Its not a done deal but there seems to be a LOT more support from one side than the other:
[quote=“Damuri_Ajashi, post:21, topic:555690”]
Sure, if they become citizens of Israel they can vote and change Israeli policy and laws. 
Israel is blockading Gaza so they don’t have to deal with Hamas, the Palestinian peoples’ democratically elected representatives. They’d much rather deal with the remnants of the PLO like Mahmoud Abbas. Guys like Abbas are part of a leadrship which got more and more corrupt over the years and now have no democratic mandate but still a great deal of control due to being the established order. As they get less and less powerful and as gangsters like Mohamed Dahlan become more powerful in the remains of Fatah then some kind of squalid deal that gives Israel everything it wants (no actual Palestinian state/borders, Palestinian disenfranchisement etc.) might be possible at some point in the future, but most likely these guys will just police the West Bank for Israel while Israel continues to build all over it.
The people of the West Bank will most likely go through a South African style situation until in two or three decades America’s dishonest brokerage of the situation ends and international pressure forces a single state. Any Israeli or legitimate Palestinian government will be far too extreme to come to any two-state solution in the meantime.
Not very well. Just read the Wikipedia Discussion page if you want a real headache; there are probably a couple thousand words back and forth just about various transliteration choices for the region’s name, and whether certain choices indicate that you are an Azeri vs. Armenian nationalist.
I swear, and people wonder why I didn’t continue on in post-Soviet ethnic studies. Might as well save the energy (and the student loans) and just bang my head against the wall repeatedly.
And a terrorist organization.
I prefer to call them a “Palestinian underground” organisation rather than a terrorist organisation. That’s the euphemism always attached to Israeli leaders who were members of terrorist groups before they were leaders of Israel. The terrorist groups they were leaders of are always described as “Jewish underground” groups, never terrorist groups. And Israel negotiating with Palestinian underground groups is a necessary precondition of any peace agreement.
[ul][li]The Two State Solution - Just like there are over 1 million Israeli citizens of Arab ancestry, we could potentially decide that settlers who want to stay in a (now independent, Palestinian-ruled) West Bank are welcome to stay and become Palestinian citizens. Those who would be willing to relocate back to Israel would be able to do so, of course.[/ul][/li]
As an Israeli, and given the profile of the average settler who would decide to stay in the West Bank even under Arab rule, I see this as a win-win proposition for Israel… :p:D
Hey, a boy can dream, can’t he…?
In his Outline of History, H.G. Wells compared the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews of ancient Canaan/Palestine/etc. to “a man who insists on living in the middle of a busy highway.”
That sums up all you need to know about Israel. 
In his Outline of History, H.G. Wells compared the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews of ancient Canaan/Palestine/etc. to “a man who insists on living in the middle of a busy highway.”*
That sums up all you need to know about Israel.
*Because for a lot of empires, it was a place you had to march through if you wanted to invade your real objective.
Sounds like Belgium.
[quote=“carnivorousplant, post:22, topic:555690”]
Yeah but my point still stands that the palestinians aren’t against a single state solution. I think hamas would even be OK witha single state solution for many of the same reasons that zionists would be against it. Israel would soon become majority no jewish and soon after that majority Muslim and Hamas undoubtedly thinks that would be good for them.
[quote=“Damuri_Ajashi, post:31, topic:555690”]
Which means it ain’t going to happen.
The settlement issue is an attempt by Israel to lure the palestinian side to the bargaining table. For years the cycle of the peace process was that the palestinians would commit terrorism, Israel would respond, and then there would ber a new round of negotiations. The negotiations would result in Israel giving up land and palestinians promising to stop the terrorism. This incentivized the Palestinians to commit more terrorism so they could use promises to stop as bargaining chips. Israel eventually wised up that it was exchanging a scarce resource (land) for an inexhaustable one (promises). The settlements give Israel a bargaining chip that is as cheap as the palestinian’s chips. Plus the growth of settlements creates a sense of crisis that puts pressure on the palestinian leadership to enter into negotiations. Uprooting settlements has been done before and in a country as small and militaristic as Israel logistics will not pose a problem.
The real problem is the divide between the PLO and Hamas.Whichever negotiates a peace with Israel will immediately be denounced as a sell out, be attacked and lose its access to Muslim cash. In order to negotiate in good faith either the PLO or Hamas needs to feel strong enough to withstand the inevitable backlash peace would cause.
Exactly where and when has this occurred?
Applying the most generous reading, there is Gaza and …?
…the Sinai Peninsula.
Sinai comes to mind, but that worked out well for Israel.
Here’s why this is an intractable problem:
99.999% of the Palestinians could hypothetically want peace, but it would only take a few idiots with a rocket launcher to screw it all up. I understand Israel’s frustration in that regard. Until the Palestinians are willing and able to police themselves (i.e., to police against terrorist attacks on their neighbor), it is hard to see how peace will be achieved and maintained.
At the same time, Israeli settlements in the West Bank aren’t helping the situation. They are only making the problem more intractable.
Gave back land … to the Palestinians. Context is everything. See Puddleglum’s post. I do not see facts that even slightly make out his/her argument that there has been a cycle which has involved returns of land.
And really Gaza is an absurd example and certainly not supportive of the Pubbleglum post.
Oslo was really the only time Israel gave back land to the palestinians, the other iterations of the peace process have involved promising to give back land. My post was reductionist.
The Sinai penninsula, Southen Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank are all indicative of the fact that Israel has been willing to give up land if it felt that it was in its best interests. That is part of the problem. No palestinian leader is going to want to walk away from a peace treaty thinking that if they had held out longer and launched a few more rockets they could have gotten a better deal. Settlements are a credible way for Israel to signal that their best offer is on the table. The impediment for a deal is someone on the palestinian side with the authority to sign the deal and the power to implement. That is why Iranian involvement complicates matters so much.
Well, that and the Israeli government actually being willing and able (and I don’t believe they’re currently either, and don’t believe they’ll ever be able) to remove the settlers from the territories in question. And then there’s the problem of Jerusalem again.