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Israel/Palestine: one state or two

How can peace in Israel/Palestine come to fruition?


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You do know they look just like the "natives" right? You do know they are all semites, right?

That is very very false.

A lot of Jewish citizens of Israel are immigrants from other parts of the world - say, ex. Soviet republics.
 
But why can't they both just use that pride to maintain thier own uniqueness in a single state? If they both beleive so strongly in thier history, faith and culture, then why would they ned an artificial construct like a state to keep it alive?
Because that is exactly the base of nationalism.

That pride of being different and the story of survival people together have about themselves (especially in the hardships involving other nations).

The idea of peace comes only second after this since it holds together what you are, almost your whole identity especially when the nation is young.
IMHO, make a single state, give everyone equal rights and let them bring thier problems to the courts. In the meantime, start a program of truth and reconcilliation, and bring tough punishment to those on either side that want to 'rock the cradle'....
This is the obvious and idealistic solution that isn't ever going to happen, or...

Maybe in the far future they could form single state but currently the idea is the same as molding US and Canada together.

Why don't they do it?
 
That is very very false.

A lot of Jewish citizens of Israel are immigrants from other parts of the world - say, ex. Soviet republics.

So none of them have a blood line from the Semites in the area? Being a Jew isn't just a religion its an ethnicity. And the claims of jewish ancestry by most of those russians are dubious.
 
There are many slavic/turkic jews thanks to the Khazars. Many of these white jews moved west, and ended up being some of the biggest proponents of zionism.
 
Fleeing is different then leaving willingly because your leaders promised things they couldn't deliver.

Was every pallie killed who didn't leave? Where did the arab Israelis come from? What about the pallies that sold their land to the jooz? If the natives wanted to keep their land mabey they should have stayed and not abandoned it.

You're deliberately trying to derail this discussion, and so is angrybellsprout with his anti-european ramblings. The palestinians (that's palestinians, can't write the word, can you?) of the occupied territories never left, and those territories are the ones being considered as a future palestinian state.

That's a stretch and an unreasonable assumption. I'm merely pointing out that a sovereign land has the right to control life in it's borders, so long as it's not genocidal. Do you want to try to give a reasonable argument this time?

And what is genocide? If Hitler had just discriminated against the jews, stripped them of citizenship, and concentrated them in prison camps, but not gassed them, would that have been acceptable?
When Stain deported whole populations to Siberia, was that acceptable?

A sovereign government can control its own territory and the population inside, that's the understanding that prevailed from Westphalia until World War II (and sovereign means just powerful enough to win a war against any challenger, by the way). But not any longer, at least for many people who were convinced they had learned something from that war, to avoid future ones. Those who set up things like the United Nations or the European Union.

Then again perhaps they were wrong. I'll just keep waiting for WW3 to tell.


Just to try to bring this discussion on topic again, a link to a site defending that unusual solution to the palestinian problem, the arguments presented may can help the discussion.
This inflammatory opinion piece can easily provide fodder for this discussion. And its most interesting part can be resumed in this quote from other text:

We must admit that structurally, i.e. independently of the impact of particular policies, the interests of Israel and of the Diaspora are at loggerheads. Israel was created inter alia, to offer the Jews physical safety. Today the State of Israel adversely affects the physical safety of the Jews, both within its borders and elsewhere. In spite of the might of Israel's armed forces, Israel is the only place in the world where a Jew can be killed just for being a Jew. Today the life of a Jew is in greater danger in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv than in Paris or Berlin or even in Damascus or Tehran.

Moreover, the chronic conflict engendered by the establishment of the State of Israel has spread waves of Jew-hatred to most Muslim and Arab nations. The current intifada ignited sparks of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, including Western Europe, which had been free of anti-Semitism for several decades. Indeed, the chronic character of the Israel/Palestine conflict was an important, albeit not the only, cause of September 11. This observation does not apportion blame or justify terrorism; it simply states an obvious, albeit little articulated, connection between the creation and perpetuation of Israel as a Jewish nation-state and the unprecedented spread of regional violence to the rest of the world. Rwandans, Bosnians, or black South Africans did not spread violence to other parts of the world. Palestinians, frustrated by their fight against Israel, did.

Finally, a well-documented opinion piece also on the origins of the current separation and its undesirability.
 
You're deliberately trying to derail this discussion, and so is angrybellsprout with his anti-european ramblings. The Palestinians (that's palestinians, can't write the word, can you?) of the occupied territories never left, and those territories are the ones being considered as a future palestinian state.

I'm having a discussion about pallies and Israelis. How exactly is that deliberately derailing anything? But since your the thread moderator......I can write Palestinians just fine I chose not to waste my time with it. Until the Arabs needed a pawn the term didn't exist. Palestine is a region. Thats like me calling myself a Mid-Atlantian. And speaking of the occupied territories. Who do they belong to? All those refugee camps are set up on whos land?
 
I'm looking at it like a [America conquers the Indians, then has to give up isolated lands to appease them later] scenario. If Israel controls the lands, let them. Palestinians can leave or try to win it back. Whatever... tired of the world holding Israel back. Let them duke it out and let there be peace. We are just prolonging a war and forcing it to span generations, thus making the hatred run deeper.
Um... Are you sure the Israelis want to be "unleashed" in some war of extermination? My impression is the exact opposite. Which is why US fighting talk about not "holding Israel back" is, I'm afraid, rather empty rhetoric. This is what "duking it out" looks like. Israel has removed every military threat from that quarter. It solved nothing. Bummer. Time to negotiate.

I mean, these days the Israelis would just luurv it if the threat was something as uncomplicated as a conventional military threat. Then they could go after it hammer and tongs and knock it for six. They'd do it, no doubt about it. But they've run out of enemies that can be dealt with like that. Those come when there is a political conflict soluble by fighting a conventional war. That bit Israel won. Now they have to figure out what to do with the common folk it landed them as next doors neighbours of, or live-in house-guests rather.

There isn't much interference with the Israelis doing what they deem best under the circumstances, and all out war, certainly not all out war on civilians, isn't one of the things they want to enter into.
Oh, and number of people arguments are thin. China has a much larger army than the US, but the US has enough tech advantages to keep them at bay. Same is true for Israel.
Thin? Compared to expediently forgetting that half the world and the entire Pacific Ocean divides the Chinese from the Americans? If 1,2 million Chinese suddenly turned up in the US, Americans certainly would notice, and loose control of the place. Technology is useless under the circumstances. What you could do is of course to erect an all-out apartheid police state. Funnily most Israelis feel downright iffy about that prospect as well. Better negotiate something then.

The entire area of dispute, Israel, West Bank and Gaza is smaller than the Island of Tahiti, one tenth the size of a Behemoth like... New Zealand. You can fold the place about 350 times into the US. It's a teeny tiny speck of land, and you have over 10 million angry people contesting ownership rights. For something so tiny, it causes us all excruciating foreign policy pains.

(Israel 20,330 sq. km, West Bank 5,640, Gaza 360 sq km, for 6,4 million Israelis, 2,5 mil. Palestinians in the West Bank and 1,5 mil. in the Gaza strip, to which one can add several million displaced Palestinias in Jordan, Lebanon etc., and a sizeable minority of the Israeli figure which has Israeli citizenship but overwhelmingly identify themselves as Palestinians, which in itself is a faiure on the part of the Israeli state.):scan:
 
I'm having a discussion about pallies and Israelis. How exactly is that deliberately derailing anything? But since your the thread moderator......I can write Palestinians just fine I chose not to waste my time with it. Until the Arabs needed a pawn the term didn't exist. Palestine is a region. Thats like me calling myself a Mid-Atlantian. And speaking of the occupied territories. Who do they belong to? All those refugee camps are set up on whos land?
Yup, that's usually how nations start. There were no Palestinians at a not to distant point, just "us people from the village of X". Then Planet Israel landed on them. Suddenly they looked around and realised that all the people of villages X, Y, Z etc. were united in the common destiny of having been landed on by Israel. That's the essence of collective national identity, the feeling that "we have a common destiny". They do, as a matter of fact.

It's not as if there were any Israelis a hundred years ago either, just a twinkle in Theodor Hertzl's eye. They also became a nation, not to an unconsiderable degree by landing on the people who to their misfurtune in the process became the Palestinians.

So, the Israelis and the Palestinians begat each other. Strangley there is a tendency on some parts to conventiently want to forget one half of the equation.

The Plaestinians certainly exist now. Like all nations they are a product of history. Just like the Israelis, and every other nationality. Too bad if that history is inconvenient in some ways.
 
Don't forget when the Chinese nearly defeated the Americans in the 1950s, they didn't have much of an army, air force or navy. Today China has some pretty impressive technology to back up that huge military.
 
People, if Israel could solve the situation by military means it would already be over decades ago. This is not a military conflict. That bit is no contest. This is over demographics, collective identities, politics, symbols even.

Short of creating a fascist police state there is little the Israeli military can do about the basic premises for the conflict. To their cedit Israelis don't want to go for such options.

Why is there this misguided notion that a military is any bloody use at all?
 
So none of them have a blood line from the Semites in the area? Being a Jew isn't just a religion its an ethnicity. And the claims of jewish ancestry by most of those russians are dubious.

It's an ethnicity defined by religion & culture. An african-american convert to Judaism is as much Jewish as any other Jew.. and not semitic in any way.
 
Yup, that's usually how nations start. There were no Palestinians at a not to distant point, just "us people from the village of X". Then Planet Israel landed on them. Suddenly they looked around and realised that all the people of villages X, Y, Z etc. were united in the common destiny of having been landed on by Israel. That's the essence of collective national identity, the feeling that "we have a common destiny". They do, as a matter of fact.

It's not as if there were any Israelis a hundred years ago either, just a twinkle in Theodor Hertzl's eye. They also became a nation, not to an unconsiderable degree by landing on the people who to their misfurtune in the process became the Palestinians.

So, the Israelis and the Palestinians begat each other. Strangley there is a tendency on some parts to conventiently want to forget one half of the equation.

The Plaestinians certainly exist now. Like all nations they are a product of history. Just like the Israelis, and every other nationality. Too bad if that history is inconvenient in some ways.
Very very good post.

But of course I'm just stating the obvious here. ;)
 
These are very different peoples. By the same scenario, do you think Americans and Canadians could share the same state? They are one of the most similar neighbors in the world, yet I'm sure several would be appauled by such a notion.

Well, the analogy is hardly apt, since Canada and the US are hardly 'nation-states' in the true sense of the meaning, but I understand what you mean.

If some day it is necessary, then I wouldn't have a problem with a single state in North America. My canadian identity is not completely tied up in the notion of a Canadian nation, just the ideals that it stands for.

The point is, it is not necessary: we both have viable nations as it is with our own resources, economies and ways of life. If that were to change, maybe a union wouldn't be the worst idea, as long as it was done fairly and with enough powersharing....

C~G said:
Because that is exactly the base of nationalism.

That pride of being different and the story of survival people together have about themselves (especially in the hardships involving other nations).

The idea of peace comes only second after this since it holds together what you are, almost your whole identity especially when the nation is young.

But the idea of the nation-state is headed towards antiquity and shouldn't be used as a justification for the exclusion of a population within your own borders. Modern countries hold populations of people with very different national identities, but can still be brought together under the ideals of a good state: one that it democratic, fair, and serves/represents all of its members.

This is the obvious and idealistic solution that isn't ever going to happen, or...

I seem to remember a lot of talk like this about places like Northern Ireland too. Maybe I'm just an optimist

Maybe in the far future they could form single state but currently the idea is the same as molding US and Canada together.

As above, if the situation warranted it, I don't think it would be the fracas that everyone makes it out to be. But right now in Israel, palestinians don't have a viable state: they have a paltry strip of land in Gaza and the windswept West bank, seperated by a state in between and totally dependant on its infrastructure. It's the classic Bantustan or Indian reserve.

Why don't they do it?

A good question....
 
It's an ethnicity defined by religion & culture. An african-american convert to Judaism is as much Jewish as any other Jew.. and not semitic in any way.

Yeah and how many are there? How many "white jews" that have no blood line back to the days of Jesus are there?
 
There will be peace when the Palestinians throw out the terrorists and decide to negotiate peacefully. Or when all the Palestinians are dead or deported.

I hope for the former, but the pessimist in me sees the latter as likelier.
 
If Israel can hold off the surrounding Arab nations in a surprise attack, I think it can handle the Palestinians within it's own borders.
 
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