Yeah, but when a state leader signs a treaty, wouldn’t you expect him (or her) to consider the future, and not just the immediate present?
Without preconditions, those deals are all dead on arrival. Israel wouldn’t accept a deal with preconditions they didn’t want, and neither should the Palestinians. It doesn’t matter if Israel internally agreed that there are lines they won’t cross, but heading into negotiations trumpeting those lines is not going to get very far.
Yes, you said it didn’t work. There is no other takeaway from statements such as:
“Appeasement is usually peaceful . . . . at least at first.” or "You can’t make a lasting peace with an aggressor. The best you can hope for is a temporary cessation of hostilities. "
If I were to take that sincerely, I would get from your own statements that appeasement works temporarily sometimes but always ends up with more violence, so it shouldn’t be used. So unless you’re saying that appeasement is bad policy but works sometimes (inferring then that it can’t always be bad policy because sometimes it works), then you have basically tried to move the goalposts back so far that the word has lost all meaning. Just admit you screwed up ok? You were deep in the talking points of typical conservative BS that says appeasement never works until given examples of when it does. If you cannot be honest with yourself, then there’s no reason to continue this discussion
In this case, Israel should “appease” the Palestinians. It will work because their realistic goal is statehood, so giving them that allows them the legitimacy of success, and a successful state doesn’t simply commit suicide.
That’s not even a response to my statement. But since you’re only answering for Israel, then yes, to my knowledge Israel has never dropped some of the silly preconditions for talks like recognizing the state as a Jewish state (as opposed to just a state) or allowing Palestine to have its own military
Sure, which one of the choice quotes from the current Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman do you want? The one about drowning Palestinian prisoners in the sea or carpet bombing Ramallah? The man is nuts and yet he’s their FM. How about suggesting that Egypt’s Aswan Dam be bombed? The man’s hatred is such that he suggested that any legislators within Israel’s own house be executed like those at Nuremberg. There are plenty of people in Israel who would kill the Palestinians if they had the power. We already know they want to, but they know they cannot weather the international response if they do. Claiming, like you did, that if Israel wanted them dead they would be so is an extraordinary bit of bias
Are you disputing that Israel has never actively subjugated the Palestinians in which a UN resolution was drafted or voted on?
And I am not interested in someone who pretends like Palestine isn’t a region at all. The only thing I can take from your points were that either you have been living in a cave for a very long time, or you are going to attempt to claim that any territory that I define as Palestinian doesn’t exist, or is illegitimate, and thus no debate is necessary because there’s no Palestinian land. Go to Google and type the word Palestine in it and we can have a basis for debate. Otherwise :rolleyes:
Moving tanks into Gaza a few years ago ring a bell? Leveling apartment buildings because a suspected terrorist leader was believed to have been inside? Maybe you liked it when they bulldozed homes of terrorists who still had family living there, or built a wall or a settlement in disputed land so they can claim it first
Despite your attempt to make it simple, the real world is not so black and white. Yes, some countries were less hostile, some not. Your mistake is seeing the entire past 60 or so years as 2 dichotomies with a dividing line somewhere in the middle. In fact, I can say that Egypt is more hostile to Israel than before, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Egypt and Israel went through more than one skirmish and war, but things change and hostilities ebb. With different leaders, Egypt became more or less friendly, and different events caused the relationship between the two countries to change. Under Sadat, Egypt and israel had its first peace. But in the decades afterwards, under Mubarak and now Morsi, the country reacts to each action by Israel differently.
Israel will win friends and good will if they do not mistreat the Palestinians. If they bomb them indiscriminately, or wages a war of aggression with, let’s say Iran, then those countries will react negatively. The only way Israel can win good will is by treating the Palestinians humanely
You still haven’t told me if he’s knife-proof
And you dispute that Israel have a dream of putting an end to Palestine?
One should probably be ready with a cite if one were to use it as if it were real. If you’re going to cite it, then you support it first. Otherwise, why should I believe that’s even a real quote? This back and forth over what I believe about the quote is simply you trying to backpedal on something you claimed was true. Either it is or it isn’t, so if it is, produce the cite.
WTF?! :dubious:
Show us the math, please.
Sure, but if Israel becomes majority-Muslim at some time in the future, that will be like America becoming majority-nonwhite – it does not mean the end of the founding generations’ white-Anglo culture, the culture still will have the shape they gave it, and it will be a gradual process showing mostly in statistics (including election results), and everybody will have plenty of time to get used to it. In Israel’s case, the scales tipping to a Muslim majority in the Knesset does not lead to an immediate wave of resolutions to find solutions to the Jewish Problem, etc.
I disagree.
- It has a very slim chance of actually happening given the fertility rates of the Palestinians.
- It would be immoral and simply wrong.
- Not to mention - quite impractical given the international state of mind.
Careful. He “banned” me for challenging this.
May I respectfully suggest you update your knowledge?
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And that’s not recent enough for you:
Forget fantasies of ethnic cleansing, the problem is simpler and less fantastic, and does not rely on any party being composed of slavering savages. The notion of welding two mutually hostile ethnicities together in one country is impractical. A nation is, at base, only workable where major segments of the population of that nation has some loyalty to it.
In America, that loyalty is directed, at least in part, to its institutions rather than to its founding ethnic group(s) - the Constitution, the rule of law, etc. That’s why people of all sorts can very easily immigrate and become “Americans”, and have a fellow-feeling with other “Americans”, no matter what creed or ethnicity. It of necessity means putting that loyalty above loyalty to whatever their original loyalties were. That, and the fact that immigrants come as individuals and have made the individual choice to come to America. It would be asking a bit much if, say, America invaded Iraq and asked Iraqis to forget all their previous ethnic and national loyaties and become “Americans” because America has great institutions.
In the case of the Palestinians on the WB and Gaza, they already have loyalties - they have been formed over decades of conflict. It is simply asking too much of human nature to require them to give up those loyalties and embrace loyalty to foreign institutions like the Knesset, and the rule of Israeli law.
Yet without such loyalty, a country cannot work. What you would get is de facto two countries, mutually antagonistic, with no over-arching loyatly capable of spanning the divide - Reublicans and Democrats in the US may hate each other like poison, but at base both are still loyal to the ideals and institutions of “America”, and without that “…at base …”, the country would not function.
Ok, if you want.
My belief is that the Palestinians continue to attack only so long as they are a stateless organization under Israeli control. If they had their own state, then proper rules of war would apply and any attacks over the border can be met with proper resistance. That cannot happen while Palestine remains a concept and not a state. If Israli’s patrol Gaza or the West Bank, it is they who are in charge of the security, not the Palestinians. Any failure to prevent attacks is a fault of those who attempt to maintain control but fail (note that the attacks itself is the fault of the attacker, I’m not blaming Israel for the rocket attacks, merely the failure to prevent them so long as they control that region like a colony).
With statehood, there is unequivocal independence. All matters of security, defense and offense, are in Palestinian hands. Israel can wash their hands of the matter completely. That way, if and when there is an attack, the likes of Hamas will have more to lose, plus the fault will be 100% theirs because hey, its their damn country now. Everyone knows that what happens within your own borders is your responsibility. If Mexican gangs launched rockets into Texas or Arizona, and their government can’t do anything about it, then the US would properly be in the right in launching an attack. But if there was no Mexico and just roving gangs outside San Diego, in an area where the US still has its presence, then you cannot blame “Mexico” for the attacks, its our fault we can’t get tight security there.
And that’s the problem with blaming the Palestinians all the time. Sure, they should be able to keep a hold on their own people, but they have to smuggle in goods to survive. Meanwhile Israel undermines their elected government with border walls and settlements, and then dictates what they can and cannot do, and now is withholding tax revenue from their government. Without an independent state, they cannot even begin to contain every faction. Its so easy to get a rocket, fire it over the border, and suddenly the entire Palestinian people get the blame, thus escalating the conflict. That is why it is in Israel’s interest to cede all of Palestine to them and allow them full independence. That gives them legitimacy, gives them responsibility, and allows Israel to hold them accountable for atrocities as a nation instead of as a loose collection of rebels.
It is ironic that you claim democracy properly takes account of its citizens’ desires and at the same time withhold or limit democracy because you’re afraid of its results. Do you find that a contradiction, or do you not see it?
Anyway, I think the demand of a “Jewish” state puts the responsibility in the hands of people who have no power to exercise it. Israel is basically saying “Promise us we’ll always be Jewish” but its not like the Palestinians have control over that. Now of course I tend to be more pragmatic, and have no problems with apologizing where its not deserved simple to achieve a goal. I think Palestinians should simply say yes to that proposition and go about their merry way, but apparently they don’t agree.
I think the whole right of return issue can be settled with compromises on both sides, where Israel can agree to a nominal population and no more. Eventually though, if the Muslims within their own state starts to outnumber them, then its really only Israel’s own fault. They just gotta have more babies.
Here’s my thing about the settlements. When you have two sides trying to reach a negotiation, the final borders should be based on where you reach from the beginning of the bargaining. Israel, by building settlements, is essentially saying that they are going to keep encroaching on Palestine while negotiations are going on, thus negating the starting point with every building. Its basically like if Israel is telling the Palestinians “Every hour this negotiation drags on, we’ll claim another piece of land”. Those are not honest and equal negotiations. Israel is using their power to force concessions where there aren’t any, and that’s why it is a complete non-starter. If Palestinians said that if negotiations aren’t reached in a week, they get Tel-Aviv, that would be the same thing. All land grabs should stop, and should have stopped a while ago. Every settlement that is built cannot be the starting point
I think most, at least non-Israel, outside parties think that the logical beginning is the 1967 borders. Do you think that is a good starting point?
Yes, I might be thousands of miles away, but there is value in an objective eye. Let’s say we continue on the path we’re going down now, Israel rejects every effort by the Palestinians to get a deal and continues to encroach with settlements. Is it your belief that this is a better solution than a proposed 2-state solution? What bothers me in a lot of these topics is that people say they can’t accept the current situation, but then they can’t accept a proposed 2 state solution either. When asked how they’d resolve it, they say either something unrealistic like “the other side gives up completely” or they have no answer. So let me ask you, realistically, how would you LIKE this to resolve given that you’re not simply going to get the other side to give up all their claims. My argument has always been that the world’s changed and if you have to give up some blood and money and fight some battles now to ensure a long-term peace later, then its worth it
Not without preconditions.
You know, there is just a small bit of history to suggest the Jews are not the world’s most popular ethnic minority. Expressing “WTF?” at the notion is kind of like being surprised that water is wet. I mean, I’m just going by the world’s track record here.
You’re comparing oranges and apples.
- Has any part of the American non-whites put forward his goal as the annihilation of the whites from America?
- America has had hundreds of years already to establish its identity. Israel had 64. The tip-over could happen very quickly, especially given that some Israelis would prefer leaving a state headed towards being an Arab state.
- Israel was declared and founded as a Jewish state for a reason. a majority-Muslim Israel would not be Israel except by name.
It may be the time (it’s 1:15 AM here), but I don’t get your point. Please explain.
What are you talking about?
Such a comment migt be relevant if you’d proposed the one state solution follow the American, French, or Lebanese model, but you, rather oddly insisted they follow “the Israeli model.”
As you’re presumably aware, following “the Israeli model” would insure a permanent Jewish majority in the Knesset and ensure that the Palestinians would have no one to vote for since you forced them into a stated based on “the Israeli model”.
You are aware that in Israel only government approved parties can put up candidates for office and that they are forbidden from either “advocating racism” and are compelled to recognize Israel as the Sovereign State of the Jewish people, aren’t you.
This is an extremely bizzare comment to make to my question regarding how you’d reconcile your proposed “one state solution” with Palestinian nationalism and Zionism. Since you advocate using “the Israeli model” you’re keeping it a Zionist state with a permant and overwhelming Jewish majority in the Knesset with a school system where Arab schools are deliberately underfunded, where they’re kept out of the army and face severe housing and employment discrimination, where Palestians are forced to give up their national identity, where they’re denied their flag but have to salute one with the Star of David on it, where they’re forced to have Hativka as a national anthem(I presume you know why they’d object to that).
What you’re proposing is easily compatible with Zionist thought.
Moreover it’s completely incompatible with Palestinian nationalism.
In fact, suggesting a “one state solution” based on “the Israeli model” makes little sense from anyone who cared about the Palestinians or their plight.
Ah, so this is your response to the question what would the flag of this new state look like, which to anyone familiar with either this situation or South Africa, would know to be significant.
Translation: “I don’t really care about the situation, I just like making provocative comments that strike me as witty.”
Huh? How would there be “a Muslim majority in the Knessest”?:dubious:
You said your state would follow “the Israeli model” not the American or French model?
You are aware political parties need to be “politically correct” in Israel in order to be eligible and what that entails.
Furthermore, in response to such a state happening, don’t you think the Knesset would immediately pass that law Minister Lieberman and Yisrael Bietenyu have been proposing?
I assume you know the one I’m talking about.
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The first link blames the breakdown of negotiations on the Palestinian precondition that settlement construction cease. I believe that is a reasonable demand to make, so no updating necessary. To me, it seems like we’re taking this at face value, that its Palestine’s precondition so why are they asking for one when Israel can’t? But every issue has at least 2 sides, and one can rightly look at it from the opposite side and say that Israel’s precondition to talks is that they are allowed to continue settlements. Viewed that way, its Israel who’s making the precondition.
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Your second link says much of the same, and again the Israeli side is pushing for their precondition of allowing the settlements to go on. Unlike the Palestinians who have little power in this case, Israel can ask for talks and continue settlements, and make the Palestinians look like bad guys for not agreeing to talk since they can’t stop Israel from building settlements. I wonder what Israel’s response would be if Palestinian trucks and bulldozers moved across the border and started building houses and refused to stop?
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Third link actually supports my contention that Israel doesn’t want to talk unless its recognized as a Jewish state. I think that’s really a non-starter. The Palestinian Authority can recognize Israel as a state, what happens in its own borders is not their concern, and quite frankly beyond the scope of their powers to enforce. There’s no reason that Israel needs to be recognized as a “Jewish” state any more than the US is a “White” state and France is a “Cheese” state.
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And last, link really doesn’t say anything new. Netanyahu can say he doesn’t want preconditions, but if he continues to build settlements, then that is not an honest negotiation.
What I would like to see is 2 things prior to talks: Recognition that Palestine has recognized Israel as a state for almost 2 decades already without the need to see it as a Jewish state, and a stoppage of all settlements from now until such time in the future as a 2 state solution has been established.
Assuming this is true, so what? It doesn’t change the fact that the Arabs have had plenty of peaceful options which would give them far more than your ridiculous strawman scenario.
:shrug: That’s not quite what I said although I admit it’s pretty close. I will say that under the more specific definition of appeasement which I provided a few posts back, that it cannot work.
I admit that my definitions could have been more precise. Under the definition I provided a few posts back, I will say that appeasement cannot work. I will also say that you have not demonstrated that the examples you provided are “appeasement.”
It will not because their goal is not statehood and never has been – their goal is that there should not be a Jewish state.
I have even provided you with a quote from a senior Palestinian Arab leader who flat out admitted that the goal was the end of Israel. You have not denied that this is a legitimate quote.
Did you listen to Netanyahu’s 2011 UN speech where he specifically offered to start negotiations with Abbas right then and there?
It’s your choice – not mine. Please show me proof of your extraordinary claim that the Israeli leadership wants the Palestinian Arabs to die.
Failing that, admit that you are wrong.
Not at all. If the Arabs had the power to end Jewish Israel, they would do so tomorrow. When you claimed that Israel wanted the Arabs to die, I assumed you meant the same thing – that if they had the power, they would do it.
Well there you go. The fact is that it does not matter one whit whether Israel moves tanks in or out of Gaza. The world is hostile towards Israel regardless. Moving tanks into a hostile territory is an excuse – not a reason.
My question says nothing about knives. I will ask one last time:
Do you or do you not concede that one can often make pretty good guesses about peoples motives and intentions based on their words and actions?
I can’t answer that since I do not know what you mean by “Palestine.” I will ask you to define it one last time. Your choice.
Also, please answer my question:
Do you or do you not dispute that the Arabs have a dream of putting an end to Jewish Israel?
Perhaps. But I have my own rules of debate: I don’t provide cites for things unless the person I am engaged with represents that they are seriously skeptical. That way, people can’t waste my time and energy and distract from the issues at hand with bad faith requests for cites.
Perhaps you shouldn’t. If you were to produce a quote from Netanyahu stating that he wants all of the Arabs to die, I would tell you that I am seriously skeptical and I would like a cite.
Are you seriously skeptical or not?
I have to admit finding it absolutely hilarious that someone who’s knowledge of the region is so anemic that he honestly believes that within a generation or two Jews on the West Bank, due to their “fertility rates” will outnumber the Palestinians on the West Bank, and who’s understanding of the region is so embarrassingly lacking that he demands proof that Hamas was highly influential and powerful in Gaza prior to Israel withdrawing the settlers from the region that he’s demanding people produce “cites” and proof what is common knowledge, yet he shits himself in anger when people ask him for a cite for a rather extreme quote of a Palestinian source and declares he will not provide unless the person shows that they are “seriously skeptical”.
I’m willing to bet, based on his displays of rather embarrassing ignorance of the conflict that his source for the quote is either Palestinian Media Watch, Jihadwatch, a similar website, or something that’s citing one of those websites, or(at this point I’m having fun) something that citing a website that’s citing one of those websites.
Perhaps, Brazzy will prove me wrong, but I seriously doubt it.
One last thing, Brazil84, with your permission, I’d like to share your insistence that Jews in the West Bank will outnumber Palestinians in the West Bank within a few decades with others, because some colleagues have insisted that no one would be so unknowledgeable to make such a claim.
Also, would you mind answering a question posed by a friend and colleague? She’d like to know if you’re Jewish because she insists no Jew would make such a claim. I think she’s being unfair, but would you mind answering the question.
For the record, if you’re actually a gentile that’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m one too.
Except that what he really aims at, is a “one Palestinian state solution”.
The fertility rate of the Palestinian Arabs is steadily declining. The fertility rate of West Bank settlers is high and increasing. If these trends continue, the West Bank will be majority Jewish sooner or later.
I don’t see why.
I don’t see this either. The world hates Israel regardless of what Israel does or does not do. All this stuff about tanks in Gaza, settlements, separation fences, and so forth are just excuses. The world might condemn these things, but subconsciously what they are really thinking is “Stop being Jewish at me!!”
To follow up on this point, can you tell me what moral principle would be violated if Israel were to annex the West Bank like it annexed the Golan Heights and the Eastern part of Jerusalem?
ETA: It looks to me like the only difference is that the West Bank has too many Arabs relative to the rest of Israel’s population to absorb and offer citizenship at this point.
Do you have anything to support this gut feeling of yours?
At least as far as Gaza is concerned, Israel does not patrol it.
The situation in Gaza states otherwise.
Israel withdrew from Gaza. The Palestinians held an election, and voted Hamas into power. Attacks from Gaza into Israel are a daily issue in the past years. And still, when Israel retaliates, the world at large blames Israel.
The lack of proper army cannot be held as an excuse here. An army is supposed to protect a state from outside enemies, not from in-house gang. For that, there is a police force. And Hamas has a police force.
No, they smuggle stuff in in order to prepare rockets and such.
You are mixing WB and Gaza quite freely. Israel indeed has a defensive fence and settlements in the WB, and to some degree dictates what the people there may or may not do.
In Gaza, though, Israel maintains zero presence. It protects its borders, and checks to make sure firearms are not brought into a territory held by a regime whose stated purpose is to annihilate Israel. But no walls or fences, no settlements, no dictating internal affairs. And the result?
How exactly is it contradictory? The current citizens in any democracy have a say about the future of their country. Non citizens do not. And if the question at hand is if to allow non citizens to become citizens, and thus to democratically change the nature of the state, the current citizens have every right to refuse.
Well, obviously you do not read the subtext. Israel does not want future Palestine to guarantee Jewish majority. But Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, indicates they forgo their claim for a “united Palestine” on the ruins of the Jewish state of Israel. And the fact they refuse, says a lot about their true intent.
That is besides the point. The point is if the Palestinians are really after a two-state solution, one of which being Jewish Israel (as it is now), or merely intent to use it as a stepping stone toward a one Palestinian state (or maybe two… with Gaza being the second).
I basically agree with you. This is why I, as an Israeli, don’t support the settlements.
However, to even things out, you should bear in mind that at various points in the past, Israel froze the settlements extension as a gesture of good will, proposed solutions that would entail evacuation of many settlements, and suggested going into peace talks without preconditions. The Palestinians have always refused.
Like the saying goes, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Shame.
Well, many would say that the logical starting point is were things stand now, not some historical point. but even if I’ll take your POV, I’ll have to say that even is that is the starting point, then the caveat should be made that if it is a starting point toward the takeover of the rest of Israel, then no. One should not disregard the fact that in the 45 years since 1967, many things have changed… and cannot be unmade with the wave of a hand.
And a final point, just for historical purposes. The PLO that had developed into the current PA, was formed in 1964, with the purpose of the annihilation of Israel.
First, I reject your premise that it is the Palestinians who make efforts, and it is Israel who reject it.
But on a more general note - when two sides negotiate, neither side is supposed to give up completely. And that, to the dismay of the Palestinians, include the Israeli side. Agreement can be reached if the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA) is not empty. If it is, it is possible that an agreement simply cannot be reached.
Well, some definition of terms is in order.
observe - from the Cambridge dictionary
So, a precondition is a condition put forward before the negotiations. Since the proposal of statehood were presented to the Palestinians during negotiations,
they were not preconditions, but rather simply conditions. Which is valid during negotiations.