Israel/Palestine thread

I see what you're saying. I'm just not one of those people. I'm looking at the status quo and trying to work from what we have in place now. Groups of people attempting to use the same land as an ethnostate when they could be a prosperous pluralist state that reforms the region as a whole. But neither is interested in that because neither is interested in peace or security. They're only interested in attempting to destroy each other at the moment and losing ground with every rocket attack and massacre.

What do the Palestinians bring to this hypothetical prosperous pluralist state? I’m struggling to find a single example of the Palestinians contributing anything to the global community. Education, science, something, anything? Their only import is foreign aid and their only export is terrorism.

The Arabs started wars and lost each one, badly. This is them trying to cope with the consequences of their own actions.

Some of these narratives are so absurd they border on comedy. Accusing Israel of not being interested in “peace and security” because they won’t sign a peace deal with and accommodate the terrorist organization who attacked them less than a year ago and currently STILL holds hostages.

The whole "no Jews can pray on the Temple Mount" thing is a pretty bizarre narrative too.

So there is a Jewish Holy Temple that is destroyed by the Romans. And then a few centuries later Islam comes by and Muslims build a mosque in the same spot. And for 1400 years Muslims control the site and no Jews are allowed to go to the spot to pray at the site of their old Temple.

Then about 50 years ago Jews reconquer the spot, but agree to let Muslims still pray there, and on top of this agree to not pray there themselves so as to not upset Muslim sensibilities, despite the fact it is literally the site of their Holy Temple.

Then everytime a Jewish person suggest they just share and both use the spot (which they control and was their Holy spot first) the entire Muslim world gets outraged and the Western world says they are causing trouble. Sounds to me like Muslims are exhibiting colonial settler imperialism and Muslim supremacy and being extremely non inclusive; and the very least they could do is share the spot and apologize to the Jews for the last 1500 years of not letting them pray there.

And so called leftists who are completely agnostic towards this Muslim colonial supremacist attitude are being extremely inconsistent to their so called values to say the least.

I think Israel is very interested in peace and security. It is just after 80 years of Arab belligerence the only way they think they can get peace and security is to use force to push the Palestinians back as far away as they can get away with and secure their borders, and to keep conquering geographically strategic parts of the West Bank that overlook their large coastal population centers.

And I guess Palestinian Islamists are interested in peace and security too. They just wont accept any compromise other than their genocidal aim to drive Jews from the land completely and achieve peace and security this way.

Also, I am looking at the status quo and think the best path moving forward is to just stop given Palestinians aid and help them emigrate somewhere else. Move on from this toxic, no win dynamic with completely perverse incentive structures the rest of the world has trapped them in.

Why should be think it would be prosperous? Jews would be subsidizing Arabs forever being the richest part of the new country, and why would they ever accept that? You can't unite a 30k per Capita GDP country with a 2-5k one and expect anything but a deep hatred going from the rich people to the poor ones, unless the rich people truly consider the poor ones their brothers.

It worked with great difficulty for west Germany when they reunited with east Germany (but they became the sick man of Europe doing that and had to rework their economy a lot to get back on track). It could theoretically work for Korea.

But even absent deep enmity, even with moderate acceptance of the others the transfers alone required to modernize Palestine would destroy any hope of a peaceful coexistence.

If you then add the fact that the two groups have many members who deeply hate each other, you are asking for something that is actually impossible not only on paper, in practice as well.

Both groups can only find peace if the other completly ceases to be a problem.

There are practical ways to achieve that for Palestinians, there aren't for Israel.

Nevermind that western countries have a moral (because of the Holocaust) and legal (for the countries with treaties) obligation to help Israel achieve it's aim, not "the region".

Ironically enough, a lot of the talk centering around how Israel’s actions are self defeating and how it is hemorrhaging international support appears to be projection while the reality is the Palestinians are the ones who have found themselves without any true allies.

A big issue that many don’t want to address is the Palestinians have spent decades burning any meaningful bridges they may have had. There are groups willing to virtue signal and send money, but basically no one is willing to actually help them. None of the Arab nations, the most likely allies, are willing to take them in. Maybe Canada, France, the U.K. or one of the virtue signaling nations like Ireland or South Africa will volunteer. Besides sending some money to Hamas and yelling at Israel, no one is really willing to step in and help.

Can’t forget their biggest ally Iran who uses them as cannon fodder to throw at the Israelis.

To Hamas, Gaza vs Israel is the war.

To Israel, Gaza vs Israel is the smallest threat they will face.

There's no projection, the needs are extremely different.

What does virtue signaling mean?

Does that mean signaling to people that you have virtue?

Debatable. Regardless, reducing a complex conflict with multiple players into this simplistic thought experiment doesn’t lend any support to your argument. Gaza is indisputably an immediate threat and Israel has made the decision that it needs to be dealt with now, at least to a degree which it can be handled in the future. I’m going to trust Israeli intelligence over your feelings based analysis.

It isn't what they bring to the table so much as the status quo is unsustainable, a two-state solution is impossible, and the only other option is mass extermination and displacement.

We have different stances on human rights, but I've always respected your candor. At least, you don't windowdress the will for mass extermination and displacement.

Like South Africa, we're talking a multi-generational process where Palestinians participate in society after integration. I'm not saying any of this is simple or even attainable in the short term. I'm saying that this is the least worst option.

As for the money, if Israel didn't wanna fit the bill, they shouldn't be destroying homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. Countries shouldn't be allowed to do this and just walk away from the rubble of persons and property. Paying Hamas to rebuild is out of the equation, so we go back to Israel as an overt occupying force, providing reparations alongside some sort of joint security force.

I don't have many answers as to how this works on a micro-level, but it's also not my problem to solve, and my money shouldn't be used to destroy Palestinian people and property. Especially without intent to rebuild what Israel's broken.

This is why the status quo is unsustainable and conventional efforts to rebuild aren't realistic. Sure, a pluralist state might seem unrealistic, but -- again -- we're talking about the least-worst option.

As for why two states is impossible, I don't think I really need to go into this too deeply. The geographic land is so fractured that a continuous state would require an exodus of Jewish people that would be devastating in itself, in optics and existentially speaking.

And before settlements got out of control, Israel opposed a continuous Palestinian state. They're not budging on that now with the settlements that exist.

Long term option is either annexation by Egypt (of Gaza) and Jordan (of the WB) or up to 3 states.

After as long as it takes to eradicate all radicals in both areas.

2025-2050: military occupation to eradicate

2050-55 Jordan/Egypt evaluate whether to annex

2055+ normality

Paragraphs 2 and 3 create a real issue -
P2: driving a people from the land is genocidal
P3: the palestinians should be driven from the land

can be argued that it is not genocidal to drive a population into a nearby state with very similar cultural ethnical and religious make up, while driving someone away with no destination that replicates their current country worldwide could be.

Muslim Arabs have what 8? 10? ethno states existing.

how many Jewish majority countries exist?

I don’t think a one state solution really is sustainable either, Oct 7th has shown that, for better or for worse.

Maybe I’m misinformed, but I was under the impression that Israel was in the process of integrating Palestinians pre Oct 7. I think we can agree that option is not going to be thoroughly explored for a long time now. Maybe with extreme conditions and scrutiny, but nothing on a major scale. That seems to be one of the bridges the Palestinians have torched.

The problem starts with Hamas using the schools, mosques, hospitals, etc as staging grounds for their war against Israel. All rational parties recognize this and appropriately apportion the blame. It seems like your anger should be directed at Hamas and the parties enabling them but it’s not.

The pragmatic solution would be for most of the Palestinians to integrate into neighboring Arab societies but that won’t happen for reasons beyond Israel’s control.

Israel keeps close to ten thousand Palestine men held in torture centers without fair trials

Israel also has command centers embedded in ubran environments

I stopped being angry about this around a decade ago.

I'm just saying that if this level of destruction is being done to eradicate Hamas, it's on Israel to repair from the rubble.

Paying Hamas to do it is insane. Allowing Israel to just walk away from the destruction or settle on it is also insane.

apparently Israel is going to allow polio vaccination in certain areas for children. now, they likely will just bomb these areas but even if they dont, its pretty ironic to inoculate all of these kids only to murder them later.

Actually, as the screenshots indicate, WFP and news agencies reporting this story were very careful to not say IDF forces shot at the car.

The car was approaching an IDF checkpoint from Hamas controlled territory after getting the clear from the IDF to do so, and as you can see was shot at from the sides and behind. All indications are Palestinian terrorists shot at the convoy.

The headline fails to mention Israel at all, because there is no indication IDF shot at the convoy, and all the circumstantial evidence points to Palestinians.

yes bc Palestinians are famous for murdering aid workers

ofc the news agencies are careful not to say IDF shot it. thats the whole point. and it actually works on people who have no critical thinking ability or awareness of the situation.

I'd love to see that debate, it seems about as clear cut to me as possible. Do you think that if Gaza drove Israel out of the Middle East that they would then launch an invasion of all nations that have Jews or do you think that if Israel kills everyone in Gaza that Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran cease to exist? I'm curious which part you're debating.

If my argument is simplistic it is because it is showing how simplistic and fallacious your argument is: Palestine has no allies because western countries won't take in 100% of the millions of Palestinians. To begin with this is not the goal of the people in Gaza. Israel and Gaza do not need the same amount or type of worldwide support to exist. Gaza has allies, and they are acting now, for example Hezbollah, Houthis, Iran, and also the aid relief.

Israel's actions are self defeating. Gaza is not looking for the same type of support as Israel is. Your argument was simplistic and just wrong.