Senate Israel/Palestine

dp

 

Just cause dp is Jewish doesn't mean he's responsible for this.

 

Same goes for me .

 

I support a two-state solution. I also support the permanent disarmament of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah etc militias. I'd also like an end to the anti-Israel screeds in Palestinian schools and media. These shouldn't be controversial. It's what my party supports in its platform. Not wanting as Islamist theocratic despotism doesn't mean we oppose a future Palestinian state.

 

How do you solve the issues preventing territorial continuity for the second state? What about its right to a military force as a sovereign nation?

 

GREAT question.

Given the current Israeli Govt's position is that there is no scenario where a shared Jersualem for israel and Palestine (East and West Jerusalem) where there's a defined border there between the two.

Futher the position taken that way predates just Bibi's administration on a standing army for Palestine (not counting any of the organisations that are militias or "terror groups") indeed HOW?

 

There are settlements that everyone - I & P - knows will have to be dismantled in a Final Settlement. The largest settlements closest to Jerusalem will probably be annexed and land transferred to Palestine in return. As for an army for Palestine, the key here is reassure any Israeli government - either left or right wing - that a Palestinian army won't be used against it by an unfriendly Islamist or Arab nationalist controlled Palestine.

 

So, you don't want a fully sovereign second state.

 

I think he’s saying he wants a fully sovereign state that won’t immediately attack Israel.

 

Well Israel doesn't get special consideration or assurances. The Palestinians getting a state isn't contingent on Israel's feelings.

 

There was no immediacy concern mentioned, just assurances. And those can't just be given forever. They can hardly be given either when permanent losses are incurred from the solution itself.

On top of that, Israel can have East Jerusalem, or they can have a new neighboring state that doesn't feel permanently robbed and whose population won't have its strongest motivation for revanchist sentiment. They can't have both.

And exactly how is any leader in Israeli politics, left or right, going to get the number of MPs needed in the Knesset for a government willing to retrocede East Jerusalem and remove the settlements there?

 

This is why a two-state solution is unrealistic, and why the right way to go is a one-state solution where Palestinians are incorporated as equal citizens of a secular democratic Israel. This is what many Palestinian activists themselves are asking for lately. It will never happen, though. Especially not as long as Hamas and Hizballah receive Iranian funding.

 

It was inferred.

Your analysis is correct though; Israel’s government is nowhere near getting to where it needs to be for real peace to occur. I have no idea how to get there, myself. Two-state seems a distant memory and one-state would require Israel to silence its right wing, which has a disproportionate amount of power in Israeli politics.

Not quite hopeless, but close.

 

This is really the heart of the matter. The thing is: Israel does get special consideration and assurances. In fact it gets to control Palestinian borders and state funding.

 

The Allies had a lot of control over Germany during the Cold War, With the Two Plus Four Treaty, this transitional status ended and Germany had full sovereignty. With a Final Settlement Treaty between Israel and Palestine, the status and borders of Palestine would be finalised and there would be a sovereign Palestinian state. A Palestinian army is a trickier problem because there's no way of being sure that an Islamist or Arab nationalist group won't seize control of a Palestinian state and uses the army to attack Israel. It's not as simple as "Palestine should have an army".

 

Germany started a war and invaded its neighbors, genius.

 

Agreed

 

That and were responsible for about 100 million deaths in total between two wars they started in a span of 31 years...

 

I don't understand why SuperWatto doesn't care that even Israeli progressives are wary of a Palestinian state having an army when it could be rapidly turned against it by a hostile Islamist-controlled government.

 

Sorry, you don't have enough information to make assumptions about what I do or do not care about. It's also beside the point.

 

What would Israel have to worry about? In military terms, they're a regional superpower that has regularly beaten the **** out of its neighbours on multiple occasions in open warfare, which is why its remaining enemies opt for asymmetric warfare.

Given their record on Lebanon, it's more likely that any independent Palestinian State, which isn't happening anyway, would have more to fear from Israel than the other way round.

 

I bet lot of countries don't like the US and Australia having militaries, when we've attacked so many countries. They definitely have the right to dictate to us whether we have a military or not, right?

Perhaps Israel should have its military abolished too, with how often they bomb the Palestinians. They are quick to turn it against the Palestinians, after all.

 

So let's distill EmuBay's concerns into the following sequence of events:

1) Palestine becomes a separate, independent nation with a standing army
2) Said army then either a) invades Israel on its own (highly unlikely) or b) 'invites' a much larger fighting force from one of what would likely be a large number of regional allies into its borders to 'fortify' its own military, at which point said combined force invades and/or strikes at Israel.

Israel would then have following options:
1) Retaliate militarily, likely with overwhelming technological superiority
2) File a formal complaint at the UN demanding condemnation of the aggression against it
3) Appeal to the United States for military and diplomatic aid

I don't know whether or not #2 would happen, but in the event Israel is attacked or invaded by any of its neighbors, they would likely make short work of whomever was responsible. And if things didn't go well vis-a-vis the initial stages of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, you can bet your keister America would immediately rush to Israel's defense.

The argument here seems to be "The possibility that the Palestinians might create an army and invade Israel is reason enough to deny them a state." That is a simplistic viewpoint based on the fundamentally flawed dictum that since the Palestinians have been forced to resort to terrorism to get Israel's attention due to the lack of their own state (and horrific, squalid living conditions), they would automatically risk throwing all of that away should they ever actually achieve a negotiated state. Could another country invade Palestine and pose a direct threat to Israel? Sure. But Israel is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. It also has pretty much the biggest ally on the block: America. That alone will deter a lot of potential misbehavior on the part of those who would openly challenge Israel on the battlefield.

So you'll forgive me if I find your argument less than convincing. No-one's invading Israel. Especially since they have a sizeable (and undeclared, not to mention illegal under international law) nuclear deterrent.