I don’t automatically assume that everything, or anything, that UNRWA claims is necessarily true. But I see no reason why I should take your unsupported word over theirs.
Oh, Israel isn’t perfect at their vetting, you say? Well, why the fuck does Israel, with its intelligence service and databases of terrorists, expect underfunded, understaffed UNRWA to be any better at it than them?
Well this certainly is another wrench in the works in regard the the viability of a two state Israel Palestine solution in the moderate term.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the seizure of 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of Palestinian territory in the West Bank on Friday. The move marks the single largest land seizure by the Israeli government since the 1993 Oslo accords, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group.
A two state solution would merely formalize a permanent prison state for the Palestinians all the while violating their various rights in all of Palestine.
Glory to Hamas and Netanyahu and Smotrich and their allies like you who demand one state! Woe and boo to those trying to achieve long term peace and stability! Maximal demands or nothing! Peace and stability be damned!
Peace and stability through one state in Palestine, democratic, egalitarian and pluralistic for the the peoples therein is the solution, not a separate bantustan police state for the Palestinians.
I stand with you against a “separate bantustan police state for the Palestinians”; I stand against you (and Hamas, Netanyahu, Smotrich, and their allies) on the idea of a single state.
The difference between my stance and Hamas’, and Netanyahu and the Zionist Israelis’ stances is that they want one state for their respective religious and ethnoreligious purposes. My stance is for a democratic, egalitarian and pluralistic state for all the people in Palestine.
I am saying end the necessarily oppressive Zionist state, it’s apparatus, organization, etc., and implement a state, democratic, egalitarian, and pluralistic in all of Palestine.
There’s an incredible diversity among the opinions of Zionist Israelis (and Zionists in general). To me, Zionism just means there needs to be a safe place for Jews. That’s it. You don’t get to define what Zionism means for everyone.
The difference between your view and Hamas/Netanyahu is pretty damn small; the difference between their view and those Israelis and Palestinians working together towards long-term peace and prosperity is huge. We should empower those Israelis and Palestinians working together, not the one-state, perpetual-war fanatics like Hamas and Netanyahu.
My fantasy had long been a confederation. Two (or possibly three) states with strong state’s rights, self-policing, under one system for economic industrial and even tourism development and of course self defense.
That fantasy however is much farther off the table than a more straightforward two state solution, and agree that annexation of land pushes that farther away.
As it is all one state rhetoric currently espoused can only be heard as the elimination of one or the other as having any rights or power.
Stop accusing me of defining what Zionism means for everyone; the definition of Zionism by which I am taking a stance is the Zionism that is manifest in the necessarily oppressive state of Israel, that which to exist, i.e.maintain a Jewish majority in order to perpetuate a “state for the Jews”, must necessarily oppress, i.e. deny rights, the Palestinian people.
The difference between my view and Hamas/State of Israel is as wide as the world’s oceans. Long term peace involves the obligation to implement the Palestinians’ rights in Palestine; a two-state solution negates that fact.
The second part doesn’t follow from the first. In fact, the only way to guarantee peace and Palestinian rights would be with two states focused on peace, prosperity, and human rights. Your fantasy would only result in perpetual war and strife. There’s no conflict here if both states are set up with human rights at the forefront. This is only an impossibility in the minds of Hamas, Netanyahu, and their allies.
We’re a long, long way from this being at all realistic, but the one state idea only exists as a fantasy based on lies. The two state solution is based on the real world history of solving conflicts peacefully.
Your solution would have the Palestinians renounce their Right of Return as guaranteed by various international resolutions and accords. I don’t see them ever giving up claim to this right.
A two state solution would merely formalize the open-air prisons in which the Zionists have contained the Palestinians.
If it lasts, it’s going to do so as an eventual one-state solution - the under-25 NI cohort is overwhelmingly pro-unification, and Brexit hasn’t helped.
It was still in colonial times but the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (aka Northern and Southern Rhodesia) split into Zambia and Rhodesia with little fuss in 1964.
Rhodesia did have some issues with Zambia during its own civil war, because Zambia was hosting the rebels pushing for an independent, Black ruled Zimbabwe - and even took some military actions within Zambia.
But they were never at war. It was a fairly peaceful split at first, and never developed nto a major conflict.