Most Israelis and Palestinians Support 1967 Borders
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As Congress And Netanyahu Line Up Against 1967 Borders, Most Israelis And Palestinians Support Them
Last week, in a speech on the Middle East, President Obama reiterated long-standing US policy that there should be a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is based roughly on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.
Despite the fact that Obama’s declaration was nothing new, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the idea of pre-1967 borders, even using a news conference with Obama to call the proposal “indefensible.” His chief political rival, Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, disagreed, noting that the pre-1967 borders is already American policy.
Now, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is announcing that he plans to introduce a resolution condemning Obama’s advocacy for pre-1967 borders. Hatch sensationally claiming that Obama is “rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist“:
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) issued a press release today stating his intention to introduce a resolution next week disapproving of the policy concerning Israel that President Barack Obama announced on Thursday. “Israel is the United States’ strongest friend and ally,” Hatch said in the statement. “By calling for a return to the pre-1967 borders, President Obama has directly undermined her.”
Instead, Hatch said, “President Obama is rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist.” “This is not only ridiculous, but dangerous,” he said.
Yet what Hatch, Netanyahu, and their allies in the U.S. Congress are not saying is that most Israelis and Palestinians actually support a settlement based around 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps that result in a safe, secure, free, and prosperous independent Palestinian and Israeli states. Here is a roundup of some of the recent polling on the issue:
- PALESTINIANS SUPPORT PEACE: It a common refrain among those who would deny rights to the Palestinians that they are militantly opposed to Israel’s very existence and would never support a peaceful resolution. Yet the facts do not support this assertion. Polling conducted in 2009 indicated that 74 percent of Palestinians support a two-state solution based around the contours of the international consensus. Polling conducted in 2010 found that 71 percent support peace negotiations with Israel and that a majority of Palestinians oppose rocket attacks on the country. Last month, the top Palestinian diplomat at the UN asked that the international community support a solution based on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.
- ISRAELIS SUPPORT PEACE: While the pre-1967 borders were portrayed as primarily a Palestinian demand by the mainstream media and conservatives, the truth is that most Israelis are actually in favor of withdrawing settlements and establishing roughly these borders in exchange for peace. In a 2010 Brookings Institution poll, a plurality of Israelis supported this border arrangement along with mutually agreed land swaps. More recent polling from the Joint Israeli Palestinian Poll conducted by the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University and the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 52 percent of Israelis support a peace agreement based roughly around the elements of the Saudi peace plan and Clinton Parameters, which would incorporate the pre-1967 borders, and that most Israelis support negotiating with Hamas. A 2011 poll conducted by a major Israeli newspaper shows that 53 percent of Israelis want Netanyahu to seriously engage in peace talks that includes significant concessions.
While it is true that mort Palestinians support this agreement than Israelis — the status quo is much worse for them — it is also true that narrow majorities of Israelis support the general contours of a peace proposal that Obama and the wider international community are endorsing. Netanyahu, Hatch, and their allies in the U.S. Congress and Israeli Knesset are staking out positions that are out of step with public opinion and reality. The question is whether Obama is will use the levers at his disposal to force them to the negotiating table.
Last week, in a speech on the Middle East, President Obama reiterated long-standing US policy that there should be a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is based roughly on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.
Despite the fact that Obama’s declaration was nothing new, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the idea of pre-1967 borders, even using a news conference with Obama to call the proposal “indefensible.” His chief political rival, Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, disagreed, noting that the pre-1967 borders is already American policy.
Now, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is announcing that he plans to introduce a resolution condemning Obama’s advocacy for pre-1967 borders. Hatch sensationally claiming that Obama is “rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist“:
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) issued a press release today stating his intention to introduce a resolution next week disapproving of the policy concerning Israel that President Barack Obama announced on Thursday. “Israel is the United States’ strongest friend and ally,” Hatch said in the statement. “By calling for a return to the pre-1967 borders, President Obama has directly undermined her.”
Instead, Hatch said, “President Obama is rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist.” “This is not only ridiculous, but dangerous,” he said.
Yet what Hatch, Netanyahu, and their allies in the U.S. Congress are not saying is that most Israelis and Palestinians actually support a settlement based around 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps that result in a safe, secure, free, and prosperous independent Palestinian and Israeli states. Here is a roundup of some of the recent polling on the issue:
- PALESTINIANS SUPPORT PEACE: It a common refrain among those who would deny rights to the Palestinians that they are militantly opposed to Israel’s very existence and would never support a peaceful resolution. Yet the facts do not support this assertion. Polling conducted in 2009 indicated that 74 percent of Palestinians support a two-state solution based around the contours of the international consensus. Polling conducted in 2010 found that 71 percent support peace negotiations with Israel and that a majority of Palestinians oppose rocket attacks on the country. Last month, the top Palestinian diplomat at the UN asked that the international community support a solution based on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.
- ISRAELIS SUPPORT PEACE: While the pre-1967 borders were portrayed as primarily a Palestinian demand by the mainstream media and conservatives, the truth is that most Israelis are actually in favor of withdrawing settlements and establishing roughly these borders in exchange for peace. In a 2010 Brookings Institution poll, a plurality of Israelis supported this border arrangement along with mutually agreed land swaps. More recent polling from the Joint Israeli Palestinian Poll conducted by the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University and the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 52 percent of Israelis support a peace agreement based roughly around the elements of the Saudi peace plan and Clinton Parameters, which would incorporate the pre-1967 borders, and that most Israelis support negotiating with Hamas. A 2011 poll conducted by a major Israeli newspaper shows that 53 percent of Israelis want Netanyahu to seriously engage in peace talks that includes significant concessions.
While it is true that mort Palestinians support this agreement than Israelis — the status quo is much worse for them — it is also true that narrow majorities of Israelis support the general contours of a peace proposal that Obama and the wider international community are endorsing. Netanyahu, Hatch, and their allies in the U.S. Congress and Israeli Knesset are staking out positions that are out of step with public opinion and reality. The question is whether Obama is will use the levers at his disposal to force them to the negotiating table.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kecnzvcIOY
Notes:
The first 7 minutes is Obama talking around one single point:
Our relationship with Israel is still strong and we are working together towards common goals.
Netanyahu's points:
Overarching theme: We all want an enduring peace, but a peace based on illusion will simply fall apart.
1. For there to be peace, the Palestinians need to accept the following realities:
a. 1967 borders are indefensible
b. they do not take into account the changes on the ground since the land has been in the hands of the Jews for the past 44 years
c. These were the boundaries of war, not peace, and in the hope of peace, these cannot be acceptable borders
d. Long term military presence on the borders is a simple safety point which will be required in any deal
2. israel cannot negotiate with a terrorist organization known as Hamas, even if it is a "government"
a. Hamas recently condemned the US for killing Bin Laden
b. Hamas recently shelled a yellow school bus with an anti tank missile
c. Abbas needs to decide whether he's with Hamas or with the US and Israel - i.e. is he for peace or not
3. The refugee problem must be solved outside the israeli borders
a. after 1948, there were two sets of refugees, and israel absorbed the jews, but no one absorbed any of the arab refugees.
b. Now they want the grandchildren of the refugees to be absorbed by Israel.
4. The Israelis have suffered more than so many and in so many ways, but even in the nadir of the valley of death, they never lost our hope and dream of establishing our sovereign land. Any peace must ensure Israel's security and not jeopardize the Jewish people in any way. There is no margin for error. And history will not give the Jewish people another chance if there are any mistakes.
Here's a big part of what it's all about:
:ugeek:
They're no more or less indefensible now than they were in 1967 before Israel began it's land grab.
The changes on the ground? Why don't you just say it like it is? You mean the Jewish-only illegal settlements that have been built in defiance of international law.
Pure nonsense. Peace means accepting international law and the will of the whole of the international community by conforming to U.N Resolution 242.
Right. But not an Israeli military presence, but a U.N military presence, so that both Israeli's and Palestinians can live in peace.
Bullshit. Israel has committed far more acts of terrorism over the past 60 years. The only type of Palestinian organization the Israeli's are interested in negotiating with is one that will bend to Israel's every demand.
Along with many other world leaders, human rights groups, and political leaders. What makes you think this justifies Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and it's criminal blockade of Gaza?
Israel recently shot dead some unarmed demonstrators who were demonstrating over the criminal separation wall. Again, how does sporadic Palestinian violence justify the occupation?
No he mustn't. Hamas has clearly stated that it supports Resolution 242 along with the rest of the world and in line with international law.
No it mustn't. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, Article 11 reads:
'Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.'
What does this have to do with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza?
And yet you think that the so-called descendents of Jews who lived in that part of the world 2000 years ago have a right to settle in Israel? No hypocrisy there then!
What does this have to do with the occupation and international law?
You can read for yourselves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress. Both on regional issues and the Israeli-Palestinian question he was quite clear. His speech was vastly superior to those by Obama not just because of the policy content but because he deals with regional realities that the president ignores or just gets completely wrong.
But what I want to talk about here is a remarkable juxtaposition that no one else seems to have noticed. If you understand this article, you can understand all of the problems of the Middle East. If you don’t, please go mess up the lives of people elsewhere.
To set up this point I must first quote extensively from Netanyahu’s speech. He said:
This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.
But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish.
So this is a classic Western — indeed a classic liberal Western — formulation. We have our rights but we also respect your rights. Let’s find a win-win situation that benefits everyone.
Netanyahu added:
They [the Palestinians] were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.
In a moment, watch Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas prove Netanyahu’s first sentence to be true.
My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”
Remember that challenge.
Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.
In other words, once the Palestinians really acknowledge — which they have not done — the Jewish connection to the land, Israel will know they are a partner for peace and make more compromises.
Now, here’s the part nobody noticed. Abbas answered Netanyahu!
In a major speech for “Nakba Day,” that is the Palestinian day of mourning that Israel was ever created in the first place, Abbas said:
We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims — that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years [BC] — we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history [BC]. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: “Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.”
Do you understand?
Netanyahu said: We have rights; you have rights. We recognize yours and when you recognize ours we can have peace. Your refusal to recognize our rights — to demand total victory for yourself (which means Israel’s disappearance) — makes peace impossible.
And here is how Abbas (whose name cannot appear in the American media without the word “moderate” being attached to him) answered:
Well, we don’t recognize that you have any rights. All the rights belong to us! You are just a passing breeze that will become extinct and you are of no importance.
So that’s the bottom line. Even in the year 2011 — as happened in the year 1948 — even a relative moderate like Abbas simply cannot bring himself to say in Arabic: “Let’s share this land in a two-state solution.”
Ironically, Netanyahu is taking a liberal and flexible position while Abbas is taking a reactionary, imperialistic stance. Talk about accepting the “other”!
And yet not a single professor in any university class, not a single journalist or expert in the mass media will raise or even report that point. President Obama won’t pick up on it to chide the Palestinians. Nobody will start calling Netanyahu moderate and peace-seeking while saying that Abbas is extremist and peace-rejecting.
Nevertheless, what simpler and more graphic example could anyone want?
Now you know why peace is impossible. It isn’t because Israel won’t go back to the 1967 borders. It’s because the Palestinian leadership still believes and tells its people that Israel has no right to exist.
PS: Abbas’s history is of course rubbish. There is no connection between ancient Canaanites — who don’t go back anywhere near that far — and modern Arabs. Since the Canaanites weren’t Muslims, Abbas is acting as a pure opportunist since no Arab nation accepts such pre-Islamic connections any way.
But I love that phrase he said, “We are the owners of history.” In other words, we can make up any lie we want and to Hell with the consequences.
The Jewish Temple? Never existed in Jerusalem!
Did we miss a chance to have our own state in 1947? Never happened!
Is it crazy to go on fighting for decades hoping to destroy Israel rather than make a compromise peace now? No alternative. Israel doesn’t want peace.
Abbas has told us everything we need to know about who doesn’t want peace. And here’s the reality of the Palestinian Authority position (not to mention that of its partner, Hamas): if you can’t have peace without accepting Israel’s permanent existence then it is better not to have peace at all.
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011 ... -exchange/
— Socrates
Continuing to build illegal Jewish-only settlements and continuing to flout international law and the will of the whole of the international community has nothing to do with seeking peace - unless that is you're seeking to turn reality on it's head?
This is bullshit. The Palestinians have clearly voiced their desire to end the conflict in accordance with U.N Resolution 242 and in agreement with the whole world - excluding Israel and the U.S.
Israel hasn't declared it's own borders, and in fact continues to expand those borders with more illegal settlements, so what state is Abbas being asked to recognize?
Except Netanyahu doesn't recognize the rights of the Palestinians, as evidenced by the fact that illegal racist settlements continue being built, and by the fact that he dismisses calls by the whole world for the Israeli's to withdraw to the 1967 borders.
The only right the Israeli's have is to pull back to these borders. Israel does not have the right to build racist settlements on stolen land.
http://www.btselem.org/english/Settleme ... al_Law.asp
'The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.
The establishment of settlements results in the violation of the rights of Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.
The illegality of the settlements under international humanitarian law does not affect the status of the settlers. The settlers constitute a civilian population by any standard, and include children, who are entitled to special protection. Although some of the settlers are part of the security forces, this fact has absolutely no bearing on the status of the other residents of the settlements.'
Where are the quotation marks?
It certainly is ironic if you have any regard for reality.
Ah, the old 'right to exist chestnut' again. Why do the Israeli's not recognize Palestine's right to exist?
Michael Neumann:
'In the case of a Jewish claim to Palestine, the claims are themselves dubious. Here it is not necessary to have decided on a truth, which may elude researchers forever. It is enough to show that there is serious controversy, and that is easily done. One account of recent findings can be found in 'The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the origin of It's sacred Texts'. It's authors are Israel Finkelstein, director of an archeological institute at Tel Aviv Uuniversity, and Neil Asher Silberman, director of a Belgian archeological institute and a contributing editor to 'Archeology' magazine. These writers display no political agenda and repeat to the point of saturation their admiration and respect for the Bible. Asher and Silberman introduce their work with the claim that:
"The historical sage contained in the Bible - from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses's delverance of the children of Israe from bondage, to the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah - was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination."
This is the authors' exceedingly polite way of saying that the Biblical accounts are sometimes nonsense, sometimes deliberate lies, exaggerations, and distortions. The status of the Biblical Kingdom is particularly relevant to the Jewish claims to Palestine. One of Asher and Silberman's more devastating findings is that:
"The Biblical borders of the land of Israel as outlined in the book of Joshua had seemingly assumed a sacred inviolability...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archelogical evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."
In other words, they find that the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like it's fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various syncretic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'
well it is a "fairy tale" to you, but obviously not to them. Your not religious, but don't demean those that are...they believe strongly in this...and a simply whittling it down to calling their entire belief structure a fairy tale isn't cool...I don't begin to understand the feelings these people have toward their religion, and I am saddened that the two belief systems cannot find the ability to simply share, but that doesn't mean you have to demean their entire believe structure.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
Are you an international law professional? You seem to want to give a lot of weight to UN resolutions and what the rest of the world thinks is good for Isreal and the Palestinians for that matter.
This is bullshit. The Palestinians have clearly voiced their desire to end the conflict in accordance with U.N Resolution 242 and in agreement with the whole world - excluding Israel and the U.S.
Okay, but who walked away from the consessions that they are now demanding last, oh that is right Arafat left the Camp David Accords without signing the agreement because they would have killed him had he signed.
Israel hasn't declared it's own borders, and in fact continues to expand those borders with more illegal settlements, so what state is Abbas being asked to recognize?
The Palestinians need to accept that the nation they now live in is called Isreal, the borders of the country of Isreal are what they are and will remain as such. Palestinian recognition of such would allow them to start defining borders of a state within that country.
Except Netanyahu doesn't recognize the rights of the Palestinians, as evidenced by the fact that illegal racist settlements continue being built, and by the fact that he dismisses calls by the whole world for the Israeli's to withdraw to the 1967 borders.
The only right the Israeli's have is to pull back to these borders. Israel does not have the right to build racist settlements on stolen land.
Isreali government has shown that it is willing to forceable move settlers when they are legally bound to. What fundamentalists (settlement builders/suicide bombers) working outside the government have to do with the two partys agreeing that the other actually exists I don't know.
http://www.btselem.org/english/Settleme ... al_Law.asp
'The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.
The establishment of settlements results in the violation of the rights of Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.
The illegality of the settlements under international humanitarian law does not affect the status of the settlers. The settlers constitute a civilian population by any standard, and include children, who are entitled to special protection. Although some of the settlers are part of the security forces, this fact has absolutely no bearing on the status of the other residents of the settlements.'
Nice so once we get over the fact that Isreal is no longer an occupying power then the international community can let them start governing their own country as they see fit.
Where are the quotation marks?
The author, Mr.rubin was attempting to straighten out the outrageous claims of Mr.Abbas prior to this essential making up 7000 years of history.
It certainly is ironic if you have any regard for reality.
I will gladly have no regard for reality then I guess
Ah, the old 'right to exist chestnut' again. Why do the Israeli's not recognize Palestine's right to exist?
Michael Neumann:
'In the case of a Jewish claim to Palestine, the claims are themselves dubious. Here it is not necessary to have decided on a truth, which may elude researchers forever. It is enough to show that there is serious controversy, and that is easily done. One account of recent findings can be found in 'The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the origin of It's sacred Texts'. It's authors are Israel Finkelstein, director of an archeological institute at Tel Aviv Uuniversity, and Neil Asher Silberman, director of a Belgian archeological institute and a contributing editor to 'Archeology' magazine. These writers display no political agenda and repeat to the point of saturation their admiration and respect for the Bible. Asher and Silberman introduce their work with the claim that:
"The historical sage contained in the Bible - from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses's delverance of the children of Israe from bondage, to the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah - was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination."
This is the authors' exceedingly polite way of saying that the Biblical accounts are sometimes nonsense, sometimes deliberate lies, exaggerations, and distortions. The status of the Biblical Kingdom is particularly relevant to the Jewish claims to Palestine. One of Asher and Silberman's more devastating findings is that:
"The Biblical borders of the land of Israel as outlined in the book of Joshua had seemingly assumed a sacred inviolability...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archelogical evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."
In other words, they find that the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like it's fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various syncretic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'[/quote]
Great scholarship here this is good and pretty much means that the whole whos history is better pissing match useless in the arguement, see Mr.Abbas made that ridiculous 7K year remark earlier. So whats the real reason Isreal gets to exist? Oh that is right they were on the winning side of the negotiations at the end of WW2, and were given reparations from the losers (the Caliphate had alilied itself with Hitler, and promoted the Jewish slaughter in Europe.) Now if you would like we can talk about the plight of the transjordanian refugees that this decision created.
— Socrates
My apologies, MikePegg, but, in my opinion, religion is a fairy tale. Cool or not, that is my belief. And, if I am being (unintentionally) rude or inconsiderate, it pales in comparison to the damage religion has done. All I want people to do is wake up.
I should start all of my statements with "in my opinion"; this I realize, but I thought it was common knowledge that everything people say/write is an opinion, no matter the (lack of) support.
Regardless, I still find it foolish that these 2 groups are fighting over the fact that they believe in a different interpretation of the unknown. Again, in my opinion, this battle is grounded in a fairy tale. In my opinion, it is idiotic. To some people American Idol is important; to some people the next sale at the mall is important; to some people reading about the lives of celebrities is important. That doesn't mean that it isn't idiotic. Take religion out of this "quarrel" and things may be a lot better.
I think we both know that fairy tale is condescending. You can hate, not particpate, speak out against organized religion all you would like, but you don't have to be condescending about it. it isn't about it being your opinion, you can have offensive opinions. what if I said it is my opinion all white people are lazy, or all black people are criminals, or all asians are stupid...just because it is my opinion doesn't mean it isn't offensive to say those things. You can talk about the problems you have with religion without it being offensive, condescending and dismissive...
If you take religion out of the equation it may be better, but we don't have a religious conflict with muslim extremists...there will always be something to fight about...and there will always be people willing to escalate that fight to violence
oh and apology accepted
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
He didn't walk away from the Camp David sessions. He supported the international consensus of an Israeli withdrawal to the '67 borders and a cessation to hostilities.
The Palestinians don't live in a nation called Israel. They currently live on what's left of the land of Palestine after it was carved up in 1947.
'UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.'
Israel is no longer an occupying power? How do come to that conclusion? Care to elaborate?
How does refusing to abide by international law, and cease building Jewish-only settlements, constitute taking a liberal and flexible position?
With regard to the original topic, a two-state solution will not solve anything. It is an illusion. First of all, it is incorrect to say most Palestinians support a two-state solution on the '67 borders. First of all, if you take a look at the poll I guarantee you that not a single Palestinian outside of the occupied territories was polled. Are the 5,000,000+ Palestinians in the diaspora irrelevant? Second, most often when polled on this issue, it is usually asked in a way to the Palestinians as "would you prefer a two-state solution over the present situation?" to which most Palestinians living under the brutal Israeli occupation whether in the West Bank or Gaza would obviously say yes. That being said, when actually checking the reality on the ground, one will notice that it is simply impossible for a Palestinian state to come about. There are far too many Israeli settlements in the West Bank. When Saeb Erakat, chief Palestinian and moron overlord of negotiations with the Israelis offered almost every single settlement for Israel to annex in the West Bank, in addition to 'the biggest Jerusalem possible' to give to Israel (almost all the settlements and districts in East Jerusalem) AND was willing to completely back off the issue of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, Israel STILL SAID NO. Oh, and this was during Ehud Olmert's tenure, who is considered 'left wing' in Israeli politics.
A two-state solution WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Palestinians can go to the UN and cry all they want for their pathetic state, which will have no economy whatsoever since it is completely dependent on Israel, as the Israelis intended on making it. Not to mention the Palestinians wouldn't even be allowed an army or any means to defend itself further against Israeli oppression. What kind of state is that? Some broken up piece of land, an economy that has 0% independence, etc. This is Apartheid South Africa and the bantustans all over again. It's time to move past this. The real issue here is ideological. Zionism is a racist disgusting ideology that needs to be rejected outright. The idea of a 'Jewish state' needs to be completely rejected. One democratic, secular state for Jews and Palestinians is the only logical solution. It will solve the issue of refugees as they will be allowed to truly return to their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem, etc. People keep talking about the 'demographic threat'. There was the same so-called demographic threat when the black people were given equal rights in South Africa. but when people spoke of a demographic threat, those people were rightly told to shut the fuck up because that talk is absolutely ridiculous. The Palestinians do not want to throw the Israelis into the sea and are willing to make peace; they just want their rights restored and their homes and property. When people finally abandon this false solution called 'two-states' we can continue moving forward. Until then, the Zionist ideology needs to be continuously condemned and Americans enlightened about the realities of the conflict.
Point by point, what a good post my friend. Facts, Logic,reason, spread out well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ZIJdN05QE
Zionism is in the American Bloodstream, it has become almost woven into the DNA of the Country.
You do realize that 20% of Israel's population is Palestinian, right? Not quite "Jewish only." You also realize that Zionism has nothing to do in principle with any sort of notion of ethnic/racial superiority. It is simply Jewish nationalism, expressing the desire of the Jewish people to exercise their right to self determination in their homeland. As for not knowing life outside of a refugee camp, the vast majority of the refugees do not live under Israel's sovereignty, but rather under the sovereignty of Israel's Arab neighbors and the stewardship of the UN. That they have been barred for the last 60+ years (in the absence of a resolution to the conflict) from seeking a better life outside the camps is really not Israel's fault.
It's interesting, I was just having a conversation with a friend about possible solutions to the conflict. We were talking about Israel simply giving up sovereignty over the majority of the settlements without evacuating them, giving the occupants the option to either move or continue living where they are under Palestinian rule. The obvious problem with this is that I doubt the Palestinians would agree, but it's interesting to ask, especially in light of Israel's already mentioned 20% Palestinian minority, why a future Palestinian state should have to be judenrein?
Zionism is not racist. There are racist Zionists, but there is nothing in principle racist about the desire of a people for self-determination. Beyond that, a one state solution is neither logical nor just, for the simple reason that it is not what the people who would have to live in such a state actually want. The imposition of such a solution would amount to the negation of the Jewish people's right to national self-determination.
I was simply stating what was at the foundation of this issue. In no way was I offering a detailed account of the intricacies of the issue. I have read extensively on this conflict, which includes all sources provided by the participants in this thread
My labeling of religion as a fairy tale is neither uneducated nor arrogant. I was simply stating my opinion, which is what all of us do here at the AMT (most of the time with sources/date). Religions are interpretations of the unknown and the unknowable; therefore, fervently believing that the religion you (the general you) subscribe to is in any way "right" (and all the others wrong), shows more arrogance than someone dismissing it as a fairy tale. And, due to the fact that people do not choose religion--despite the small percentage who convert--but worship a religion based simply on the luck of being born in a certain part of the globe or to a certain family, shows a more uneducated mind than someone-- in my case an agnostic (or pagan or heathen or heretic)-- who freely admits that religious certainty is impossible.
Michael Neumann:
'The Zionists and their camp followers did not come simply to "find a homeland," certainly not in the sense that Flanders is the homeland of the Flemish, or Lappland of the Lapps. They did not come simply to "make a life in Palestine." They did not come to "redeem a people". All this could have been done elsewhere, as was pointed out at the time, and much of it was being done elsewhere by individual Jewish immigrants to America and other countries. The Zionists, and therefore all who settled under their auspices, came to found a soveriegn Jewish state.'
'Zionism was from the start an ill-considered and menacing experiment in ethnic nationalism. Neither history nor religion could justify it. The Jews had no claim to Palestine and no right to build a state there. Their growing need for refuge may have provided some limited, inadequate, short-term moral sustenance for the Zionist project, but it could not render that project legitimate. The mere fact of later suffering cannot retroactively convert a wrong into a right: my attempt to usurp your land does not become legitimate simply because I am wrongly beaten by someone else, far away, when my project is near completion. Nor did the well founded desperation of the Jews during the Nazi era provide any justification for Zionism; at most it provided an excuse. If someone is murdering my family in Germany, that does not entitle me to your house in Boston, or my "people" to your country. All Jews fleeing Hitler were indeed entitled to some refuge. One might even suppose that it was the obligation of the whole world, including the Palestinians, to do what they could to provide such refuge. But this is not the whole story.
For one thing, those with ample means to provide refuge, and those who are responsible for the need, have by far the greater share of responsibility. The Palestinians fell into neither category. Even more important, there is an enormous difference between providing refuge and providing a sovereign state. No amount of danger or suffering requires this, and indeed it may conflict with the demand for refuge. Simply to control one's own affairs isn't always the safest alternative. Arguably, for instance, the Jews were safer in the United States, where they are not sovereign, than they ever were in Israel. This is not only a fact but was always a reasonable expectation, so the need for refuge is also no basis for Zionism...
If there are any great lessons to be learned from the Nazi era , they are to watch out for fascism, racism, and ethnic nationalism. Supporting Israel hardly embodies these lessons.'
Except it wasn't 'their' homeland. The land was already occupied, and a spurious 2000 year old claim to the land gave the Zionists no right to steal the land subjugate it's ingabitants.
'Zionism has never been a movement for the defence of the Jewish religion.; on the contrary, many of the most religious Jews abhor it. It was never even a movement in defence of some cultural entity; when the Zionist movement began, Jews had no common language and their traditions were in many cases wildly dissimilar or simply abandoned altogether. Zionism was a movement that advocated not so much the defense of an ethnic group, as the formation of such a group in Palestine, where those who were thought to fit a certain semi-racial category were to find refuge. It was a lovely dream where all Jews would live happily together and, with typical Wilsonian obliviousness, no one seemed to notice that those who did not pass ethnic muster had no place in this fantasy. If they were to be tolerated, welcomed, even loved, it was to be at the pleasure of the Jews. Of that there could be no mistake. This is exactly the sort of vulnerable subordination that Jews, quite understandably, were trying to escape. "Trust us, we'll be nice" is not a promise endorsed by the historical record.
Zionists respond with fury when their movement is identified with racism. Many ethnic supremacists do. They protest that they do not advocate their own superiority, but simply want a land or culture of their own. But that is of neccesity a land where one race is guaranteed supremacy: whether or not this is on grounds of intrinsic superiority hardly matters. And that such movements and attitudes gain respectability is not the fault of the Zionists, much less of the Jews, but of an idiotically false tolerance of ethnic nationalism.'
'...If we cannot see the harm in talk of peoples and homelands, it is because our obsession with antisemitism has blinded us to the true origins of Nazi ideology. Before the Nazis, antisemitism was prevalent all over Western Europe. There were ugly incidents, one or two outrageous miscarriages of justice, but no genocide and nothing remotely resembling the peasant pogroms of Russia and the Ukraine. As for Germany, my Jewish parents, born and raised there, staunchly maintained that it was the least antisemitic country in all of pre-Nazi Europe. Why then is the Nazi genocide attributed to antisemitism, which clearly was necessary but not sufficient to produce it? And what about the aspects of Nazi ethnic cleansing that antisemitism can't possibly explain - the genocide against the gypsies and the planned extermination of thirty million Slavs, many of whom died as 'subhumans' in inhuman prison camps?
There was an ideology sufficient to drive all those atrocities. It fairly stares us in the face. It was not devised by Hitler, but by 19th Century Romantics - poets and pseudo-historians from Scandinavia across Central Europe and down into the Italian Peninsula and the Balkans. It was not the Nazis, but Woodrow Wilson who made it a fixture of contemporary politics. This was the ideology of ethnic nationalism.
The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university's ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people.'
Two Peoples, Two States
RACHEL LEVER thinks that it is very offensive for me to suggest that the “single state” she favors, a state with an Arab and Muslim majority in the heart of the Arab and Muslim Middle East, will inevitably be Arab and Muslim, rather than binational. This she takes to imply that, in my view, “lack of democracy” is “an ethnic thing” for “the Arabs.” But, of course, this is not what I said. An Arab state can in principle be democratic, as we all hope that the Egyptian Arab Republic will now become. It cannot, by definition, be binational.
Arab Palestine might, conceivably, be a democracy, treating its Jewish minority decently—with Jewish members of the Palestinian Parliament as free to criticize their government as Arab members of the Knesset now are, the Palestinian Supreme Court as willing to overrule the government in defense of minority rights as the Israeli Supreme Court is, and a Jewish judge at the head of a panel trying a Palestinian ex-president. This would be a radical change for the better compared to regional practices with regard to democracy and the treatment of minorities (not to speak of Jews) in past decades. To say that this scenario is wholly impossible would indeed be offensive—just as ignoring the danger that a very different scenario will emerge is silly and irresponsible.
But there is nothing remotely offensive to Arabs in assuming that an Arab-majority state will be Arab. Oppressing minorities is not an Arab consensus; the “Arabness” of every Arab-majority state is. As a supporter of the Jewish state, and of the right to national self-determination, I can find nothing wrong with an Arab state as such. Arab peoples, including Palestinian Arabs, have a right to national independence; a state that realizes this right is Arab—just as the state that does so for the Jewish people is Jewish. This is how all the Arab-majority states in the region (including those with large non-Arab minorities) are officially defined; some, including Egypt and Syria, have “Arab” in their name. This is not caused by the prevalence of undemocratic regimes in the region—the “Arabness” of all Arab states, and their being part of the Arab world (“the Arab nation”), is a view shared by all significant sectors of Arab public opinion. The Arab secular Left has traditionally put greater emphasis on this than “reactionary” regimes. While pan-Arab nationalism has weakened a lot since its heyday under Nasser, no significant group can afford to renounce the fundamental notions of Arab affinity and solidarity.
In the British Mandatory Palestine, the tiny Communist party split in the 1940s, when the Jewish Communists adopted the idea of a binational Jewish-Arab state. The Arab Communists insisted on Palestine being an Arab state, “part of the Arab homeland,” with Jews recognized as a national minority. That was the most non-nationalist stance that any Arab group in Palestine took. Today, the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (Algiers, 1988), the Palestinian Authority’s Basic Law, and the draft constitution of the future Palestinian state contain all the usual definitions: Palestine is an Arab state, part of the Arab homeland; the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Moreover, “Islam is the official religion”; “the principles of Islamic Sharia are a major source for legislation.” These statements (alongside provisions on religious freedom and civic equality) do not come from Hamas, but from Fatah and its “leftist” nationalist allies. Such formulations are typical of the relatively secular constitutions in the Arab world. In Egypt (with its indigenous Christian minority numbering in the millions), the constitution now says that Islam is the state religion, and Sharia is the main source of legislation. We shall see whether the new democratic Egyptian constitution, to be worked out with the Muslim Brothers’ participation, will change that.
In the draft Palestinian constitution, the Palestinian people are defined not just as part of the Arab nation but as part of the “Islamic nation” as well. This is considered “kosher” by the more secular Palestinian factions—not a “denial of the other” in regards to Palestinian Christians. The Palestinian national movements’ Western supporters are, naturally, too busy denouncing that great offender against secularism in the Middle East, Israel, to notice such things. Is there then anything offensive in assuming that the “single state” will be Muslim as well as Arab? Of course, being officially “Muslim” doesn’t necessarily mean that a state is oppressive to non-Muslims—though in practice it often does mean that; constitutional definitions are far from being the main problem for Christians in the Palestinian Authority, in Egypt, and elsewhere. There are West European countries with an official Church. The official status of the Orthodox Church in Greece goes well beyond the symbolic field. In Israel, the ties between Judaism and the state are unproblematic in some fields, but problematic in others (chiefly with regard to the personal status).
Lever speaks of a state where “ethnicity” won’t matter. But the Jews and the Arabs don’t regard themselves as two ethnic communities belonging to the same nation; they see themselves as two distinct peoples, with two national identities. Needles to say, there is no “objective” way to distinguish between ethnic and national identity: what matters, ultimately (though not to Lever), is how the people in question regard themselves. The Jewish-Israeli national identity, incidentally, must be one of the most multiethnic in the world. A notion of peoplehood that regards immigrants from Poland and Yemen as belonging to the same people is nothing if not multiethnic. To Lever, the story of Jews from Arab countries in Israel is just another occasion for Israel-bashing. In fact, this is surely the most successful case of integration between people of European and Middle Eastern origin, in roughly equal numbers, in recorded history. Israel received, in the first several years of its independence, a huge wave of immigrants—Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries—that tripled its population, making them citizens on arrival. The process of integration was, unsurprisingly, accompanied by many difficulties; cultural gaps and, indeed, cultural and ethnic prejudice certainly played their part. But anybody who knows anything about Israeli society knows that Jews from Arab countries are not just unquestionably loyal to Israel—their support for the notion of a Jewish state is even more adamant and overwhelming than that of Jews from Europe (which is overwhelming enough).
A Jewish state and an Arab state are terms signifying, in principle, the national independence of a people, rather than the domination of a certain ethnic community. Of course, any nation state is also obliged to ensure the equal rights of national minorities, if they exist within its borders—those citizens who aver a national identity (not merely “ethnicity”) different from that of the majority. Under conditions of bitter national conflict, this is not an easy task—though it is doubly vital precisely because of this. While Arab Knesset members (and many Jewish ones) criticize the flaws of the Israeli democracy in this respect, no parallel criticism is possible regarding the Arab world, for the simple reason that no Jewish community has been able to survive there. Lever holds that these Jews “migrated peacefully,” having been tempted, or “panicked” by Israel—a serious explanation indeed for the emptying of the Arab Middle East of its Jews, reflecting great moral earnestness and genuine concern for human rights. But many of those Jews ended up in the West, not in Israel; Mossad was evidently unable to brainwash or kidnap them all, and not everybody was a Zionist. It is just that their life in the Arab countries was made impossible—even for those who regarded themselves as Arab nationalists and tried to play the part. The undeniable fact is that it is Arab nationalism, rather than Zionism, that has up to now proved, in practice, incompatible with Jewish-Arab coexistence. In fairness, one should note that there have been voices among Arab intellectuals in recent years, notably in Iraq, exposing and decrying the shameful way in which Jews of Arab countries have been treated by Arab governments (“progressive” and reactionary alike) and societies. Among other things, they recall the infamous “Farhud”—the massacre of hundreds of Jews in Baghdad (in 1941, long before Israel’s war of independence). Rachel Lever would do well to listen to those brave voices. It is not an “ethnic thing” for Arabs to be incapable of subjecting Arab society to serious and honest criticism—merely a “cultural thing” for the useful dupes of Arab nationalism in the West.
Certainly, what happened to the Arab countries’ Jews was influenced by the Arab-Israeli conflict (though not just by it—witness what is happening to Arab Christians). But what happened to Arabs in this country, including the tragedy of refugees and the occupation, was also influenced by the conflict. The conflict, after all, raged, and still continues, here. Its impact, however, has been such that Jews cannot live under Arab rule thousands of miles away, while Arabs do live, in great numbers, under Israeli rule. Arab citizens of Israel, for all their criticisms (some more justified, some less), are horrified by suggestions that they should be liberated from this rule—not, God forbid, that they should move to the future Palestinian Arab state, but that this state should come to them, as part of territorial swaps. They adamantly insist that in any future two-state peace deal, their towns and villages should still be under Israeli rather Palestinian sovereignty. Has any nation state ever received such a vote of confidence from a national minority in the midst of a national conflict? I wonder how I would have felt, as an Israeli, if a Jewish community in a neighboring Arab state had faced a suggestion that the border be moved to enable its inclusion in Israel, and reacted in a similar way.
In fact, in polls that ask directly about their attitude to Israel, Israeli Arab citizens are, despite ups and downs, consistently more positive than what one usually hears from their leaders. In a January 2009 poll, conducted five days after the ceasefire in Gaza (not exactly the most favorable moment), 45 percent of them said they were “proud to be Israeli”; in 2008 the figure had been 53 percent. In a later poll, 60.8 percent of Israeli Arabs agreed that “the Jews in Israel are a people with a right to a state”, 51.6 percent accepted that “Israel had a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.” Obviously, the official formula (“Jewish and democratic”) is disliked by many, but the substantive point about the legitimacy of a Jewish state is reflected in the first question as well. And 50.5 percent (far fewer than in the past, but still a majority) agreed that “the regime of the state of Israel, despite its flaws, is democratic also as regards its Arab citizens.”
What Lever proposes is to do to all the Israeli Arabs what Avigdor Lieberman wants to do to the inhabitants of Um-el-Fahm, to their consternation: to make them part of Palestine rather than part of Israel. As for Israeli Jews, she proposes to deprive them, under the best—not necessarily the likeliest—scenario of how Arab Palestine would look, of their people’s right to national independence.
For the “single state” to be truly binational, it is not enough to get rid of the Jewish state; the Palestinians must accept that there won’t be an Arab Palestinian state either. They must agree to be the only one of the Arab peoples whose country will not be defined as Arab and part of the Arab world. This concession they must make not in favor of Berbers or Kurds, but of Zionist Jews, whose coming to the country has been regarded as a foreign invasion aimed at depriving Arab Palestine of its proper Arab character. Such a concession would be considered humiliating and illegitimate. Even if undertaken in good faith, it could not survive the disappearance of Israel as a sovereign state and the emergence of a new state, with an Arab majority, naturally regarding itself as part of the Arab world and the Arab consensus. It is one thing to speak, vaguely, about “one state” now, when this formula is a recipe for doing away with Israel, and quite another to tolerate the intolerable—that such a state, once established, would not be Arab and part of the surrounding Arab world. Under such conditions, it is silly to think that anything written in some constitutional document will allow the minority to prevent the majority from giving expression to what is not merely its worldview but its core identity.
South Africa is sometimes adduced as an example of a successful “one-state solution” that confounded pessimistic predictions. But, apart from all the other differences, the ANC (unlike some more radical groups) never espoused the idea of “black nationalism,” which would have paralleled the Arab nationalism espoused by the Palestinian national movement. It waged its whole struggle under the banner of an idea of nationhood including all the communities of South Africa—to be governed democratically. In a land with dozens of ethnic groups and languages, the notion of a national identity comprising all of them is—apart from any other consideration—the best way to avert the danger of the country being smashed to smithereens. The new South Africa is multiethnic but “mono-national”; it is based on the principle that all the country’s groups share the same national identity. The Palestinian parallel for this would have been to define the Palestinian people as including the millions of Israeli Jews but not as Arab or linked to the Arab world. It is sheer fantasy to imagine that such a notion can somehow be imposed on the Arab majority in a post-Israeli state of Palestine. Of course, the notion of Palestinian national identity, which is Arab and part of the Arab world, is perfectly legitimate and natural; it is hard to see what other notion of peoplehood the Palestinians could have developed, given their history and culture. Neither of the two peoples needs to apologize for its identity; both these identities make the analogy with South Africa irrelevant.
On the other hand, the option, dismissed by Lever, of allowing settlers to remain as a Jewish minority in the Arab Palestinian state, fully subject to its sovereignty, is publicly accepted by prominent Palestinian figures and, as recent leaks have shown, was actually raised by Palestinian representatives at talks with Israel. The claim, made by some, that a viable Palestinian state as part of a genuine two-state solution is no longer feasible, is wholly predicated on the assumption that Jews could not live in such a state—and have become, in the West Bank, too numerous to be removed in order to make room for it. That the settlement drive has been aimed at creating precisely this situation is undeniable; but why should we go along with this aim?
Here is the best way to display optimism regarding the chances of democracy and pluralism in the Arab world and to show that Arab-Jewish coexistence will henceforward be possible not only under the Zionist rule: promote a peace treaty providing for two nation states, guaranteeing national independence to both peoples, with national minorities on both sides of a peaceful border. If anything goes wrong, the gates of the Jewish state will be open.
Alexander Yakobson teaches ancient history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is an op-ed writer for Haaretz.
The reality, now, today, is that Israel has existed for 63 years. It's inhabitants understand themselves as a nation rooted in their country. Even if one ignores all the history of the Jewish people, Israelis, today, have a right to self-determination. Forcing them to become a minority in their own state (thereby stripping them of their ability to determine their own fate as a nation) is illegitimate. And as a practical matter they would quite simply never accept such an outcome.
This is not only true of Jewish Israelis (as the article I just posted points out). Arab Israelis are abhorred by the idea of being forced to join a future Palestinian state (as Avigdor Leiberman has proposed with his idea of transferring areas of Israel populated by Arab Israelis for Jewish settlements in the West Bank - and yes, Leiberman is unquestionably racist, and I despise him passionately). Doing away with Zionism and imposing a binational state on Israelis and Palestinians amounts to the same thing; forcing Arab Israelis to live in a Palestinian state rather than in Israel.
Or we could just stick to the international consensus which calls for a Plaestinian state as outlined in Resolution 181, and which is based on the 1967 borders with minor adjustments as outlined in Resolution 242?
What does this have to do with the occupation, and Isreal's obligations under international law?
That's quite a sweeping statement.
If you want to claim that the occupation is the issue, fine, then argue the occupation. Leave all the crap about the illegitimacy of Israel out of it. It has no bearing on the occupation, except insofar as you're looking for any excuse to attack Israel.
I didn't say Israel was illegitimate. My point was that Zionism is illigitimate.
I'm opposed to Zionism along with all over types of ethnic nationalism. I'm not opposed to the state of Israel within it's internationally recognized borders.
No, I'm not o.k with a Jewish state, just as I wouldn't be o.k with an Aryan state, or an Apartheid state.