Senate Israel/Palestine

You support ethnic cleansing. You've been doing the worst warmongering we've seen in here for years.

I called some comments stupid. The forum rules allow this.
You called me an anti-semite, a baby, and a game character. These are bannable offenses.

You said you can't even be bothered to read this thread. You didn't want to read a post when I pointed it out to you.

 

As to Israel and Lebanon, it's amazing how many invasions of it Israel has gotten away with on the basis "Hezbollah did some bad stuff". States aren't supposed to act like this. Expecting the Lebanon government to be able to perfectly control every member of Hezbollah is setting them up to fail, especially with Hezbollah having Syria's backing.

It'd be akin to Britain, at the height of the Troubles, bombing the hell out of Dublin because the Irish government couldn't control "it's terrorists". Fortunately, it was understood instead that terrorists are non-state actors and not linked to a nation state.

Israel either never got that memo or chooses to ignore it. After all, nothing says "strong, macho politician" more effectively than beating up your neighbour because their cat killed a bird in your garden.

 

PUNK EDIT: Removed at user’s request

 

@Tython Awakening

You didn’t actually respond to my points. What’s the flaw with my views?

You also said they should just leave their land “for peace.” Then said you didn’t say that. So what’s the deal?

Also, who is calling for armed conflict? That’s a strawman argument, or you are really really misunderstanding people here and seeing things very black and white.

 

I could see that if someone is that amenable to ethnic cleansing, that they might miss that some people would be opposed to any ethnic cleansing, not just wanting different ethnic cleansing.

 

@Tython Awakening - you should watch the documentary “Children of Gaza” and read some of the reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem on how Israel treats Palestinians.

Have a look at some of this material and then come back and here and post. I’m sure you will burn with shame.

 

Peace and de-escalation are the goal. The dominate views expressed in this thread sadly advocate for escalated violence. As long as peace is the goal, there is a hope of de-escalation.

This morning, I have remembered the Palestinians I have met over the years. The stories of individual people are compelling and realistic. I suggest reading about what individual Palestinians have to say.

And stop encouraging people to fight against governments. Encourage conflict avoidance, discussion, and peaceful solutions. Be open to opinions you don't like because that leads to personal growth.

 

No one here is advocating an escalation to violence. However we also don’t think that Palestinians ought to be completely passive in the face of their plight, as we would any group in their situation. You’re advocating for submission to an oppressive government. Again, what MLK called negative peace.

It’s also telling that you seem to think the onus is upon the Palestinians to deescalate the situation, not the Israeli government, which is holding all the cards.

 

See, that's the problem in the world today. People throw opinions in the public sphere without even bothering to check or provide sources. They start arguments with other people who are clearly much better educated in the subject. They don't back down when they're shown to be wrong, they just double down. And when they're quoted and confronted too often, they just don't answer directly at all anymore, they just throw out some vague statements.

This is the attitude that makes populism work.

Luckily this is a good place. I'm happy to see that when Tython ludicrously tried to accuse me of anti-semitism, the other posters came to my defense. Because they know it's the sort of smear that is worryingly on the up. But it's not going to happen here.

 

A good start for de-escalation would be a comprehensive program to decolonize the occupied territories beyond the 1967 borders over the next decades, but that's not going to happen for decades either given the political configuration in Israeli politics...

The Basic Law of July 2018 is, itself, an obstacle to the establishment of a two-state solution, given one of its clauses: "The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation."

Fortunately, that law includes a clause that indicates it can be amended by simple majority in the Knesset in the form of another Basic Law.

It is, however, wrong to cite that law as just being declarative. Since a trial founded on that law, about the implantation of an Arab-language school and the funding of transportation for Arab schoolchildren in Karmiel, led to a verdict in November 2020, a jurisprudence has begun to form. The court decided, against the state attorney's interpretation, that given Karmiel's character as a Jewish city, permitting either would threaten that character, and therefore ruled against both the implantation of the school and the funding of transport.

I wish a one-state solution like the one theorized by Herzl had been possible, but that ship has long since sailed...

 

Good discussion point, Lord Ban. You included a situation where the 2018 law was applied to a situation.
And then I can see that you have positions on different facets of the law.

I have favored a two-state solution by the way. As soon as someone brings up a two-state solution, people start pointing out how they can't agree on conceding land. You can also point to hostilities from the surrounding Arab countries as leading Israel to constantly bolster its existence through things like the 2018 law. As for whether the 2018 law was declarative in nature, give Israel another 10 to 15 years, and we will likely see another law or executive declaration of this nature as an update.

 

Israel's only ongoing border conflict is with Lebanon and Syria, it has had treaties with Jordan and Egypt for decades.

As to how to make a two-state solution work, the settlements have to go but won't and this is the very messy, ongoing reality:
https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/F78D/production/_109737336_west_bank_settlements_oct_2019_640_3x-nc.png

 

The two-state solution has been dead for a while.

 

It has become impossible to put into practice a couple of decades ago, given that since then it has been logistically impossible to make the occupied territories a viable state. A situation that has considerably degraded since, with fragmentation worse than ever.

Another monumental issue, which isn't shown explicitly on the map, is the complete lack of direct access of the various Palestinian enclaves to the major freshwater source of the Jordan river - an issue that is going to grow in importance as the climate warms.

 

Also the BBC map is from Oct 2019, it is likely matters have worsened since, especially with the addition of covid.

 

I have not lost hope that a two-state solution may somehow work someday. Even despite discouragement out there. I think the Israeli government took a wrong turn when it took the two-state solution off the table years ago. I slowly disengaged myself from political news on Israel in the 2000s after the government said the concessions to the Palestinians were impossible. And then there was the 2006 conflict with Lebanon. The Israeli government rhetoric towards the Lebanese people seemed utterly brutal and callous. I have had friends and acquaintances who are from Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. I was hoping for something when Yasser Arafat was still alive.

 

That point was literally in the Wikipedia article you linked in your posts...

 

Where in my post did I advocate for escalating violence, to fight against governments? Also, I’m not the one closed-minded to personal growth. I used to be more neutral and sympathetic to both sides before the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.

But I will say this: conflict avoidance for the sake of avoiding conflict, for a general idea of peace, is bad. What should be advocated for is a positive management of conflict. That’s why democracy was invented after all, so conflict would be confined to debates and elections, not coups and civil wars. The problem is that the state of Israel has denied many peaceful options to Palestinians, so it’s up to the Israeli government to stop oppressing them first, stop expanding and building new settlements, and then begin genuinely showing interest in creating viable options for peace.

Israel basically killed the Two-State Solution. In my opinion, it needs to work now on no longer declaring itself Jewish first before “being a democracy that respects equal human rights.” Instead, be fair and representative of all its people and integrate them into having equal voices and representation in government and law.

 

That is how I remember it. We get brutal reprisals from Israel instead of compromise. I was let down and then lost interest in hearing news about Israel. Instead of peace accords you end up hearing about the latest attack on a village. It gets to you after awhile and you can only block it out. You can't give up on hope though.

Someone spilled popcorn on the floor and now you are yelling about it.

 

Unless your hope is that every one of the Israeli settlers in Palestinian territory that's trying to claim it for Israel leaves or integrates into Palestinian society, I don't see what that path forward is.

The issue isn't one of how likely something is, but that at this point that particular avenue is basically done for and the clock can't be run back. The difference between being hopeful because someone's been diagnosed with cancer but may do better and saying to be hopeful after they've died.

 

I remember seeing the smile on Yasser Arafat's face when they were coming together for peace accords. Seriously, I was sad when he passed without a two-state solution. Regardless of whichever way his past got painted, I trusted they could salvage the good of what they had. That was all they really could do.

This line from wikipedia is what I remember:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat

" In 1994, Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for the negotiations in Oslo. "

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/11/middleeast/iran-nuclear-incident-intl/index.html

Looks like Israel’s been busy with Iran. Wonder what the response will be.

 

Even if there is a two state solution to the Conflict and the Palestinians have a state of there own, wouldn’t the violence get worse?

Because what if Hamas gets complete control over both the West Bank, or the Palestinian refugee camps or what if Fatah/PLO evolved into a government and all of that if Israel does end the the occupation of Palestinian Territories?

It could also eventually evolved into a two state conflict instead of it being occupation force vs militant extremists groups like in Afghanistan where the northern alliance and other factions became the corrupt Afghan government who have been fighting the Taliban.

During the war of independence of 1948 Jewish militias did create the state Israel and there were being persecuted in Arab countries too prior to the birth of the state of Israel.

 

So basically you think the 1993 Oslo accords were a mistake and all Palestinians should be relocated.

 

"We can't stop oppressing the Palestinians because they might not be at a disadvantage against us anymore!"