So, the fact that the U.S. hasn’t annexed (the remaining half of) Mexico shows what a failure our democracy is? And I’m pretty sure the Palestinians are a good bit more hostile towards Israel than the Mexicans are towards the United States. Hell’s bells, never mind the Mexicans; most Canadians don’t want to be part of the U.S., and Americans and Canadians are about as close to each other as peoples get.
I’m confident in saying the vast majority of Palestinians don’t want to be Israeli citizens.
The real problem I think is not the occupation; it’s the settlements. A military occupation in itself wouldn’t necessarily cause burning hatred; the U.S. pulled it off in Germany and Japan. However, a military occupation–even if no end is immediately in sight–is not irreversible; if leadership arises capable of making a real and lasting peace, the troops can be withdrawn. The decision to plant colonies in the occupied territories was a huge, terrible, ghastly mistake. They contribute nothing to Israel’s security; just the opposite, they’re a huge drain on military resources. Of course the settlements were established precisely so that the occupation would be irreversible, but those within Israel in favor of the settlements policy have (fortunately) never been in a position to actually follow through on the logic of planting settlements to make “Judea and Samaria” permanently part of Israel; they’ve never been able to do what we Americans did in our own country to the Indians. So now they’re stuck with this halfway mess of having quasi-annexed the territories to Israel with them still containing a large and permanently pissed-off population.
So the solution to any conflict is to merge the two countries into one? So we should merge into one country with China, and give everyone in China US citizenship?
Citizenship in a country you hate and want to destroy isn’t a benefit. Giving millions of people who want to destroy Israel Israeli citizenship is likely to destroy Israel. If the state of Israel fails, it is highly likely that most of the Jews living it what is now Israel will either be expelled or massacred. There used to be Jews living all over the middle east, over the last 50 years most have them have been expelled and forced to leave their homes, many of them ended up in Israel. If the Arab governments were willing to accept Jews as subjects why did they expell their Jews?
Democracy will only work with a citizenry that believes in democracy. Otherwise, the citizens will cheerfully vote a dictator into power. Annexing the territories won’t work if the first act of the citizens of the annexed territories is to declare themselves independent and are willing to fight for their independence. We’d have a new war, the only difference would be the claim by Israel that the rebelling Palestinians were rebelling citizens instead of rebelling foreigners under military occupation.
And anyway, formal annexation of the territories wouldn’t just be a matter for the Palestinians and Israelis, it would likely spark a broader war between Israel and the rest of the neighboring Arab countries. While the governments of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi, etc don’t want a war with Israel, popular outrage would force them into war, even if they know they would be likely to lose. Better a lost war than a revolution.
Annexation will never be accepted unless it was desired by Palestine. That’s not going to happen. Annexation means war.
False analogy. Mexico, whatever its faults, is a real country, and its occupants have citizenships, rights, a vote. In the Occupied Territories, Palestinians are, you’ll remember, citizens of nothing. No rights, no vote.
You really think so? If Israeli citizenship were offered tomorrow, the Palestinians of the OT would accept it in a heartbeat. Why not, after all? Better to be a citizen of something, rather than a citizen of nothing. And of course, Palestinians would then form a majority in Greater Israel.
Zev Steinhardt hits the nail on the head: the point of Israel is to be a Jewish state. And of course it’s this insistence on Jewish suprematism that is the root of the problem in the first place.
All the doomsday scenarios presented here by the naysayers are nonsense. Of course annexation wouldn’t spark a broader war – why would it? Jordan is suddenly going to attack Israel for annexing what Jordan has already renounced? And as to the Palestinians suddenly using their vote to destroy their own country, why on earth should that be the case? People only want to destroy what they don’t have a stake in. Can anybody name a single case in history where extending the vote to the disenfranchised has destroyed the country? Did enfranchising blacks in the American South destroy America? Did enfranchising blacks in South Africa destroy South Africa? The contrary in fact is true – extending the franchise increased stability and national strength.
I seem to be the only one in this argument who thinks full rights for the Palestinians are non-negotiable. Human rights, we have always said in America, are inherent and inalienable – not contingent, not bargaining chips. Every day that Israel stands between the Palestinians and the Palestinians’ full enjoyment of their rights of members of the human race is a day that Israel is guilty of a crime against humanity.
And I will point out, again, that nobody defending Israel here is offering anything like a solution to the problem – just more finger-pointing.
Why do you think that is a problem?
Do you have problems with
AFGHANISTAN
ALBANIA
ALGERIA
BAHRAIN
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
CHECHNYA
EGYPT
IRAN
INDONESIA
IRAQ
JORDAN
KAZAKHSTAN
KUWAIT
KYRGYZ TAN
LEBANON
LIBYA
MALAYSIA
MAURITANIA
MOROCCO
NIGERIA
OMAN
PAKISTAN
SAUDI ARABIA
SYRIA
SUDAN
TAJIKISTAN
TUNISIA
TURKEY
UGANDA
UZBEKISTAN &
YEMEN
being muslim states?
Only about ~15% of Uganda’s population is Muslim. Around 2/3 of the population is Christian, divided fairly evenly between Catholic and Protestant. You may be a bit confused by the past presidency of Idi Amin, but he represented a minority group in Uganda.
Similarly Nigeria is about 50% Muslim and can in no way be considered an explicitly “Muslim state.” Similarly for Kazakhstan, which is just under 50%. I think you also missed at least a couple of Muslim majority states.
Even then it is uncertain how many of even those overwhelmingly Muslim states actually define themselves as such ( many do constitutionally, but not all ). Of course your main point that there are many Muslim states ( however defined ) and only one Jewish state certainly still stands.
Of course that still begs the question of whether any narrowly defined ethno-religiously based state is a good idea.
Gum, I appreciate the enthusiasm that led you to type all those countries’ names, but if you can name me a single one that keeps three million Jews in a state of absolute disenfranchisement, I’d be interested in hearing about it.
Oh boy, you don’t miss a trick, do you? :rolleyes:
But really, it looks like Amesterdam may soon be one of the countries on gum’s list. No cite, just a request for people to look into Pim Fortuyn , and the claims he made.
Anyone that knows anything about modern warfare knows that walls aren’t the wisest investment strategically. The wall was built to keep extremists and terrorist bombers from being able to freely move back and forth. And to stop the more small scale troublemakers. Any real military attack and the wall wouldn’t last that long.
Given the millenia-long history of persecution, expulsion, inquisitions, crusades, blood libels and finally the Holocaust, do you think there’s a better way for Jews to safeguard themselves than to have a country in which they are ensured control?
Sal Ammoniac:
Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lybia didn’t keep their Jews in a state of disenfranchisement…they threw them out of their countries and confiscated their property. Would you accept such an action from Israel toward the Palestinians? Or is political disenfranchisement better than mass exile?
I didn’t answer the question, did I ? I just said there is one and personally I’m conflicted. Philosophically, I don’t like the idea. However if I had been a Jew in the 1930’s and 1940’s I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been a vociferous proponent of a Jewish homeland myself - in both emotional and practical terms I can see the argument. Though frankly, Argentina might have been a better long term bet.
But you can’t unbreak those eggs and given the situation on the ground I can perfectly understand why Israel doesn’t annex and enfranchise - the result is too uncertain. As I’ve said before, I’ve always been in favor of an eventual interlocked Israeli-Palestinian confederation of sorts. It’s about the only thing that makes sense economically and still preserves the preferred identity of Israel and the Palestinians. Sadly such a solution is almost certainly at least decades out and seperation may be the best one can ask for at this point, with integration coming gradually later.
Life, for the majority of human history, has been persection and serfdom. Include the Jewish people in that. The history of persecution has not been “millenia-long” but incidental and opportunistic rather than a theme of history. It’s been like that for most everybody. However, the Holocaust, no argument there.
That atrocity cannot now absolve the current affronts to justice. There is absolutely a better alternative. By working to create justice in whichever nation the individuals choose to live in, security will follow.
The notion of nationhood=safeguard is an 18th century solution to a 20/21st century problem.
The problem with just blaming it all on a few militants who are wrecking things for the Palestinian people is that the Palestinian people have shown huge support for them. Here is an interesting poll of Palestinian attitudes, taken recently. Among many other findings, it shows that 54% of Palestinians oppose the use of force against militants by their own security forces, while only 38% approve. 95% of Palestinians will not accept a peace that does not include the Palestinian capital being in East Jerusalem. 93% will not accept a peace that does not include the right of return. Last year Tel Aviv’s central market was attacked horrifically. 54% of Palestinians approved of that attack. Almost 30% do not believe that Israelis have the right to live in peace and security.
How do you deal with this population?
Not only that, but Palestinian authorities have long played a game of saying, “We can’t control our militants!” then winking. Arafat always played it. Go to the U.N., plead for ‘justice’, accept billions of dollars to economically develop Palestine that instead made it into his and his henchmen’s pockets, and then incite more violence in Arabic while speaking platitudes in English.
Frankly, I don’t know what’s left to do. I suspect what will happen is that Israel will simply sit back and wait for an attack, then respond with overwhelming force. And continue doing so again, and again, until either the Palestinian people get sick of it and finally decide to do something about their militants, or the international community will step in and the Palestinian territories will be occupied by U.N. or U.S. soldiers. Then the militants will have a whole new set of targets.
I thought it was possible that Israel might have turned over the West Bank as well, so that the Palestinians would have absolutely no justification left for the intifada. Unilaterally declare the state of Palestine, and then treat any attacks as an act of war. The ball would totally be in the Palestinian’s court at that point. But that will not happen now, because Sharon is in big trouble from the hard-liners in Israel. The net result of the Palestinian’s stupidity may be the election of a hard-line government in Israel, say one led by Netanyahu. Then all bets are off.
There was never any prospect of Sharon withdrawing from the West Bank. The Gaza withdrawl was simply a distraction under which Sharon proposed to expand and consolidate Israeli expansion into the West Bank. This is a consequence of Israeli expansionism rather than any “Palestinian’s stupidity.” Even the Israelis do not pretend there are security grounds for occupying the West Bank perpetually. IT is about 2 things: Scarce resources; and denying the Palestinians the foundation of an independent state.
An aside to this debate is the sucess with which the Israeli cause is backed unconditionally and without limit in North America.
? I just said there is one and personally I’m conflicted. Philosophically, I don’t like the idea. However if I had been a Jew in the 1930’s and 1940’s I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been a vociferous proponent of a Jewish homeland myself - in both emotional and practical terms I can see the argument. Though frankly, Argentina might have been a better long term bet.