line is that the only way for either side to get their way to their complete satisfaction is to commit a series of crimes against humanity. I don’t think the rest of the world can stand by and let that happen. Then again, the rest of the world didn’t give a rat’s ass about Malawi, so whatever…
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is simply not true. The Mughals conquered India around the 15th century, but India is thousands of years older. The latter part of the Mughal Empire was noticeably racist, and it can be argued that this aided the British in establishing their colonial empire. Ironically, some Muslims actually approve of the most extreme, exclusionary Mughal rulers.
Modern Pakistani nationalism in the early to middle 20th century was in part a rational response to Hindu and general Indian nationalism. But another component was based on the notion that some Muslims refused to consider the notion of living in equality with Hindus. They wanted, and got, a state in which Islam was supreme.
After a certain point, both the Muslims and the Indians (which included other religious and ethnic groups) understood that the British were irrelevant and the future of the region had to be decided by Indians and Pakistanis.
The bottom line is that the Indians reluctantly, but reasonably accepted partition. Pakistan could not assert partition based on history, but made their claims based on a reasonable sense of nationalism. Kinda like Americans asserting an identity independent of being British subjects.
And so, I think that the Arab leaders in the Middle East could have accepted the partition of Palestine and the establishment of Israel. Instead, they fell back on Muslim exceptionalism, the notion that other groups can live in the region only if they accept Muslim dominance (for example, the situation of Coptic Christians in Egypt).
Also too, American liberals who reject partition in the case of Israel should similarly reject the upcoming (and problematic) partition of Sudan. But what is happening there doesn’t even register on Americans’ radar.
Oh yeah, didn’t Czechoslavakia separate into two independent nations? No one is insisting that they be reunited into a secular democracy in which both sides live together.
And as I have noted before, Sri Lanka has resolved their civil war by brutally suppressing the Tamils. These unfortunate people are even more invisible than the Palestinians to many people in the West.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@rob!: I’m coming around to the idea that all wars are fought for generations. I used to smirk at the Balkans, for holding grudges for 400 years. But here we are, still fighting the Civil War.
But take a step back, the US Civil War was basically fought by the descendants of the people who fought the English Civil War in the 1600s. Roundheads (New Englanders) vs. Cavaliers (Southern aristocracy).
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Martin:
I think there was still a chance up until about the Yom Kippur War. After that, as well as being a swing to the right by the Israelis who were already there, there was an uptick in immigration by Russian Jews. And for the longest time after that, Egypt was the only Arab nation willing to even speak to Israel. So, you know, it went from Arab entrenchment against a two-state solution to Israeli entrenchment against it. And even then, there was a good chance to settle things peacefully in the ’90s, but Rabin was assassinated….And even then, there was a chance, but Arafat rejected Barak in 2000…And then Sharon just had to push it in the Arabs’ collective face by going to the Temple Mount….Asshole…
Joseph Nobles
@Mark S.: It’s not racism per se, it’s religion. Conservatives love Israel so much because God told them to. Seriously. Tim Pawlenty was asked about Israel in his announcing for president by someone who was over Obama for just that reason. God promised them that land, said the questioner. How do we protect Israel?
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
And this is an even more interesting situation, since the Tamils are not native to Sri Lanka (the natives are Sinhalese) but the British initially imported them as laborers. They decided they liked it and stayed. But the Sinhalese refused to accept them as equal citizens, the Tamils rebelled, and arms dealers got rich. The real reason Palestine/Israel isn’t more bloody is the Palestinians have no real wealthy benefactors.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
So, we’ve got centuries of ethnic and religious hatreds and grudges in both cases, and we’re surprised that people just can’t get along.
Yeah, somehow the Czechs and Slovaks worked that out. Of course, the Serbs had a different approach to the Bosniaks and all those Kosovars…
I hate to sound like an isolationist, but jeeze, we need to pay attention to that Washington guy and his warning against entangling alliances sometimes…
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: Right. Everyone can point to some particular time in the last 3,000 years that establishes their ‘right’ to be there. Further, everyone can point to some particular time in the last 3,000 years that establishes a wrongdoing by some other party – almost none of which can actually be verified because it’s wrapped up in some oral and repeatedly revised cultural history.
Ultimately, what matters are the people alive now and what currently is. It doesn’t matter all that much how Israel came to be, it is. The 1967 borders matter because of what Israel agreed to with the international community. It’s part of what is. Egypt and Jordan are not aggressors toward Israel today. They in fact enjoy quite strong relations with the US. I can understand Israel’s concern about their northern borders, but Israel is currently in as stable a relationship with its neighbors as it’s ever enjoyed, and those neighbors are in a position to help Israel stabilize a 2 state solution. But Israel isn’t asking.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve never been quite clear about what it was that brought the Czechs and Slovaks together. The best I can figure is that it was a union for the sake of defense, especially for the Slovaks, who had a lot to fear from their former Hungarian masters.
Yugoslavia, however, is quite a different story. It has a lot more to do with satisfying the Serbs, who never gave up the fight on the Salonica Front in WWI, even though so much of Serbia had been conquered at the outset of that war, while many Slovenians, Croats and Bosnians fought on the side of the Empire.
Citizen Alan
@Turbulence:
Within a few decades, Uncle Sam’s opinion will become increasingly irrelevant. What do Uncle Sanjay and Uncle Chen have to say about things?
Brachiator
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Uh, no. Pakistan pointlessly defeats itself in a needless hatred of India. And India not only inflicted one of the most humiliating defeats in history on Pakistan, they were also instrumental in helping Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, secure its independence from West Pakistan. And then there is Kashmir, a festering sore of resentments.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Sorry, it’s more complicated than that. India consists of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsee. Sikhs murdered Indian leaders. And yet Sikh generals are among the most revered figures in Indian history (e.g. Jagjit Singh Arora). And a Sikh is the current leader of India.
Americans like to fall back on “both sides have been fighting each other for centuries.” This is typically a false and reductive view of history.
Palestinians and Jews have not been fighting each other for centuries, nor is this the case for Muslims and Jews. The history is much more complex (like that pesky Roman Empire). Nor is past history a determinant of what happens next.
The Hindu majority in India could have simply sought revenge for centuries of Mughal rule and viciously suppressed the emergence of Pakistan, insisting that all Muslims live within a greater India. And decades later, the Indian government could have allowed Pakistan to suppress the emergence of Bangladesh.
But that’s not what happened.
I see the failure of the Palestinians and the hardliners in the Israeli government to embrace a two state solution as a sad failure of the imagination. And a secular democracy in which all people live and contribute, an interesting notion, but perhaps improbable.
Yutsano
@Citizen Alan: Neither Uncle Sanjay nor Uncle Chen have shown the slightest interest in geopolitical affairs unless it directly affects their wallets. China may be investing heavily in Africa, but it could give a flying fuck about who runs the place or the welfare of the citizens there.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I see the Mughal Empire as just as problematic as British colonialism. There was nothing organic or necessary about the Muslim control of India. And had the later Mughals been less racist, and had they built a navy, they might have been able to repel the British.
But later, the British didn’t simply leave. They were invited out. I know that there are some Muslims and Hindus who think that the British could have done more to prevent the outrages that accompanied partition, but I think that this is wishful thinking. There was a point in which both nations seized their own destinies. And some of the result was bloody and unfortunate, perhaps in some ways like the American Civil War.
And Bangladesh emerged in part because West Pakistan exploited the East. But before that, Pakistan was more or less happy with the odd partition. And by this time, the British were entirely irrelevant. And of course, people either forget or don’t know that the US supported West Pakistan.
As an aside, just as West and East Pakistan was unstable, I think that a non contiguous Palestinian state (West Bank and Gaza) is untenable.
A great thread, but with this, I must retire for the evening.
Odie Hugh Manatee
If Netanyahu had his way, there would be no Palestine. Period. He’s the asshole that pressured Clinton by saying that if we released the traitor we have locked up, Pollard, to Israel, in exchange for that he would work out a deal with the Palestinians. You know damned well that he never would have done any such thing, blaming it on the Palestinians of course.
When it comes to Israel, our politicians have no fucking idea what would be best approach to dealing/negotiating with them to help solve the problem. If they won’t honestly work towards a fair solution then cut off any further aid until they return to the table and actually negotiate, fairly and reasonably.
Besides, that should make the end-of-the-worlders cream their jeans in anticipation of rapture day. In that situation over there, the Israelis have the responsibility to find a fair solution. They hold all of the power but they are more interested in making the Palestinians suffer for any slight against Israel or its citizens.
As it is, from what I can dig up, since 2000 there have been almost four Palestinian deaths to every Israeli death from conflict. That’s probably why the Israelis think they are ‘winning’.
That’s not winning, that’s retaliation.
Michael
To #54 (and all others who have this backward):
There would be peace tomorrow – and a Palestinian State – if the Palestinians would put down their weapons, acknowledge Israel’s right to exist (affirmed by the UN after all), assure Israel it will have defensible borders, and stop their nonsense about a “right to return.” The Arabs (remember, they didn’t call themselves Palestinians in 1948, that’s what the Jews who lived in Israel called themselves back then) – the Arabs VOLUNTARILY left their homes. Israel BEGGED them to stay (these are facts, so don’t try to argue). If you voluntarily leave a place, you no longer have a claim to it.
The fact of the matter is that it is the Palestinians who don’t want a state. If they had a state, they could no longer cry “Victim!” and they’d have to start relying on their own initiative, rather than relying on handouts from well-meaning but naive Westerners. It is in the best interests of Israel to have a Palestinian state (provided that it has the guarantees I mention above), but that LAST thing the Palestinians want is a state!
There can be peace tomorrow, provided the Palestinian terrorists put down their weapons, acknowledge Israel’s right to exist within secure borders, and quit trying to claim back land their willingly surrendered over 60 years ago.
The facts speak for themselves, and these ARE the facts.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
There would be peace tomorrow – and a Palestinian State – if the Palestinians would put down their weapons, acknowledge Israel’s right to exist (affirmed by the UN after all), assure Israel it will have defensible borders, and stop their nonsense about a “right to return.”
You forget – there was just an unarmed march by Palestinians, largely non-violent. Israelis shot those unarmed marchers.
That pretty much shows your comments to be lies, Michael. A country seeking peace does not shoot unarmed protesters.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Michael: Funny how this bullshit screed of yours so closely resembles the way racist right-wingers talk about black people here in the US.
“If they’d just stop being so animalistic and violent and stop depending on handouts from the country’s producers, everything would suddenly be perfect!”
I give you the same response I give them: eat shit and die.
dmbeaster
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
The Arabs had been resisting the Jewish efforts to impose Western control in Palestine for 30+ years, and were not happy with the 1948 UN decision to create a foreign state in Arab lands. Maybe all the recent history with Western colonialism had something to do with that. Particularly, they were not happy with a foreign state which would be based on a foreign religion and would make the long term occupants second class citizens in their own land. The Israelis only nominally accepted a 2 state solution – they did not accept the 1948 boundaries either, and forced hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their lands to expand Israel. And Israel has never accepted the 1967 boundaries as meaning anything in particular, and have always coveted more lands, which unfortunately requires removing more Arabs from their lands.
So Israel has also done everything in its power to screw up a two state solution. Ironically, it is the Arabs over the last 30 years that have made the serious moves to accepting a two state solution – look at the evolution of the Saudi position. It is Israel who intransigently will not move toward a two state solution, and still covets Arab lands for their own.
dmbeaster
@Michael:
This has always been a total lie, and acknowledged to be so by current Jewish historians, although I know it has been taught as gospel by Zionists. The Israeli leaders in 1948 were not at all happy with the proposed 1948 boundaries, and wanted to expand the state significantly into Arab lands. They razed Palestinians villages to drive Palestinians from their land, and killed those who resisted. Many left “voluntarily” in response. The Israeli claim that they begged them to stay is blood libel.
If you look at the demographic maps drawn up by the UN as part of the 1948 partition effort, they demonstrate this point. Jews were barely a majority in the much smaller area established as the Jewish state in 1948. The expanded boundaries (the cease fire line after the 1948 war, which was also the 1967 pre-war boundaries) would have resulted in a state with a significant Arab majority, except that over half a million Arabs were driven out. Israel as you know it would not exist but for this deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing by the founders of Israel.
The right of return is the response to that outrage. It is no longer practical, and most Arabs now support a two state solution based on the 1967 boundaries, which accepts the reality of that ethnic cleansing perpetrated 60 some years ago now. The current Israeli position is to continue a slow creeping ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing since the 1967 war.
4tehlulz
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome state?
PeakVT
@Brachiator:
That’s a moronic analogy to the I/P situation.
Donald
“the Arabs VOLUNTARILY left their homes. Israel BEGGED them to stay (these are facts, so don’t try to argue).”
The mayor of Haifa begged them to stay. The armed Zionist forces (calling them Israeli during this period isn’t quite accurate, since half the refugees were generated before the declaration of Israel) were forcing them to leave. And I’m not arguing—I’m correcting your false statement, which no sensible person has believed in decades. That story about refugees leaving at the behest of Arab orders while Israelis/Zionists all begged them to stay never made much sense anyway and could only be believed if you wanted to believe it and didn’t examine it too closely.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Michael:
You mean like some sorta diaspora?
agrippa
It is perfectly all right to argue about this; the argument has, after all, been going on since Herzl. But, it will not be solved in the lifetime of anyone reading this post.
Ash Can
The crux of the problem? Too damn many people who think like “Michael” here does.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
Sigh. To sum up, it’s a fucking mess on all sides and everybody has a share of the blame.
If you want to argue about blame, I tend to feel that since Israel has the most power right now their being gigantic assholes who are utterly unwilling to resolve this is the most important piece. Certainly everyone – the US, the Palestinians, the surrounding Arab states – has a slice.
What I disagree with particularly is the suggestion that this will inevitably destroy Israel. I think it will inevitably lead to genocide against the Palestinians. Israel is not going to leave and not going to give Palestinians the vote in any way that might make Israel not be a Jewish state. They have the military to enable them to enforce these decisions, and they’re ‘fight to the last man’ determined. Whatever happens, Israelis will not roll over without a literal fight.
On the other hand, I don’t think a solution is utterly impossible. It seems damned unlikely right now, but things change. It might just be possible that the government can be pressured internally and externally into creating a separate and functional Palestinian state. But Bibi sure as Hell ain’t gonna do it.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Worse, Israel wasn’t meant as a concession for the historic Jewish community that’s always remained there. The whole country, from the start, was a European project, by people who’d been European for over a thousand years and were responding to European pressures.
It’d be one thing if this was, like, carving out territory for a local community (like they could’ve done with the Kurds), but what really rankles is that the country was made out of thin air for and by people who had never been to the Middle East. It’s hard to argue with people who call it a colonial enclave or compare it to white colonists’ regimes in Algeria, South Africa or Rhodesia.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can:
Exactly, incapable of rational thought..
Jews leave for two thousand years and go halfway ’round the world: right to return to their “ancestral homeland”- an ancestral homeland that they stole from the original palestinians, a story that is well documented in the most popular book on Earth.
Palestinians leave and stand at the border for 50 years demanding their land back: go away you dirty fucking ayrabs.
Chris
@PeakVT:
I have to agree, unfortunately.
I see the Palestinians eventually being reduced to smaller and smaller enclaves on their own land until they’re finally as completely isolated as the American Indians were on their reservations. A few generations later, maybe, Israeli Arabs will get rights and you’ll have a bunch of people saying “oh, isn’t it terrible what we did here?” But only after Palestine’s dead.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can:
Exactly, incapable of rational thought..
Jews leave for two thousand years and go halfway ’round the world: right to return to their “ancestral homeland”- an ancestral homeland that they stole from the original palestinians, a story that is well documented in the most popular book on Earth.
Palestinians leave and stand at the border for 50 years demanding their land back: go away you dirty fucking ayrabs.
And that doesn’t even consider the simple fact that in the first case it’s the bastard distant descendants of 9th century Turkish Khazarians and in the second case it’s the actual people who hold deeds to the land in question.
Just Some Fuckhead
But my least favorite actors in the I/P drama are the “both sides
do itare to blame” weasels. Like there is just as much merit as, say, me going back to Germany and stealing my distant ancestors’ land and the claims of the rightful owner of that land today.Chris
@Mark S.:
A combination of Holocaust guilt (which oddly applies to them but not to the other six million people who died in the Holocaust), Biblical fundamentalism (which under current reading says Israel is Jewish land because shut up that’s why), and Western identification with Israel (either on the grounds of “they’re a democracy” or, more commonly, what you just said).
Pococurante
I find this post confusing. The Arab Palestinians believe time is on their side so don’t feel any pressure to negotiate, but at the same time they’ve been desperately trying to negotiate?
I do think you have it half right. We see that Arab Palestinians going back to the early 1940s stating quite forcefully that they will accept no compromise. So yes, their territory and options have shrunk over the years. Sadly, their tactics haven’t changed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Pococurante:
I don’t agree with your premise but let’s just be stupid and pretend this is all the Palestinians fault for not settling for a quarter of a loaf of moldy bread..
If I steal your car because I leased it for a year when it was new on the lot, are you cool with negotiating to get it back? How much are you willing to negotiate to get yer car back? Would you settle for the floor mats?
Ghanima Atreides
Its already too late.
Israel has borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, four islamic states. The US has been able to keep the borders stable with a combination of propping dictators, bribes and threats. Mubarak fell, and the King of Jordan is shaky. Those two states are very sympathetic to palestinians and also border the west bank and Gaza.
Bibi doesnt really have a choice. The US cannot keep the borders stable anymore.
Social media, the repression of islamism, and the growth of educated youth are the fuel of the Arab Spring. Islamist groups have been brutally suppressed in the American War against
terrorIslam, while simultaneously being cultured by dictators as bogeymen to attract American war-aid. So every Arab Spring movement consists of an alliance of long suppressed islamic parties and students, communicating through social media.dig this.
arguingwithsignposts
personally, I blame Rebekah. If she hadn’t favored Isaac over Esau, none of this shit would have happened. (/snark)
Ghanima Atreides
@Pococurante: it doesnt matter. What Dennis is saying is that the past is dust. If Israel can’t compromise, the israelis will be driven into the sea.
Mark S.
@Michael:
Bullshit.
jayjaybear
@Joseph Nobles: If God promised them that land, then let God protect them.
Pococurante
@Ghanima Atreides: What compromise are the Arab Palestinians putting on the table? It’s been understood for decades that land swaps would happen. Why did they keep these negotiations secret three years ago?
I fully grasp Dennis’ point – I just find it dissonant. I detest Bibi and the West Bank settlements. I’d like to see a reset to the 2008 negotiations. But I remind folks here that the Arab negotiators kept their role secret precisely because they feared reprisals from their own people.
Assuming Israel had accepted I find it doubtful the Arab Palestinians would have been able to deliver. And we’d still be where we are now.
We can say “past is past” but we can also say history informs the present. There is no real evidence that enough Arab Palestinians would accept formal partition.
Dennis certainly has facts on his side that they can sit and wait, as they have no history of compromise.
jayjaybear
@arguingwithsignposts: Blame Sarah. If she hadn’t driven out Hagar and Ishmael, the Arabs would have all been part of the family instead of going off and becoming jihadist savages…
(also snark, if the disclaimer is necessary)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ghanima Atreides:
This doesn’t make any sense, if the past was dust then Israel wouldn’t be there right now. What you mean to say is all the unpleasant shit that’s happened in our lifetime to cause this mess shouldn’t be discussed in polite company so let’s focus on some future date where none of it will matter.
chopper
the temple jews all voluntarily left israel 2000 years ago. the romans begged them to stay.
Ghanima Atreides
@Just Some Fuckhead: no i DON”T. stop trying to tell me what im saying.
The unpleasant historical shit is NOT RELEVANT in the CURRENT population demographic equations.
THIS is what I am saying.
That is also what Goldberg and Dennis are saying.
Ghanima Atreides
@Pococurante: NO one can afford to sit and wait because of the Arab Spring. The Palis wont so the Israelis cant.
America can’t protect Israels borders anymore.
Dennis G.
@Steeplejack: thanks
@Church Lady: There was, but you missed it.
@Brachiator: I would also point out that the body count between Indian and Pakistan since 1949 is far higher than the body count between Israel and Palestine. It is just that Western media doesn’t really care about the former conflict, but they do care about the latter one. This may have something to do with the “Cowboys” vs “Indians” framing and the fact that so many immigrants to Israel were European and American.
Ghanima Atreides
@Pococurante: i hate this fucking moral equivalence bulshytt.
Only one side is making war on children.
Turkey is sending another flotilla.
The arab countries are no longer respecting the treaties America forced on them.
This will continue, and it will escalate because America has less and less power to shape outcomes in MENA.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ghanima Atreides: Yes, in a generation things may be different. In the meantime, perpetuate horror and injustice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pococurante:
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Why are you bothering to discuss things with her? If it is for the entertainment value, cool; but if you expect some kind of reasonable discussion, you will be disappointed.
Ghanima Atreides
@Dennis G.: do you know what we havent seen, is the last months desperate undercover negotiations between Hillary and Anan to keep the status quo long enough for Obama to bribe-cajole-threaten Bibi into restarting negotiations.
The other deadline is September’s UN general assembly vote on Pali statehood.
The crossing opens in two days, and Bibi pretty much rejected Obamas overtures.
The Israelis are asking for this IMHO.
The mills of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding small.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sometimes I entertain me, sometimes I entertain others. It’s really a coin flip.
Continental Op
I believe Israel will try for a slow-motion, TV-friendly expulsion of enough Palestinians to solve the demographic threat to the apartheid state. Demolish housing, level olive orchards, and generally make life miserable. Make leaving easy and re-entry difficult.
Ghanima Atreides
@Just Some Fuckhead: i can predict a lot more death, horror and agony for both sides.
This reminds me of a rhyme I learned in sailing school.
thats Israel…the body of john o’day.
And its eratz israel assholes like you and Omnes and Poco that give Bibi the chops to think he can speak to congress and bitch slap Obama and continue his land grab and war on children.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Continental Op:
Republicans have figured out how to subjugate the majority here, I’m sure Israelis can muddle through it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ghanima Atreides:
Well, if it ain’t Nostra-fuckin-damus up in here.
Chris
@Ghanima Atreides:
That’ll be difficult for Obama to pull off with the degree of pro-Israel sentiment in Congress. One can hope that you’re right, and I do, but I’m not holding my breath.
As for the UN, spare me. They may very well vote to recognize Palestine, in fact I’m betting they will. It won’t matter. As Stalin once said of the Pope, how many divisions does the UN have?
@Continental Op:
Yeah, that’s basically been their policy for the last couple decades – why give up now?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ghanima Atreides:
Well, yes, that’s always the conundrum. Do you ignore inconvenient and unpleasant facts and strengthen the opposition or so you speak out about them and strengthen the opposition?
Ghanima Atreides
@Continental Op: the Arab Spring and social media wont allow that.
Turkey is sending ANOTHER flotilla next month even tho the US begged them not to.
Egypt is opening the Rafa crossing in two days even tho the US begged them not to.
The status quo is untenable.
Chris
@Ghanima Atreides:
AWESOME.
It was “Morter McGay” when I heard it, and I’ve never heard it from anyone but my dad, who was passing it along from his own parents. I thought I was the only one who’d heard that rhyme…
Chris
Well. Someone has to be the 100th poster, and it might as well be me…
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I thought old Joe had some good reasoning, in that particular case. Remove the heart of militant Prussia & give it to Poland as payback for what Nazi Germany inflicted on the world.
Paul in KY
@Amanda in the South Bay: If Palestinians really want their state, I’ve become convinced they need to use the Ghandi tactics. It shows they are civilized, that the nation can refrain from violence to achieve a political goal, and it can bring American public opinion back to their side.
Some Israeli politicain said there wouldn’t be a Palestinian state until they were ‘as peaceful as Finns’. Thinking they could never do it, of course. Call their bluff. Do it as a national strategy, because you will NEVER beat the Israelis militarily.
Scott P.
That’s actually a myth. There is no connection between the Southern aristocracy and the Cavaliers — the Southerners made that up to burnish their own ancestry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ghanima Atreides: This is why you are an idiot. I didn’t post anything defending Israel’s actions. I pointed out that having a discussion with you is pointless; the topic really doesn’t matter because any discussion with you is pointless. Oops, this discussion is pointless, so I will stop now.
Ghanima Atreides
@Just Some Fuckhead: i am a realist.
Israel can evolve or go extinct.
idc which.
like i have repeatedly pointed out on this very blog, Gaza’s children have nothing to do with the history of jews.
There is no equivalence.
Skippy-san
Of course Bibi believes in a one state solution. Whenever you hear an Israeli refer to Judea and Samaria, you know they believe that it is the Palestinians who are the occupiers-not the other way around. For them there is only one solution: Jordan is Palestine. They don’t care if they all die off or leave-just so long as they are gone.
For them, it is an article of faith that Israel should include all the lands of Yeretz Israel and not one hectare less. What’s really sad is that American Christians believe it too-but they should know better. Short of returning to a third party ruling the place-a la the British Mandate, I don’t think there is a solution. But don’t kid yourself, the Israelis will never extend even the most basic rights to the Palestinians. Ever. Especially as long as they have folks like Hamas to blame.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
I’m of the opinion there’s going to be Palestinian violence whether or not there is any violent Palestinians. It’s just too important for the existing paradigm not to manufacture it somehow. When mortars get launched across the border from the Palestinian side to the Israeli side, it doesn’t really matter who fired ’em.
On the bright side, Palestinians are already like Finns in that they don’t bathe enough. Do I smell peace?
Omnes Omnibus
@Scott P.: David Hackett Fischer would disagree with you.
General Stuck
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Thank you for injecting some historical fact into the anti Israel left wing dogma that always swamps threads on this topic.
Ghanima Atreides
@Omnes Omnibus: im not an idiot. im actually a high function autoid, an aspie, and i Do. Not. Care. About. “feelings”.
You automatically oppose everything i say anymore.
idc.
but it adds little to the discussion….you flail about and claim i am “wrong” but you never bring the data to show where im wrong.
Chris
@Scott P.:
It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything about this, but that sounds about right.
American elites in the nineteenth century had a weird relationship with the European ones. I’ve heard that later on, some Gilded Age robber barons married their daughters into European noble houses in an attempt to burnish their own elite-cred.
It was my impression, though, that while American elites wanted to be like European ones, the European ones never saw them as equals. More like Arab sheikhs or Indian maharajahs – they were very curious, but it was the kind of curiosity you have for exotic animals in a zoo, not people of the same rank.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: With what modern army, pray tell?
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
I find it hilarious that you took the precaution of identifying this as snark. Very wise, mind you — but hilarious.
Interesting post and thread.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY:
But they don’t have to.
They will beat the Israelis demographically by reproduction.
Its the EGT way.
The Palis might have had their state with peaceful protest by now, but just as they are starting to learn peaceful protest, the Arab Spring is ratcheting up the political temperature.
It is not a two actor conflict like the eratz israel retards are fantasizing. It is Israelis against the whole Arabian Peninsula. That is a fight no military can win.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: The Palestianin authority would have to clamp on Hamas, of course. Also, the big theatrical things that Ghandi did would have to be done. Peaceful marches where they get clubbed down until the clubbers can’t club no more. General strike against working in Israel & a strategy of feeding the populace once the Israeli wages aren’t coming in. It would have to be carefully thought out, must have media/film present to get the pictures out to the world.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: the Egyptians, Lebanese and Jordananians have full american mecha, borders on Israel, and are no longer in America full control.
The Syrians have modern sov mecha and the old bargain, that America not try to destabilize the Assad dynasty and they keep the border quiet has fallen to the Arab Spring, with Bashar trying to draw Israel into the fight to distract his constituents.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: If you think having 100 Palestinians to 1 Jewish person is gonna make the Israelis start treating them better, or change their laws so the Palestininas can vote them out, then you’ve been smoking much better weed than I (and I smoke some pretty good weed).
I’m sure the Israelis (at least this government) has done exhaustive studies on where the Botha/De klerk regimes went wrong & how not to make the same mistakes.
Chris
@Ghanima Atreides:
If it was that simple, the Palestinians would have beaten the Israelis demographically right off the bat. They couldn’t because many of them were forcibly removed from the Israeli areas and sometimes killed in order to ensure that there wouldn’t be enough Palestinians to vote.
IOW, the same shyte that’s been happening in the West Bank for the last few decades.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY: I don’t see it either and I also smoke very good weed*. This pie-in-the-sky thinking – that Israel is just gonna sit around, do nothing and one day let Palestinians run Palestine – is absurd. There will be another war first.
*As my buddy sez, “Wherever you wanna stay, that’s where you better be at.”
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: it doesnt matter.
Israel is an island with eroding shoreline.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
I think you’ve hit all the basics.
Holocaust guilt definitely has a role to play in this. But centuries of blind antisemitism throughout Europe weigh on people, and the Holocaust is pretty much the logical end game of the antisemitic mindset…so there’s that. The US didn’t have a “Judeao-Christian” tradition until after WWII. That’s when the “Judeao” part got tacked on.
There was the cold war angle back in the 60’s and 70’s as well, but keep in mind that in the ’48 war, the Soviets provided the Israelis with confiscated Messerschmidts, and the Brits provided the Arabs with Spitfires. That all changed in ’56, and the Arab-Israeli conflict became yet another proxy standoff between the US and the USSR.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: DO. NOT. FEED. HER. At all. She is neither a rational actor nor an honest debater. You cannot argue with someone wrapped in her own certitude. She believes she can not ever be wrong nor can she fail herself. And she refuses to ever correct error. Skip by and move on. I say this as someone who does not hate you. :)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ghanima Atreides:
You are not a realist if these are your only two choices. You’re a fantasist at best, an idiot at worst. Or vice versa.
Amanda in the South Bay
Ideally I think the immediate aftermath of the 6 Day War was the most opportune time for peace. Israel should’ve held onto the Golan and a small amount of the West Bank for defensive purposes (yes, Israel is a really tiny country), and simply forced Jordan to hold onto the West Bank. No settlements, no armed incursions, no border at the Jordan River.
Of course there’s the thorny aspect of East Jerusalem…my understanding of the 6 Day War is that there was a lot of religious types who were all into that, so…negotiating that away would’ve been harder.
daveNYC
Actually, it would be possible for an Israeli coalition government to make a deal with the PA and not immediately implode from defections. It’s just that the coalition would have to include the Arab parties.
Good luck with that ever happening. Twenty bucks says that the only way an Arab party will be part of the government is when it gets 51% of the Knesset.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: WTF is a ‘mecha’?
BobS
@Just Some Fuckhead: Palestinians watching the influx of Russian Jews settling in Israel, and particularly on stolen property in the West Bank, could do worse than reproducing the peaceful behavior of the Finns during the Winter War.
rickstersherpa
I think for justifiable historical reasons a Jewish national state has a right to exist. But I am afraid the most militant proponents of that idea are laying the pre-conditions of its destruction because to the extent the expand beyond the 1967 borders and resist land swaps, they incorporate Palestinian Arabs into their body politic, and they can not in the very long run be able to sustain treating these persons as second class citizens without rights. Ultimately, they will lose their support from the American Jewish community and the United States if they do and then what will they be able to do. I also understand the reluctance of Israeilis to live under the authority of non-Jewish, Palestinian authority given the passions, ideologis, memes, narratives, and hatreds that the Palestinians feels for Israelis.
If Hamas and Abbas wanted to really flummoxed Israel, they would renounce violence, renoucne the two state solution, and request that the UN authorize/direct Israel to annex Gaza and the West Bank in the entire, granting all residents full citizenship and then agitate for “right of return and non-Jewish representation in the Israeli Government and defense forces with politics and a non-violence protest campaign. Of course that last part would be the poison pill to Netanyahu and the Israeli Right and it would start to reverse the effect of the 2d Infatada which led many Israelis of the left and center to conclude that the Palestininan hatred of them was so deep and total that living in peaceful co-existence was impossible, and that only a wall could make them safe.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul in KY:
Mechanized army? I don’t speak pidgin lolcat either but I try to derive meaning from context.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I stopped. The problem is that, if I am walking down the street and I see a rock, I have an urge to kick it along like a soccer ball. This rock is big enough that I will just hurt my toe; I get it, but the temptation to kick it still remains.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: Good on your buddy!
Paul in KY
@BobS: How exactly did that Winter War end?
Yutsano
@Paul in KY: @Just Some Fuckhead: Mecha is an anime term that she’s malaproping. It usually means any sort of mechanical robot meant for purposes of war. It, however, does NOT include things like anti-tank missiles and jet aircraft. And oh yeah BTW she’s wrong about both the size and the capabilities of the respective militaries as well.
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll admit this whole affair was worth it for that metaphor alone.
Chris
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Not sure if there were any religious types involved in the Six Day War. What I have heard was that the war enabled the rise of Islamism as a political force, after it had been fought and lost. Up until then, it was Arab nationalism (secular and modernist, personified by Nasser) which had captured the public’s imagination, but after 1967, the fact that Arab nationalist regimes had failed twice to defeat Israel was a huge blow to their image.
So people fell back on Islamism after that. (And part of the reasoning, I’ve read, is that if secular regimes like Nasser’s could be defeated by a state founded on religion like Israel, maybe it was better to put one’s faith in religion than in modern ideologies).
Israel also moved towards religious fundamentalism during the same era – what prompted that, I don’t know.
AAA Bonds
I doubt there will ever be a complete end to attacks from some Palestinian groups. I doubt there will ever be an end to settlements ordered and implemented by any Israeli government. Certainly, I don’t expect it within the next 10 years.
Of course, any land swap would need much more: a multi-year period without any Palestinian attacks from any group in the territory that Israel’s government could use to halt the process, and in which Israel dismantled existing settlements over strong public outcry within Israel.
Do either of those things sound likely?
What America needs to do is to tell them: you’re on your own.
Our first step is withdrawing support for Israel’s military.
That’s a step toward moral and practical success for the United States. Is it a step toward peace? Maybe not, but honestly, I don’t care much. My generation was born when the rest of y’all were already sick to death of hearing about the region’s problems.
General Stuck
@rickstersherpa:
Thoughtful comment. Thanks!
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think you are right, probably ‘mechanized army’.
The Egyptians had that back in 73, so did others.
4tehlulz
@Paul in KY: ZOMG THE EGYPTIANS HAVE GUNDAMS
Dennis G.
@Chris: Nice effort sir. Well played. And it worked for a moment, but then you lost your spot. Oh the puzzle that is WP.
Villago Delenda Est
It also doesn’t help that, typically, both sides in this conflict claim that a deity is on their side, and a lot of observers see the recreation of Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy, and it’s the deity-delivered land of the Jews, etc.
This fucking monotheism bullshit is great for creating a lot of grief that is utterly unnecessary.
Mandramas
I disagree with the post. A democratic Israel, with two ethnic groups merging slowly, is not “the end of israel” any more that abolition of Jim Crow’s laws was the end of WASP USA.
AAA Bonds
We need to break AIPAC’s influence in the United States.
This should probably be the #1 priority of anyone who wants to keep the United States out of wars in the Middle East.
There’s nothing I can say that will stop cries of “conspiracy!” against this, but let’s face it: America’s second-largest lobby is a proponent of the Bush Doctrine.
Marcellus Shale public dick.
Why not, a no-state solution, libertarian paradise? clearly government is the problem?
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
See Billy Zane’s character in Titannic blathering on about how “we’re royalty”.
Um, no.
One of the reasons Napoleon was so hated was he was this pushy minor noble from Corsica claiming to be the equivalent of a Hapsburg.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandramas:
What you believe is irrelevant.
What the people on the ground believe is.
The Jews want a state of their own, fully under their control. Even amongst themselves, there is contention about what precisely that means. The ultra-wackadoodle-orthodox have a tendency, thanks to the Israeli electoral system, of being able to call the shots and impose their social insanity on everyone…Jew and Muslim alike.
Brachiator
@PeakVT: RE: Oh yeah, didn’t Czechoslavakia separate into two independent nations? No one is insisting that they be reunited into a secular democracy in which both sides live together.
why? Just because you say so? And you miss my larger point, which was to criticize the suggestion of some posters that there should be some general principle that peoples be forced into a union (putative secular democracy) because … well, just because dammit. By this logic, the proposed partition of Sudan should be stopped.
@Dennis G.:
I’m not quite of what point you are trying to make here.
I think that some Americans, and I don’t know if this is a big liberal thing, want to see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as a struggle between white people and hapless indigenous peoples. This is bullshit. Israelis and Palestinians are more similar than they are dissimilar, and some of the intensity and insanity of their fight against each other is like brothers, or at least cousins, fighting in a family.
And it is obvious that because of the impact of Christianity in the West and in America and the greater prominence of Jewish people in American life and Western culture, that Jews are more are part of American’s national consciousness than are the Palestinians.
But I agree with you in part on another point. Even though the US has had long strategic interests in Pakistan and India, the media largely ignored everything happening there until the wars in Afghanistan, and even now still has difficulty paying attention. But then again, I have had conversations with people who are passionate about Israel and Palestine, but who don’t even know that Pakistan is a majority Muslim nation. And then there are those who think that Bangladesh and Calcutta are the same place, just some weirdly exotic land where there are starving Indian children and the ghost of Mother Teresa.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Mandramas: I think you are conflating the status of Arabs living within Israel proper and the residents of the West Bank.
AAA Bonds
I’m glad that the demographic trends point toward a one-state, multi-ethnic society. There will be a period of tumult in the region (unlike the last fifty years!) but eventually an imperfect compromise or at least a stalemate will be reached between the Israelis as an economically advantaged minority and the Palestinians as a demographic majority.
Barring two states, the only other option would be ethnic cleansing, and I doubt Israel’s government could float that domestically any more than they can dismantling settlements.
It will probably look something like South Africa. And that’s a problem, but honestly, less of a problem for everyone outside the I-P borders as the situation right now.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, he not only claimed he was the equal of the old nobility, he kind of sidelined them in favor of new Bonapartist nobility, made up of his own supporters. No wonder they called him “the Usurper.”
OT: some of those Bonapartist nobles were relegated to Corsica after the Restoration, where they continued to agitate against the throne. That agitation fed early Corsican nationalism, which would go on to give Paris chronic headaches for decades to come.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: To be fair, the old aristocrats had already been somewhat sidelined by the Revolution and the Terror.
AAA Bonds
@Brachiator:
Look, I consider kneejerk reaction in favor of the “colonized” as stupid as you probably do, but the Israeli figures who founded the state are as much European colonists as the ancestors of white Americans.
There’s no reason to favor either side in the region because of that. It’s simply not our responsibility, and if we have practical goals to achieve, we need to find a better way to do so.
BobS
@Paul in KY: They ceded some territory, but with their less than peaceful resistance, the Finns prevented a Soviet conquest of their country.
That’s how it ended.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
In France. But Napoleon had a European vision…and he was in the business of actively displacing the nobility in France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, and mucking with it everywhere else he had reach to do so.
One could argue that Napoleon’s interference in those lands set the stage for the various European Civil War events of the 20th Century, in that unified German and Italian states were made possible by the consolidation of a lot of petty duchies and principalities through Napoleon’s reforms.
Oh, and creating nationalist feelings through Napoleon’s family’s rule of those areas.
Mandramas
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t see it is a probable outcome. I think a democratic, bi-ethnical Israel is good thing to try to reach, but I’m informed that it is very hard. My point is, it is good that the old Israel die, if grants a new, fairer Israel.
Chris
@Brachiator:
No, it’s a big conservative thing. And the image isn’t “bad white guys versus nice helpless natives,” it’s more like “King Leonidas versus the Barbarian Hordes.” The knee-jerk, identity-based reaction tends to be on the pro-Israel side, whether it’s framed as “poor victimized Jews versus savage antisemites,” “the only democracy in the Middle East versus theocracy and tyranny,” or “God’s people versus God’s enemies.” Even Ayn Rand, who despised Israel both as a religious and a soshulist system, cheered for them in the Arab-Israeli wars by calling them “civilized men fighting savages.”
In my experience, there’s practically no pro-Palestinian sentiment as such in America, outside of the Arab and Muslim communities and some leftist groups. In my observation, the average conservative’s position tends to be “whatever Israel wants, Israel gets” while the average liberal position tends to be “can’t they all just get along?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Point taken. As far as the broad effects go, there is also the direct link between the ideals of the French Revolution and the events of 1848.
Brachiator
@AAA Bonds: RE: I think that some Americans, and I don’t know if this is a big liberal thing, want to see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as a struggle between white people and hapless indigenous peoples. This is bullshit
Nonsense. I notice that a few posters here try to jump through hoops to try to float some idea that Jewish people are what, not really Jewish, or have no historical connection to the Middle East or that somehow their connection to the area was rendered null and void by living in Europe, or that somehow Palestinian claims to the area are more legitimate.
Seems to me that favoring a two state solution is being fair to both sides.
So, for example, you were fine with apartheid in South Africa because, after all, it was not our responsibility?
I suppose that Americans could elect a neo-isolationist as president. But there doesn’t seem to be much consensus for that yet. Probably a good thing, too.
Then again, maybe it was a bad thing that France meddled in Britain’s affairs in siding with the United States in the Revolutionary War. By any rational standard, the United States is illegitimate and should not exist. There needs to be an urgent campaign to return all the lands of North America to its indigenous peoples. This would all probably resolve all issues of the US meddling in world affairs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Oh, yeah, like the Lakota, for example, are just going to let all our military hardware sit idle.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator:
This is just a ridiculous statement and emblematic of the lack of rationalism when this topic is discussed. Most of the current Israelis have no ties to the middle east unless you go back a hundred generations and then, guess what, we probably all do.
Further, how one can convert to Judaism from some other religion and have more right to Palestine than the people that hold the deeds to the land is nonsense. From wiki:
The law applies to those born Jews (having a Jewish mother or maternal grandmother), those with Jewish ancestry (having a Jewish father or grandfather) and converts to Judaism (Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative denominations—not secular—though Reform and Conservative conversions must take place outside the state, similar to civil marriages).
Finally, your assertion that a Palestinian has no more legitimate claim over Palestine than, say, an Australian, is just lunacy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
You know, if you go on and on and on with all this “we have a legitimate claim!” stuff, you’ll wind up with perpetual warfare over three millennia old slights.
Heck, the Muslims didn’t exist until the 6th century AD, so obviously, their claims are inferior to those of Christians AND Jews to the Holy Land. Fuck them.
There was no Jewish state for thousands of years. NONE. More than a few Jews thought (and think) that the idea of Israel is a bad one.
Given all the grief that its creation and ongoing existence has caused, I can see their point.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Villago Delenda Est: Where is my fucking Hittite Homeland?
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Somewhere to the north, east, south and west of Baghdad.
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here ever night this week. Try the veal!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Villago Delenda Est: Hahaha
Just Some Fuckhead
Lemme tell you what this is like: when yer in a two hour long line at Disney World for It’s a Small World and yer getting near the front and then all of a sudden 300 people come and stand in front of you claiming they were already there earlier. And then you complain and get thrown out of the park.
Brachiator
@Yutsano: RE: And as I have noted before, Sri Lanka has resolved their civil war by brutally suppressing the Tamils. These unfortunate people are even more invisible than the Palestinians to many people in the West.
This doesn’t make Tamil nationalism any less legitimate, nor the outcome of the Sri Lanka Civil War any less tragic.
Sadly, the Palestinians have been used as pawns by the wealthy Arab nations, and by Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hah! Good point. I could also imagine the Modoc establishing themselves as a First Nations Superpower.
FormerSwingVoter
Here’s the thing that I don’t get: the Jewish people need to have their own contiguous state, so that they can have the capacity to defend themselves if the worst should ever occur (as a direct response to the Holocaust). I’m pretty sure that was the argument for the creation of Israel, but I wasn’t around at the time so feel free to correct me.
Doesn’t that exact same argument also apply to the Palestinians?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: He’s talking about Napolean making all his relatives King of this & King of that (in lands he had conquered). At least, that’s the point I think he was trying to make.
chopper
but what about The Arab Spring(tm)?
Paul in KY
@BobS: Soviets didn’t want the country. If they had wanted the whole thing they would have got it (sooner or later).
Chris
@FormerSwingVoter:
DING DING DING DING DING!!! We have a winner.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Yeah, I was thinking strictly in terms of France itself. Still, the man was probably the best general to come out of the artillery ever, so that has to count for something.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FormerSwingVoter:
Yes, the Palestinian homeland is called “Jordan”.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brachiator:
I could go for a president who’s a little more isolationist if it meant we could keep our social safety net, rebuild our infrastructure, strengthen our educational system and wean us off so much foreign oil.
I know, fat chance.
arguingwithsignposts
@chopper: She went off to play WoW or something.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
Yeah, that’s mostly what I had in mind. Like General Murat being made King of Naples or Napoleon’s brother being made King of Spain. But it did also formalize a new order and a new nobility and aristocracy in France, one that excluded the old guard. There was a danger of a new dynasty being formed in France that would completely supplant the old one, and that drove the old guard nuts, especially those who expected that they’d be able to come back after the Revolution.
chopper
@Just Some Fuckhead:
that’s a surprise to the jordanians.
Geeno
@jayjaybear: Seriously, I always felt bad for Hagar. Talk about someone screwed over by history. Of course, if God hadn’t gone and made Sarah fertile, none of that would have had a chance of happening.
God is a total prick.
Just Some Fuckhead
@chopper:
They are lying if they said that.
Geeno
@Scott P.: True, but that doesn’t that still make them the Cavalier’s spiritual descendants?
Geeno
@Yutsano: I have to say that while I disagree with many of her points, G-A has been on-topic this post, and I haven’t seen that much magical thinking in her arguments (do point out where I’m missing something – I was late to the debate and have been mostly skimming the 100’s comments). I believe this sort of behavior should be encouraged and not just pissed on, because of prior behavior of a commenter.
Paul in KY
@4tehlulz: Hee, hee! Thank’s for the link.
If only the U.S. had Gundams too.
Geeno
@Marcellus Shale public dick.:
THAT might work!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: He was a great one. Sad that he went crazy or whatever (addicted to war?). France was never the global power she should have been after he got so many of his countrymen killed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geeno: You know, I have really tried to do that with her in the past. It doesn’t work. Yutsano’s characterization of her is exactly correct.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Excellent point. Made the old order not want to compromise in any way. There was a point though, after Elyau or maybe Jena & Auerstadt, that he could have consolidated his holdings, got out of Spain, and made a true Napoleanic Empire that might have lasted till today.
He didn’t though, and lost it all.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead: RE: Nonsense. I notice that a few posters here try to jump through hoops to try to float some idea that Jewish people are what, not really Jewish, or have no historical connection to the Middle East or that somehow their connection to the area was rendered null and void by living in Europe, or that somehow Palestinian claims to the area are more legitimate.
What, are you trying to trump my ridiculous statement by one that’s even more ridiculous. I got no ties to the Middle East, and even if someone came up with one, I wouldn’t be interested. On the other hand, your statement that “most of the current Israelis have no ties to the Middle East” is factually wrong. More importantly, it’s irrelevant. The idea that the land can be assigned based on some “who’s on first” or who has a more legitimate claim is largely a waste of time, even though I’m sure that there are Israeli’s and Palestinians who will argue the point long past the next Rapture (October 21, right?).
I’m the wrong person with whom to raise issues of “legitimacy” based on the mythology of religion.
I never said anything of the kind.
But I do think that posters here who would love to nullify the partition of Palestine are engaging in a kind of lunacy. And the arguments that Palestinians have some deeper claim than Israelis is really not tenable. Hell, I don’t think Jordanian claims to the Transjordan region are all that strong historically, or that monarchies are legitimate. But there ain’t much point in trying to untangle the issue.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Agreed. This is why I come back to my original point that Pakistan had no legitimate claim to a separate homeland based on ANY historical claim. But their nationalist impulse was a legitimate and logical reaction to larger Indian nationalism.
Similarly, I believe that Israeli and Palestinian nationalism are both valid.
This is an odd statement since, obviously, a Jewish state has existed and exists now. Is there some kind of expiration date on an idea of wanting a homeland? If so, someone should let the Basques, the Armenians and the Kurds know.
But much of this comes from people who think that a deity is going to return and establish Israel, and that only a deity has the right to restore the kingdom of Israel. I got no use for this kind of thinking.
And again, the same could be said about Pakistan. The sooner we dismantle that country and re-integrate it into India, the better the whole world will be. And let’s kick the Anglo Saxons out of England and return it to the Britons. If we can find any.
Again, I find it odd that some appear to be arguing that the state of Israel does not have a right to exist, but have no problems accepting other nations which have been established in all kinds of dodgy ways.
Pococurante
@Just Some Fuckhead: Until the 1960s Palestinian meant Muslim, Jew, and Christian. Because those were the people lived there pretty consistently for a millennium or two.
Arafat won that little bit of PR.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Pococurante:
Palestinian can still mean Muslim, Jew and Christian. Do you think all Palestinians are Muslims? Many are Muslim, some are Christian and there’s gotta be at least one self-loathing Palestinian Jew.
Pococurante
@Just Some Fuckhead: I agree but I didn’t infer from your statement that you felt this way:
Should I then infer you agree with the British partition plan? Because in that case we’re back to the point Dennis seemed to miss in his OP.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The number of Christians has declined substantially, though. The increasingly radicalized Islamist movements there haven’t helped.
Pococurante
Some of the folks posting here seem not to realize that Jews and Christians were in this Ottomon territory for many centuries. By 1940, for example, almost a third of the mandate was Jewish. Today’s demographics are that roughly 78% of all Jewish Palestinians were born in Israel
, a country that existed before Pakistan.Here is a helpful link of demographics over the centuries.
Brachiator
By the way, it has probably been noted before, but I want to mention again how much I enjoyed listening to regular poster Emily Hauser on the BBC World Have Your Say program, “WHYS 60 Has Obama Betrayed Israel.” The podcast of the program is still available for a listen or download. One of the sadder things to learn here is how much the Foreign Policy Establishment is clinging to the status quo. A reporter appearing on the program noted how the Washington Beltway was alarmed by Obama’s speech, especially the references to the possibilities offered by the positive aspects of the Arab Spring. They far prefer to go slow, and are deeply committed to hold onto any opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace.
The Village was also very happy with authoritarian regimes that brutally suppressed their own people, as long as it produced a result that made the pro-Israel hardliners happy. That pundits and supposed foreign policy experts could be happy with a political state of affairs guaranteed to create havoc in the long term is just another confirmation of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of most of the political establishment.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Pococurante: I absolutely feel that way. There were plenty of Jews living in the area peacefully prior to the Zionist takeover. By all means, stay, contribute to a rich wonderful multicultural environment, love and teach others to love.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: My masters was funded by the AF. They said mecha as an umbrella term, embracing all the hardware and software. I caught it from them.
And we do have prototype experimental gundams.
I don’t care about your fee-fees. I don’t care about Israel fee-fees either as long they levy warfare on the innocent.
Israel is an unjust nation, and soon the powerless hyperpower will be unable to protect Israelis from the consequences of their injustice.
Like the Prophet (SAW) said ….a nation can survive without god, but a nation cannot exist without justice.
Ghanima Atreides
@Mandramas:
it might not be “good”, but it is evolution in action.
Israel can adapt to a changing environment where the US is no longer the global hegemon, or go extinct as a state.
A state without borders is not a state.
bi la kayfah
Ghanima Atreides
Dennis nails it.
What do you think the next thing is that will happen, since Bibi rejected Obama’s overtures?
I think the Gaza blockade will fall. Rafah opens May 28 and the next Turkish flotilla sets out right after that.
When will it fall?
Unknown.
But here comes another Arab Spring style protest.
On June 5th, the anniversary of the 67 war.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Fear not, you have not hurt my fee fees ;-)
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Israel doesn’t need us at this point to survive. They do like to have us spending money defending them, rather than them spending the money themselves. However, their military is so strong that they can withstand any Arab military attack (IMO).
Ghanima Atreides
Because of the Arab Spring the US cannot force Israels neighbors to shut up and swallow anymore.
Turkey threatens to leave UN Panel.
American Senators write begging letter to Erdogan.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY: they can withstand one attack. But not a thousand.
Lets play what happens next.
What happens when the Israelis attack the new 15 ship flotilla?
I bet those ships will be armed this time.
What happens on June 5th, at the next Arab Spring style march on 3 or 4 of Israels borders?
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY:
False.
And you know it.
What if the Arab League blockades Israel? Who is their trading partner?
The US forced a false peace on Israels neighbors with bribes and bullying.
But the US’s bullying days are coming to an end in MENA.
And we are broke. We can’t afford the baksheesh anymore.
Ghanima Atreides
@Amanda in the South Bay: no, its not “the islamists.” It is because Islam is EGT(evolutionary games theory) immune to christian proselytizing.
Like Maynard-Smith says in his book, the CSS (culturally stable strategy) of Islam is uninvadable.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: Israel will probably do it more ‘legally’ this time. They will have their navy out there (lot more than 15 ships) and they will stop them & impound the stuff. Turkey will fume, but they are far away from Israel & have no navy capable of mass amphibious landings.
Paul in KY
@Ghanima Atreides: I assume they will hunker down & get stuff in through the sea & smuggling & so forth. I’m sure they have planned for that.
If the Arab League blockcades Israel, that is an act of war (to Israel) and they will bomb the shit out of the various Arab nations (IMO).
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
What can I say. I agree with every single thing you say here.
It infuriates me that our Senators and Representatives cheered and applauded Netanyahu’s heap of lies and hate, for the sake of cheap political gain – not just because it was unbecoming of the body, not just because I’m not a fan of my legislature applauding lies and bigotry — but much more because they’re cheering and applauding countless Palestinians and Israelis to their deaths.
If no one acts, and soon, you’re right: The One State solution will eventually come about. But on the way, there will be such suffering, so much death, so much abject misery that could be averted and could have been averted all this time (20 years, give or take).
I’m not naturally a huge fan of nationalism, but under the current circumstances, allowing both peoples to lay down borders and plan their own security and lick their wounds and heal and possibly get to know each other without the prisms of hate and fear is the one way to avoid all that (most of that) suffering, death and misery.
As Brachiator said, I did talk about this on the BBC’s WHYS http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/whys/whys_20110520-1744a.mp3 (the link will work for one more day [though I’ve downloaded it, mais oui!]).
I also talked about it on Russian English-language TV http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/emily-hauser-obama-netanyahu-israel-palestine-russian-tv/
and wrote a couple of posts analyzing Obama’s speech & Bibi’s speech (click on my name to get to the blog and then scroll down – you’ll find the Israel/Palestine misery very quickly!).
But bottom line, what I have to say is: This.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY:
no they wont. because Egypt and Saud have cutting edge airforces and they will bomb the shit out of israel right back. The US wont support bombing Saud, get a fucking clue.
Israel cant hold out as a walled fortress in a sea of arab hatred.
On June 5th there will be another march.
Why did we leave Vietnam again?
Ghanima Atreides
Emily your link is not working.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Ghanima Atreides: Yikes! Which one? They all work for me…! Tell me which one, and I’ll show it what’s what! And I’ll furnish an alternate link.
Ghanima Atreides
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
i thought “This” should be a link….but i could be wrong.
I lissened to the BBC cast.
You are right.
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY:
is breaking the treaty an act of war?
Ghanima Atreides
@Paul in KY:
is breaking the treaty an act of war?
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Ghanima Atreides: Ah! Ha, that’s actually kind of funny. The very real limits of internet shorthand!
Ghanima Atreides
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: apolos.
:)
i thought that you written up your BBCcast and were linking it to “This”.
/stupidhead