Are we still talking about the “only democratic country” in the region? Yes, we are :smack:
Fighting oversimplification with exaggeration just shows that your diagnosis of anti-Israeli posters is a projection rather than reflection. Another salad-sentence, eh?
There is only one in the list claiming it is democratic. Or, is it time to modify definition so that we can fit Jordan and Egypt?
… in the war between two countries. Or, as it will be “shown” I’m missing something again :smack:
Does this mean you are actually proving something? To me it’s all verbal subtlety designed to deflect. But that’s just me…
It adds nothing new Paul. DSeid already pointed out that even if the settler don’t leave, they can still stay and become part of the Palestinian state, just as Arabs stayed and became part of Israeli.
The piece also points out that Tzipi Livni has committed to removing the settlers.
And as pointed out many times in this thread, giving groups like Hamas freedom of movement and the ability to smuggle in weapons is not a ‘solution’ to anything. Further, nothing in the 60 Minutes peace actually showed why a two state solution wouldn’t work. If Clinton’s Bridging Proposal had been accepted, chances are we’d already have two states.
I disagree. There is an infinite number of solutions that could be considered. Here’s one, trade the land mass of Gaza for real estate next to the West Bank giving the Palestinians a contiguous land mass that connects to the Mediterranean Sea. They can swap any West Bank Jewish settlements for other contiguous land along this new state. Throw in a generous amount of capital to build houses/ infrastructure as a carrot to move.
Paul, how would you answer your own question? What is the goal?
Is my proposed goal, to have both peoples able to achieve their ambitions for national identities and homelands, a reasonable one to you?
Is it reasonable to think that Jews living in settlements could become citizens of a new Palestinian state, or would they have to move?
Yes, Finn, Livni believes that the settlers will need to be moved. She also expects that Israeli Arabs will want to go. Her idea being that they are free to stay in Israel and have equal rights, but that national aspiration solution for them are in that Palestinian state to be. I don’t think that all of the settlers will want to leave, even if it means being a Palestinian national, and I doubt that many Israeli Arabs will want to go unless the new state is a bigger economic success than would be reasonably expected. But who knows?
Well, she’s almost definitely right that some (or maybe all) of the settlers might have to be moved. Their staying, especially the more militant ones, would be a serious problem for a new Palestinian state. While I think it may be okay to offer to have them stay if it’s okay with the new sovereign power, I think it’s much more likely that their removal by Israel will be part of any Final Status talks. Just my hunch on that point.
As to Israeli Arabs, I think she’s also right that some (probably not a lot) of Israeli Arabs might want to live in a Palestinian state as long as it was economically viable. It would, at the very least provide the possibility of voluntary population shifts whic. But the soundness of that idea aside, I didn’t read that as her mandating (or even negotiating) transfer as Majadele implied, merely suggesting that a sovereign Palestinian state might fulfill the national ambitions of some of Israel’s Arab population who could immigrate of their own free will.
My goal is to prevent the United States being dragged (drug?) into another Old War war of racial purity.
To get there the goal is to have populations that can live side-by-side.
To get there? I have no idea. It might be too late already and all we can do is back away slowly and let the fools on both sides slaughter themselves and the innocents.
How does a single state plan prove to be more effective than a two state plan if negotiations ensure that two viable states are the result?
Clinton’s administration did more to get the factions to peace than probably anybody before or since. They were so close that the Saudi ambassador declared that to miss the opportunity wouldn’t just be a shame, it would be a crime. The US does have both leverage and leadership that it can use in the conflict, especially if settlements are your concern. It seems counterproductive, at best, to suggest that the single nation in the world able to put the most diplomatic pressure on Israel should step out of the process.
Paul I appreciate your response. I would like to point out that neither player is at all concerned about “racial purity” but I hear your meaning nevertheless.
Racial purity? Call it what you will. Germany exists to have a cultural homeland for Germans. France exists to let people eat stinky cheese and take all of August off. Italy is there so the schools can teach Italian. We got a Greece piss off the Turks.
All of it strikes Americans as darn odd. But our interest is more than academic. The old countries pursue their quaint little policies and start wars and then ask America to come and bleed for them.
FYI, the Palestinian position is to accept the pre-1947 residents and their descendants. This plainly allows a Jewish minority. (I may need to revise the stated year).
We’ve actually done this debate before Tom. You were one of the participants but I’m a bit too lazy to find the cite at the moment. IIRC, it was the thread in which he claimed that Hamas’ endorsement of the view that the Day of Judgment, (and thus the Islamic concept of the Resurrection) can only come about when Muslims slaughter every last Jew on the planet wasn’t a genocidal endorsement because it contained a phrase about how even the trees would help the Muslims murder the Jews by calling out and betraying their hiding places to the Muslims. And, as such, it wasn’t fit for Great Debates but should be discussed in Cafe Society. We can, of course, envision what his reaction would be if the Israeli government created a charter which read:
“The Messianic Age will not come about until Jews fight the Muslims (killing the Muslims), when the Muslim will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Jews, O Moische, there is a Muslim behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Muslims.”
Obviously Sevastopol would argue for that being a totally innocent document that showed no malice or racism.
Anyways, I’d wager that the document he’s referring to this time (since it was the same one as last time) is the PLO charter which states
Of course, the reason he might have to “revise the stated date” is that the PLO charter is deliberately as vague as possible. How do we determine when the “Zionist invasion” began? 1940? 1930? 1890?
Moreover, as the Glorious PLO Army storms the streets of Jerusalem and (without any malice or anti-Semitic feelings) rounds up all the Jews to be… dealt with, how exactly will they find out the lineage and verify the dates of immigration of everybody?
My request was for an official Palestinian statement on the subject. At this point, I would reject any citation to the PLO as no longer being an official position of the new almost-nations of (West Bank) Palestine and Gaza.
If Sevastopol wants to make a claim for a position that he contends is current, then I would like him to provide the source for his claim.