The total Jewish owned land amounted to about 5% of Israel in 1948. Jews were about 30% of the population.
Much of the population in Palestine in 1948 was probably due to immigration under the British mandate and the Brits probably have at least a good a claim on the economic growth under their rule as the Jewish refugees and colonists.
The rapid growth of the Jewish population in the area corresponds to the Aliyahs and Jews fleeing Europe. The rapid growth of the arab population largely occurred during the British mandate period and not much occurred in the 30 years between the first aliyahs and the British mandate.
Prior to the Aliyahs in the 1880s there were fewer than 10,000 jews in Israel and about 400,000 arabs. Prior to the British Mandate in the 1920s, there were probably about 100K Jews and 500K arabs. Prior to 1948 there were probably about 700,000 Jews and about 1.5 million arabs. I don’t know why all of this matters other than to point out that prior to the deliberate Zionist attempts to create a Jewish presence in Palestine, the Jewish presence in Palestine was pretty small.
No, but I thought you were arguing that shit like settlement activity is really a passing thing that is only really being pushed by some “current government”
If your point is that the party that has been in control of Israel during pretty much the entire peace process has been pushing shit like settlement activity the whole time, then i don’t really see how that helps your argument.
You keep repeating this insistence that it’s the Palestinians’ responsibility to behave so as not to “undermine” the segment of Israeli society that cares about Palestinian rights. Why doesn’t this work both ways? Why isn’t it Israel’s responsibility to behave so as not to undermine the pro-peace and pro-coexistence segment of Palestinian society?
Palestinians are always scolded for “emboldening” militant Israeli hawks by doing things that Israelis don’t like. Why aren’t we equally complaining that Israeli actions that Palestinians don’t like are emboldening Palestinian militants?
For some reason, Israeli militancy and aggression is presented as an unfortunate fact of life that Israel happens to be stuck with and can’t do anything about unless Palestinians make it possible. Palestinian militancy and aggression, on the other hand, is presented as the Palestinians’ deliberate choice and a moral failing on the part of Palestinians as a whole, which it’s Palestinians’ responsibility to unilaterally change.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
Again, supporting magic thinking isn’t being helpful. Making demands you know cannot be met isn’t a serious negotiating strategy.
[/quote]
The Israeli government has not provided any evidence that they are genuinely interested in any “serious negotiation” for Palestinian rights and sovereignty, no matter what the Palestinians do.
This is that same two-faced approach I was talking about before. Sometimes Palestinian demands are arbitrarily dismissed as “magical thinking” and aims that “cannot be met”, simply because Israel doesn’t want to meet them and can get away with not meeting them. This is the “might makes right and winners can dictate whatever terms they want” aspect. And sometimes Palestinian demands are treated as something that might happen someday “if only” Palestinians will be sufficiently cooperative and friendly and nonthreatening to an unspecified extent for an unspecified probationary length of time. This is the “neighbors have to treat each other decently and kindly to inspire trust” aspect.
The asymmetrical combination of these two aspects means in practice that Israel gets to do whatever it wants while holding the Palestinians to whatever unrealistic standards it chooses.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
This isn’t a strategy, it is posturing.
[/quote]
Again, you keep presenting this as though it’s the responsibility of the Palestinians to create an effective “strategy” to change what Israel is doing. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that no such “strategy” exists. Demanding that Palestinians come up with a working “strategy” is just a convenient stick to beat them with.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
You think they could be worse off than now? It is hard to see how.
[/quote]
What I said was that I’m highly skeptical of the retroactive hypothetical that Palestinians would be better off than they are now, “if only” they had chosen a more “effective” approach.
Talk about “magical thinking”. :dubious:
[QUOTE=Malthus]
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’.
[/QUOTE]
In other words, once again, it’s the Palestinians’ responsibility to come up with the hypothetical “effective tactics” that will somehow successfully restrain the Israeli Right from getting what it wants. The question of whether there actually are any such tactics that the Palestinians could use to actually make that happen is conveniently elided.
Nah. The bullshit detector is pinging too loudly to be ignored. It is constantly becoming clearer that the Israeli government doesn’t particularly want a peaceful and just solution to the Palestinian conflict. What they want is to go on maximizing their power and control in the occupied territories at the Palestinians’ expense, and to blame the Palestinians for it.
This ambition, and the Israeli government’s power to implement it, have jack-shit to do with any realistic level of threat that Palestinians pose to Israelis or any realistic difficulties with Palestinian demands. So complaining that Palestinians aren’t pursuing an “effective” “strategy” is just a responsibility-shifting smokescreen.
Because we (or, at least, I) am not talking about some kind of moral “responsibility” at all!
What I’m talking about, is practicality.
In any bargaining situation, one side has the stronger hand than the other. In this case, it is the Israelis without a doubt. The Palestinians “need” a deal far more than the Israelis do. With a deal, the Palestinians get a shot at an actual functioning state. The Israelis already have a state, a powerful army, etc.
The Israeli hawks don’t give a shit about Palestinians getting a state. They are happy to watch the Palestinians wallow in helpless isolation (which is their current status), while the Hawks take what they want without bargaining at all.
In short, the current status quo favors only one party - Israeli Hawks. Israeli bad behavior will certainly embolden Palestinian Hawks - I agree 100%. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the Palestinian Hawks are completely unable to “win” in a conflict with Israel - as has been proven time and again.
Therefore, backing behaviors that embolden the “hawks” on both sides only benefits one party - and it ain’t the Palestinians.
Making moral equivalence arguments is no doubt satisfying, but from a practical point of view, it is worse than worthless - for anyone who actually cares what happens to the Palestinians.
Again with the moral “responsibility” arguments. That’s not the point. The issue is consequences.
I can only conclude you are not familiar with the history of the peace process.
I can sum up your point in one sentence: ‘it is morally unfair that the Israelis have all the bargaining power’.
To which I reply: ‘history has no obligation to be morally fair’.
In what universe does it make sense for the by far weaker party to (for example) hold out for a “right of return” to the very villages from which they (or in most cases, their ancestors) fled, which are now buried under the cities and farms of the stronger party?
This is what I mean by “magic thinking”.
Again, I said nothing whatsoever about “responsibility”. It is not a moral failure to be foolish, or to pursue obviously losing tactics.
So, you think that the Palestinians are doing well? Their current situation to your satisfaction? :dubious:
My point here is that it is hard indeed to imagine how they could be worse off than they currently are by making reasonable demands in the peace process.
In other words, you have no answer to “make reasonable demands” as a bargaining tactic. Indeed, you go so far as to label that answer as “eliding” the issue, as if no answer had even been given!
Because the things the Palestinians are doing include stuff like murder, rocket attacks, terrorism, and suicide bombings. The things that Israel is doing that Palestinian militants don’t like include not abiding by an agreement that the Palestinians rejected, and continuing to exist.
Sure it’s more complicated than that, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The Palestinians’ demands are the destruction of Israel. Shockingly, Israel will not accept those demands. EVen more shockingly, Israel considers those demands to be a reasonable starting point for negotiations, something which the United States would never do.
It’s the cause of vast human misery, it has huge religious implications, it’s related to some of the most interesting epochs in human history, from Ancient Egypt and Rome to the two World Wars, and it’s unbelievably difficult to resolve. It makes it all completely fascinating!
i.e. Radical Muslim savagery. And yes, suicide bombing IS savage; that a society encourages people to both murder others and permanently avoid responsibility by hanging out with 72 virgins is uncivilized to the max.
[QUOTE=Trinopus]
It’s the cause of vast human misery, it has huge religious implications, it’s related to some of the most interesting epochs in human history, from Ancient Egypt and Rome to the two World Wars, and it’s unbelievably difficult to resolve. It makes it all completely fascinating!
[/QUOTE]
Those “huge religious” implications are just the Muslims angry that Mecca, Medina, Qom, and 50+ countries in which they are a majority isn’t enough.
Two-faced again. Israel/Palestine is presented as a “bargaining situation” in order to blame the Palestinians for not improving the situation by “bargaining better”.
But it’s presented as a “conflict” in order to normalize oppressive/aggressive behavior by Israel, because that’s just what the winning side in a conflict is naturally going to do, because winners can do whatever they want. After all, “history has no obligation to be morally fair”.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
So, you think that the Palestinians are doing well? Their current situation to your satisfaction? :dubious:
[/quote]
Certainly not. What I said, repeatedly and very clearly, is that I’m highly skeptical of retroactive-hypothetical assertions that the Palestinians would now be better off than they are “if only” they had adopted some hypothetical “better strategy” in the pass.
And what a feeble flimsy little point that is. “If only the Palestinians had chosen a different ‘bargaining’ strategy they would almost certainly not be enduring worse than their current rightsless refugee status and progressive dispossession under military occupation of their ancestral lands!” Wow, what an enticing alternative. :rolleyes:
Thanks for making it so clear how irrelevant, in practical terms, the actual content of Palestinian demands is in the context of the Israeli government’s expansionist agenda.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
In other words, you have no answer to “make reasonable demands” as a bargaining tactic.
[/quote]
My answer, as I’ve already clearly explained several times, is that describing that as a “bargaining tactic” is disingenuous. Because there is no reason to believe that the Palestinians actually have any genuine bargaining power in this situation, no matter what kind of demands they make.
As far as practical advice to Palestinians goes, “Make reasonable demands” is on a par with “Apply for official building permits”. The Israeli government has made it clear that it isn’t going to grant building permits to Palestinians in most cases even if they do apply for them, because the governmental agenda is to keep dispossessing Palestinians in order to take over their sites for Israeli expansion. The Israeli government is going to go on pursuing that agenda whether Palestinian demands are “reasonable” or not.
“Make reasonable demands” is not a valid “bargaining tactic” when the stronger side isn’t actually engaging in bargaining. It’s just a convenient excuse to blame the weaker side for the failure to achieve a bargain.
Also merely living and farming on their ancestral lands. Palestinians are constantly harassed and displaced, and sometimes killed, by Israeli authorities and/or settlers just for doing that.
Also harassing, displacing and killing Palestinians just because they continue to exist on their ancestral lands.
But thanks for this textbook example of asymmetric presentation, in which the only thing worth mentioning about the Palestinians is that sometimes some of them commit violent attacks, while the only thing worth mentioning about Israel is that it exists as a nation-state.
Sure, if those are the only two things you happen to know about the situation, it would naturally seem obvious to you that Palestinians are entirely in the wrong and Israel is entirely in the right.
Because they tried it, and it didn’t work. Oslo. Camp David. Gaza disengagement. How many times should the Israelis make un-reciprocated gestures of peace before they can be said to have done enough?
Well, a lot of Palestinians (although not the ones we generally read about in the newspapers) have been consistently trying nonviolence and coexistence, and that hasn’t worked to stop Israeli expansion and oppression. How come the Palestinians are constantly adjured to keep conciliating their neighbors indefinitely, even as they continually get squeezed out of more and more of their ancestral lands, while the Israelis are given a pass on giving up?
[QUOTE=cmkeller]
Oslo. Camp David. Gaza disengagement. How many times should the Israelis make un-reciprocated gestures of peace before they can be said to have done enough?
[/QUOTE]
:dubious: Throughout all these alleged “un-reciprocated gestures of peace”, the expansion of Israeli control of Palestinian occupied territories has continually increased. Settler populations have been growing for decades, as has Israeli appropriation of Palestinian agricultural lands and water sources. The removal of the comparatively tiny population of a few thousand settlers from Gaza was trivial in relation to the overall increase of Israeli population in occupied territories (besides providing Israel with a clear field for periodic “mowing the grass” military operations in Gaza without having to worry about the safety of Jewish settlers).
So I think it’s reasonable to be skeptical about claims that any of these “gestures” actually constituted genuine efforts to establish sovereignty and rights for Palestinians. It seems far more realistic and less naive to judge them on the basis of what they’ve actually accomplished: i.e., enabling the long-term and continuous expansionist policy of the Israeli government in Palestinian territory, while placing the blame on Palestinians themselves for not stopping it.
I’ll admit that I haven’t studied the Israeli - Palestinian conflict in great detail, and have always had the impression that the guys shooting rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities were in the wrong, but I’d like to gain some new insight. Kimstu, quick question for you: how much land do you think Israel has stolen from the Palestinians? Are we talking about a few square miles over the last few decades? Tens of square miles? Hundreds?
:dubious: Ain’t nobody here saying they’re right to be shooting rockets, AFAICT: certainly not me, as I’ve already made it clear that I oppose violence in resisting Israeli occupation.
However, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the Israel/Palestine situation is presented as a “war” or “conflict” or “armed struggle” which entitles Israel to legitimately “conquer” or “gain” Palestinian territory and its resources, then that would seem to suggest that it’s equally legitimate for Palestinians to violently resist that conquest.
[QUOTE=HurricaneDitka]
[…] how much land do you think Israel has stolen from the Palestinians? Are we talking about a few square miles over the last few decades? Tens of square miles? Hundreds?
[/QUOTE]
Well, the term “stolen” is a contested one. Many supporters of the Israeli government object to it on the grounds that there is no sovereign Palestinian nation-state, so technically there is no entity to “steal” land from. Others argue that Israel is merely temporarily occupying and administering the territory instead of formally annexing it, so since its ultimate destiny is undetermined it’s incorrect to call it “stolen”. Others espouse the somewhat theocratic view that the Israeli state is divinely and rightfully the only legitimate occupant of the whole “Greater Israel” region in the first place, so they can’t “steal” what’s rightfully theirs.
I personally think “expansion”, “appropriation”, “settlement”, “colonization”, etc., are more descriptive of Israeli actions in the occupied territories than the emotionally freighted term “stealing”, which opens up a confusing can of worms about whom the territory actually “belongs” to and whether settlement etc. is equivalent to a claim of official ownership, etc.
The quantitative part of your question is actually a lot easier to answer. The West Bank region contains approximately 2100 square miles. The actual built-up footprints of the Israeli Jewish settlements in the region cover only about 1-2% of the land area, but estimates of their effective jurisdiction extent range from about 9% to about 42% of the total. And the region where Israeli control prohibits Palestinian use and breaks up the contiguity of Palestinian-occupied lands (military checkpoints, settler-only roads, etc.) is significantly greater, at least 60%. The actual barrier wall is projected to cut off about 10% of the West Bank territory.
East Jerusalem covers somewhere between around 5 and 25 square miles, depending on how you draw the map. AFAICT, settler enclaves cover maybe 10% of that.
You’re not alone. As long as the Palestinians were continuing to be systematically dispossessed and oppressed quietly, without any uncomfortable headline-grabbing explosions and potential Israeli deaths, a lot of people would be perfectly content with that.