r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/YoungOutsiderWA • 22d ago
Is a One State or Two-State solution optimal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? International Politics
Two broad ways to consider solving the conflict is creating one state (merge Israel, WB, and Gaza) or two states (Israel and Palestine).
What solution is best and realistic to bring peace and good graces to the region?
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u/SirEdouard 22d ago
I'm late to the discussion, but the main points I'm seeing here are this.
A one-state solution isn't likely to work because of Israel's founding principles, and the fact that Palestinians don't necessarily want to peacefully coexist in the same area, let alone participate in the same government.
A multi-state solution is also unlikely because the West Bank and Gaza have been destabilized to the point that they cannot form functional governments among themselves, and other countries lack the will to annex the territories. In addition, a multi state solution has been declined by both parties at times largely because of disagreement where the borders should lie. Israel seems to be the stickler on this, but lacks reasons to submit to demands because they are in a strategically and economically superior position.
As a result, the status quo is perpetuated from a lack of a clear, popular diplomatic solution to the issue.
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u/balletbeginner 22d ago
At this point a two state solution is pretty dead. The settlements would give Israel heavy influence in a hypothetical Palestinian state.
A one state solution would end up like Bosnia & Herzegovina which is a very fragile country.
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u/Living-Complex-1368 22d ago
If you have one state and you let everyone vote, Jews are the minority and Palestinians run the government.
If you have one state and don't let everyone vote then you have apartheid.
That was why Israel released the Gaza strip, so those folks wouldn't ever have voting rights.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
If you have one state and you let everyone vote, Jews are the minority and Palestinians run the government.
I've seen Israeli advocates flat out say this is why they can't integrate. Just a naked "well we're the minority but still want to be in charge."
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u/Kahing 15d ago
Why should Israelis integrate a foreign population to solve a conflict? Let's apply that logic elsewhere. We should just intergrate Armenia and Azerbaijan and India and Pakistan.
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u/Cranyx 14d ago
They're not foreigners. If you're just going to pretend Israel and Palestine are two entirely separate countries you're being dishonest.
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u/Kahing 14d ago
They aren't Israeli citizens and they're not living in Israel. Anyway, my point is you can't just wave away nationalism and patriotism and expect people to be loyal to an artificial binational state. The inevitable outcome would be war and a likely violent re-partitioning of the country.
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u/Cranyx 14d ago
They're not "living in Israel" only because Israel says so. Israelis immigrated to Palestine and then declared that part of it was theirs now, beginning a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Not only that, but to pretend that they're completely separate countries like Armenia and Azerbaijan is to ignore the fact that Israel exerts an immense amount of control and power over Palestine. If they really were separate countries then the settler movement would be considered an invasion.
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u/Kahing 14d ago
They're not "living in Israel" only because Israel says so. Israelis immigrated to Palestine and then declared that part of it was theirs now, beginning a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Yes, I've heard this extremely simplified version of history a lot. As if the Palestinians themselves aren't descendants of Arab invaders and later migrants, and as if they didn't violently attack Jews (including the local pre-Zionist communities) in the 20s and 30s, as if they start the 1948 war to crush the Jewish society.
but to pretend that they're completely separate countries like Armenia and Azerbaijan is to ignore the fact that Israel exerts an immense amount of control and power over Palestine. If they really were separate countries then the settler movement would be considered an invasion.
First of all, Gaza is de facto independent, its under blockade, but that's a reaction to rocket fire. It's like claiming Germany under British blockade in WWI or Japan under US blockade in WWII means they're no longer independent countries.
Secondly, yes, it does excercise control in the West Bank as part of a military occupation. The settlements are mostly in areas Israel is expected to retain in any deal. But anyway, disentangling them is much less difficult than integrating them, especially when most people don't actually want a "secular democratic binational state."
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u/Cranyx 14d ago
As if the Palestinians themselves aren't descendants of Arab invaders and later migrants
Many of the Palestinians are descendants of the original inhabitants of the region, who later converted to Islam. Trying to compare Israelis immigrating in living memory to population exchanges thousands of years ago is ridiculous. It reminds me of the people who try to justify the genocide of the Native Americans by saying that "well they were immigrants to that land once too." The rest of your comment regarding conflicts between settlers and the people who live there is a complete non-sequitur.
Gaza is de facto independent
This is a completely ridiculous statement. If Israel completely controls all borders of a country and regularly exerts military force on the country, then it's not an independent country; it is "de facto" controlled by Israel. A nominal internal government does not change that.
yes, it does excercise control in the West Bank as part of a military occupation
If your "military occupation" means that you control the roads, borders, checkpoints, and even have your people moving in and establishing thousands of enclaves, then you've annexed that land but are just keeping an apartheid state without saying so.
But anyway, disentangling them is much less difficult than integrating them
No it's not. There's no way Israel will ever give up its settlements.
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u/Kahing 14d ago
Many of the Palestinians are descendants of the original inhabitants of the region, who later converted to Islam.
There were large migrations throughout the centuries, including the 19th and 20th centuries.
Trying to compare Israelis immigrating in living memory to population exchanges thousands of years ago is ridiculous.
Right as if there wasn't mass migration from Egypt in the 1830s and 1840s and Bosnia in the 1870s.
This is a completely ridiculous statement. If Israel completely controls all borders of a country and regularly exerts military force on the country, then it's not an independent country; it is "de facto" controlled by Israel. A nominal internal government does not change that.
What does "controlling its borders" mean? Israel controls its own border with Gaza. It has no control over the border with Egypt. It blockades Gaza but that's a military action against a hostile actor rocketing its own civilian population.
Also, how is "regularly exerting military force" relevant to whether its independent or not? Was Yugoslavia not independent when NATO was regularly exerting military force on it? Besides, Gaza is typically the first to exert military force by firing rockets, Israel just responds.
If your "military occupation" means that you control the roads, borders, checkpoints, and even have your people moving in and establishing thousands of enclaves, then you've annexed that land but are just keeping an apartheid state without saying so.
Controlling roads and borders is standard in a military occupation. Though Israel does not control the roads in Area A. Also, the checkpoints are mostly along the approaches to the Green Line, there aren't too many actively manned ones deeper in the West Bank.
And thousands of enclaves? There are 130 settlements, only 15 of which have populations exceeding 1,000. The vast majority of settlers are in an area that everyone understands Israel will keep as part of any deal, close to the Green Line and mostly walled off from the rest of the West Bank.
No it's not. There's no way Israel will ever give up its settlements.
Israel already did it in Gaza in 2005. But seriously, you think Israel will never give up its settlements but it will give up its core national ideology? I'm amazed that people actually think getting Israel to get rid of the settlements is harder than getting rid of the Jewish state entirely.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
More like "Jews have been persecuted in nearly every country we've been a minority in - we deserve one for ourselves." There are 23 Arab states already, but a Jewish one? God forbid.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
Arabs are not a horde of interchangeable bodies that can be pushed out (also known as ethnically cleanse) of where they're living because "well there are more Arabs somewhere else."
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Those 23 Arab ethnostates are themselves responsible for a massive amount of ethnic cleansing. What happened to all the Jews in those countries, once numbering near a million? Oh right, they were ethnically cleansed. But somehow it's only a dire human rights crisis, requiring the full-throated intervention of the Western left when it happens to them. Meanwhile Arab states would simply laugh if asked whether Mizrahi Jews deserve reparations or "right of return" (a right extended to literally no other post-WW2 refugee group, except Palestinians)
The reality is the Arab side brought this on themselves when they declared war on Israel while promising to kill every Jew in the land. The UN partition plan was completely fair, unless for some reason you oppose Jewish self-determination but not Arab self-determination.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
So we're doing collective punishment to any and all Arab people because some countries did bad things? Not only is that insanely racist and treating them as a monolith again, but also completely deflects from criticism of ethnic cleansing with a really terrible "but what about when someone else did it?" American leftists don't support other countries doing ethnostates either, it just doesn't create a controversy because those countries don't get the "full-throated" endorsement of the United States. "Jewish self-determination" is just a code word for a Jewish ethnostate.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
So we're doing collective punishment to any and all Arab people because some countries did bad things?
Funny because the ethnic cleansing of Mizrahi Jews was done as a form of collective punishment.
Not only is that insanely racist and treating them as a monolith again, but also completely deflects from criticism of ethnic cleansing with a really terrible "but what about when someone else did it?"
The expulsion of Jews was done directly as a result of the formation of Israel. The Jewish ethnic cleansings are part and parcel of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a completely unfair double standard to demand reparations and right of return for Palestinians, but to brush off the same demands from Mizrahi Jews (who btw make up more than 50% of Israeli Jews) as simply "whatabout." No, it's not deflection to bring up the literal fact that more Jews than Palestinians have been displaced by this conflict.
You're also obfuscating the fact that for the first 40-50 years of this conflict, it wasn't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was the Israeli-Arab conflict. The Arab coalition that fought three existential wars with Israel wasn't looking to make a Palestinian state, they wanted to absorb Palestine into a greater Arab nationalist state. And the Palestinians were completely on board with that, because Palestinian-specific nationalism (as opposed to Arab nationalism) didn't become a thing until the 70s and 80s. It's only after getting their collective asses whooped three times that they backed off that plan. Which still doesn't change the fact that it's not Zionists who originally imagined Arabs as a 'monolith' - it's Arabs themselves. You don't get to fight three separate wars in the name of Arab nationalism, then when you lose, distance yourself from everything and say you had nothing to do with it.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
ethnic cleansing of Mizrahi Jews was done as a form of collective punishment.
Again, I don't see why you keep binging up a terrible thing that happened to Jewish people as an excuse to do it to others. Unless the specific people who are being punished in this case are the same people who expelled the Jews from their homes (unlikely to say the least) then it's irrelevant. That is unless you take the incredibly racist stance that if one Arab commits a crime you can punish all Arabs.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Again, I don't see why you keep binging up a terrible thing that happened to Jewish people as an excuse to do it to others.
You keep saying this like the Jewish expulsions happened on another planet or something, and have nothing to do with current events or the potential resolution to the conflict. When in reality Jews were ethnically cleansed as a direct result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to collectively punish Middle Eastern Jews. It's not something that "some Arabs" did to "some Jews." It's something that every Arab country did to all of their Jews, in the name of Palestinians. And then those same countries proceeded to wage three separate wars on Israel, all the while making it clear that they intended to commit genocide if they won.
This has everything to do with Israel and Palestine. You can never understand why most Israeli Jews don't want to live in Arab country, or why they dismiss a Palestinian 'right of return', until you understand that more than half of Israeli Jews were themselves, or are descended from those Mizrahi Jews who were ethnically cleansed. It's completely fair for them to ask why the Arab League insists on a Palestinian right of return but wouldn't even consider offering the same thing to Jews.
Unless the specific people who are being punished in this case are the same people who expelled the Jews from their homes (unlikely to say the least)
Somehow this doesn't apply to Israelis, though. Hmm, I wonder why?
That is unless you take the incredibly racist stance that if one Arab commits a crime you can punish all Arabs.
Did you completely ignore my whole paragraph about how the conflict began with Arab nationalism, aka "viewing all Arabs as the same?" And that the Palestinians were completely fine with that plan, until they lost one too many wars?
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u/Veyron2000 21d ago
we deserve one for ourselves.
"we deserve to be able to do the persecuting! Why should other people have all the fun?"
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Jews deserve self-determination, just as Arabs do or Kurds do. That's not persecution, and in fact is recognized as a fundamental right of peoples by the UN. The original partition plan allowed for a large Arab minority in the future Jewish state, but Arabs insisted on no Jewish self-determination whatsoever, hence war and dislocation.
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u/Veyron2000 20d ago
Jews deserve self-determination, just as Arabs do or Kurds do.
“Self determination” does not mean you are entitled to an ethnostate where you can treat all other religious groups and ethnicities as inferior.
The original partition plan allowed for a large Arab minority in the future Jewish state
Yes, unsurprisingly the arab population objected to being relegated to second class citizens in their own country under permanent jewish Zionist rule.
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u/PerfectZeong 20d ago
Well do you honestly believe that self determination would be guaranteed for jews under a hypothetical arab majority government?
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u/Veyron2000 20d ago
Well that depends on what you mean by "self determination" doesn't it? If you mean "total political control to the exlcusion of all other ethnic or religious groups" then I suppose no.
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u/PerfectZeong 20d ago
Kinda feel like that's a dodge. Do you believe they would have full enfranchisement, equal treatment and full protection of their human and civil rights?
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u/pizza_gutts 20d ago
“Self determination” does not mean you are entitled to an ethnostate where you can treat all other religious groups and ethnicities as inferior.
That is exactly what it means in the 23 extant Arab countries, nearly all of which horribly abuse minority groups and enshrine Islam as the official religion. Seriously, Israel is more diverse than any of them except perhaps Lebanon, yet it is the ethnostate in MENA? What a joke.
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u/Veyron2000 17d ago
Ah I see the “look, when you compare us to Saudi Arabia or Syria we are great at human rights” defense. See why this is pathetic?
And actually no, I don’t think any of those arab countries support the same kind of “self determination” ideology as Israel.
Rather it is either “this is a autocratic Kingdom, the King has declared Islam as the official religion” or “the majority want an Islamist government, so that is what we provide”. Then you have the ones with no government (Libya, Yemen) an avowedly secular dictatorship (Syria) the carefully balanced ethnic mix (Lebanon) and the military populist dictatorship (Egypt).
I think that pretty much covers it.
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u/Living-Complex-1368 21d ago
So Hitler did it so it is ok for Jews to do the same. Got it.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Hitler killing 6 million Jews in six years is the same thing as a protracted 70 year conflict in which less than 100k total have died, and an equivalent amount of Arabs and Jews have been displaced. Got it (and the far left still doesn't understand why it is often called anti-semitic).
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u/b1argg 20d ago
Isn't Gaza essentially under siege?
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u/Living-Complex-1368 20d ago
Yes, but it is "outside Israeli borders" so not allowing them to vote wouldn't be apartheid. It is all rather disingenuous.
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u/b1argg 20d ago
My meaning was that gaza wasn't really "released" if they control all entry/exit of people and goods, including how far out fishing boats can travel.
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u/Living-Complex-1368 20d ago
Yeah, hence me calling it disingenuous. They "officially" don't occupy it. They just control the borders like a government would.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
Divide and conquer is Israel’s strategy. It is straight up nasty colonialism of the worst kind.
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u/Pat_Garrett2020 21d ago
Nasty you stepped short. They are "the choose people", God gave them by divine inheritance the whole Persian Gulf. It was full of different people and religion. Who cares. 🤢
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u/Splotim 22d ago
If America has taught me one thing, it’s that having more votes doesn’t always mean you win.
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u/ninjasaid13 22d ago
Does Israel have an electoral college or a similar system?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Good709 22d ago
israel have a very diffrent system than the us, based on the proportonal number of votes. i dont see what was the point of the comment you replied to. in israel, it 1000% counts on the number of votes.
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u/iHateCacheMisses 22d ago edited 22d ago
At this point, a one-state solution is a matter of when, not if. As you pointed out, the two state solution is pretty much dead.
A few years ago, the former head of the Mossad pointed out that Israel is gradually becoming a burden on the U.S. Fast forward to the present and support for Israel has drastically fallen amongst U.S. Jews as well as Evangelicals. Bipartisan support for Israel is eroding, fast. Israel cannot afford to become a pariah, and it cannot afford to lose the U.S. as a backer in the international arena -- U.S. veto at the U.N. is vastly more important to Israel than U.S. aid.
What does this all mean? Well, Israel will either evacuate 600,000+ settlers from the West Bank (this won't be feasible politically and potentially even logistically), or it will be forced, by the international community, to absorb the Palestinians into Israel-proper.
Given the way the riots in Israel-proper turned out during the last flare-up, I can't imagine what will happen in the case of a one-state solution.
Edit: typos
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u/balletbeginner 22d ago
Terrorism and riots are common in multinational states. So that would make a hypothetical Jewish-Palestinian state average. The bigger issue is how many people in other countries desperately want Jews and Palestinians not to get along under any circumstances. Other countries gunning for a new state to fail would be quite bad.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 21d ago
Is that the case in Belgium, Switzerland, or Canada? The UK hasn't had problems from the IRA in decades.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Leftists: The reason countries fail is that colonialists drew the lines to throw groups who hate each other together.
Also leftists: Let's throw two groups who hate each other more than anything - and have a 100+ year history of mutual ethnic cleansing - together. Everything will be fine.
Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada are completely different situations because they were formed by mutual agreement. There's no way Jews will voluntarily agree to dissolve their only state, so the only way to create a Palestinian state on the whole territory is through war.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 21d ago
There's no way Jews will voluntarily agree to dissolve their only state, so the only way to create a Palestinian state on the whole territory is through war.
Palestians never agreed to let Jews come into their country and form a country in the first place. The international communtity could absolutely force Israel to a settlement via sanctions.
Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada are completely different situations because they were formed by mutual agreement.
After wars
Leftists: The reason countries fail is that colonialists drew the lines to throw groups who hate each other together.
Well the damage is done when they passed UN 181
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Palestians never agreed to let Jews come into their country and form a country in the first place.
This just in: it is now woke to oppose refugees fleeing death from coming to your country (even though Palestine was not even a country at the time - it was a territory of the Ottoman Empire, which did permit Jews to come). And Jews never agreed to be expelled from out homeland in the first place. We don't need permission to return.
The international communtity could absolutely force Israel to a settlement via sanctions.
And why would the 'international community' intervene on behalf of Arab revanchism? The settlements are one thing. But sanctions to enforce the dissolution of a Jewish state is simply never going to happen.
After wars
Uh, no, there have never been civil wars in Belgium, Switzerland, or Canada. If anything they formed as self-defence against aggression by outsiders.
Well the damage is done when they passed UN 181
UN 181 split Israel and Palestine into a Jewish state. Which was expressly designed to avoid that outcome.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 20d ago
This just in: it is now woke to oppose refugees fleeing death from coming to your country (even though Palestine was not even a country at the time - it was a territory of the Ottoman Empire, which did permit Jews to come).
What death were Jews fleeing during Ottoman era Palestine, which eventually limited Jewish immigration.
And why would the 'international community' intervene on behalf of Arab revanchism? The settlements are one thing. But sanctions to enforce the dissolution of a Jewish state is simply never going to happen.
The settlements leave a one state being the only solution, unless you want more ethnic cleansing.
UN 181 split Israel and Palestine into a Jewish state. Which was expressly designed to avoid that outcome
And obviously failed.
Uh, no, there have never been civil wars in Belgium, Switzerland, or Canada. If anything they formed as self-defence against aggression by outsiders.
This is comically wrong, look up the history of Belgium.
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u/abqguardian 22d ago
There's no chance for a one state solution unless it involves the forced deportation of all Palestinians to other Arab countries. Israel isn't stupid, any union with the Palestinians would be a death sentence for the country and probably a lot of their citizens.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
I actually think that Israel is pretty stupid. The situation they have put themselves in is untenable. They also did it to themselves.
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u/seunosewa 21d ago
It's working well for them, actually, except for their reputation. What would have worked better for them?
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
What would have worked better for them?
Not holding on to the West Bank after 1967 would have been, in retrospect, a much better idea. Incidentally, even David Ben-Gurion advised this at the time.
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u/seunosewa 20d ago
Palestinians would still want the rest of the land and their militants would be launching attacks into Israel from the West Bank regularly for this purpose. Israel would be much harder to defend.
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u/jbphilly 20d ago
As opposed to now, when Israel has permanently but unofficially annexed the area and is on track to control an area of land with an Arab majority in the foreseeable future?
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u/Kahing 15d ago
Without Gaza its actually a Jewish majority, albeit a slimmer one.
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u/jbphilly 14d ago
I was referring to the fact that Israel + Golan + WB will have an Arab majority in the foreseeable future based on current birth rate trends.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 22d ago
This idea that Palestines would murder the Jews if given equal rights is hysterical nonsense.
It literally was an argument used against freeing the slaves.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Jews have been completely ethnically cleansed from literally every Arab state, and the descendants of those ethnically cleansed Jews make up more than half of the Israeli Jewish population. How is being concerned the same thing will happen again, hysterical?
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u/Greenembo 20d ago
Well, only if you ignore 40 years of public statements by the Hamas leadership...
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u/Lupercal626 21d ago
Those are 2 very different situations.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 21d ago
The core principle is the same, the treated people like crap, they now hate you, and you have to keep them down because you're scared that if you stop oppressing them they'll seek their revenge.
as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
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u/Lupercal626 21d ago
Yet the circumstances that create the principle are different. Muslims and Jews have hated each other for over 1000 years, the Palestinian government is openly hostile to Israel, and Palestinians outnumber Israelis. Your average citizen of Jerusalem has to live under an Iron Dome because Hamas frequently shoots rockets at him yet your surprised he is afraid they may kill him if they get the chance. They've already tried to.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 21d ago
Muslims and Jews have hated each other for over 1000 years
That's not really true at all. Jews lived much better in the Muslim world than Europe. It was a Muslim empire that saved the Jews from Spain.
Many Spanish Jews also fled to the Ottoman Empire, where they were given refuge. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatched the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (currently in Greece) and İzmir (currently in Turkey).[17] Many of these Jews also settled in other parts of the Balkans ruled by the Ottomans such as the areas that are now Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia. Concerning this incident, Bayezid II is alleged to have commented, "those who say that Ferdinand and Isabella are wise are indeed fools; for he gives me, his enemy, his national treasure, the Jews."
That doesn't really sound like a group of people that have hated each other for over 1000 years.
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u/Veyron2000 21d ago
Muslims and Jews have hated each other for over 1000 years,
No not really. 1000 years ago (and for most of that history until the present) there was *significantly* more animosity between jews and christians than between jews and muslims.
The current animosity between jewish Israelis and Palestinians, and between jews and muslims more generally, is mostly a direct result of the Zionist campaign to take Palestine as a jewish state, and the resulting displacement and subjugation of the Palestinians.
If the Zionist movement had attempted the same thing in, say, central Italy we might very well be talking about the "centuries old hatred between roman catholics and jews" instead.
You also realise that the average Palestinian has to live under **literal hostile military occupation** in the west bank, or **constant threat from Israeli rockets and bombs** in Gaza, and yet you think it is the jewish Israelis who have it tough? Where is your concern for Palestinian security?
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
You realize that more than half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi - that is, Middle Eastern Jews who were expelled from other Arab countries? Think that might have anything to do with the mutual hostility? If I'm a Yemeni Jew, whose community was nearly entirely ethnically cleansed in living memory (and which continues even to this day) why would I ever trust in an Arab Muslim state to keep me safe again?
Jews were dhimmi in the Muslim world. Legally and socially below Muslims. There was never a hint of equality, and never would be in a potential Palestinian state - just look at how minorities are treated in other Muslim countries.
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u/Veyron2000 20d ago
You realize that more than half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi - that is, Middle Eastern Jews who were expelled from other Arab countries?
As a direct result of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel?
You do also realised that it was the in large part actions of the government of Israel in encouraging and cajoling the jews of, eg., Yemen to leave which caused the exodus?
There was never a hint of equality, and never would be in a potential Palestinian state
You say that but you are fine with Israel treating non-jews as inferior, second class citizens at best?
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u/DownWithHiob 21d ago
Except of course that support among the general population has not dropped one bit in the last years
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u/Kahing 15d ago
Why do people always assume that Israel will need to evacuate all the settlers? The vast majority of the settlers live in places that will remain with Israel in any agreement as they're along the border.
Also, if the US ever abandons Israel it will likely sidle up to other powers such as China and Russia or maybe India in 20 years. In any event, I am amazed at how people think it can't evacuate settlers but will absorb the Palestinians, which will just lead to civil war.
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u/God-bear 22d ago
Yes, Palestinians and their supporters don't want a two-state solution. They want Israel as a country and an institution completely destroyed because they view it as an illegitimate state.
Good luck with that ever occurring considering that the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is the worst kept secret in the world.
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u/iHateCacheMisses 22d ago
Half of Israeli Jews say Arabs should be transferred or expelled from Israel -- source
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u/onioning 22d ago
The fact that you only say this of Palestine is pretty telling. Do you think Israel feels differently?
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u/YoungOutsiderWA 22d ago
Doubt Israel thinks differently. The West Bank settlements sort of give that away. Reduction back to 1967 would be the Israeli equivalent of showing they care, but seems unlikely to happen.
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u/onioning 22d ago
Israel would never allow that. They hold all the cards and they're fine with the status quo.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Good709 22d ago
israel already tried that with gaza. only made the situation worse. why would we do that again?
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u/Veyron2000 21d ago
They want Israel as a country and an institution completely destroyed because they view it as an illegitimate state.
More correctly they view the territory that jewish Israelis call Israel as "Palestine", their own country, and want a ruling regime that does not treat non-jews as second class citizens, expell them from their homes, confiscate their property, and denies them basic rights.
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u/Loop_Within_A_Loop 22d ago
I think the two state solution is dead even along the Oslo accords borders, let alone 1967 or 1948.
A singular secular state the upholds the human dignity of all, Israeli or Palestinian, would be the ideal answer, but that's honestly probably even more unlikely than any bandied about two state solution. Israeli politics just simply prohibit it.
I'm not pessimistic about much, but I am well and truly blackpilled on Palestinian rights with the material conditions and political forces in the region being what they are. You're really looking at a very dramatic shakeup to even be able to begin to conceive of a better way forward
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u/DBDude 22d ago
There will be war as long as Israel exists because the Palestinians have repeatedly said it’s an illegitimate state and called for its destruction. It’s offensive to them that land there could be governed by non-Muslims.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
Right to return is the only thing Palestinians want.
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u/DBDude 22d ago
Except when they put in their groups’ founding documents the destruction of Israel and teach their kids the Jews never had any presence in the area and are this invaders.
But right of return, where? Traditional Palestine also encompasses a bunch of Jordan. And in return do the Jews kicked out of all the surrounding Muslim countries get right of return?
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u/thunderdaddysd 21d ago
Not true at all, even the Palestinian openly say this wouldn’t be sufficient, nice to see you are speaking for these people in an uninformed manner. They go through enough without your misinformed comments.
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u/zeus_of_the_viper 22d ago
I'm sure this ship has sailed, but gaza and the west bank aren't capable of surviving as an independent state.
I always thought it would be much cleaner to annex gaza to Egypt and the west bank to Jordan.
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
I always thought it would be much cleaner to annex gaza to Egypt and the west bank to Jordan.
This is the same kind of thinking that led to arbitrary lines being drawn across the Middle East a century ago by European aristocrats, shaping many of today's problems.
It seems "clean" if you're looking at lines on a map from far away. It doesn't, however, have anything to do with what the people on the ground want or what would work for them. Have we not learned anything?
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u/Fausterion18 21d ago edited 21d ago
Palestinians literally considered themselves to be Jordanians until about 60 years ago. It didn't even exist as a national identity until after Israel formed.
Edit: Syrian.
This was the official position of the Muslim and Christian Arab association of Palestine when they were asked to nominate Arab representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
A Palestinian leader and nationalist figure who testified during the Peel Commission in 1937 directly stated: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”
Ahmad Shukeiri, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization testified to the UN Security Council in 1956: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria"
Zuheir Mohsen, who was a member of the Executive Council of the Palestinian Liberation Organization even published an article affirming this view as late as 1977:
"The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
Palestinians literally considered themselves to be Jordanians until about 60 years ago.
Yeah that isn't true at all. Particularly because "Jordanian" is also a relatively new national identity (and was very new at that point).
That's a commonly-used talking point by the Israeli right wing; by insinuating that Palestinians aren't a real "people" (whatever that means) they can suggest that all the Palestinians in the West Bank really belong in Jordan (or whatever other country) and not in the former Mandate of Palestine.
It didn't even exist as a national identity until after Israel formed.
"National identity" is a recent concept in history, particularly to the Middle East. The Palestinian people, as such, have existed for much longer than the modern concept of "national identity" has.
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u/Fausterion18 21d ago
"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."
From the Palestinians themselves.
"National identity" is a recent concept in history, particularly to the Middle East. The Palestinian people, as such, have existed for much longer than the modern concept of "national identity" has.
This is such a misleading argument. Nobody is arguing about whether the people existed, we're arguing whether they were a separate identity from the Arabs around them. They weren't.
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
From the Palestinians themselves.
In what year did the entire Palestinian population sign this unanimous declaration?
Oh, what's that? It wasn't a unanimous declaration receiving complete agreement from every Palestinian? Well then, who was it who said this? When? What was their motivation? What was the context?
In any case, this whole argument is one of the moronic rabbit holes that discussions of the Israel-Palestine issue always gets dragged down by people trying to distract from the fundamentals. If you can get everyone bogged down in figuring out whether or not Palestinians count as a real ethnic group or not and in what year they began to count as such, suddenly nobody is talking about relevant questions like what can be done in the present-day situation.
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u/Fausterion18 21d ago
In what year did the entire Palestinian population sign this unanimous declaration?
Oh, what's that? It wasn't a unanimous declaration receiving complete agreement from every Palestinian? Well then, who was it who said this? When? What was their motivation? What was the context?
Then I'm sure you can provide some evidence of oh I don't know a survey or statements from Palestinian leaders that they were indeed a separate cultural group from the other Arabs around them.
You do have evidence right? Since you just dismissed mine without proving your own.
suddenly nobody is talking about relevant questions like what can be done in the present-day situation.
Because nothing we say even remotely matters. The best chance for peace since the intifida began was with Arafat, and that failed. Now we have the conservatives in power in Israel and Hamas in power in Gaza. The chance of a peaceful solution is zero.
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
Lol, also, a second ago you were saying that Palestinians all considered themselves Jordanians until recently. Now you're telling us (via some unattributed quotation) that they all considered themselves Syrians until recently.
Might want to get your story straight.
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u/Fausterion18 21d ago
Lol, also, a second ago you were saying that Palestinians all considered themselves Jordanians until recently
Yes, I had a brain fart and typed Jordan instead of Syria, how does this change my point.
Now you're telling us (via some unattributed quotation) that they all considered themselves Syrians until recently.
Unattributed? This was the official position of the Muslim and Christian Arab association of Palestine when they were asked to nominate Arab representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
A Palestinian leader and nationalist figure who testified during the Peel Commission in 1937 directly stated: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”
Ahmad Shukeiri, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization testified to the UN Security Council in 1956: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria"
Zuheir Mohsen, who was a member of the Executive Council of the Palestinian Liberation Organization even published an article affirming this view as late as 1977:
"The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
Might want to get your story straight.
Now it's your turn, show me the evidence for a Palestinian identity before the modern state of Israel.
Hint, I ain't holding my breathe.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago edited 21d ago
Yep. Gaza has zero resources and the west bank next to none.
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u/thunderdaddysd 21d ago
Not true at all, natural gas reserves all Gaza have been found and your “next to none” is a gross over simplification of the resources available.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
I mean that was on purpose. It's not just coincidence that the land given to the Israeli settlers back in the 40s was where the best farmland and resources were.
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u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein 21d ago
It's not just coincidence that the land given to the Israeli settlers back in the 40s was where the best farmland and resources were.
This is contrary to historical record. Land sold to Jewish settlers was generally in valleys and coastal areas, which was considered effectively unusable at the time due to rampant malaria.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
This really has no bearing on the fact that valleys and coastal plains suitable for farming went to Israel, while Palestine got the hills and mountains. The Jewish settlers chose to go to those regions despite the malaria because that's where the resources were.
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u/Fausterion18 21d ago
They chose the nearly uninhabitable valleys because that's where the cheap land was. There are no resources in Israel, the fact that industrial farming can be done at all is a miracle of modern technology.
The idea that food production is relevant to the wealth of a modern economy is pretty funny though. West bank has something like 3x the income of Gaza and it sure ain't because west bank is 3 times more fertile or receive 3 times more rainfall.
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u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein 21d ago
Here's an article from Scientific American that describes just how undesirable the land purchased by Jewish settlers was at the time: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reclamation-of-man-made-desert/
It's admirable that you empathize with Palestinians. But there are plenty of existing and documented cases of environmental injustice within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There's no need to manufacture new ones.
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u/Simpl6ton 21d ago
Yeah, desert is a paradise for farming.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
Valleys and coastal plains are better for farming than mountains. Here's a geography map. I'm not talking about the Negev, but the northern region which receives enough rainfall to be a Mediterranean climate.
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
The West Bank has a great deal of water resources, much of which are controlled by (and siphoned into) Israel.
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u/PsychLegalMind 20d ago
Two state is the only option. There will be no peace with one state position. Never has been. It will just get worse.
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u/blyzo 22d ago
What's best? A two state solution based on 1967 borders.
What's realistic? An endless perpetuating of the status quo, which is a single state of Israel, with a permanently oppressed Palestinian population.
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u/aarongamemaster 22d ago
That has been dead for years, especially since the threats evolved too. The mountains are going to be Israeli no matter what, given the willingness of Palestinian groups to shell any Israeli in range.
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u/JudgeWhoOverrules 22d ago edited 22d ago
One state solution isn't feasible if you goals for both parties to live free of oppression. The Arabs want the Jews out of the region and generally won't stop at anything less than that, in fact the founding charters of Palestine states this. Israelis and Jewish people in general want a state that is explicitly Jewish controlled so that they are safe from outside oppression. This was the entire reason for the creation of and the purpose for the existence of Israel.
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u/d4rkwing 22d ago
The Israelis basically killed the two state solution. I guess maybe the two sides will have to learn to live with one another.
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u/YouProbablyDissagree 22d ago
Realistically one state is never going to happen. Neither group even wants it (unless by one state you mean getting rid of the other side…then they’d both love it) so it’s really not that helpful to even discuss it. Two state is the least bad of the shitty options that we have. It’s still pretty bad though.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
All Palestinians want is the right to return. Who ever said that they don’t want Jewish neighbors?
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u/aarongamemaster 22d ago
Nope, in every. Single. Charter. They state their reason for existence is to exterminate Israel and the Jewish people.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
The Palestinian constitution clearly states Palestine is to be an Arab state with Islam as the official religion. That sound pluralistic to you? Also, where have the "Jewish neighbors" gone in other Arab countries?
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u/GabuEx 22d ago
The biggest problem with a one-state "solution" (if you can call it that) is that there are no good options that benefit both sides. If all of the Palestinians were suddenly Israeli citizens who were allowed to vote, then Israel would be almost exactly 50-50 Jewish and Muslim, meaning that it would cease to be a Jewish state. So the only real options for a one-state solution are for Israel to either stop being Jewish or stop being a democracy. There is no possible way for Israel to remain a Jewish democracy in a one-state scenario.
A two-state solution would be better, but the problem there is that that would force Israel to give up its claims to Palestinian land. Basically, the Israeli government wants all of Palestine's land but none of its people. So here we sit.
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u/iHateCacheMisses 22d ago
This is the famous trilemma that people often discuss:
Israel can choose only 2 out of 3:
- maintain control over the West Bank
- retain a clear Jewish majority
- remain a democracy (full voting rights for all citizens)
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u/PhiloPhocion 22d ago
And I fear to this point any attempt to make assurances or guarantees on a systemic level to address those concerns would result in a pre-Lebanese civil war issue of shifting demographics (and frankly still an issue in Lebanon)
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u/bortman95 22d ago
A secular or pluralist government would be the obvious best choice but so would a magic dragon that gives nice people gold and hugs.
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u/GabuEx 22d ago
The obvious best choice to us, sure, but an awful lot of people currently in Israel are heavily invested in it being a Jewish ethnostate. This whole exercise is pretty much establishing exactly what's wrong with ethnostates and why they're ultimately unsustainable without brutality and human rights violations. It is more than a little weird that so many people will agree that ethnostates are a bad thing but then are also okay with Israel...
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u/chappachula 22d ago
"a lot of people currently in Israel are heavily invested in it being a Jewish ethnostate. This whole exercise is pretty much establishing exactly what's wrong with ethnostates"
The Palestinians are even worse--they are totally invested in creating an ethnostate for themselves. And they certainly have zero intention of allowing any Jews to live in their new state.
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u/thatsnotwait 22d ago
Theoretically, either "could" solve the conflict of both sides would accept it. The issue is just that, getting both sides to accept it.
From that standpoint, I really can't imagine a two-step solution happening. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in what was originally part of the Palestinian state as per the UN resolution that created the original partition, and many of them have lived in those settlements for three generations. Israel will never give them all up (probably won't give any of them up). Palestinians at this point are extremely cramped, and really can't accept not getting any of that land back (especially as there are many Palestinians alive who personally had their land taken from them, it's not "their people's" land, it actually was their personal land with their name on the deed at one point).
The only solution I can see working is a one-state solution. Israel still would hesitate to accept this because they lose half of their voting power and gain essentially nothing, risking complete revenge if the Palestinians collectively take a majority of the government. Still, I compare to South Africa which was able to transition to an equal rights society, with the oppressed majority taking an overwhelming majority of the government from nothing overnight. That's obviously not a spectacular country, but they managed to have a handover of political power without any sort of massive purge or revenge campaign. And similar to South Africa, it might be achievable if global opinion continues to sour on Israel to the point where they become actually isolated. As long as the USA and most of Europe support them, we're probably stuck with the status quo, but what I described above is really the only solution I can see being remotely feasible.
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u/Kahing 15d ago
There is no parralel with South Africa. This is a deeply nationalist conflict, not a mere civil rights issue and nothing else. What would actually happen in one state is civil war. Given the way the Arab world treats minorities, and given the fact that Israeli Jews are so invested in the Jewish state they would violently rebel against any multinational state, there is pretty much no one state solution.
I find it absolutely amazing that people think Israel will never give up the settlements (when it did in Gaza in 2005) but it will somehow give up Zionism.
Also, Israel is in no danger of being isolated totally. The Western left may be more and more against it but Russia, China, India, and a whole slew of nations in Asia and Africa would happily take the place of the West if it became a pariah to the Western world.
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u/thunderdaddysd 22d ago
cough Zimbabwe cough
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u/AM_Bokke 21d ago
What is your point?
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u/thunderdaddysd 21d ago
Retaliation will occur, unlike your hopeful predictions, just as it did there, google it before asking next time
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u/AM_Bokke 21d ago
I have no idea what you are talking about. This means that you have no point.
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u/cameraman502 22d ago
Two state solution is really the only way forward. The only version of the one-state solution is where all the Arab countries split the Palestinian Arabs proportionally between themselves and resettle them. Of course, that's not going to happen for many obvious reasons, but still more likely than one where Arabs join the Israeli state peacefully.
The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Perhaps they'll want Jared Kushner's plan in about 15 years.
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u/tomanonimos 22d ago
What solution is best and realistic to bring peace and good graces to the region?
Israelis see Palestinians as equals and treats them as partners. That would require Israel to be willing to do many things which I think they're incapable of doing unless there is a foreign enemy that would force collaboration between Israeli's and Palestinians. Israel doesn't recognize interfaith marriages, that are performed in Israel borders, as legal marriages. Dealing with that is the most pragmatic first step.
Israel sees all of Israel as a Jewish state and Arabs are baggage and threats to their existence; at least right now. Any thoughts otherwise is disingenuous or ignorant.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Interfaith marriages are not recognized anywhere in the Middle East, unless the man is Muslim and the woman is non-Muslim (and she agrees to convert). It's a continuation of the Ottoman millet system, which is constantly held up as an example of the 'fair co-existence' that occurred before Israel existed. Double standards on top of double standards.
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u/jyper 20d ago
Lack of secular marriages in Israel is annoying but has nothing to do with the conflict, and anyway marriages abroad are recognized
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u/1QAte4 22d ago
The three state solution is best. Gaza goes to Egypt while the West Bank goes to Jordan.
The major issue is that none of the states nor the Palestinians want such an arrangement. The states don't want the problems of managing the new territory. Meanwhile the leadership of Fatah and Hamas don't want to give up power over their Palestinians. So we are going to be stuck with the status quo for the future.
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u/LiberalAspergers 22d ago
Or even 3 states with the West Bank.and Gaza as separate independent nations. The two areas have grown apart, and no unification seems likely to go well.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
Neither are viable as states.
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u/eldomtom2 21d ago
Especially not Gaza. If it was independent it would be the third densest country behind Monaco and Singapore, and Gaza would be in a very different position to either of those countries.
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u/1QAte4 22d ago
That is a good idea. East and West Palestine. Only the most diehard nationalist would be opposed to such an arrangement if it came with normalization of relations, trade, and aid.
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u/balletbeginner 22d ago
Diehard nationalists have been calling the shots for the past 100 years.
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u/LiberalAspergers 22d ago
They could always agree on a unification later. In the treaties creating them include a clause barring unification for 20 years. By that point the governments will be entrenched enough they will never agree to share power, but leaving the option open gives the Nationalists an out.
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u/darena 22d ago
So isreal gets to keep its stolen land and settlements? Seems a bit one sided don’t you think?
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u/LiberalAspergers 22d ago
I did not define the borders of any of the three nations. I see few realistic scenarios where Israel returns to 1948 borders, though. Do you?
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u/YoungOutsiderWA 22d ago
1948 borders is quite difficult in my opinion. 1967 borders seem way more realistic.
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u/LiberalAspergers 22d ago
Something close to it anyway. Some of.the larger settlements near the border are probably politically impossible for any Israeli government to give up.
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u/darena 22d ago
It should be a requirement. We should not be rewarding religious zealots for their invasion of foreign land.
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u/LiberalAspergers 22d ago
Who are we, and where did you get the idea that we had the power to reward anyone with anything?
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u/darena 22d ago
A 3 state solution that doesn’t address the stolen land and settlements is absolutely rewarding those zealots.
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u/tom_the_tanker 22d ago
I mean, the real question is you and what army?
To be realistic, the question with Israel/Palestine has never been the "right" solution, as in the morally justified solution. The question is what solution will Israel, who holds all the cards in this situation, actually agree to. No one is going to force them to give up anything, because Israel's good will is too valuable to too many people for too many reasons. So what would they realistically accept is the different question.
If "rewarding religious zealots for their invasion of foreign land" is the price of peace, I think a lot of people would be willing to pay it.
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u/darena 22d ago
You will not see peace so long as isreal keeps invading and stealing land that isn’t theirs.
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u/tom_the_tanker 22d ago
Peace will inevitably come with Israel claiming at least some land outside the 1967 treaty short of a literal war forcing them to accept otherwise...which at this point, I see no outside power willing to attempt.
It's not about what's right or what's fair. Those are lost forever. It's about what is achievable.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 21d ago
I mean, the real question is you and what army?
Sanctions from the United States, could destroy Israels economies easily. They are very reliant on trade. If they were sanctioned like Iran, they'd be back to 3rd world status in a couple of years.
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u/tom_the_tanker 21d ago
The United States sanctioning Israel is a political non-starter for either party, for one thing. Even if it wasn't, sanctions would probably be as effective as they have been on Iran and Russia: that is, not very.
Also I don't believe this line of thinking is well considered. Sanctions are just as likely to convince Israel to double down. Backing off due to foreign pressure would be the death knell of any government, especially when Likud is right there ready to call them out.
In American circles, too, the inevitable question would be "Why did you sanction Israel and not X country?" which is a fairly good question.
The important answer is that the US has no real interest, sentimentally or materially, in blowing up its relationship with Israel. From a cold-blooded perspective, it serves no foreign policy goal and actively damages others.
The US is not gonna sanction Israel, not unless there is a near miraculous/catastrophic sea change in American politics, and maybe not even then. So that's not a solution to shit.
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u/[deleted] 22d ago
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u/darena 22d ago
You should really read the rules of a sub before calling anyone else ignorant.
Why does a conservative such as yourself wish to reward a bunch of religious extremists for taking land that doesn’t belong to them… oh wait no that kinda answers itself. Bit of a theme with your group.
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u/[deleted] 22d ago
[removed]
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u/darena 22d ago
1) i know your very first reply was an ad hominem attack with no substance. which is the typical conservative opening.
2) would you rather i call them something besides zeolots? its a country based off a religion, which is invading a foreign land, removing the people, and giving that stolen land to loyal citizens.. shall i point out which other group in history did exactly that? a group that a country founded by jewish people should really NOT be copying?
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u/hp1068 22d ago
Again, and for the last time, Isreal is not a religious country. It's just not. Are there religious zealots? Sure. Just there are religious zealots among Palestinians.
And you seem to have generated an opinion on me based on a single, brief, interaction. If only there were a word for that.
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u/iHateCacheMisses 22d ago
Isreal is an overwhelmingly secular society.
Jerusalem Municipality covers up LGBT pride sign at US Embassy -- source
Dinosaurs Censored by Israeli Museum To Avoid Offending Ultra-Orthodox Jews -- souce
Haredi population growing twice as fast as overall Israeli population -- source
Public transport on Shabbat bill defeated -- source
Women told to sit in the back of buses -- source
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u/cameraman502 22d ago
After how Gaza ended up, Israel is not going to hand them over without massive strings attached.
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u/darena 22d ago
they stole them in the first place.. who the heck actually cares what strings they want. they can have peace, or they can have their stolen land. if they choose the land, i say cut off all support. the moment they cant afford to resupply their iron dome you will see them sit down and make peace.
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u/cameraman502 22d ago
Then they drive them all out, no? Why wait until the dome falls?
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u/darena 22d ago
Short of massive human rights violations, I mean on top of their current human rights violations, they cannot simply exterminate the Palestinians as you suggest. Not without massive casualties on their end. Right now isreal doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of their actions. The moment they actually do they will push for peace.
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u/cameraman502 22d ago
No need to exterminate. Push them across the river. They'll look no worse in your eyes, so why wait?
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u/aarongamemaster 22d ago
Jordan will flatly tell you to stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. I'm serious. Back in the day, the Palestinians in Jordan tried to overthrow the Jordanian Government in the event called 'Black September'.
Why? Because the Palestinians wanted to wage a war against Israel and Jordan didn't want to.
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u/Cranyx 21d ago
How exactly is a three state solution best if the Palestinians don't want to be a part of those countries and those countries don't want the Palestinians? This just reads like a Westerner who assumes all Arabs are the same and we can just lump them together in whatever way is most convenient for us.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago
Israel would have to pay Egypt and Jordan a ton of money in perpetuity for that. Why would either state take millions of poor people and land with very few resources?
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u/Olderscout77 22d ago
1QAte4 - The Egyptians do not want Gaza. The West Bank WAS (mistakenly) given to Jordan from 1947 to 1967 when Israel occupied it after winning another War. For the 20 years Jordan never allowed the population to become Jordanian - they wanted an imaginary new ethnic group that would perpetually destabilize Israel because they had no "homeland" despite the fact nobody had ever been identified as a "Palestinian" UNTIL 1947. One State including the West Bank AND Gaza, ideally with the US and some allies providing compensation to allow the current non-Jewish residents to relocate in a neighboring Arab State IF any of those States will accept them - the fact said acceptance has NOT been forthcoming is not a reason for Israel to "compensate" them with a quarter of the country that had been promised them back in 1920 as the Jewi8sh Homeland. As I understand it, the West Bank and Gaza were created as a sop to Arab leaders WHO HAD OIL WE WANTED, despite the fact Arab leaders were generally sympathetic to the Nazi cause because of shared views on Jews and Hitler's promise to help them evict the British.
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u/sujeto16 22d ago
One state does not make sense, Israel was created so jews could have a country and not be oppressed. Absorving a large amount of not jewish population defeats the purpose. And realistically i dont see Israel backing down from negotiations since they have nothing to lose if the conflict continues. So the only solution would be for Palestinian to say enough hunger and missery,depose HAMAS and accept the lost territory in exchange for mutual recognition.
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u/Oddblivious 22d ago
Israel might have been formed as essentially an ethnostate, but is it necessarily beneficial to continue to enforce that?
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u/pizza_gutts 22d ago
There are 23 Arab ethnostates which are all objectively less diverse than Israel. Why is it incumbent on Jews to dissolve their one and only state to become an oppressed minority yet again, but it's fine and apparently uncontroversial for Arabs to set up 20+ states that favour Arab Muslims ... ? Can you tell me what the situation is for Jews in Arab countries (hint, hint: they're all gone)? Why would Israeli Jews voluntarily subject themselves to that, keeping in mind that more than 50% of them are descendants of Mizrahi Jews who were forcefully expelled from Arab countries already?
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u/Oddblivious 22d ago
I mean I'm not personally asking themselves to be subject to extermination.
I'm saying that perhaps it would be better to form a democratic country with both areas combined with humans rights protections built into the constitution.
Just like it would be better for all of those Arab nations to do the same.
Seems like that would potentially be better than just everyone having their own ethnostate.
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u/akmmaeng 22d ago
So you’re saying the region should change their entire cultures and governments to form utopian democracies built on human rights? While that could make the situations in any country better, it’s beyond unrealistic.
Also pretty sure the last 30 years, and the last 2 weeks, have shown democracy’s don’t work to well in that area..
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u/Oddblivious 22d ago
There's a lot of strawmanning going on there I'll let slide, but the fact is I believe a government that maximizes democracy and freedom seem to be what people enjoy the most.
I don't see any reason that can't coexist with a strong military. The thing is you're saying that you can't imagine a country with a diverse population that would be stable and able to defend it's own borders.
That's kind of a bad look to be saying diverse countries can't be stable.
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u/SirEdouard 22d ago
I think there's a difference between a country being diverse, and half of the country thinking that the other half literally doesn't belong should be kicked out. I don't think that is a solid foundation for any sort of country, let alone a democracy.
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u/Kahing 15d ago
Not in this case. First of all, Israel sees itself as no different to the "ethnostates" of Europe and Asia. If the Irish wanted to be separate and didn't want a joint secular democracy with the UK, if the Kurds want to break away from Iraq, why shouldn't Jews have a state? National identity matters and North American style civic nationalism simply isn't a good fit for Israel.
Secondly, constitutions are worth less than the paper they're printed on in the face of ethnic/tribal loyalties in this region. Nobody would respect an artificial multinational state imposed on everyone.
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u/akmmaeng 22d ago edited 22d ago
What straw manning? Pretty much been proven democracies don’t work too well among many of those nations, not including Israel. Human rights also don’t work too well there.
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u/sujeto16 22d ago
Yes it is,the purpose its to not get forced to leave or be genocided again by other religions/races. If they own the country they wont kick themselves out. The way to own the country is by being a clear majority.
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u/Oddblivious 22d ago
Yeah and what I'm saying is despite the long history of issues that I recognize they have faced in other places and times, is it inherently good for the goal of a country to be the continued segregation of people?
Like to make an extreme comparison, if the "founding purpose" of south Africa was to ensure the black race after breaking out of apartheid. That probably wouldn't be a good thing in the long term.
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u/YoungOutsiderWA 22d ago
I hear what you’re saying. The issue is that there really isn’t a good case study that exists in which the Jewish people are not persecuted, without the existence of a Jewish majority country. I am generally against Ethnic-Nationalism, but if there is one group who could “deserve it” it’s the Jewish people.
I guess my point is that for a one state solution, there needs to be much more assurance that the non-Jewish population would not persecute the Jewish population.
My take is still to go back to the 1967 borders, build a high way connecting West Bank and Gaza, then building a giant wall separating Israel from Palestine.
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u/Oddblivious 22d ago
Hahaha. Yeah I obviously see their point but I just think it enforces a tribal mentality and it actually causes that group to hate outsiders more. Like justifying bad policy because past inequalities.
With that said, I think you could argue that a government with protected class of religion and ethnicity seem to, at least legally, prevent the discrimination.
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u/NigroqueSimillima 22d ago
One state does not make sense, Israel was created so jews could have a country and not be oppressed.
This isn't true according to the founder of Israel
"For many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication [to Zionism]. I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Płońsk was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Płońsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ... Life in Płońsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ... The number of Jews and Poles in the city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than the Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant."[16]
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Herzl literally formulated modern Zionism in response to the Dreyfus affair ... aka anti-Semitism.
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u/Olderscout77 22d ago
TWO States were created back in 1948 - Israel and Jordan. The CURRENT borders of Israel are what had been intended back when the Jewish Homeland was identified within the British Mandate back around 1920. THERE WAS NO PALESTINE BECAUSE THERE WERE NO PALESTINIANS. For several hundred years, the Ottoman Empire had identified the population of the area as either "Jewish Arabs" or "Muslim Arabs". The "Palestinians" were created after Israel won the 1948 War so there would be a "displaced" Arab population that would destabilize Israel for decades, and create a move to make the resulting State of Israel INDEFENSABLE - check a map and see the border that would have to be defended when a new hostile State (the West Bank) puts all of Israel within rocket range.
Two things to consider when claiming 2 States are needed:
- Israel has Nukes and delivery systems.
- Jihadists are bloodthirsty and insane.
You REALLY think giving the Arab population ANOTHER (besides Jordan) territory will bring PEACE to the reigon?
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u/blyzo 22d ago
If there were no Palestinians before 1948 then isn't it true there were no Israelis before then either?
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u/Olderscout77 22d ago
No, it is NOT true. There's this old book speaking often of the children (citizens) of Israel - you may even have a copy. Israel is and was a State. Palestine was a term the Romans used to identify the area as a way of further destroying the Nation of Israel who kept revolting against Roman rule. The Ottoman Empire ruled the area for about 400 years BEFORE the Brits took over after WWI and FOR THOSE 400 YEARS the citizens were either "Jewish Arabs" or Muslim Arabs" NO PALESTINIANS.
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u/blyzo 22d ago
Pretty sure that old book has lots of references to the Philistines. Who do you think they became? The term Palestine wasn't invented out of nowhere. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Philistine-people
You just don't want to see the Palestinians as actual human beings.
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u/AM_Bokke 22d ago edited 21d ago
People lived in Palestine before Israel was created. That is all that Palestinian means. They are indigenous people unlike the European Jews who are colonizers.
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u/AwesomeScreenName 22d ago
About 30% of Israeli Jews have their roots in non-Iberian Europe. The majority come from the Arab world or Africa. Many have ancestors who lived in the land that is today Israel for centuries or longer. It's simplistic and reductive to pretend that Israel is a state of European colonizers who displaced natives with a superior right to be there.
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u/pizza_gutts 21d ago
Jews are not colonizers in Judea ffs! Also, most Israeli Jews are not even European, but it's very convenient to forget why and how that is the case.
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u/IggyJosh 21d ago
I can't believe this misconception is so common. Maybe it's just that I was raised as a Jew - but during my lessons at Sunday school and synagogue, I was taught very explicitly that many Israeli Jews have a darker skin complexion, because of their ancestry.
It's just astonishing to me that so many people think that Israel is just home to like, only Polish Jews. It's just ridiculous.
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u/Olderscout77 21d ago
Nope. Palestinian only became a "nationality" after 1947. The people went by various names, most recently (beginning c1600) the Ottoman Empire tagged them as "Muslim Arabs" to distinguish them from "Jewish Arabs". Biologically, the nearest DNA match for the indigenous "Jewish Arabs" are Syrians who had been called Assyrians after the "Kingdom of David" had it's northern half concurred by Assyria c.1500BCE .
What matters TODAY is there is a "Jewish State" that would be destroyed if a third of that State is turned over to a HOSTILE power, and in the process a great many Arab cities would vanish in Nuclear fireballs. The defenders of Israel (IDF) have all pledged Massada will NEVER fall again, and those who think they will go meekly to the slaughter are totally mistaken.
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u/lilleff512 20d ago
The simple fact of the matter is that in Israel and Palestine, a constituency for a "secular democracy with equal rights for all" is almost nonexistent. Take a look at this joint poll from Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (see Figure 2).
Among Palestinians, 43% support a two-state solution and 9% support a one-state solution with equal rights for all
Among Jewish Israelis, 42% support a two-state solution and 10% support a one-state solution with equal rights for all
Among both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, 49% support either a single state dominated by their ethnic group and/or the expulsion of the other ethnic group
TLDR: both Israelis and Palestinians would rather oppress and ethnically cleanse the other rather than living together peacefully in a single state. Some might say "the two-state solution is dead," but it has more life than any other solution.
For more detailed explanations, I recommend this article from Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22442052/israel-palestine-two-state-solution-gaza-hamas-one
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u/YoungOutsiderWA 20d ago
Awesome. Appreciate your insight and source man. So in your opinion, a one state solution could have some consequences?
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u/sl600rt 22d ago
One state solution that eliminates both Israel and Palestine.
A secular representative democratic state, with a strong constitution and bill of rights.
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u/boredtxan 22d ago
The problem is they both want Jerusalem. Make Jerusalem a UN heritage site protected by a multinational milirary force and governed in a way that each religion claiming a link to it has equal representation plus a a secular group. Once Jerbelongs to no one then the rest can be divided.
Yes, I know this isn't possible
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u/_Abe_Froman_SKOC 22d ago
Three state. One of the major points of contention is Jerusalem. Remove it from the equation.
Establish Jerusalem as the world's first international city. Neither Israel nor Palestine would be allowed to have political offices or facilities inside the city. Citizens of Jerusalem would carry United Nations passports. Administration of the city would be handled by a council of three Muslims, three Jews, and three Christians, with a mayor responsible for executive responsibilities. This position would be rotated among the three religious groups every two years, and the mayor would be elected by secret ballot by the members of the city council. The city would have an independent police force that recruited only people from abroad, that are not members of the three major religions of Jerusalem, and are not former or current citizens of Israel or Palestine.
Jerusalem would become a city of religious worship, not a center of political controversy. It is a city that is revered in three of the world's greatest religions, and those religions must be allowed to worship in peace.
If neither Israel or the Palestinians are willing to give up their claim to the city, let's see if there's a chance they would both do it. Oftentimes a child doesn't want to give up a toy not because they want it for themselves, but because they don't want someone else to have it.
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u/janethefish 22d ago
A one state solution is most realistic at this point, similar to what happened in South Africa. Due to the settlements the current situation is de-facto a apartheid-state. Israel decides what laws apply, to who and where. That is de-facto annexation and apartheid.
Honestly, a two-state solution was never really viable due to the separation of Gaza and the West Bank, but a two-state solution is totally non-viable at this point. If Israel gives the settlements to a new state the settlers will be lucky to get kicked out. If Israel keeps the settlements our hypothetical state is a mockery of a real country.
Furthermore, the way things are going Israel seems to be losing support AND the Arab population is growing in their country, both of which could make the current de-facto apartheid untenable.
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u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein 21d ago edited 21d ago
A two-state federation with EU-style freedom of movement and a shared currency: If you have Israeli or Palestinian citizenship, you can live, work or study in either country.
It could effectively function like a single state, while still providing both peoples with politically autonomy.
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u/jbphilly 21d ago
There is no viable solution any more. Both sides have, both deliberately and through incompetence, sabotaged any chance of that. Obviously Israel, as the side having much more of the power, bears more responsibility on this, but the blame game is irrelevant at this point.
The fact is it's politically impossible (not to mention the logistical problems) for Israel to fully withdraw from the West Bank and leave the Palestinians with anything resembling a functional independent state there.
It's also politically impossible for Israel to integrate the occupied population formally into their system, as this would require either giving up the state's nature as a Jewish-majority country, or giving up its status as a democracy that nominally treats all citizens equally. It would have to become formally an apartheid state, or else it would not longer be Israel; and the Jewish population would never stand for any government doing the latter. Meanwhile, no Israeli government would ever see any benefit in doing the former, since the informal apartheid situation that currently exists is, in the short-term timelines on which governments think, still tenable.
So what will happen is a continuation of the status quo: West Bank Palestinians existing as semi-autonomous subjects under Israeli rule, with no self-determination or say in how they are governed, and no chance of improving their lot except by leaving. Even when the Arab population in the former Mandate of Palestine exceeds the Jewish population, this situation can continue indefinitely. That is clearly not good, particularly for the Palestinians, but until some cataclysmic event happens (e.g. the next huge regional war, or an uprising—perhaps fueled by water shortages—that dwarfs the intifadas in scale) it's how things look like they're going to stay. There are no realistic alternatives on the table.
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u/prinzplagueorange 22d ago
The Palestinians shifted away from a one state solution (Palestine for everyone living there) to a two state solution because the Israeli left opposed a one state solution on the grounds that it would result in a state without an ethnic majority of Jews. There is no good reason why anyone who is not enamored with the Zionist project to care about a Jewish majority in Israel. Moreover, it's clear that the Israeli left has beem utterly destroyed and that the Israeli right is hostile to a two state solution because they want all the land for nationalist reasons. Really, this means that there is no option other than a Palestinian struggle for equal rights within Israel-Palestine. That's what anyone who cares about human rights in the region should be supporting these days. A two state solution might have worked thirty years ago, but Israel closed the door on it a long time ago. It's also better for the left to not have to be calling for an ethno-state because doing so is creepy (and actually just downright racist).
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u/cameraman502 22d ago edited 22d ago
The Palestinians closed that option when the rejected the offer made at Camp David, started the 2nd Intifada, and then turned Gaza from a freely handed over settlement into a terrorists state.
Palestinians have not been a partner for peace.
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u/prinzplagueorange 22d ago
If the Israelis were so interested in that peace deal then they shouldn't have tossed it aside so abruptly. Seriously the violence Palestinians inflicted on Israel during the second intifada pales in comparison to the violence Israel inflicted on Palestinians before, during, and since then. You know that the Israel has always had power in this relationship and that they have used that power to ruthlessly pursue their nationalist ambitions. It would be better if you stopped pretending otherwise.
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u/cameraman502 22d ago
Oh, because they have the power it's their responsibility to bend over backwards. Sorry that was crap then and it's crap now. The Palestinians need to start facing reality.
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u/Kahing 13d ago
And then you get a civil war. What makes you think that everyone would agree to live in peace in one state and wouldn't immediately launch armed rebellions? The Palestinians see the Jews as invaders and even left-wing Israeli Jews mostly want a Jewish state to the point of being willing to use armed violence to retain it.
Western left-wing ideology simply is not a good fit for the region.
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