I suppose you’re right. “Idiotic” doesn’t really apply when people feel they have no options at all. Suicide bombers, for instance, are in a place that transcends the status of “reason” as we understand it. I suppose any of us, if pushed hard enough, could fall into that mind-set.
Still, I wish that the economic self-interest would rise to the forefront of their thinking, and that they strive for what is best for themselves, rather than to be tied down in a self-destructive vendetta that, as noted, they cannot conceivably win.
If you hold out fifty dollars in one hand…and the spilled blood of my children in the other hand…how long should it take me to learn to choose the fifty dollars?
Hell, if the rocket attacks were killing meaningful numbers of Israelis, there might be at least that much reason to them. But they aren’t. They would get almost exactly the same results from firing the missiles straight up! This isn’t even a “two-edged sword.” It’s only self-destructive.
I’m definitely learned from this thread, as I have from pretty much all Israel/Palestine threads here. Lord knows, I have a lot to learn.
Actually, it seems as if this thread is staying more courteous than perhaps some others have in the past.
How about Australia? Australia’s HUGE with like no people in it in the enormous desert areas. Pay the Palis to move there?
Or how about Southern Suriname, a rich tropical rainforest in the south, one of the least densely populated areas, and the country already has a significant muslim population (I know that because that’s where I’m going to start my new country )
The problem, if you ask me, is that the Palestinians’ official stance is intractable. It’s not that they want land back, it’s not that they want their own state, they literally **do not want Israel to exist. That Israel exists at all is their beef, and they seem willing to fight forever to stop that **. So even if you moved them, they might still be trying to fight Israel, maybe use their newfound peace to build up arms to attack later.
My main thing is the Arabs started every single one of the wars that they lost land in, so there’s no way you can claim it’s there land or that a single one of them has a right to keep a single square foot of it (yes, seriously. You start it, be prepared to lose).
But, a friend of mine had recently posted something on facebook that made me realize my position is even more broad/less anti-Palestinian than that. The fact of the matter is, politically, you know, the whole “de facto” thing, Israel controls the West Bank and the rest of their original country. It’s been like 50 years. At some point, even lots of people claim it was unjustly acquired, sometimes you just gotta let go. It doesn’t do any good to wage war forever and ever
Then I thought to myself “Really, Edwin? OK, pose yourself another similar question. What if in 50 years Russia still owns Crimea, even though just now Putin was a dick and unjustly aggressed against Ukraine and the Ukrainians really deserve to own that land? What if in 50 years, the Ukrainians were waging a massive guerilla/terrorist war trying to get the land back, with a continued lack of success but also a continued racking up of death on both sides? Would you tell them to stop?” My answer, I could not avoid it would be “Yes After a certain amount of time you gotta give up. Those guys own the land, and fighting forever isn’t doing anyone any good.”
Though let me change that, I forgot it was my friend who came up with the Crimea analogy on the same facebook post
If you have a family - you’re very very interested in going where your children are safe and can have a chance at a future (or at least, I am).
If the offer came with appropriate support and a country to live in, my guess would be that there’d be a LOT of families that would jump at it. And the children would very quickly be assimilated into the new culture.
There would be lots that wouldn’t of course - but then, as the numbers within the Strip dwindle and become more hard core, so the military options for Israel become better and better right?
The ultimate outcome of such a programme, naturally, is that Israel eventually gets the whole area. Is that acceptable?
How many Palestinians literally believe that and are willing to accept nothing less?
How does that compare to the number of Israelis who hold to the idea of the biblical promised land and want to continue expanding until the biblical vision is reached?
And from the POV of many if not most Palestinians any solution that does not result in the Jews of Israel leaving and turning the land over to the Palestinians is completely unacceptable as well.
Do you think such a view is acceptable or reasonable?
As you note, this means draining away some of the moderates, leaving the remainder more dedicated than ever. You’d never clear them all out. It’s still ethnic cleansing, and that generally doesn’t work by free-market mechanisms.
Israelis can’t be bought off and persuaded all to move to Nova Scotia; the Gazan Palestinians can’t be bought off and persuaded to move to Tunisia. You might as well try to solve the U.S. problem of illegal immigrants by paying them off to move to Costa Rica. They simply won’t go.
(This kind of thinking occurred after the American Civil War, with the idea of repatriating black slaves to Africa. The nation of Liberia came from the effort, but, ultimately, it couldn’t possibly have worked.)
The most recent polling showed that barely 30% of all Palestinians in the Occupied territories were willing to accept a two state solution.
I’m also not sure why that would shock you.
In both 1937 and 1948 the Palestinians were offered vastly larger states than they’d now get which they rejected and in the most recent talks they were offered a state which would include 95% of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and they also rejected it.
Perhaps it strikes you as irrational, but from the point of view of the Palestinians the French were in Algeria for 150 years and now they are gone so it doesn’t seem unreasonable for them to believe that soon the Jews of Israel will fall into two categories. Those that have been slaughtered and those that are fleeing.
I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think you can look at 1948 and say that arabs unequivocally started the war. they may have fired the first shot but if you use that metric then the war in 1967 was started by Israel (and all the arab peace initiative is asking for is 1967 borders).
With taht sais, I have conceded that mgiht makes right but we can’t then turn around and fault the palestinians for trying to exert a little might not matter how stupid it may seem.
Why not? As long as the Palestinians are willing to keep fighting, why not? Should the rest of the world step and and help israel squish the Palestinians into submission? I agree it doesn’t do any good but i don’t really feel the need to reinforce “might makes right” by telling the losing side that they can no longer contest their rights.
Do you have a cite that any resolution other than the expulsion of all the jews is unacceptable to the majority of the Palestinians? The reason I ask is because i believe that the palestinian authority has embraced the arab peace initiative.
Ah the old “The parties actually do not believe in the things they claim they believe or believe in things they do not claim to believe, regardless of how they also repeatedly act accordingly to what they profess.”
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