The One-State Solution

[FinnAgain]

And of course, that should be “including but not limited to”. Ah well. A post that long and only one typo? I consider myself lucky.

[clairobscur]

@FinnAgain

Clair: again, you show a rather odd and one sided view of history. If they’re largely kept in refugee camps because the various Arab nations won’t let them out, why does Israel owe them reparations? Why aren’t you asking Lebanon to pay reparations to Palestinians in Lebanon?

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back.

And they haven’t been condemned to a life in a refugee camp solely by Israel or the Arabs. You’re making claims in a vacuum and ignoring history. Part of the reason that there isn’t a sovereign Palestine is largely because Palestinian leaders have missed many opportunities. Israel should be financially liable for that, too?

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back.

And no, you don’t seem to be particularly consistent since, in context, this was a regional conflict and you want to resolve various bits of it piecemeal, or not at all (I believe you suggested petitioning certain regimes as a viable strategy, which would amount to no solution in a great many cases).

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back. It should solve this part of the problem. And again petitioning Israel didn’t do squat, either.

The point, and one that Malthus made well, is that in context great population shifts have often occurred as the result of war and the precedent, time and again, was that there wasn’t compensation.

Great! And there were invasions, massacres and plundering too in the past. Why don’t we follow this tradition, indeed?

And, additionally, that the Jews’ confiscated property could be used to pay fund the Palestinians’ economic development. As long as the past wrongs of the 1948 conflict are being addressed, they should be addressed in toto so as to come to a lasting solution. Focusing on only one group while, effectively, saying to another “I dunno, go piss in the wind about it” is not just.

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back. They deserve to be compensated for that, and there’s no need to wait until an agreement about borders or other such things is reached to give them this compensation.

You’ve also ignored the fact that, by your own standards, the Palestinians have to pay reparations for the crimes their leadership committed. You want even recent immigrants to Israel to have to pay reparations to the Palestinians, but have not spared a word about how by those same standards, the Palestinians should have to pay reparations for their own leadership’s actions during the Mandate period. Why have you ignored this?

And what about the Israelis paying for their actions during the Mandate period too? The Zionists were all saints and never did any wrong, maybe?

And no, the previous issues have not been ‘settled’. They were simply tabled. People, collectively, lost vast sums of money and property. There was no settlement, it was simply taken as the ‘cost of doing business’. And yet again, you point to Palestinians being in camps as a reason why Israel alone owes them money. And yet, it was Arab regimes and the Palestinian’s own leadership who have also kept them in camps, both de facto and de jure.

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back. And call it whatever you want, Muslim Indians aren’t currently being driven out of India, nor living in refugee camps. Palestinians are currently still in refugee camps. That’s a problem that needs addressing now because it’s still there.

And you haven’t seen a Jewish refugee camp because Israel absorbed the cost of their repatriation. There were, in fact, Jewish refugee camps in Israel for quite some time before they could all be settled. I’m not sure why your double standards would say that they don’t deserve reparations because someone already had to pay to resettle them.

Israel chose to let Jews in. Palestinians aren’t responsible for the harm that have been caused to them somewhere else by somebody else, nor responsible for Israel decision to accommodate them. And, pray tell, tell me again where I said Jews didn’t deserve reparations?

Your request for a ‘counter thread’ is also a bit disingenuous, don’t you think? Are you really unaware that in the global context, there is a massive and substantial movement for either the Palestinian “right of return” or for reparations, but the Jews who were displaced by the same conflict are very, very rarely mentioned?

You understood perfectly well what I meant. I’ll repeat again : Palestinians are still in refugee camps. It’s all over the news. Jewish refugees aren’t. So, it’s not in the news, and nobody talk about them. Convince the newscasters to have a full coverage about the Jewish refugees every day if you have a problem with that. Or open your own thread about the issue, indeed, instead of hinting at people having a double standard because they don’t talk all day long about the woes of Jews 50 years ago and instead talk about the woes of the Palestinians today.

On the issue of land ownership and property rights, the fact is that waste land and Miri land was state owned, not privately owned. Not ever. Only Mulk was privately owned. And the vast majority of Palestinians lived on Miri, not Mulk. That made them renters. As the regional sovereign fell, and the next regional sovereign relinquished control and there was never a sovereign Palestinian state on that land, there is no ownership claim to Miri land based on property laws. Miri land that Israel annexed, as it is a sovereign power, became Israeli state land. These are just facts. As should be obvious, Jews were not the ruling power of the Ottoman Empire, or the British Empire, and thus were not the lords-of-the-land while Palestinians were still living on Miri.

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back. That’s what matter. Whether or not they were owning their fields, leasing them, or were simply beggars is irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I asked a question designed to get you to honestly answer what rights you believe a non-owner of land has if they’re not allowed to live on that land. In my case, because I rent an apartment, I used that example. Your response was a non sequitor at best. Would you care to answer, then, as to what rights non-ownership of land confers to renters who aren’t able to live on it?

Your answer was a non-sequitur. You were comparing people expelled from the land they lived in with tenants. If your landlord asks you to leave your apartment, do you expect to have to leave your country as well?

In case you’ve missed it : They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back. Their status as landowners, renters or even prostitutes is irrelevant. They weren’t guests in what is now Israel. They weren’t renters of the country that could be expelled at a whim. That was their land. Israel decided to not let them come back to their land. Israel must compensate them for the hardships they went through as a result of Israel decision.

ETA : In case you didn’t notice, I’m tired with repeating myself

[FinnAgain]

@clairobscur

They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back.

So you’ve invented a right to land ownership which doesn’t exist and never existed, continually pretend that land which wasn’t owned was “their” land, pretended that the Palestinians were “expelled” when the majority simply fled, displayed a myopic bias so fierce that you can only blame Israel for the Palestinians being in refugee camps when the Arab nations which were the homes of the “Palestinains” only a handfull of years before 1948 won’t let them back in, and ignored the fact that the Palestinians’ own government has kept them in camps by scuttling peace deals and by deliberately fighting all attempts at resettlement.

Since you refuse to keep your claims factual, rational or accurate, and since you have taken to endlessly repeating fictions, I’m not going to waste time with this farce.

[E-Sabbath]

Random comment that I keep meaning to make before these threads get too ugly… and I never get in, in time.

What’s wrong with a three-state solution? Gaza, West Bank, and Israel? It’d at least allow for some peace.

[An_Gadai]

@FinnAgain

Or all of Ireland should be part of Great Britain, because it’s diversity and diversity is AWESOME.

Pedantry strikes again. None of Ireland is part of Great Britain. Great Britain is an island linked politically to part of Ireland in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

@E-Sabbath

Random comment that I keep meaning to make before these threads get too ugly… and I never get in, in time.

What’s wrong with a three-state solution? Gaza, West Bank, and Israel? It’d at least allow for some peace.

It does seem to be getting ugly. Sorry about that; people get excited.

Now that I have wandered around Wikipedia a bit on this, there is long-standing discussion of a three-way split. It might work I suppose.

But it still leaves a bunch of Arabs sitting on the narrow neck of Israel. On the other hand, if we could imagine peaceful Arabs and Jews living together in one state, why would it be unreasonable to imagine them as peaceful neighbors in two or three states?

Any real solution comes from somehow reaching a point where the people in the region no longer wish to fight.

Given the enviable pressures of population, Israel needs to do something to get to that point rather quickly. The status quo is not sustainable.

[DSeid]

Three state may end up as an interim solution. Hamas may stay committed to its goal of Israel obliteration and a deal may be struck with the PA in the West Bank alone. But eventually they’ll come around. Gaza making it on its own as a state seems a unlikely prospect.

I would like to note my own fantasy for the longer term. A strong federation between independent Israel, West Bank Palestine, and Gaza Palestine. This would enable each group to achieve their own national identity goals, while sharing resources devoted to regional development and concerns (water, energy, industrial development, etc.)

Getting there is a longer term prospect however that will necessitate first having independent states that build trust and realize the benefits of regional federation. Imposing it as a solution prematurally, before such trust-building has occurred, would be dooming the concept to failure.

[clairobscur]

It’s surprising you’re able to misunderstand or misrepresent such a simple sentence that I repeated 6 times or so. Again, for comparison :

“They were living in what is now Israel. They had every right to stay there. They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back.”

@FinnAgain

So you’ve invented a right to land ownership which doesn’t exist and never existed, continually pretend that land which wasn’t owned was “their” land,

Where are the words “land ownership”, in my sentence, again?

Yes. That was their land, not because they were owners, but because they were living there. In the same way France is my land not because I’m an owner, since I’m not, but because I live there. I said so much a number of times, while you kept obfuscating this issue by discussing land ownership.

pretended that the Palestinians were “expelled” when the majority simply fled,

Where is the word “expelled” in my sentence, again? I wrote : “They’re in refugee camps because Israel didn’t let them back”. Did Israel let them back? I didn’t think so.

displayed a myopic bias so fierce that you can only blame Israel for the Palestinians being in refugee camps when the Arab nations which were the homes of the “Palestinains” only a handfull of years before 1948 won’t let them back in,

I think the reasons why I blame Israel are clear. “They were living there, etc…” The majority didn’t come in a handful of years before, and even those had the same right to stay as the Israelis who came in a handful of years before, and certainly more than Israelis who came in a handful of years after.

and ignored the fact that the Palestinians’ own government has kept them in camps by scuttling peace deals and by deliberately fighting all attempts at resettlement.

Which didn’t prevent Israel from at least indemnifying those people for the harm done. But of course, Israel never admitted that it did anything wrong. Israel can’t be left off the hook for a situation it caused because others didn’t help or even aggravated the situation. If I end up homeless because of your actions, you aren’t absolved because nobody else let me crash at his place, or even because someone beat the crap out of me while I live in the street. You caused the situation, you’re responsible for it.

And when did Israel attempt resettlement of the civilians who had left their land in their land, that is, in Israel? It never did, because it wanted them out,and, as I wrote “didn’t let them back”. Israel faulted them by doing so. It owes them for this reason.

Since you refuse to keep your claims factual, rational or accurate, and since you have taken to endlessly repeating fictions, I’m not going to waste time with this farce.

Fair enough.

[zamboniracer]

@mswas

I think we should give back the land America stole from the Native Americans.

mswas, I note your home is listed as Manhattan, so this is perfect. As a pilot project, why don’t you go first and convince all of your millions of neighbors on Manhattan Island to go first and give their lands back to the Native Americans, so they can convert all the big buildings into casinos!

[BrainGlutton]

BTW: Is any political party in Israel, or any political faction among the Palestinians, pushing for a one-state solution?

[BrainGlutton]

Everybody in this thread seems to agree that the Palestinian birthrate is higher than the Israeli-Jewish birthrate and likely to remain so – but why is that?

[Paul_in_Qatar]

I’m thinking it’s the sex.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Everybody in this thread seems to agree that the Palestinian birthrate is higher than the Israeli-Jewish birthrate and likely to remain so – but why is that?

I think it’s on par with the Haredim, but generally Israel is more first world and liberal, therefore a lot more condom use and such. Liberalism is generally a fairly infertile ideology. Palestine on the other hand is pretty thoroughly traditional so they breed as much as possible.

[Sitnam]

@BrainGlutton

@Sitnam

I think Qaddafi’s sly point is, if the West is determined that religion shouldn’t dictate who holds sway in nation states, and the West is so proud of their melting pots, why not coerce an ally of the West to accept the same situation. The author I think realizes it’s abserd to believe Israel will do this, instead his OP/Ed is directed at the West and asks why we do not hold our ally to the same standards we hold ourselves.

Fair enough. Let’s (the U.S.) invade Israel and force them to accept a one-state solution! Call it “Operation Shotgun Wedding”!

Yeah, but Qaddafi’s statement was no more advice than “go fuck your mother” is advice.

[DSeid]

@BrainGlutton

Everybody in this thread seems to agree that the Palestinian birthrate is higher than the Israeli-Jewish birthrate and likely to remain so – but why is that?

From my previous post #42 was this link that discussed the issues.

Lower education level and lower SES generally correlate with higher birthrates. The rise of Arab Israelis educational level and SES drives birthrate down some. The “national conflict” OTOH apparently raises birthrate some in both populations. Few expect Palestinian education level and SES to reach Jewish Israeli levels anytime soon.

birth rates in the Jewish sector have remained very stable: from 3.5 births at the establishment of the state, the average rate has slowly and quietly dropped to the current 2.6 births (with a brief leap to four births in the early 1950s, when large Jewish families arrived from the Muslim countries).

Fertility trends in the non-Jewish sectors, by contrast, have undergone dramatic shifts. When the state was established, the average birth rate among Muslims was eight births per woman. In the sixties the figure leaped to 10 births; today it stands at 4.6 births. The Druze population began with an average of seven births per woman; the figure rose to eight in the sixties and is now 8.2 per woman. Only the Christians, who began with an average rate of 4.5 births, now fall below the Jewish average with 2.3 births per woman.

This trend of a rise followed by a drop is therefore found in all of the groups, and most markedly among the non-Jews. The demographers attribute it to the diverse effects of the modernization process. In the short term, modernization boosts fertility (mostly thanks to improved health care), but in the long run its various aspects - the move into cities and cramped apartments, women’s employment outside the home, the desire for more disposable income - causes a significant drop in birth rates.

In both the Jewish and the Muslim case, by the way, the birth rate is high relative to the standard of living. DellaPergola compared the Israeli gross domestic product figures to those of countries with similar fertility levels. He found that the fertility level of Israel’s Jews, a population with an average annual per capita GDP of $17,000, exists elsewhere in the world only in countries with an annual average per capita GDP of $3,200 (like Albania and Uzbekistan). The fertility level of Israel’s Muslims, whose per capita GDP is about $8,000 a year, is common to countries whose per capita GDP is about $760 (like Kenya and Sudan).

From this DellaPergola concludes that factors other than the standard of living shape Israel’s fertility levels - primarily, he claims, “the national conflict, which pushes both groups to increase birth rates.” DellaPergola even identifies a kind of vicious cycle: the conflict pushes up birth rates, and the rise in fertility in turn amplifies the conflict. Or, in another paradoxical formulation, “the intense concern with demographics boosts fertility.”

[The_Second_Stone]

@mswas

Because they recognized it’s a lost cause?

That’s a possibility, but maybe because they aren’t dissatisfied with the way it is. Millions of Americans can claim Native American ancestry, and they consider themselves Americans, and not second class Americans. In Israel, Arab citizens are second class. The Knesset recently voted to remove their right to run parties in elections, which the Supreme Court knocked down. It’s nice that the law was upheld, but the fact that the legislature would consider such a racist scheme, and vote for it shows the basically apartheid nature of the state.

@mswas

I was being sarcastic.

If you say so.

@mswas

Yes, I am aware of Jimmy Carter’s specious analogy.

And I actually read the book. You probably didn’t. He’s been to the middle east a number of times and successful in getting a peace treaty with Egypt. You, not so much. He’s make a complete book length argument. You’ve posted a few paragraphs of your preconceived notions. If you want to call it specious, that’s your right, but I don’t think that word means what you think it does. Your argument is several hundred times more specious than Carter’s. Carter is for a more balanced approach, you are favoring one side.

@mswas

I’m all for pulling aid from both Israel AND Palestine. It would only work if everyone did it though. Maybe at the same time we should withhold aid from Egypt until they are willing to assimilate Gaza.

I’d be fine with pulling all military aid, but not food aid or medical aid. Waiting for everyone in the world to do it is going to be waiting forever and making the perfect the enemy of the good.

I’m not for forcing either Eygpt or Gaza into an “assimilation” of any kind. Both would need to have agreement for this to comply with international law.

@mswas

Apartheid would end if Gaza’s ruling party removed the destruction of Israel from its charter. When you argue vociferously for that, then maybe I’ll take arguments about ending, ‘apartheid’, seriously at all. The problem with your side of the argument is you have no expectations of the Palestinians at all. You expect the Israelis to assimilate a hostile population that wants their complete expulsion from the land.

You are mistaken about the charter. If I were in the position of the Palestinians, I’d be considering doing all the things they have done, and I hope I wouldn’t do them. But the Charter is just words. By itself it is not rockets, bulldozers, troops, bombs, etc. It is the least offensive reality. It is a statement of protest and intent. Israel has no intent of ending the Apartheid at this point. They will not even talk until the other side agrees not to say offensive things such as the Charter. Okay, then, don’t talk, but stop asking me and my country for money, business and other considerations. Stop calling Palestinians criminal, because most aren’t. Stop cutting this whole population off from the world.

I expect any country that the United States supports militarily and financially to obey international law and international norms. (I’d like the US to do that too). Israel does not do that.

[FinnAgain]

@The_Second_Stone

The Knesset recently voted to remove their right to run parties in elections, which the Supreme Court knocked down. It’s nice that the law was upheld, but the fact that the legislature would consider such a racist scheme, and vote for it shows the basically apartheid nature of the state.

Then again, as you’re fabricating numerous details of that screed, your bombast about “apartheid” falls short of convincing.
To begin with there was never any resolution, ever, that Arabs couldn’t run parties in elections. That is fictional. What actually happened was two specific Arab parties had charges leveled against them. Further, the CEC knew full well that the preliminary ban would not stand, and thus it was not an actual attempt to ban Balad and Ta’al from the political process, merely to send a message to them.
It’s interesting, then, that being against Balad and Ta’al makes one a ‘racist’. Ahhh… the long, stories history of the race of Balad. The ancient cultural history of the nation of Ta’al.
I guess sending a message to those political parties is ‘racist’ the same way that being against America’s Green Party makes you an Apartheid racist, eh?
Eh?

It also wasn’t the Knesset, but the Central Elections Committee.
But who needs facts when you can pretend you’ve got apartheid.
And why stop there? Israel isn’t an apartheid state, it’s a Nazi state. Israel’s not a Nazi state, its a Nazi zombie state. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It should also be noted that not even pathological liar Jimmy Carter claimed that Israel itself is an apartheid state, he merely spewed idiocy and claimed that it was an apartheid state with relation to its treatment of non-Israeli citizens in the West Bank and Gaza.

@The_Second_Stone

Carter is for a more balanced approach, you are favoring one side.

You’re joking, right?
It was demonstrated to you, with cites, how Carter lies habitually and with the agenda of blaming absolutely all the problems on Israel. Not only is it not balanced, it’s agenda-driven lies.
Of course, at that point, you refused to address the facts of Carter’s long history of agenda-driven lying and instead (after talking about partisan hacks and people who are immune to persuasion) that you’d believe Carter and not his fact-based detractors.

Why is it, do you think, that you continually cite Carter despite having it proven in black and white that he crafts numerous lies with the explicit purpose of demonizing Israel and placing sole responsibility for the current state on Israel’s head? And how can you honestly call that 'balanced"?

@The_Second_Stone

But the Charter is just words.

Yeah, the real bitch of it is that they continually put it into practice.

@The_Second_Stone

Stop cutting this whole population off from the world.

Yet again, partisan myopia serves no purpose. Egypt has a border with Gaza, they keep it sealed. Jordan has a border with the West Bank, they keep it sealed. That you blame Israel and only Israel, while serving up bombast about “apartheid”, clearly shows that your argument is neither balanced nor rational .

@The_Second_Stone

I expect any country that the United States supports militarily and financially to obey international law and international norms. (I’d like the US to do that too). Israel does not do that.

Which international laws does it break? Anti-Israel folks are quick to allege such things, but very, very rarely even attempt to back them up. Even when they do try, they’re most often wrong. Occupation, internment, blockade and the targeting of military assets regardless of the presence of civilians, for example, are all explicitly legal under international law.

Not that I expect you to , but I’ll ask anything that you attempt to prove your claims anyways.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

But, FinnAgain, is the status quo sustainable? If it is, do you propose to continue it more or less forever? Can it withstand near and long-term demographic pressure? Is this the end-state?

If the present situation is not sustainable, then what is the goal? How ought that goal be reached?

[DSeid]

Second Stone the distortions you have and untruths that you hang onto as “truth” are numerous indeed.

Some are immaterial but just illustrate the bizzareness of your belief sets.

Native Americans are satisfied with the fact that Europeans came in and removed them from their historic homeland? Native Americans do not perceive themselves as second class citizens?

Again it is immaterial to the discussion, but it does illustrate well the nature of your filter.

How do you feel about the American Apartheid against Mexicans, btw? Dang that evil America imprisoning Mexicans inside Mexico with a border that they enforce and not allowing all Mexicans equal access to all of the same rights that American citizens have. Apartheid!

Any way Paul a far from ideal circumstance can be sustained for as long as the alternatives are worse or nonexistent for either or both sides. Demographic pressure within Israel is an open question over the course of several generations. The goal is to have both peoples able to achieve their ambitions for national identities and homelands (not to have one side or the other unwillingly sacrifice theirs). Two state, three state, Federation with strong state rights, all are reasonable long term goals. How to get there has been discussed many times in many threads.

[FinnAgain]

@Paul in Saudi

But, FinnAgain, is the status quo sustainable? If it is, do you propose to continue it more or less forever?

Is it sustainable? Probably unless and until the Palestinians are able to exterminate Israel through force of arms. Not that I’d like things to go on that long. And population alone wouldn’t do it. You can add up the numbers in '48 or '67 or what have you. We could place bets on what timeframe it’d occur in, but we simply don’t know.

@Paul in Saudi

If the present situation is not sustainable, then what is the goal? How ought that goal be reached?

It isn’t about whether or not the present state is sustainable but what or not it’s ideal. The answer, of course, is no. Which is why the ideal is a two state with viable agricultural/water rights foth both parties, freedom of movement, peace and security. That won’t happen until the Palestinians have a leadership that’s willing to work for peace. But when it does (and there are some hints that we may see the West Bank in a position like that soonish), we’ll see a peace deal.

You may argue thata it won’t happen as soon as you’d like.
In response to that, I’d simply point out that if we can’t see two states in peace because one has a significant population and its leadership will not accept peace and wants to destroy the other, then giving those rejectionists freedom of movement and the ability to smuggle in weapons as a one state ‘solution’ will hardly make things better.