There’s a saying, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” There’s a really good reason the Palestinians should negotiate the borders…because this “no negotiation, no compromise” stance isn’t working for them. And for that matter, I don’t know that they are right…the borders are where they are by accident…because that’s where the front line was when the Arab league agreed to an armistice in '49. It’s not what the original Israeli borders were…when Israel declared independence, Be’er Sheva and the Negev were part of Jordan. It’s not where there were historic populations…until the Arabs drove the Jews out in 1929, Hebron, in the West Bank, was largely Jewish, and had been since ancient times.
But, Israel has already annexed East Jerusalem. It could have annexed any other part of the Territories since 1967 but it has refrained from doing so – perhaps because all but the “Greater Israel” extremists perceive quite clearly that they could never govern those Territories effectively. Furthermore, the Palestinians see quite clearly that they could never have a viable state if it did not include almost all the lands east of the Green Line. So what’s to negotiate?
You’re arguing, in effect, that Israel is required to deny Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza in order to secure its own safety. I’m sorry, I simply don’t buy it.
And as for the contention that “Israel has proven time and again that it’s willing to meet a former enemy who has a genuine interest in peace,” I don’t buy that either. Show me where they ever made an offer, in concrete terms, to give Palestinians sovereignty if the Palestinians ever met certain well-defined conditions, in a well-defined time period. This business about Yasir Arafat is a smokescreen. He was set up as an Israeli puppet because the Israelis knew perfectly well who he was and what he represented. He gave them, in effect, a permanent whipping boy, a perfect stock figure to blame when the “peace process” went astray.
Sal Ammoniac:
No, I’m saying that Israel is required to not annex the West Bank and Gaza and make its inhabitants Israeli citizens in order to secure the safety of its Jewish charges.
There are other ways for the Palestinians to get the rights they are entitled to without offering them Israeli citizenship. For example, they could be offered their own state.
Of course, the rub is that Israel won’t do that either if they feel that would compromise its Jews’ safety.
So the ultimate solution to balancing the Jews’ safety with the Palestinians’ rights is for the Palestinians to have their own state…with a peace treaty toward Israel.
Why not? Egypt made out just fine that way. So did Jordan. And the Palestinians were on the road to that before the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
The Oslo peace accords set a framework in which “final status issues,” including Palestinian statehood, were to be discussed. The conditions to be met beforehand were laid out therein.
That’s got to be the most ridiculous think I’ve ever heard…and trust me, I’ve heard plenty of ridiculous things. First of all, Arafat is the LAST person the Israelis ever wanted to deal with. Dealing with him meant a) recognizing the PLO as a legitimate representative organization despite years of terrorism against Israel, b) dealing with a man (and his organization) who did not have the apparatus of a country to stand behind a peace deal (as Jordan or Syria would have), and c) dealing with a man who did not necessarily wield the power to stop many of the terror elements (notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also including a number of splinter PLO factions that are now mostly forgotten). Second of all, it was not the Israelis who chose Arafat. The Palestinians ELECTED him as the PA president, in an internationally recognized free and fair election.
Since the early 90’s, Israelis have repeatedly elected peace-supporting leftists…unless the elections have been immediately preceded by a spate of Palestinian violence. If you think it’s the Israelis who want to scuttle peace processes, you’ve got a really weird sense of historical perspective.
The final status of East Jerusalem, its suburbs, and Ma’ale Adumim, and normalization of the status of Israelis and Palestinians living there. Even though Israel did incorporate East Jerusalem into the Jerusalem metropolitan area, that doesn’t mean the issue is settled.
Israeli settlements near the Green Line.
Ariel.
Palestinian water rights. Just to name a few.
I’m sorry, but this goes to the heart of the question, and the more I think about, the less I like it. You’re essentially saying that if the Palestinians have no rights, but the Jews are safe, then there are no grounds for complaint. I deplore the fact that the starting point of this contention is the notion that one ethnicity is simply more important than the other.
And it’s not just a contention, either. In fact, the very basis of the Israeli occupation of the territories is a a rigid and absolute demarkation on the basis of ethnicity. There’s not a single Jew in the OT who is disenfranchised, and not a single Palestinian who is enfranchised. Every Palestinian is deemed to be equally guilty, each one deemed to be as contemptible as the next. The system makes no attempt to judge Palestinians on their individual merits or demerits, but assumes that their ethnicity alone is an infallible guide to their worth.
We can argue endlessly about Oslo, about Arafat, about who violated what and who killed whom, but until Zionism recognizes the Palestinians’ common humanity, any talk of negotation is just a smokescreen.
And I resist your attempts to vitiate Hillel’s great principle. If that principle (or any principle) can be tossed out as soon as the magic word “security” is mentioned, that what use are principles? They’re nothing more than fancy words.
Sal Ammoniac:
No, the starting point of this contention is that the LIVES of one ethnicity is more important than the VOTING RIGHTS of another. If you’re not willing to agree with that premise, then we might as well stop talking.
The Jews are Israeli citizens. First-generation Jewish settlers were previously inhabitants of the State of Israel, those born there are the children of Israeli citizens, both of which are ways of acquiring citizenship common to many countries. The Palestinian inhabitants fall under neither category.
If you wish a valid comparison, you might try the case of an Israeli Arab moving to the West Bank or Gaza. Such a person would not lose his Israeli citizenship or Israeli voting rights any more than a Jewish Israeli would.
Guilty? Why, have they been punished? Has a right they once possessed been taken away from them?
Then such talk is obviously not a smokescreen, because Zionism has always recognized their common humanity. It’s their hostility they have a problem with.
Oh, so if you would “not want done to yourself” to have your gun taken away, then you wouldn’t take away the gun of someone who wants to kill you?
What use are principles? They’re great guidelines for NON-LIFE-THREATENING behavior. Those who take their principles too far, of course, end up being too dead to defend their decisions.
I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that granting voting rights to Palestinians is genuinely likely to endanger the lives of current Israelis.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: this is a completely false parallel. Giving voting rights to the Palestinians deprives no one of life. Whereas keeping voting and citizenship rights from the Palestinians has generated a white-hot conflict that has cost many people their lives, on both sides.
Exactly right – the question of citizenship has been rigged on an ethnic basis, for no other purpose than to prevent the Palestinians from assuming a demographic majority. Again, keeping a Jewish majority is deemed to be a more vital goal than assuring the voting or citizenship rights of three million Palestinians.
So, for instance, is the the Arab Israeli who moves to the OT getting the same consideration as the Jewish settler? Does he get to use the roads marked out for settler use only? Does he get to bypass checkpoints, etc.? Is he eligible for subsidized housing in the settlments?
Being deprived of an inherent human right to citizenship is indeed punishment.
'THEIR hostility." Again, you make no distinction between individuals – each Palestinian is assumed, on the basis of ethnicity alone, to be hostile, and is treated as such. Guilt by ethnicity, in other words.
Sevastopol:
Giving the Palestinians full Israeli citizenship endangers the Jewish control of the State of Israel. That, in turn, nullifies its status as a safe haven fo Jews from anti-semitism, which is the “mission statement” of Zionism and the State of Israel to begin with.
It’s not an immediate danger, but one has to take a historical perspective here.
Sal Ammoniac:
See above.
False. The conflict existed even before the State of Israel began, and well before Israel gained control over the Occupied Territories. Granted, you see Israeli citizenship as a fair solution to the human rights mess that the Palestinians have found themselves in, but there’s absolutely no indication that it has ever been the demand of the Palestinians or that lack of it is at the root of the conflict.
The question of citizenship qualifications was settled well before Israel had control of the Occupied Territories, and it is well within the range of citizenship qualifications of most nations.
That’s right, and I won’t apologize for that. The state exists because historically, no gentile-controlled country could be trusted to deal fairly with its Jewish population. The Palestinians are welcome to their own state with their own voting rights (once they can be trusted not to attack Israel), but Israel is 100% correct in not sacrificing its raison d’etre.
I’ll have to research that to be certain. Likelihood is that for security issues such as checkpoints, it’s probably not true because it’s too easy, without checking ID, for a Palestinian to pass himself off as an Israeli Arab. For the other matters, do you have any proof that it’s not true?
They do not have an inherent right to citizenship in Israel, any more than in any country in which they haven’t been born.
In twisted words, maybe. As long as the political leadership elected by the Palestinians is hostile to Israel, any offer of nationhood (the context in which such voting rights can be granted) needs to be considered on that basis. If there are individuals who wish to move to Israel proper and become Israeli citizens, there is an immigration process that they can go through.
A fair point, though it seems like in the context of the total conflict, this is an issue that could be fairly easily resolved – for example, through language that could be written into any eventual settlement that would preserve the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel if it could be demonstrated that they were being persecuted.
No, but they have an inherent right to citizenship in something. And given that it’s now approaching 40 years that those Palestinians have been citizens of nothing, you can see why I say that there’s been no urgency of the part of Israel to solve that problem. Blame Palestinian leadership if you want – but unless 100% of the Palestinian people are guilty, then you’re accepting the punishment of people who have themselves done nothing wrong.
Anyway, I’m bowing out of this thread now, since I feel like I’ve made the points I wanted to make. I only venture to suggest, as a parting comment, that if you found yourself in the position of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, you would be as disenchanted with Israel as I am.
But Sal, why exactly is it so offensive that Palestinians don’t have full Israeli citizenship, but not offensive that they don’t have full Jordanian or Egyptian citizenship?
Israel would be ecstatic to turn Gaza over to the Egyptians and 95% of the West Bank over to the Jordanians. Sure, it’s bad that Palestinians don’t have civil rights, but why can’t they be Egyptian citizens or Jordanian citizens? Well, aside from the fact the Egypt and Jordan aren’t really democracies.
We can assume that your Average Palestinian is none to friendly with Israel? But neutral to Egypt or Jordan? Why would annexation by Israel be prefered to annexation by Egypt or Jordan? Of course, this is what had happened from 1948 to 1967, the occupied territories weren’t occupied by Israel then and you didn’t see many suicide bombers in Cairo or Amman back then, or terrorists executing Egyptian or Jordanian athletes.
Why aren’t you upset that Egypt doesn’t grant full civil rights to the Gazans? Aside from the fact that it doesn’t grant full civil rights to Egyptian citizens themselves?
Geez, you try to bow out of a thread, and then somebody asks you a direct question.
Anyway, my answer is this – Gaza and the West Bank are occupied and controlled by Israel (Gaza less so, these days). Israel has sovereignty there, and has settled several hundred thousand of its citizens there. The territory is theirs. It’s “disputed” in name only, and Israel only maintains that fiction because it doesn’t want to make the Palestinians in the OT citizens, for the reasons cited above.
And I doubt very much that Israel would let the Palestinians assume Egyptian or Jordanian citizenship, because then those lands would become de facto part of Egypt or Jordan. Egypt and Jordan may not even want these people – I don’t really know, and it’s not like the option has been put on the table, to my knowledge.
So technically, you’re right that the citizenship problem could be resolved in some measure by Palestinians taking Jordanian or Egyptian citizenship – but in the real world, that’s about as likely as their being given Israeli citizenship. And in the meantime, they languish.
But you know what’s absurd? For all the weight being given to these demographic considerations, everybody is aware that within a couple generations, non-Jews will be the minority in historic Israel anyway. The Arab birthrate is drastically higher, there is significant Jewish outmigration, and a lot of the “Jews” who have immigrated in recent years from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia are not actually Jews at all – by anybody’s reckoning. So even if you stiff the Palestinians in the OTs of their citizenship rights, you’re only delaying the inevitable by a couple of decades.
So… can I go now?
Said that wrong. I meant, “non-Jews will be the *majority *in historic Israel within a couple generations.” Sorry about that.
During the negotiations with Sadat over the Israeli-Egytian peace treaty, Egypt expressedly refused to take the Gaza Strip as part of the agreement. More recently, Jordan renounced any claim to the West Bank (I’ll hunt for sites tomorrow – it’s almost midnight here and time for bed).
Israel would in fact be overjoyed if Egypt and Jordan took Gaza and (most of) the West Bank and rid us of that problem. Certainly this Israeli would be. And I have little doubt that ultimately a Palestinian State will emerge in the OT – if the Palestinian leadership stops bombing us, it will happen a lot faster, though!
I rather think if the Palestinians had full representation in the Knessit, they would leave the existing “right of return” for Jews in place, but demand it be supplemented with a “right of return” for Palestinians who were living, or whose ancestors were living, anywhere in Palestine/Israel/Canaan in 1947. So Israel would be a “safe haven” for both groups. Am I wrong, Noone?
Are you sure on this point? Have there been any scientific studies of demographic trends? (I assume that by “historical” Israel, you mean Israel within its current, official borders, not those of the Biblical empire of Solomon.)
CmKeller
I disagree. You’ve brought the assumption that gentile Israelis would vote as a bloc, for the express intention of disenfranchising a large Jewish minority.
This just doesn’t happen in democracies.
Well, it hasn’t happened in South Africa. But what about Zimbabwe?
:dubious: Israel is the last country left on Earth where Jews have to live in constant fear of being murdered because they are Jews. “Safe haven,” my ass!