That isn’t what we were discussing, though. We were discussing Israelis qua Israelis.
If we are describing the “settlers”, what we are talking about is two opposed ethno-nationalisms squabbling over territorial boundaries, one of whom has the upper hand.
It is not, however, what we were arguing about, which once again is the foundation of Israel the state.
You are mixing up some concepts here.
The issue is whether “Palestine”, however constituted, is analogous to a “Bantustan” as they existed in SA.
I’m saying that they are fundamentally unlike, because Palestinians living in the WB have no desire whatsoever to live as citizens of Israel as currently constituted. They by and large no not wish Israeli citizenship (there are, of course, Palestinians who do have Israeli citizenship already, we are not discussing those; also, some Palestinians do wish for Israeli citizenship, such as homosexual Palestinians - a reasonably small minority).
What they want, is a separate state.
The “one state solution” is a political pie in the sky impossibility (or rather, a recipe for complete disaster, such as what has overtaken the rest of the ME); it can’t work, because what exists there are two competing ethno-nationalisms, which dislike and distrust each other. It would be like Lebanon, only worse.
The current Israeli government will not grant separate statehood right away for a couple of reasons, bad and good; in part because they are intent on using Palestinian haplessness as an excuse to grab more territory for itself while the grabbing is good (that’s the ‘bad’ reason); and in part because they reasonably insist that statehood be part of an overall peace proposal, to which the Palestinians will not agree - because they are politically forced by their constituents into making demands they know the Israelis cannot accept (such as handing over the Israeli capital city, or half of it, to the Palestinians).
The problem is that unrealistic hopes, pie in the sky demands, and magic thinking on the part of Palestinians and their foreign sympathizers all work to the advantage of the current Israeli government. How? By delaying (perhaps indefinitely) the only thing likely to put a stop to their death-by-a-thousand-settlements encroachments: the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
This alone is a good reason to avoid indulging this sort of thing.
But ISTM that that’s trying to have it both ways. Describing the occupation as “two ethno-nationalisms squabbling” implies a false equivalence between the occupiers, who have essentially all of the power and all of the stability and security in the situation, and the occupied, who are basically powerless and rightsless despite having at least equally strong historical claims to the territory (if we’re leaving aside for the moment claims backed by appeals to the alleged wishes of supernatural beings).
If both groups have legitimate claims to the territory and are merely “squabbling” over where to draw the dividing lines, then the Palestinians are just as entitled as the Israelis to the immediate enjoyment of full rights within a non-demilitarized sovereign state.
If it’s claimed that the Palestinians are somehow less entitled than the Israelis to such sovereignty, then that reopens the question of the basis of the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty itself in the first place.
If the argument in favor of that asymmetry just comes down to “Look, in realpolitik terms Israel is the party with the power and would be idiots not to exploit it to the fullest to gain as much benefit as they can”, okay, but let’s not disguise that reality under the pretense of “two ethno-nationalisms squabbling”.
Well, we’ll see. While the problems that would accompany a genuinely binational state are undeniable, ISTM that the longer Israel clings to what is essentially a single state with half the population dispossessed, the more international support there will be for accepting the notion of a single state with equal rights for all.
After all, the abovementioned South Africa also contained “two competing ethno-nationalisms” with quite a lot of mutual dislike and distrust, exacerbated by the long oppression of the majority group by the minority. Their transition to full integration and democracy certainly wasn’t and still isn’t problem-free, but at least it produced a fundamentally less oppressive society.
It is not at all clear to me that anything the Palestinians might hope, demand, or think in this situation would actually incline the current Israeli government to stop delaying (preferably, from their point of view, indefinitely) the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
The Israeli government has control of the territory, they wish to permanently retain and settle the territory, and what Palestinians want is pretty much irrelevant to them.
I agree with you that the two situations – Israeli and Palestinian – are not equivalent.
And here’s where I’m confused, because I thought we just agreed that the situations were not equivalent. They aren’t. The Palestinians do not have an equal claim to the territory that makes up Israel. (And, in fact, they have the superior claim to the West Bank and Gaza; they just won’t jump through the hoops that are prerequisites to formal recognition of statehood. They won’t define what their borders are, and they won’t renounce claim to Israeli territory.)
I disagree, and can’t see how this train of logic follows at all. The second idea is not a consequence of the first idea. Palestine is not a country, because the leaders haven’t done what is necessary for them to become one. Israel is a country, because they took the actions necessary to become one.
In my opinion, no, the difference is that Israel filled out the application forms (metaphorically speaking) properly, while the Palestinians refuse to do so.
I can’t even agree with this. The occupied territories are not part of “essentially a single state.” They are under military occupation as the result of a war. The West Bank is not part of Israel. If Israel were to claim the West Bank as its own national territory, you’d have a strong point. But they haven’t and it isn’t. The Palestinians are stateless persons, which is a hellish situation to be in. But they aren’t making the decisions that are necessary to improve their situation.
That, alas, is true. A lot of us who support Israel and condemn the Palestinians are, at the same time, not at all fans of the current Israeli government.
I think I disagree; even the current Israeli government does not have plans to permanently retain or settle the West Bank, only small bits of it.
This, itself, is an obstacle to peace, and not a good thing at all, but it is far short of the accusation you make here. They ought to stop the settlement encroachments – and the Palestinian Authority ought to face reality and agree to national boundaries and a capital city. As long as they refuse, this only gives encouragement to the current Israeli activities.
I, personally, want a Two State solution, with the Palestinian capital in the West Bank – Hebron seems the obvious choice – and rigidly observed border lines, protected against incursions from either side. At very least we have this much in Gaza, with the exception of some extremely stupid and pointless rocket attacks.
I don’t know about that, but I do know that there are a lot of Palestinian Arabs who want a new Arab state which is completely free of Jews even though Jews have lived there for thousands of years.
I also know that Jews were ethnically cleansed from Hebron, Jerusalem, and Gaza City in the 1930s and 40s by the Arabs, and many people seem to believe that this ethnic cleansing resulted in these areas becoming “Palestinian Land” forever; that any attempt by Jews to return to these areas from which they were ejected is “theft” and “illegal.”
To me, this seems like a very one-sided and unreasonable way to think about property rights and nationalism. Also, if it’s wrong for Jews to want a majority Jewish state, then it’s doubly wrong for Arabs to want a state with no Jews to speak of.
Yes but their current action seem to be consistent with the notion that they are colonists and perhaps always were.
DeKlerk seemed to be referring to a resolution to apartheid that was never achieved, not the Bantustans.
They seem to have some desire to live in an Israel that includes all the original inhabitants or Palestine and their descendants.
Or the whole goddam thing.
I don’t see why the Palestinian would object to a democratic form of government where they are in the majority.
Insisting on taking all of Jerusalem in anything other than a one state solution seems like a recipe for continued violence no matter what everyone agrees to.
Or a nuclear Palestine.
So, they should just take a bad deal because its all the Israelis are willing to offer.
But they HAVE jumped through hoops. They claim all of Israel. What exactly is it that you think Israel did that Palestine hasn’t done other than winning a war?
If you want to say that Israel has the greater right by right of conquest then just come out and say it and we can call them conquistadors or invaders instead of colonists if that will make you feel better.
What has Israel done exactly that distinguishes them from Palestine?
So is the west bank part of Israel an occupied territory or what because no matter which category you put them in, Israel has not been a good actor WRT to west bank.
And perhaps you may have noticed that much (but not all) of the criticism from the left has risen since the current government took power. Coincidence? maybe.
Yes, the Palestinians are practically FORCING the Israelis to take their land by not accepting the Israeli offer. Stupid Palestinians.
I personally want a one state solution with the capital in Jerusalem. A two state solution where the Israelis get what they want and the Palestinians get what the Israelis are willing to live without hardly seems like something that will stick for very long.
One really good first step would be not claiming all of Israel.
Israel has specifically renounced right of conquest, for the West Bank. They occupy it, but have not annexed it.
Worked with the system, most importantly. Also, allowing civil rights to the minority populations inside Israel, holding free elections, having a working economy, having the backing of Europe and the Americas. Seriously, and vitally, Israel limited what it asked for, while the Palestinians refuse to back down on their demands that Israel cease to exist.
Meanwhile, asking for the Israelis to agree to the annihilation of their country seems absurd, and so you are only condemning the Palestinians to the status quo, which is worse than having a state of their own.
By insisting on the whole loaf, half of which belongs to someone else, and refusing the half that is on offer, they end up with no loaf at all. This is not a good negotiating strategy.
Why? If they think it is all theirs? How much of Israel belonged to the Zionists before 1948? 5%, maybe a little more? And most of that was purchased by folks like the Rothchilds not by owner occupants.
A large majority of them seem to be willing to adopt a single state solution that does not involve expelling any of the current residents.
That’s very generous of them. :rolleyes: But they have kept it for the rest of Israel?
How are these things “working within the system”? It seems like you are throwing together a bunch of Israel’s more admirable traits and putting a label on it and calling it “working within the system”
Israel has also oppressed the Palestinians, and are now taking land from those oppressed Palestinians through settlement activity. I can throw those things in a bag and put a label on it too.
Israel has done NOTHING that entitles them to anything that Palestinians wouldn’t be entitled to if the Zionists had lost the war of 1948.
Who is asking for that? A one state solution is not the annihilation of the country. It may mean they are no longer a Jewish State and simply a state.
Yes, they should just take whatever scraps the Zionists toss to them because its really better than nothing and that’s what they have right now. That plus a colorable right to all of Israel.
They are arguing that it was stolen and refusing the crumbs that are on offer (perhaps I am mistaken but I don’t think half of Israel is on offer).
Its only not a good negotiating strategy because Israel has the guns right now. That can change. Israel could continue to piss on America’s head and lose its support. Someone could give the Palestinians the bomb. The next incarnation of islamic jihadists might not encounter as much resistance from an increasingly isolationist world and Israel might face a more determined and unified military challenge.
All sorts of shit can happen but right now Israel insists that they get the benefit of their superior bargaining position and call the Palestinians either crazy or stupid for not taking what the Israelis are willing to live without.
Because not only will this not get them all of Israel, it won’t even get them West Bank statehood. It’s strategically suicidal. It only promotes the status quo. Do they really like the situation as it is? Making demands beyond the bounds of possibility only continues this. Politics is the art of the possible.
Already acknowledged. The current Israeli government isn’t helping very much.
Maybe so. Losing a war can be costly.
First “might makes right” and now threats. I can’t find myself believing you are actually debating in favor of a peaceful solution.
I’ve been saying all along that the two sides are not equivalent: I fully agree that the Israelis have the whip hand. Neither are the “two sides equivalent” in many other cases of competing ethno-nationalisms. In short, I disagree with your premise here that accurately labeling the type of conflict going on here creates a “false equivalence”.
It isn’t a question of “legitimate claims”. Most recognize that the Palestinian desire for statehood is ‘just as legitimate’ as the Israel (that is, is based on the same sort of ethno-nationalist claims). The problem, though, is the Palestinians for various reasons have proved unable to get their collective nationalist act together, form a reasonably representative government, and articulate a set of demands that are realistic and realizable.
I, at least, am not claiming that.
You misunderstand the argument.
The argument is that the current party in control of the Israeli government is making that argument (only with a slight, but very significant, variation: "the Palestinians can’t be reasoned with, so we may as well exploit this situation etc. ").
My argument is: stop helping the current Israeli government.
People, Palestinians and their Western supporters, help the current Israeli government every time they support unrealistic, impossible, out of reach demands by the Palestinians, every time they “speculate” in a “just asking questions” manner about the illegitimacy of Israel as a country, every time they make absurd and inaccurate statements about Israelis committing “genocide” or engaged in “apartheid”, etc.
How? Because all of these go to support the current Israeli government line that no amount of painful negotiations or concessions will ever satisfy the Palestinians or result in appeasing Western critics: they will only be content with the Israelis moving en mass out of the ME (as speculated as “reasonable” in at least one of the posts above).
So why bother with the hard negotiations? Just take what they want, build a wall around it, and the hell with Palestinians and foreign critics alike. This (or worse), unfortunately, is the attitude of the hard right within Israel. I’m not arguing in favor of it, I’m arguing against it. I think this attitude is foolish and short-sighted (never mind immoral), and what is needed is the “hard bargaining” that leads to a genuine two-state solution.
Israelis know that “international support” doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. A “one state” solution will never happen because it has no support on the ground by anyone.
[
See, In the thread above I’ve been arguing a lot as to why this analogy isn’t helpful, but it gets clung to like a monkey to its mother nonetheless.
SA is a unique situation, the result of a far different set of facts. You will die of old age before the SA solution makes any sense in the ME.
I tend to agree. Fortunately, Israel happens to actually be a democracy, so it is entirely possible to foresee (indeed, hope for) a differently constituted Israeli government.
Guess which side is helped by absurd, unrealistic demands and the like?
In matters of force, yes. Not in matters of politics. What the Palestinians say and do has a considerable impact on Israeli politics. Their intransigence during the peace negotiations gave a considerable boost to the likes of Bibi.
That sounds rather like “stop giving the bully an excuse to be angry, and maybe he’ll stop hitting you.” Yeah, and on the other hand maybe he won’t.
After all, if this is actually an “ethnonational conflict” over territory, then both sides in the conflict are entitled to use violence and assert far-reaching claims in pursuing their conflicting territorial aims. It’s not the exclusive job of one side to “make” the conflict stop by unilaterally finding an approach that will adequately conciliate the other side. Nor is it unreasonable “intransigence” for one side to oppose the other side’s claims with claims of their own.
So again, Israel can’t have it both ways. If they’re sincerely in favor of a two-state solution with equal sovereignty for Palestinians and Israelis, then they should abandon their own continuing obstruction of it: i.e., maintaining settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, taking Palestinian water and other resources, etc. They should withdraw from the occupied regions and demand (and contribute to) international cooperation in immediately creating and recognizing a sovereign state for the Palestinians. If Israel acknowledges Palestinian claims to sovereignty over the lands (or a specific modified subset of them) allocated to them in the partition plan, then they should be actively and directly promoting the establishment of the Palestinian state on those lands.
If, on the other hand, Israel is in favor of extracting as much territory and resources from Palestinian lands as they can, possibly including the extension of Israel’s own sovereignty to officially annexed parts (or the whole) of them, then this is essentially a standing armed conflict over territorial control, along the lines of the conflict between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. And in that case, violence and ambitious demands are an expected part of the scenario for both sides.
What Israel is actually doing seems to be a sort of two-faced combination of both of the above. When Israel seizes Palestinian resources and oppresses Palestinian people, the Israeli government and their supporters present themselves as engaged in an “ethnonational conflict” over legitimately disputed territory, and maintain that they’re within their rights to assert as much power and control within that conflict as they can.
When Palestinians commit violence against Israelis or make demands on Israel, on the other hand, the Israeli government and their supporters present themselves as a peaceful beleaguered neighbor being wantonly assailed by an irrationally hate-filled rabble of delusional antisemitic fanatics.
So Israel is effectively “at war” or “under attack” and hence acting legitimately whenever it’s aggressive towards the Palestinians, but Palestinians are “terrorists” and “intransigent” and “unreasonable” whenever they’re aggressive towards Israel. :dubious:
[QUOTE=Malthus]
So why bother with the hard negotiations? Just take what they want, build a wall around it, and the hell with Palestinians and foreign critics alike. This (or worse), unfortunately, is the attitude of the hard right within Israel.
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I know. I think it’s important not to let them get away with trying to disguise that ambition under the cloak of ostensibly being open to a two-state solution, “if only” the Palestinians would entirely stop committing all violent attacks against Israelis. And would stop ever voting for Hamas. And would stop ever demanding a right of return for Palestinians dispossessed from Israeli territory. And would stop objecting to the existence of the current settlements (because wanting the settlements removed counts as “ethnic cleansing”). And would stop objecting to Israeli control of roads accessing the settlements and Israeli exploitation of Palestinian resources. And would stop protesting the Israeli takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem. And would spontaneously develop a functioning fully transparent and democratic government and thriving economy. And would eradicate all antisemitism and anti-Israel resentment in contemporary Palestinian society. And would turn into unicorns every second Wednesday and freely share the delicious unicorn eggs with their Israeli neighbors. After all, anything less would be “unreasonable” and “intransigent”.
ISTM that the most crucial thing we can do about the Israeli hard right, besides advocating and supporting non-violent rather than violent resistance to it, is to call it out on the fundamental insincerity that attempts to place the responsibility for its expansionist aggression on the Palestinians themselves.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
What the Palestinians say and do has a considerable impact on Israeli politics. Their intransigence during the peace negotiations gave a considerable boost to the likes of Bibi.
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Ah yes, “if only” the Palestinians hadn’t been so “intransigent”, they’d be much better off today. Or, more likely, not.
Like I said, I’m very skeptical of claims that anything Palestinians could have done could have realistically hindered Israeli hawks from pursuing their territorial aims at the Palestinians’ expense. I’m firmly in favor of Palestinian nonviolent resistance to occupation because I think it’s the right thing to do, but not because I think it’s somehow the responsibility of the Palestinians to stop Israel from oppressing them.
Of course the Zionists cannot agree to simply leave. But the Zionists are basically offering whatever they don’t really want in the first place. What sacrifices are Zionists willing to make other than the sacrifice of not oppressing Palestinians anymore?
The “current” government has been controlled by the same party for 30 of the last 40 years. I think we can simply call it the Israeli government without the temporal qualifier.
And that is why I say that right of conquest seems to be one of the primary bases of Israel’s claims. Why so much reluctance to acknowledge that?
Threat? What threat?
“Might makes right” is how Israel derives its authority. There is almost no other basis for the existence of Israel other than the fact that they won the war that established the nation of Israel, if they had declared their state and lost, there would be no Israel. They won their nation by conquest and they continue to act like conquerors in their oppression of the Palestinians and they cannot complain if and when they are conquered in turn.
The US is turning more and more isolationist while Russia is trying to expand its influence in the region. Things can change and if Israel is relying so singularly on the fact that they can kick their neighbor’s ass then what happens when the non-fighting religious fanatics multiply to the point where their politicians start writing check that the rest of the Israelis serving in the military can’t cash?
The the current party in control of the Israeli government has been in control of the Israeli government or 30 of the last 40 years (they didn’t exit before that).
At what point can we just all it the Israeli government?
So their enemies were also depending on the “right of conquest.” It was a war, and those have consequences.
If the Arab neighbors were willing to rely upon force of arms to exterminate Israel, it’s hypocritical of them to complain about Israel’s existence on the basis of the outcome of those wars.
Make up your mind. If war against Israel is okay, then war to defend it is okay too.
The condition ex-ante was a Palestine without a Jewish state within its borders. Israel did not exist before the force of arms was used.
When conquerors or colonists come and use force to carve a nation for themselves on the land inhabited by others, the use of force to resist or expel them does not turn the natives into conquerors.
And neither did a Muslim-majority state called “Palestine.” “Palestine” was simply the British name for the physical territory of what is today Israel, WB/G, and Jordan (well aside from the land swaps between post-mandate Jordan and Saudi Arabia)
The Zionists who arrived in Israel prior to the British mandate didn’t conquer anyone’s land; they bought it from absentee landlords. Most of the Muslims who moved to what became the British Mandate of Palestine (well the western portion, meaning excluding Transjordan) moved there for the economic opportunity the Jews created.
While this is true of many of the Muslims who immigrated to the region in the early 20th century after the Zionist movement began, it doesn’t apply to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Muslims (and Christians) descended from people who were already living in the region.
Mind you, I’m not trying to claim that large-scale recent immigration should be an automatic disqualification for political legitimacy (if we did, then we’d have to call into question the legitimacy of, e.g., Pakistan as well). But there’s no question that in British Mandate Palestine, recent immigrants were a much higher percentage of the population among Jews than among Muslims or Christians.
Odd that you mention Palestinian violence. It wasn’t something I brought up. I was discussing Palestinian inability to put together a reasonable negotiating strategy.
The problem here is that you are treating “Israel” as if it was a monolithic entity. It isn’t. It’s a country with people in it who have more than one POV (to put it mildly).
To simplify it considerably, there are left and right wing Israelis, just as there are (say) left and right wing Americans. Which political “side” to terrorist attacks on America tend to boost? Are they “good” for the political left, who seeks accommodation with (say) Muslims, or “good” for the political right, who sees things more in terms of a “clash of civilizations” and is listening to the likes of Trump, who wishes to exclude all Muslims?
Within Israel the political “left” is far more receptive to a genuine peace deal with the Palestinians than the political “right”. Which “side”, do you think, is undermined by extreme, unrealizable claims, magic thinking, and absurd analogies on the part of Palestinians and their supporters - not to mention terrorist attacks?
To give you a hint: it isn’t the Israeli “right”.
Again, supporting magic thinking isn’t being helpful. Making demands you know cannot be met isn’t a serious negotiating strategy.
Okay, so you “call them out”. They give you the collective finger and do whatever they want despite your sincere and well-reasoned announcement. What do you do next?
This isn’t a strategy, it is posturing.
You think they could be worse off than now? It is hard to see how.
Instead of thinking in terms of ‘moral responsibility’, try thinking in terms of ‘effective tactics that do not give the Israeli Right exactly what it wants’.
Democracy can be a real pain-in-the-ass for members of the minority or opposition party. This is one of the reasons I admire the U.S. model, with constitutional limits on what the majority can get away with, and with divided branches, each working to enforce similar limits.
Parliamentary systems, where the executive branch is made up out of the leadership of the legislative branch, make me a little uncomfortable.
(And, even though it benefits me and my ideals, I’m also not really comfortable with supermajorities, like California’s Democratic Party. 26/14 and 52/28. I guess I prefer this to the reverse, but I really would like to see something with a bit more parity.)
(That said, Israel has had a very evenly divided Knesset, at least for many years in the past. This gave the deciding government-making power to the very small – and very extreme – minority parties. That’s another thing about the Parliamentary model that dismays me.)
Anyway, yeah, I’d like to see an Israeli government more willing to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians – but that would also require a Palestinian organization willing to negotiate in good faith with Israel. It takes 'em both.