U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders have warned against Israel striking Iran's nuclear facilities over fears of further escalating the Middle East conflict.
You do realize this conflict predates the settlements, don’t you? By about 50 years.
The settlements certainly don’t help the situation, but they are nowhere near a significant root cause of the conflict.
We don’t need to go back to Abraham’s time. Israel and Palestine came to an agreement 30 years ago. Palestine recognized Israel and in return there was supposed to be a peace process leading to two states in roughly the 1967 borders. But Israelis kept building settlements. At this point they have short of a million settlers living in places such that a contiguous Palestinian state is impossible. This has completely delegitimized the moderate Palestinians as any kind of potent political force and has lead to radicals taking over in Gaza. This is absolutely a significant root cause of the current phase of the conflict.
They spent 30 years building FACTS ON THE GROUND which are now just the facts they have to live with. They shit the bed, didn’t clean up and kept shitting. Now the rest of us are supposed to be empathetic when they act surprised they got sick.
You don’t have a grasp of the history. You make it sound like the Palestinians were actively working towards peace and only became radicalized 30 years ago, which is simply untrue. The Palestinians have been radicalized since Arafat became Chairman of the PLO in the 1960’s. The PLO carried out their first terror attack years before the 1967 war, before Israel even came to occupy Gaza and the WB. The 1948 war was literally a war of annihilation carried out by several Arab countries (and thankfully they lost).
Even Arafat’s supporters blame him for walking away from the negotiating table at Camp David. Peace was in sight and he rejected it. Abbas was offered almost everything in 2008 and again they rejected it. Do you know why? Because they have never been interested in peaceful coexistence with Israel. Never. They have rejected every partition plan and every peace deal because nothing less than all of it is acceptable to them.
All of that is entirely irrelevant to the settlements. Nothing the Palestinians did justifies the settlements.
Let me put it differently. Let’s agree for the sake of argument that the palestinians so far have been stupid and unreasonable. And let’s imagine that tomorrow morning the Palestinian leadership and the entire Palestinian society has a miraculous conversion to “moderation”. Imagine we magically flip a switch in every last one of their brains and each and every one of them becomes a Kamala Harris Democrat that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, and accepts a peaceful solution, with two friendly states side by side.
It’s plain to see that even in such an “ideal” scenario, the settlements that Israel built make any meaningful two state solution simply and plainly impossible. There is no territorial integrity, there is no cohesion, all the best land has been taken, water resources are gone. There is nothing for these Kamala Harris Democrat Palestinians to build a meaningful state with.
That’s what I mean when I say that Israel has fucked up. They have made the 2 state solution impossible. They are left with either going full genocidal fascist or a binational democratic state, with equal rights for all. Sadly, they seem to be going down the former path. And at some point, genocidal fascists do tend to get what’s coming to them.
That’s false, the Olmert proposal for example offered Abbas 95% of the occupied territories with a plan for territorial swaps. It’s a difficult problem for sure, but not an impossible problem. This would have been sorted out a long time ago if one side wasn’t driven by a genocidal narrative and holding on to a dream that if they just kill enough Israelis, they’ll eventually pack up and leave.
Israel has not fucked up. The Netanyahu government has made some mistakes, but the point is the Netanyahu government is a product of decades of failed attempts at peace. What killed the peace process for most Israelis was the second intifada, which is what they got in return for Oslo and Camp David. The next nail in the coffin was the Gaza withdrawal, which put Hamas in control of Gaza and gave Israel 15 years of rockets and terror incursions. The final nail in the coffin for peace? Oct 7, 2023.
But this is modern history and you have to understand it within the broader context of Arab nationalism and Islamist expansionism, which is the source of the Palestinian narrative described above. That’s why this conflict, out of all others, has persisted for so long and seems so intractable: because it all begins with the refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Between Olmert’s time in office and now, the population of illegal settlers has gone from 450k to 700k. If it was hard then, it’s impossible now.
My argument stands even if we assume the worst of Palestinian culpability. Every time the Palestinians reject a plan, the Israelis have made a future solution plan that much harder.
The data simply does not support the conclusion that Israel is interested in a viable two state solution. And the problem in our era is not Arab nationalism. That’s dead. It’s been defeated. There are no Arab nationalists in power anywhere of consequence in the MENA area. Most major Arab countries are ready to accept a two state solution. They literally just came out and said in explicitly a week ago. They guaranteed Israeli security. The problem at this point is quite specifically Israeli nationalism.
Iran, yes, I can see that concern, but the only reason Iran has managed to insert itself in a conflict that is two countries away from its borders is due to Israeli policy and its failure to give Palestinians a positive vision for a solution.
I am willing to accept that the Israeli turn to the right is the result of the intifadas etc. But again the intifadas did not drop from the coconut tree. They were in return responses to legitimate Palestinian grievances. At every turn, Israel has not been able to understand and address those.
And ultimately Israel is the powerful party here. They get to dictate the terms of the conflict. And they keep winning every war and losing every peace. From Napoleon’s time we know that “you can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them.” The Europeans learned at Versailles that in the modern era, total victory does not give you the right to enforce humiliation and oppression on a population and expect the argument to be over.
It’s not impossible if there was a commitment on both sides to make it happen. There has never been a commitment on the part of the Palestinians, and there isn’t one with the Netanyahu government.
As I said before, Israel WAS interested in a two state solution. Until the second intifada. How many plans and proposals would the Palestinians have to reject before you admit that maybe they actually don’t want peaceful coexistence?
Israeli nationalism is not the problem. Israel exists. I has existed for 76 years. The problem is Arab and Muslim rejectionism. They simply won’t give up on their dream of driving the Jews into the sea. Moderate Arab nations have given up on that dream but the radical Islamists haven’t. That’s why Hamas launched their attack when they did, because they wanted to destroy the Abraham Accords.
And sorry, but there is no room in any reasonable moral system for accepting barbaric terrorism as “legitimate resistance” or a response to grievances. Blowing up nightclubs full of young people and busses taking people to work and school is not political protest. Besides, they have had opportunities to negotiate peace and chose not to take advantage of those opportunities. They had a chance to turn Gaza into a legitimate state when Israel withdrew in 2005 and they chose to turn it into a Hamas terrorist base.
Israel has not won total victory, which is why this cycle has continued for so long. The US and the international community has never let them achieve total victory. This war is different. The Netanyahu government has decided to finally achieve total victory.
If they want to be left alone, they should stop building illegal settlements in the West Bank.
You do realize this conflict predates the settlements, don’t you? By about 50 years. The settlements certainly don’t help the situation, but they are nowhere near a significant root cause of the conflict.
We don’t need to go back to Abraham’s time. Israel and Palestine came to an agreement 30 years ago. Palestine recognized Israel and in return there was supposed to be a peace process leading to two states in roughly the 1967 borders. But Israelis kept building settlements. At this point they have short of a million settlers living in places such that a contiguous Palestinian state is impossible. This has completely delegitimized the moderate Palestinians as any kind of potent political force and has lead to radicals taking over in Gaza. This is absolutely a significant root cause of the current phase of the conflict.
They spent 30 years building FACTS ON THE GROUND which are now just the facts they have to live with. They shit the bed, didn’t clean up and kept shitting. Now the rest of us are supposed to be empathetic when they act surprised they got sick.
You don’t have a grasp of the history. You make it sound like the Palestinians were actively working towards peace and only became radicalized 30 years ago, which is simply untrue. The Palestinians have been radicalized since Arafat became Chairman of the PLO in the 1960’s. The PLO carried out their first terror attack years before the 1967 war, before Israel even came to occupy Gaza and the WB. The 1948 war was literally a war of annihilation carried out by several Arab countries (and thankfully they lost).
Even Arafat’s supporters blame him for walking away from the negotiating table at Camp David. Peace was in sight and he rejected it. Abbas was offered almost everything in 2008 and again they rejected it. Do you know why? Because they have never been interested in peaceful coexistence with Israel. Never. They have rejected every partition plan and every peace deal because nothing less than all of it is acceptable to them.
All of that is entirely irrelevant to the settlements. Nothing the Palestinians did justifies the settlements.
Let me put it differently. Let’s agree for the sake of argument that the palestinians so far have been stupid and unreasonable. And let’s imagine that tomorrow morning the Palestinian leadership and the entire Palestinian society has a miraculous conversion to “moderation”. Imagine we magically flip a switch in every last one of their brains and each and every one of them becomes a Kamala Harris Democrat that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, and accepts a peaceful solution, with two friendly states side by side.
It’s plain to see that even in such an “ideal” scenario, the settlements that Israel built make any meaningful two state solution simply and plainly impossible. There is no territorial integrity, there is no cohesion, all the best land has been taken, water resources are gone. There is nothing for these Kamala Harris Democrat Palestinians to build a meaningful state with.
That’s what I mean when I say that Israel has fucked up. They have made the 2 state solution impossible. They are left with either going full genocidal fascist or a binational democratic state, with equal rights for all. Sadly, they seem to be going down the former path. And at some point, genocidal fascists do tend to get what’s coming to them.
That’s false, the Olmert proposal for example offered Abbas 95% of the occupied territories with a plan for territorial swaps. It’s a difficult problem for sure, but not an impossible problem. This would have been sorted out a long time ago if one side wasn’t driven by a genocidal narrative and holding on to a dream that if they just kill enough Israelis, they’ll eventually pack up and leave.
Israel has not fucked up. The Netanyahu government has made some mistakes, but the point is the Netanyahu government is a product of decades of failed attempts at peace. What killed the peace process for most Israelis was the second intifada, which is what they got in return for Oslo and Camp David. The next nail in the coffin was the Gaza withdrawal, which put Hamas in control of Gaza and gave Israel 15 years of rockets and terror incursions. The final nail in the coffin for peace? Oct 7, 2023.
But this is modern history and you have to understand it within the broader context of Arab nationalism and Islamist expansionism, which is the source of the Palestinian narrative described above. That’s why this conflict, out of all others, has persisted for so long and seems so intractable: because it all begins with the refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Between Olmert’s time in office and now, the population of illegal settlers has gone from 450k to 700k. If it was hard then, it’s impossible now.
My argument stands even if we assume the worst of Palestinian culpability. Every time the Palestinians reject a plan, the Israelis have made a future solution plan that much harder.
The data simply does not support the conclusion that Israel is interested in a viable two state solution. And the problem in our era is not Arab nationalism. That’s dead. It’s been defeated. There are no Arab nationalists in power anywhere of consequence in the MENA area. Most major Arab countries are ready to accept a two state solution. They literally just came out and said in explicitly a week ago. They guaranteed Israeli security. The problem at this point is quite specifically Israeli nationalism.
Iran, yes, I can see that concern, but the only reason Iran has managed to insert itself in a conflict that is two countries away from its borders is due to Israeli policy and its failure to give Palestinians a positive vision for a solution.
I am willing to accept that the Israeli turn to the right is the result of the intifadas etc. But again the intifadas did not drop from the coconut tree. They were in return responses to legitimate Palestinian grievances. At every turn, Israel has not been able to understand and address those.
And ultimately Israel is the powerful party here. They get to dictate the terms of the conflict. And they keep winning every war and losing every peace. From Napoleon’s time we know that “you can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them.” The Europeans learned at Versailles that in the modern era, total victory does not give you the right to enforce humiliation and oppression on a population and expect the argument to be over.
It’s not impossible if there was a commitment on both sides to make it happen. There has never been a commitment on the part of the Palestinians, and there isn’t one with the Netanyahu government.
As I said before, Israel WAS interested in a two state solution. Until the second intifada. How many plans and proposals would the Palestinians have to reject before you admit that maybe they actually don’t want peaceful coexistence?
Israeli nationalism is not the problem. Israel exists. I has existed for 76 years. The problem is Arab and Muslim rejectionism. They simply won’t give up on their dream of driving the Jews into the sea. Moderate Arab nations have given up on that dream but the radical Islamists haven’t. That’s why Hamas launched their attack when they did, because they wanted to destroy the Abraham Accords.
And sorry, but there is no room in any reasonable moral system for accepting barbaric terrorism as “legitimate resistance” or a response to grievances. Blowing up nightclubs full of young people and busses taking people to work and school is not political protest. Besides, they have had opportunities to negotiate peace and chose not to take advantage of those opportunities. They had a chance to turn Gaza into a legitimate state when Israel withdrew in 2005 and they chose to turn it into a Hamas terrorist base.
Israel has not won total victory, which is why this cycle has continued for so long. The US and the international community has never let them achieve total victory. This war is different. The Netanyahu government has decided to finally achieve total victory.