The One-State Solution

Great Debates
81

Paul:
To begin with, you can’t predict the future. You don’t know that the demographic trend will continue. Second, it would have to continue quite a long time even if it did continue. Third, some demographic predictions have shown that there won’t be a necessary Arab majority in the future, but it’s still a best-guess.

You’re taking one possible future and claiming that it’s inevitable. That’s not sound science.

True, In Europe, they were generally second class citizens but they were also subject to pogroms and the Holocaust. In the Middle East, on the other hand, they were actual Dhimmis.

Come on. Try to keep this at least basically bound in reality. They’re not hostages, and inflammatory language like that doesn’t help.

You mean, like Clinton’s Bridging Proposal?

82

Really? Can the Palestinians restrict trade into Israel the way Israel restricts trade into Palestine?

Can Russia restrict trade into Finland that way without tromping on Finn sovereignty?

Can the UK restrict trade into Ireland that way without undercutting Irish sovereignty, Finn McCool?

83

But it isn’t a question of “giving a state” to Gypsies, but rather one of insistsing that a state which already exists is a bad idea.

If Gypsies (rather, Rom) had a Romistan, then the two would be comparable … or if (say) the French had a France.

To put the question bluntly - why is France a good idea, but Israel not a good idea? Are some ethnicities suited to nation-hood, but not others? If so, why?

84

Jewish ones.

85

That would make more sense, but would Israel allow it?

86

I think yes. The more pertinent question is, “Would Egypt allow it?”, I think the answer is no. The next question is, “Why?”

87

This is getting weird.

You’re talking about the present to obfuscate the fact that a future two state solution wouldn’t have Israel controlling Palestinian trade. There is no sovereign Palestinian state. If there is in the future, Israel could not control it. There is absolutely nothing, at all, which would make it a “fact” that Israel would control a sovereign Palestinian state.

88

Clear question.

Answer: very probably.

89

Well, you bet your life.

90

:smiley: OK, you want some geopolitical theory?

An ethnicity which has already in fact uncontested overwhelming majority or dominant culture status in a given territory is remarkably well-suited to being a nation-state.

Anyone else is potentially open to arguments. Of the, “we’re taking it over & calling it ‘Myanmar’” variety. This is not a moral definition, but a practical one.

Israel before 1948: not already
Israel since 1948: not uncontested

91

So is the USA remarkably well suited to being a nation-state? What is our dominant ethnicity and culture?

92

I’m sorry, isn’t the two-state solution the status quo? Wherein we pretend that the Palestinian homeland–no wait, it is a reservation, & your denial of that is bizarre–is a real state?

If not, in what universe would an Israel primarily concerned with its own security & allow a Palestine politically dominated by revanchists to control its own borders & foreign policy? Don’t all Jews assume that the Palestinians will turn to crush them as soon as the boot comes off the neck? Even if we are not paranoid Jews afraid of all goyim, isn’t this the response to expect?

Since a Palestinian regime that is not dedicated to the reunification of Palestine would require a wholesale replacement or conversion of the Palestinian political class, isn’t this just as much a fantasy as a happy unified non-sectarian Palestine where Jews & Muslims live in harmony?

93

Anglo-Saxon.

Have you never read American history?

Nah, too big.

94

Anglo-Saxon culture effectively died in the beginning of the 12th century, in part due to the conquest of England in 1066. Middle English began to appear around 1150 or so.

Perhaps you can tell me what “Anglo-Saxon culture” means today. I am somewhat well acquainted with history, so you do not even have to use small words.

95

The problem with restitution is that, presumably, it has to be fair - that is, apply equally to Jew and Palestinian alike.

The (seldom acknowledged) fact is that the refugee problem in the Middle East went both ways - approximately equal numbers of Jews fled from other ME lands to Israel, as Palestinians fled the other way.

The Jews of course became Israeli citizens; it is these people who, in part, will be expected to pay compensation to Palestinians … yet can expect none themselves for their dispossession.

This sad irony is higlighted by the fact that the guy writing the article in the OP - Quaddaffi - is himself personally responsible for the utter demise of the Jewish community in Lybia as recently as 2002 - a fact he chooses, oddly enough, to ignore while writing persuasively that the people, some of whom he dispossessed himself, have a duty to compensate dispossessed Palestinians.
Now, it is to be acknowledged that the Mizrahim living in Israel do not necessarily require compensation to the degree that Palestinians living in refugee camps do - and why is that? Because of course their fellow-Arabs, while expressing all sorts of sympathy for their plight, are utterly unwilling to allow them to live as citizens in their countries.

96

Then there is hardly a state in Europe which would qualify, since pretty well all of them have been “contested” along ethnic lines - that being at least in part what the World Wars were about.

97

:facepalm:

So, no to having read American history then.

What it means is, we consider ourselves descended from the English, we speak English, & we use a form of English common law. We also take England’s side in World Wars, oddly enough.

Or do you think that our language & legal system were concocted ex nihilo by a couple of guys named Webster in the Eighteenth Century?

98

Is there a sovereign Palestinian state now? Are you confused on that point?
Then no, it isn’t the status quo. I’d think that was obvious. If it was the status quo, why would they be negotiating to achieve it?

Who pretends that?
You have straw on your fists.

In a world where the PA agreed to peace and enforced it?

Yeah, you know The Jews, they all think alike.
When we’re not afraid of all goyim, that is.

Every single major negotiation that’s taken place has been predicated on a two state solution. And Palestinian negotiators have, time and again, come close to a compromise.

99

I’d like some clarity here - are we saying that the ONLY just solution to this problem is to give Palestinians full right of return, and make one big nation-state called Palestine with Palestinians having full voting rights?

If so, you can take it off the table. It will never happen. The Israelis would be cutting their own throats. If the Palestinians wouldn’t be in the majority today, they soon would be because their natural birth rates are about 3 times the Israeli’s. The Jews would be putting themselves at the mercy of people who have sworn to wipe them of the face of the planet, and would be giving up the very autonomy that caused them to found Israel in the first place.

So if we take that off the table as being impossible, what does a ‘just’ solution look like? Short of that, what are the Palestinians willing to settle for?

I ask because in the case of Gaza, Israel gave them every opportunity to start again and build a viable nation. They pulled settlers out (at great political cost domestically), and left behind a whole bunch of infrastructure as a good will gesture. Is there any doubt that if the Palestinians had responded in kind, renouncing violence in the spirit of good faith, working to rebuild the infrastructure, forming trade relationships and trying to build an economy, that there was a foothold towards a real, viable two-state solution?

But that’s not what happened. Hamas was elected, and the response to Israel’s olive branch was hundreds of rockets being launched into Israel. As the old saying goes, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. For decades they’ve been responding to peaceful overtures by Israel with violence and threats to kill all the Jews. Under those conditions, Israel’s hands are tied. All it can do is what it’s doing - the occasional military action to stomp out a threat when it gets too severe, and otherwise trying to get on with life.

I put the vast majority of the blame for this situation squarely on the Palestinians, and some on the Arab states that have used them as pawns to inflame hatred of Israel for their own purposes.

Israel has acted with remarkable restraint towards the Palestinians. The typical response to these kinds of problems by most countries is to use overwhelming force to completely crush the opposition and break the spirit of the people. The Arab countries dealt with their ‘Palestinian Problem’ by simply rounding them all up and expelling them from their countries. We’ve seen how the Russians deal with Chechnya, and even Georgia when it got a little uppity.

This problem has gone on as long as it has because the Israelis are good people who are not willing to use their overwhelming might to implement a ‘final solution’. They’re trying to find a third way against an overwhelmingly hostile foe.

100

And in other news, Hannibal Lecter is promoting a new regional cuisine.

From today’s USA Today article on Hamas’ resilience:

*From his perch, the result of the war is clear: The Hamas militant group to which (Gaza City Police Captain) el-Shami belongs is battered, but still in charge of the Palestinian territory of Gaza — and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

“No one can take the government from us,” says el-Shami, 42. “It’s ours forever.”*

Yes, the basis of democracy would no doubt be respected by all parties in a single state. :dubious: