Okay, I realize that when it comes to getting a hot debate going, Israel is right up there with gay marriage, and the funny thing about the question in my thread title is that it is NOT, repeat, NOT in any way meant to be argumentative or rhetorical.
I almost posted this in the Questions forum for that reason, but since anything a person says about Israel is likely to start a debate, maybe this thread can stay in GD.
In case you are wondering about me, I am not Jewish, but I have Jewish relatives I love, and I do agree Israel has a right to exist (which does not mean I approve of everything they do).
It seems to me that for Arabs, agreeing with Israel’s right to exist is the watershed issue, the great divide, the ultimate question.
**My question: Has Israel ever formally stated exactly how much land in the Middle East it would be satisfied with, or in other words, the precise limits of its territorial aspirations? Have they ever formally said “This much, no more, no less?” **
It seems to me that on the Jewish side of things, this is the equivalent of Arabs recognizing that Israel has a right to exist.
No.
Israel does not have an eastern border, for example, only an armistice line which was specifically stated, at the time of the treaty, was not a border and was not to prejudice any future negotiations. It has been held for roughly half a century now that any final status of borders will be resolved through negotiation.
I’d actually love to see a factual answer to your question. I have my admittedly biased opinion that, no, Israel feels it has no limits, but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. With Netanyahu at the helm, however, I can envision an expansion of settlements until the possibility of a Palestine state is all but impossible.
Well, I can see where Arabs can be frightened when a country whose armed forces are among the top 5 in the world, heavily financed by the world’s only superpower, refuses to say how much land it considers that God gave the Jewish people. Even if that fear is in practice unjustified because modern Jewish culture is fundamentally humane and democratic, this fear could be used to mobilize the masses in the Arab world.
Comments attributed to the Rabbi quoted in the news story about the divine rights of Jewish people to the land could understandably frighten any Arab who owns land anywhere near Israel, could it not?
Millions of Arabs want to wipe Israel off the map for the “crime” of not being Muslim. Joshua and the Hebrews slew every man, woman, child and beast in Jehrico for the “crime” of being on land the Hebrews wanted and went on to brag about it in the Old Testament. (Ain’t religion wonderful?).
Would it not ultimately be in the interest of Israel to say: “This much, no more, no less. We will exist or die. We will never try for more. Leave us alone with this much and we can be friends. But we will fight you to the death if you try to take this much away from us.”
Well, the factual answer to that question is easy: zero. Israel does not base its sovereignty on religious claims although some of its more vocal citizenry does. The canard that the conflict is a religious rather than a nationalistic one serves neither accuracy nor the process of finding a solution.
The link doesn’t work for me and I don’t see how the rabbi’s comments would be relevant, in any case. Even if he was the Chief Rabbi, he doesn’t get to set policy like that.
No. And groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would not take up gardening instead, even if that happened.
How would you determine how much land Israel could annex? 5% 10%? 50%? 99%? Who gets to decide. Any number would be disputed and without a negotiated settlement in any case we’d end up back at square one.
I see your point on most of that. Makes sense. Okay, so Israel’s claims to sovereignty are not based on religion. But there must be some common vision somewhere about what Israel considers Israel. I just wonder: If you are an Arab next door to one of the world’s most powerful military machines, and the state that controls that machine refuses to say how much it will utltimately be satisfied with in terms of territory, would that be constructive or conducive to peace?
Right now, when I say I defend the right of Israel to exist (which I DO) I don’t even know what Israel’s right to exist I am defending.
Well, it seems like you’re now asking what should Israel say wrt its borders, not what the factual answer is to what it has said. That’s a different barrel of monkeys.
I can look up my position statement somewhere here that I’ve posted later, if you’d like to discuss what Israel should do wrt borders, but since your OP wasn’t meant to be argumentative or rhetorical, I’d posit that its question as to what Israel has said was answered.
Perhaps I should have said “millions of people in the Middle East”. Not all Muslims are Arabs and not all Arabs are Muslims. (I realize for example that Iranians are not Arabs). My mistake. I expressed myself inaccurately.
But havinfg admitted that, are you saying that of the hundreds of millions of Arabs and/or Muslims in the Middle East whose societies, Mosques, religious and political leaders daily express hostility and enmity to Israel, there could not be maybe 2 or 3 million (a tiny minority, but millions nonetheless) who would like nothing less than to see Israel wiped off the map? What does the chant “Death to Israel” by huge crowds mean, in your opinion?
i don’t want to sidetrack the thread, which I think is on an interesting topic, by the way, but it seems to be very convenient for Westerners to presume some negative aspiration to an inordinately high number of Muslims without proof. Just because there are hundreds of millions of Muslims doesn’t necessarily follow that millions of them hold a specific position on your topic, unless you have census data confirming it. And seeing large numbers of like-minded Muslims (or any other group) participating in a mass event doesn’t extrapolate to anything.
My question was not argumentative or rhetorical in the sense that there is no pro-or anti-Israel agenda hiding behind it, although as I said I do agree with Israel’s right to exist.
Also, after saying that my question was not argumentative or rhetorical, I DID say that I had posted it in GD instead of Questions because I appreciated that the answer could lead to debate. After all, a question like that is not exactly like asking “What is the capital of Idaho?”
Look, I do not want to sidetrack my thread either. It is not essential to this discussion that you accept that a single one of Israel’s non-Jewish opponents wants to wipe it off the map.
Personally, I think that if you polled the one thousand million (i.e. billion) Arabs and Muslims from the Mediterranean to western China and Indonesia, nobody would be surprised to find a heavy degree of hostility to Israel. And I am pretty certain that a minority of at least 0.5% or more of those people would say that Israel should be wiped off the map. Now, 0.5% of one billion is 5 million. Hence, my use of the term “millions”.
However, for the purposes of this discussion, I am asking you to accept that there is an important degree of fear and hatred of Israel among many of its neighbours. Can we agree on that?
They agreed to the original partition terms from the UN, if memory serves. That would have partitioned the Trans-Jordan region into an Israeli and Palestinian state (along with Jordan of course). Unfortunately the Palestinian’s and the other neighboring states rejected that partition and chose instead to decide things through force of arms. It didn’t work out so well for them, however.
So, yes, Israel has formally stated exactly what it’s original borders would be…unfortunately as there was no initial agreement on this, the conflict was decided militarily (which, it turns out, Israel won…thus expanding their original borders quite a bit). I don’t believe that Israel has formally re-designated what their borders would be after that, no.
Israel has made several concessions, including unilaterally giving back some of it’s captured territories (such as Gaza, for instance). They have also put other territorial concessions on the table from time to time. BTW, several of the Arab neighboring states HAVE formally recognized Israel’s right to exist and made their peace with them. The problem, of course, that some haven’t and refuse to do so.
If I were Israel I’d be pushing the limits so that I have bargaining position. I think Zionism is not a valid reason for the creation of Israel, but given that it now exists I don’t blame it for seizing more land each time it is attacked.
In the end there is going to be a two-state solution with Jerusalem being the only sticking point. I’d like to see it be an international demilitarized city state like Vatican City.
The only thing I find odd is that you actually feel you are making some kind of point here. You do realize that Israel actually agreed to the original partition plan…which, de facto, acknowledged Palestine’s right to exist. Right?
Bear in mind that Israel hasn’t seized any land in 42 years. All it’s done since 1967 is retreat.
Anyway, to answer the OP, the maximum limit of Israel’s territorial aspirations is the Jordan river. The minimum is the Green Line, with the exception of Jerusalem, which very few Israelis are willing to see divided at any cost. I expect that the final borders will be somewhere in between - assuming, of course, that the issue is ever resolved.